memories and studies by william james longmans, green, and co. fourth avenue and th street, new york london, bombay, and calcutta copyright, , by henry james jr. all rights reserved prefatory note professor william james formed the intention shortly before his death of republishing a number of popular addresses and essays under the title which this book now bears; but unfortunately he found no opportunity to attend to any detail of the book himself, or to leave definite instructions for others. i believe, however, that i have departed in no substantial degree from my father's idea, except perhaps by including two or three short pieces which were first addressed to special occasions or audiences and which now seem clearly worthy of republication in their original form, although he might not have been willing to reprint them himself without the recastings to which he was ever most attentive when preparing for new readers. everything in this volume has already appeared in print in magazines or otherwise, and definite acknowledgements are hereinafter made in the appropriate places. comparison with the original texts will disclose slight variations in a few passages, and it is therefore proper to explain that in these passages the present text follows emendations of the original which have survived in the author's own handwriting. henry james, jr. contents i. louis agassiz ii. address at the emerson centenary in concord iii. robert gould shaw iv. francis boott v. thomas davidson: a knight-errant of the intellectual life vi. herbert spencer's autobiography vii. frederick myers' services to psychology viii. final impressions of a psychical researcher ix. on some mental effects of the earthquake x. the energies of men xi. the moral equivalent of war xii. remarks at the peace banquet xiii. the social value of the college-bred xiv. the university and the individual the ph. d. octopus the true harvard stanford's ideal destiny xv. a pluralistic mystic i louis agassiz[ ] it would be unnatural to have such an assemblage as this meet in the museum and faculty room of this university and yet have no public word spoken in honor of a name which must be silently present to the minds of all our visitors. at some near future day, it is to be hoped some one of you who is well acquainted with agassiz's scientific career will discourse here concerning it,--i could not now, even if i would, speak to you of that of which you have far more intimate knowledge than i. on this social occasion it has seemed that what agassiz stood for in the way of character and influence is the more fitting thing to commemorate, and to that agreeable task i have been called. he made an impression that was unrivalled. he left a sort of popular myth--the agassiz legend, as one might say--behind him in the air about us; and life comes kindlier to all of us, we get more recognition from the world, because we call ourselves naturalists,--and that was the class to which he also belonged. the secret of such an extraordinarily effective influence lay in the equally extraordinary mixture of the animal and social gifts, the intellectual powers, and the desires and passions of the man. from his boyhood, he looked on the world as if it and he were made for each other, and on the vast diversity of living things as if he were there with authority to take mental possession of them all. his habit of collecting began in childhood, and during his long life knew no bounds save those that separate the things of nature from those of human art. already in his student years, in spite of the most stringent poverty, his whole scheme of existence was that of one predestined to greatness, who takes that fact for granted, and stands forth immediately as a scientific leader of men. his passion for knowing living things was combined with a rapidity of observation, and a capacity to recognize them again and remember everything about them, which all his life it seemed an easy triumph and delight for him to exercise, and which never allowed him to waste a moment in doubts about the commensurability of his powers with his tasks. if ever a person lived by faith, he did. when a boy of twenty, with an allowance of two hundred and fifty dollars a year, he maintained an artist attached to his employ, a custom which never afterwards was departed from,--except when he maintained two or three. he lectured from the very outset to all those who would hear him. "i feel within myself the strength of a whole generation," he wrote to his father at that time, and launched himself upon the publication of his costly "poissons fossiles" with no clear vision of the quarter from whence the payment might be expected to come. at neuchatel (where between the ages of twenty-five and thirty he enjoyed a stipend that varied from four hundred to six hundred dollars) he organized a regular academy of natural history, with its museum, managing by one expedient or another to employ artists, secretaries, and assistants, and to keep a lithographic and printing establishment of his own employed with the work that he put forth. fishes, fossil and living, echinoderms and glaciers, transfigured themselves under his hand, and at thirty he was already at the zenith of his reputation, recognized by all as one of those naturalists in the unlimited sense, one of those folio copies of mankind, like linnaeus and cuvier, who aim at nothing less than an acquaintance with the whole of animated nature. his genius for classifying was simply marvellous; and, as his latest biographer says, nowhere had a single person ever given so decisive an impulse to natural history. such was the human being who on an october morning fifty years ago disembarked at our port, bringing his hungry heart along with him, his confidence in his destiny, and his imagination full of plans. the only particular resource he was assured of was one course of lowell lectures. but of one general resource he always was assured, having always counted on it and never found it to fail,--and that was the good will of every fellow-creature in whose presence he could find an opportunity to describe his aims. his belief in these was so intense and unqualified that he could not conceive of others not feeling the furtherance of them to be a duty binding also upon them. _velle non discitur_, as seneca says:--strength of desire must be born with a man, it can't be taught. and agassiz came before one with such enthusiasm glowing in his countenance,--such a persuasion radiating from his person that his projects were the sole things really fit to interest man as man,--that he was absolutely irresistible. he came, in byron's words, with victory beaming from his breast, and every one went down before him, some yielding him money, some time, some specimens, and some labor, but all contributing their applause and their godspeed. and so, living among us from month to month and from year to year, with no relation to prudence except his pertinacious violation of all her usual laws, he on the whole achieved the compass of his desires, studied the geology and fauna of a continent, trained a generation of zoologists, founded one of the chief museums of the world, gave a new impulse to scientific education in america, and died the idol of the public, as well as of his circle of immediate pupils and friends. the secret of it all was, that while his scientific ideals were an integral part of his being, something that he never forgot or laid aside, so that wherever he went he came forward as "the professor," and talked "shop" to every person, young or old, great or little, learned or unlearned, with whom he was thrown, he was at the same time so commanding a presence, so curious and inquiring, so responsive and expansive, and so generous and reckless of himself and of his own, that every one said immediately, "here is no musty savant, but a man, a great man, a man on the heroic scale, not to serve whom is avarice and sin." he elevated the popular notion of what a student of nature could be. since benjamin franklin, we had never had among us a person of more popularly impressive type. he did not wait for students to come to him; he made inquiry for promising youthful collectors, and when he heard of one, he wrote, inviting and urging him to come. thus there is hardly one now of the american naturalists of my generation whom agassiz did not train. nay, more; he said to every one that a year or two of natural history, studied as he understood it, would give the best training for any kind of mental work. sometimes he was amusingly _naïf_ in this regard, as when he offered to put his whole museum at the disposition of the emperor of brazil if he would but come and labor there. and i well remember how certain officials of the brazilian empire smiled at the cordiality with which he pressed upon them a similar invitation. but it had a great effect. natural history must indeed be a godlike pursuit, if such a man as this can so adore it, people said; and the very definition and meaning of the word naturalist underwent a favorable alteration in the common mind. certain sayings of agassiz's, as the famous one that he "had no time for making money," and his habit of naming his occupation simply as that of "teacher," have caught the public fancy, and are permanent benefactions. we all enjoy more consideration for the fact that he manifested himself here thus before us in his day. he was a splendid example of the temperament that looks forward and not backward, and never wastes a moment in regrets for the irrevocable. i had the privilege of admission to his society during the thayer expedition to brazil. i well remember at night, as we all swung in our hammocks in the fairy-like moonlight, on the deck of the steamer that throbbed its way up the amazon between the forests guarding the stream on either side, how he turned and whispered, "james, are you awake?" and continued, "_i_ cannot sleep; i am too happy; i keep thinking of these glorious plans." the plans contemplated following the amazon to its headwaters, and penetrating the andes in peru. and yet, when he arrived at the peruvian frontier and learned that that country had broken into revolution, that his letters to officials would be useless, and that that part of the project must be given up, although he was indeed bitterly chagrined and excited for part of an hour, when the hour had passed over it seemed as if he had quite forgotten the disappointment, so enthusiastically was he occupied already with the new scheme substituted by his active mind. agassiz's influence on methods of teaching in our community was prompt and decisive,--all the more so that it struck people's imagination by its very excess. the good old way of committing printed abstractions to memory seems never to have received such a shock as it encountered at his hands. there is probably no public school teacher now in new england who will not tell you how agassiz used to lock a student up in a room full of turtle shells, or lobster shells, or oyster shells, without a book or word to help him, and not let him out till he had discovered all the truths which the objects contained. some found the truths after weeks and months of lonely sorrow; others never found them. those who found them were already made into naturalists thereby--the failures were blotted from the book of honor and of life. "go to nature; take the facts into your own hands; look, and see for yourself!"--these were the maxims which agassiz preached wherever he went, and their effect on pedagogy was electric. the extreme rigor of his devotion to this concrete method of learning was the natural consequence of his own peculiar type of intellect, in which the capacity for abstraction and causal reasoning and tracing chains of consequences from hypotheses was so much less developed than the genius for acquaintance with vast volumes of detail, and for seizing upon analogies and relations of the more proximate and concrete kind. while on the thayer expedition, i remember that i often put questions to him about the facts of our new tropical habitat, but i doubt if he ever answered one of these questions of mine outright. he always said: "there, you see you have a definite problem; go and look and find the answer for yourself." his severity in this line was a living rebuke to all abstractionists and would-be biological philosophers. more than once have i heard him quote with deep feeling the lines from faust: "grau, theurer freund, ist alle theorie. und grun des lebens goldner baum." the only man he really loved and had use for was the man who could bring him facts. to see facts, not to argue or _raisonniren_, was what life meant for him; and i think he often positively loathed the ratiocinating type of mind. "mr. blank, you are _totally_ uneducated!" i heard him once say to a student who propounded to him some glittering theoretic generality. and on a similar occasion he gave an admonition that must have sunk deep into the heart of him to whom it was addressed. "mr. x, some people perhaps now consider you a bright young man; but when you are fifty years old, if they ever speak of you then, what they will say will be this: 'that x,--oh, yes, i know him; he used to be a very bright young man!'" happy is the conceited youth who at the proper moment receives such salutary cold water therapeutics as this from one who, in other respects, is a kind friend. we cannot all escape from being abstractionists. i myself, for instance, have never been able to escape; but the hours i spent with agassiz so taught me the difference between all possible abstractionists and all livers in the light of the world's concrete fulness, that i have never been able to forget it. both kinds of mind have their place in the infinite design, but there can be no question as to which kind lies the nearer to the divine type of thinking. agassiz's view of nature was saturated with simple religious feeling, and for this deep but unconventional religiosity he found at harvard the most sympathetic possible environment. in the fifty years that have sped since he arrived here our knowledge of nature has penetrated into joints and recesses which his vision never pierced. the causal elements and not the totals are what we are now most passionately concerned to understand; and naked and poverty-stricken enough do the stripped-out elements and forces occasionally appear to us to be. but the truth of things is after all their living fulness, and some day, from a more commanding point of view than was possible to any one in agassiz's generation, our descendants, enriched with the spoils of all our analytic investigations, will get round again to that higher and simpler way of looking at nature. meanwhile as we look back upon agassiz, there floats up a breath as of life's morning, that makes the work seem young and fresh once more. may we all, and especially may those younger members of our association who never knew him, give a grateful thought to his memory as we wander through that museum which he founded, and through this university whose ideals he did so much to elevate and define. [ ] words spoken at the reception of the american society of naturalists by the president and fellows of harvard college at cambridge, december , . printed in _science_, n. s. v. . ii address at the emerson centenary in concord[ ] the pathos of death is this, that when the days of one's life are ended, those days that were so crowded with business and felt so heavy in their passing, what remains of one in memory should usually be so slight a thing. the phantom of an attitude, the echo of a certain mode of thought, a few pages of print, some invention, or some victory we gained in a brief critical hour, are all that can survive the best of us. it is as if the whole of a man's significance had now shrunk into the phantom of an attitude, into a mere musical note or phrase suggestive of his singularity--happy are those whose singularity gives a note so clear as to be victorious over the inevitable pity of such a diminution and abridgment. an ideal wraith like this, of emerson's personality, hovers over all concord to-day, taking, in the minds of those of you who were his neighbors and intimates a somewhat fuller shape, remaining more abstract in the younger generation, but bringing home to all of us the notion of a spirit indescribably precious. the form that so lately moved upon these streets and country roads, or awaited in these fields and woods the beloved muse's visits, is now dust; but the soul's note, the spiritual voice, rises strong and clear above the uproar of the times, and seems securely destined to exert an ennobling influence over future generations. what gave a flavor so matchless to emerson's individuality was, even more than his rich mental gifts, their singularly harmonious combination. rarely has a man so accurately known the limits of his genius or so unfailingly kept within them. "stand by your order," he used to say to youthful students; and perhaps the paramount impression one gets of his life is of his loyalty to his own personal type and mission. the type was that of what he liked to call the scholar, the perceiver of pure truth; and the mission was that of the reporter in worthy form of each perception. the day is good, he said, in which we have the most perceptions. there are times when the cawing of a crow, a weed, a snowflake, or a farmer planting in his field become symbols to the intellect of truths equal to those which the most majestic phenomena can open. let me mind my own charge, then, walk alone, consult the sky, the field and forest, sedulously waiting every morning for the news concerning the structure of the universe which the good spirit will give me. this was the first half of emerson, but only half; for genius, as he said, is insatiate for expression, and truth has to be clad in the right verbal garment. the form of the garment was so vital with emerson that it is impossible to separate it from the matter. they form a chemical combination--thoughts which would be trivial expressed otherwise, are important through the nouns and verbs to which he married them. the style is the man, it has been said; the man emerson's mission culminated in his style, and if we must define him in one word, we have to call him artist. he was an artist whose medium was verbal and who wrought in spiritual material. this duty of spiritual seeing and reporting determined the whole tenor of his life. it was to shield this duty from invasion and distraction that he dwelt in the country, that he consistently declined to entangle himself with associations or to encumber himself with functions which, however he might believe in them, he felt were duties for other men and not for him. even the care of his garden, "with its stoopings and fingerings in a few yards of space," he found "narrowing and poisoning," and took to long free walks and saunterings instead, without apology. "causes" innumerable sought to enlist him as their "worker"--all got his smile and word of sympathy, but none entrapped him into service. the struggle against slavery itself, deeply as it appealed to him, found him firm: "god must govern his own world, and knows his way out of this pit without my desertion of my post, which has none to guard it but me. i have quite other slaves to face than those negroes, to wit, imprisoned thoughts far back in the brain of man, and which have no watchman or lover or defender but me." this in reply to the possible questions of his own conscience. to hot-blooded moralists with more objective ideas of duty, such a fidelity to the limits of his genius must often have made him seem provokingly remote and unavailable; but we, who can see things in more liberal perspective, must unqualifiably approve the results. the faultless tact with which he kept his safe limits while he so dauntlessly asserted himself within them, is an example fitted to give heart to other theorists and artists the world over. the insight and creed from which emerson's life followed can be best summed up in his own verses: "so nigh is grandeur to our dust, so near is god to man!" through the individual fact there ever shone for him the effulgence of the universal reason. the great cosmic intellect terminates and houses itself in mortal men and passing hours. each of us is an angle of its eternal vision, and the only way to be true to our maker is to be loyal to ourselves. "o rich and various man!" he cries, "thou palace of sight and sound, carrying in thy senses the morning and the night and the unfathomable galaxy; in thy brain the geometry of the city of god; in thy heart the bower of love and the realms of right and wrong." if the individual open thus directly into the absolute, it follows that there is something in each and all of us, even the lowliest, that ought not to consent to borrowing traditions and living at second hand. "if john was perfect, why are you and i alive?" emerson writes; "as long as any man exists there is some need of him; let him fight for his own." this faith that in a life at first hand there is something sacred is perhaps the most characteristic note in emerson's writings. the hottest side of him is this non-conformist persuasion, and if his temper could ever verge on common irascibility, it would be by reason of the passionate character of his feelings on this point. the world is still new and untried. in seeing freshly, and not in hearing of what others saw, shall a man find what truth is. "each one of us can bask in the great morning which rises out of the eastern sea, and be himself one of the children of the light." "trust thyself, every heart vibrates to that iron string. there is a time in each man's education when he must arrive at the conviction that imitation is suicide; when he must take himself for better or worse as his portion; and know that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which it was given him to till." the matchless eloquence with which emerson proclaimed the sovereignty of the living individual electrified and emancipated his generation, and this bugle-blast will doubtless be regarded by future critics as the soul of his message. the present man is the aboriginal reality, the institution is derivative, and the past man is irrelevant and obliterate for present issues. "if anyone would lay an axe to your tree with a text from john, v, , or a sentence from saint paul, say to him," emerson wrote, "'my tree is yggdrasil, the tree of life.' let him know by your security that your conviction is clear and sufficient, and, if he were paul himself, that you also are here and with your creator." "cleave ever to god," he insisted, "against the name of god;"--and so, in spite of the intensely religious character of his total thought, when he began his career it seemed to many of his brethren in the clerical profession that he was little more than an iconoclast and desecrator. emerson's belief that the individual must in reason be adequate to the vocation for which the spirit of the world has called him into being, is the source of those sublime pages, hearteners and sustainers of our youth, in which he urges his hearers to be incorruptibly true to their own private conscience. nothing can harm the man who rests in his appointed place and character. such a man is invulnerable; he balances the universe, balances it as much by keeping small when he is small, as by being great and spreading when he is great. "i love and honor epaminondas," said emerson, "but i do not wish to be epaminondas. i hold it more just to love the world of this hour than the world of his hour. nor can you, if i am true, excite me to the least uneasiness by saying, 'he acted and thou sittest still.' i see action to be good when the need is, and sitting still to be also good. epaminondas, if he was the man i take him for, would have sat still with joy and peace, if his lot had been mine. heaven is large, and affords space for all modes of love and fortitude." "the fact that i am here certainly shows me that the soul has need of an organ here, and shall i not assume the post?" the vanity of all superserviceableness and pretence was never more happily set forth than by emerson in the many passages in which he develops this aspect of his philosophy. character infallibly proclaims itself. "hide your thoughts!--hide the sun and moon. they publish themselves to the universe. they will speak through you though you were dumb. they will flow out of your actions, your manners and your face. . . . don't say things: what you are stands over you the while and thunders so that i cannot say what you say to the contrary. . . . what a man _is_ engraves itself upon him in letters of light. concealment avails him nothing, boasting nothing. there is confession in the glances of our eyes; in our smiles; in salutations; and the grasp of hands. his sin bedaubs him, mars all his good impression. men know not why they do not trust him, but they do not trust him. his vice glasses the eye, casts lines of mean expression in the cheek, pinches the nose, sets the mark of the beast upon the back of the head, and writes, o fool! fool! on the forehead of a king. if you would not be known to do a thing, never do it; a man may play the fool in the drifts of a desert, but every grain of sand shall seem to see.--how can a man be concealed? how can he be concealed?" on the other hand, never was a sincere word or a sincere thought utterly lost. "never a magnanimity fell to the ground but there is some heart to greet and accept it unexpectedly. . . . the hero fears not that if he withstood the avowal of a just and brave act, it will go unwitnessed and unloved. one knows it,--himself,--and is pledged by it to sweetness of peace and to nobleness of aim, which will prove in the end a better proclamation than the relating of the incident." the same indefeasible right to be exactly what one is, provided one only be authentic, spreads itself, in emerson's way of thinking, from persons to things and to times and places. no date, no position is insignificant, if the life that fills it out be only genuine:-- "in solitude, in a remote village, the ardent youth loiters and mourns. with inflamed eye, in this sleeping wilderness, he has read the story of the emperor, charles the fifth, until his fancy has brought home to the surrounding woods the faint roar of cannonades in the milanese, and marches in germany. he is curious concerning that man's day. what filled it? the crowded orders, the stern decisions, the foreign despatches, the castilian etiquette? the soul answers--behold his day here! in the sighing of these woods, in the quiet of these gray fields, in the cool breeze that sings out of these northern mountains; in the workmen, the boys, the maidens you meet,--in the hopes of the morning, the ennui of noon, and sauntering of the afternoon; in the disquieting comparisons; in the regrets at want of vigor; in the great idea and the puny execution,--behold charles the fifth's day; another, yet the same; behold chatham's, hampden's, bayard's, alfred's, scipio's, pericles's day,--day of all that are born of women. the difference of circumstance is merely costume. i am tasting the self-same life,--its sweetness, its greatness, its pain, which i so admire in other men. do not foolishly ask of the inscrutable, obliterated past what it cannot tell,--the details of that nature, of that day, called byron or burke;--but ask it of the enveloping now. . . . be lord of a day, and you can put up your history books." "the deep to-day which all men scorn," receives thus from emerson superb revindication. "other world! there is no other world." all god's life opens into the individual particular, and here and now, or nowhere, is reality. "the present hour is the decisive hour, and every day is doomsday." such a conviction that divinity is everywhere may easily make of one an optimist of the sentimental type that refuses to speak ill of anything. emerson's drastic perception of differences kept him at the opposite pole from this weakness. after you have seen men a few times, he could say, you find most of them as alike as their barns and pantries, and soon as musty and as dreary. never was such a fastidious lover of significance and distinction, and never an eye so keen for their discovery. his optimism had nothing in common with that indiscriminate hurrahing for the universe with which walt whitman has made us familiar. for emerson, the individual fact and moment were indeed suffused with absolute radiance, but it was upon a condition that saved the situation--they must be worthy specimens,--sincere, authentic, archetypal; they must have made connection with what he calls the moral sentiment, they must in some way act as symbolic mouthpieces of the universe's meaning. to know just which thing does act in this way, and which thing fails to make the true connection, is the secret (somewhat incommunicable, it must be confessed) of seership, and doubtless we must not expect of the seer too rigorous a consistency. emerson himself was a real seer. he could perceive the full squalor of the individual fact, but he could also see the transfiguration. he might easily have found himself saying of some present-day agitator against our philippine conquest what he said of this or that reformer of his own time. he might have called him, as a private person, a tedious bore and canter. but he would infallibly have added what he then added: "it is strange and horrible to say this, for i feel that under him and his partiality and exclusiveness is the earth and the sea, and all that in them is, and the axis round which the universe revolves passes through his body where he stands." be it how it may, then, this is emerson's revelation:--the point of any pen can be an epitome of reality; the commonest person's act, if genuinely actuated, can lay hold on eternity. this vision is the head-spring of all his outpourings; and it is for this truth, given to no previous literary artist to express in such penetratingly persuasive tones, that posterity will reckon him a prophet, and, perhaps neglecting other pages, piously turn to those that convey this message. his life was one long conversation with the invisible divine, expressing itself through individuals and particulars:--"so nigh is grandeur to our dust, so near is god to man!" i spoke of how shrunken the wraith, how thin the echo, of men is after they are departed? emerson's wraith comes to me now as if it were but the very voice of this victorious argument. his words to this effect are certain to be quoted and extracted more and more as time goes on, and to take their place among the scriptures of humanity. "'gainst death and all oblivious enmity, shall you pace forth," beloved master. as long as our english language lasts men's hearts will be cheered and their souls strengthened and liberated by the noble and musical pages with which you have enriched it. [ ] an address delivered at the centenary of the birth of ralph waldo emerson in concord, may , , and printed in the published proceedings of that meeting. iii robert gould shaw[ ] your excellency, your honor, soldiers, and friends: in these unveiling exercises the duty falls to me of expressing in simple words some of the feelings which have actuated the givers of st. gaudens' noble work of bronze, and of briefly recalling the history of robert shaw and of his regiment to the memory of this possibly too forgetful generation. the men who do brave deeds are usually unconscious of their picturesqueness. for two nights previous to the assault upon fort wagner, the fifty-fourth massachusetts regiment had been afoot, making forced marches in the rain; and on the day of the battle the men had had no food since early morning. as they lay there in the evening twilight, hungry and wet, against the cold sands of morris island, with the sea-fog drifting over them, their eyes fixed on the huge bulk of the fortress looming darkly three-quarters of a mile ahead against the sky, and their hearts beating in expectation of the word that was to bring them to their feet and launch them on their desperate charge, neither officers nor men could have been in any holiday mood of contemplation. many and different must have been the thoughts that came and went in them during that hour of bodeful reverie; but however free the flights of fancy of some of them may have been, it is improbable that any one who lay there had so wild and whirling an imagination as to foresee in prophetic vision this morning of a future may, when we, the people of a richer and more splendid boston, with mayor and governor, and troops from other states, and every circumstance of ceremony, should meet together to celebrate their conduct on that evening, and do their memory this conspicuous honor. how, indeed, comes it that out of all the great engagements of the war, engagements in many of which the troops of massachusetts had borne the most distinguished part, this officer, only a young colonel, this regiment of black men and its maiden battle,--a battle, moreover, which was lost,--should be picked out for such unusual commemoration? the historic significance of an event is measured neither by its material magnitude, nor by its immediate success. thermopylae was a defeat; but to the greek imagination, leonidas and his few spartans stood for the whole worth of grecian life. bunker hill was a defeat; but for our people, the fight over that breastwork has always seemed to show as well as any victory that our forefathers were men of a temper not to be finally overcome. and so here. the war for our union, with all the constitutional questions which it settled, and all the military lessons which it gathered in, has throughout its dilatory length but one meaning in the eye of history. and nowhere was that meaning better symbolized and embodied than in the constitution of this first northern negro regiment. look at the monument and read the story;--see the mingling of elements which the sculptor's genius has brought so vividly before the eye. there on foot go the dark outcasts, so true to nature that one can almost hear them breathing as they march. state after state by its laws had denied them to be human persons. the southern leaders in congressional debates, insolent in their security, loved most to designate them by the contemptuous collective epithet of "this peculiar kind of property." there they march, warm-blooded champions of a better day for man. there on horseback, among them, in his very habit as he lived, sits the blue-eyed child of fortune, upon whose happy youth every divinity had smiled. onward they move together, a single resolution kindled in their eyes, and animating their otherwise so different frames. the bronze that makes their memory eternal betrays the very soul and secret of those awful years. since the 'thirties the slavery question been the only question, and by the end of 'fifties our land lay sick and shaking with it like a traveller who has thrown himself down at night beside a pestilential swamp, and in the morning finds the fever through the marrow of his bones. "only muzzle the abolition fanatics," said the south, "and all will be well again!" but the abolitionists would not be muzzled,--they were the voice of the world's conscience, they were a part of destiny. weak as they were, they drove the south to madness. "every step she takes in her blindness," said wendell phillips, "is one more step towards ruin." and when south carolina took the final step in battering down fort sumter, it was the fanatics of slavery themselves who called upon their idolized institution ruin swift and complete. what law and reason were unable to accomplish, had now to be done by that uncertain and dreadful dispenser of god's judgments, war--war, with its abominably casual, inaccurate methods, destroying good and bad together, but at last able to hew a way out of intolerable situations, when through man's delusion of perversity every better way is blocked. our great western republic had from its origin been a singular anomaly. a land of freedom, boastfully so-called, with human slavery enthroned at the heart of it, and at last dictating terms of unconditional surrender to every other organ of its life, what was it but a thing of falsehood and horrible self-contradiction? for three-quarters of a century it had nevertheless endured, kept together by policy, compromise, and concession. but at the last that republic was torn in two; and truth was to be possible under the flag. truth, thank god, truth! even though for the moment it must be truth written in hell-fire. and this, fellow-citizens, is why, after the great generals have had their monuments, and long after the abstract soldier's-monuments have been reared on every village green, we have chosen to take robert shaw and his regiment as the subjects of the first soldier's-monument to be raised to a particular set of comparatively undistinguished men. the very lack of external complication in the history of these soldiers is what makes them represent with such typical purity the profounder meaning of the union cause. our nation had been founded in what we may call our american religion, baptized and reared in the faith that a man requires no master to take care of him, and that common people can work out their salvation well enough together if left free to try. but the founders had not dared to touch the great intractable exception; and slavery had wrought until at last the only alternative for the nation was to fight or die. what shaw and his comrades stand for and show us is that in such an emergency americans of all complexions and conditions can go forth like brothers, and meet death cheerfully if need be, in order that this religion of our native land shall not become a failure on earth. we of this commonwealth believe in that religion; and it is not at all because robert shaw was an exceptional genius, but simply because he was faithful to it as we all may hope to be faithful in our measure when the times demand, that we wish his beautiful image to stand here for all time, an inciter to similarly unselfish public deeds. shaw thought but little of himself, yet he had a personal charm which, as we look back on him, makes us repeat: "none knew thee but to love thee, none named thee but to praise." this grace of nature was united in him in the happiest way with a filial heart, a cheerful will, and a judgment that was true and fair. and when the war came, and great things were doing of the kind that he could help in, he went as a matter of course to the front. what country under heaven has not thousands of such youths to rejoice in, youths on whom the safety of the human race depends? whether or not they leave memorials behind them, whether their names are writ in water or in marble, depends mostly on the opportunities which the accidents of history throw into their path. shaw recognized the vital opportunity: he saw that the time had come when the colored people must put the country in their debt. colonel lee has just told us something about the obstacles with which this idea had to contend. for a large party of us this was still exclusively a white man's war; and should colored troops be tried and not succeed, confusion would grow worse confounded. shaw was a captain in the massachusetts second, when governor andrew invited him to take the lead in the experiment. he was very modest, and doubted, for a moment, his own capacity for so responsible a post. we may also imagine human motives whispering other doubts. shaw loved the second regiment, illustrious already, and was sure of promotion where he stood. in this new negro-soldier venture, loneliness was certain, ridicule inevitable, failure possible; and shaw was only twenty-five; and, although he had stood among the bullets at cedar mountain and antietam, he had till then been walking socially on the sunny side of life. but whatever doubts may have beset him, they were over in a day, for he inclined naturally toward difficult resolves. he accepted the proffered command, and from that moment lived but for one object, to establish the honor of the massachusetts fifty-fourth. i have had the privilege of reading his letters to his family from the day of april when, as a private in the new york seventh, he obeyed the president's first call. some day they must be published, for they form a veritable poem for serenity and simplicity of tone. he took to camp life as if it were his native element, and (like so many of our young soldiers) he was at first all eagerness to make arms his permanent profession. drilling and disciplining; interminable marching and counter-marching, and picket-duty on the upper potomac as lieutenant in our second regiment, to which post he had soon been promoted; pride at the discipline attained by the second, and horror at the bad discipline of other regiments; these are the staple matter of earlier letters, and last for many months. these, and occasional more recreative incidents, visits to virginian houses, the reading of books like napier's "peninsular war," or the "idylls of the king," thanksgiving feats, and races among officers, that helped the weary weeks to glide away. then the bloodier business opens, and the plot thickens till the end is reached. from first to last there is not a rancorous word against the enemy,--often quite the reverse,--and amid all the scenes of hardship, death, and devastation that his pen soon has to write of, there is unfailing cheerfulness and even a sort of innermost peace. after he left it, robert shaw's heart still clung to the fortunes of the second. months later when, in south carolina with the fifty-fourth, he writes to his young wife: "i should have been major of the second now if i had remained there and lived through the battles. as regards my own pleasure, i had rather have that place than any other in the army. it would have been fine to go home a field officer in that regiment! poor fellows, how they have been slaughtered!" meanwhile he had well taught his new command how to do their duty; for only three days after he wrote this he led them up the parapet of fort wagner, where he and nearly half of them were left upon the ground. robert shaw quickly inspired others with his own love of discipline. there was something almost pathetic in the earnestness with which both the officers and men of the fifty-fourth embraced their mission of showing that a black regiment could excel in every virtue known to man. they had good success, and the fifty-fourth became a model in all possible respects. almost the only trace of bitterness in shaw's whole correspondence is over an incident in which he thought his men had been morally disgraced. it had become their duty, immediately after their arrival at the seat of war, to participate, in obedience to fanatical orders from the head of the department, in the sack and burning of the inoffensive little town of darien on the georgia coast. "i fear," he writes to his wife, "that such actions will hurt the reputation of black troops and of those connected with them. for myself i have gone through the war so far without dishonor, and i do not like to degenerate into a plunderer and a robber,--and the same applies to every officer in my regiment. after going through the hard campaigning and the hard fighting in virginia, this makes me very much ashamed. there are two courses only for me to pursue: to obey orders and say nothing; or to refuse to go upon any more such expeditions, and be put under arrest and probably court-martialled, which is a very serious thing." fortunately for shaw, the general in command of that department was almost immediately relieved. four weeks of camp life and discipline on the sea islands, and the regiment had its baptism of fire. a small affair, but it proved the men to be staunch. shaw again writes to his wife: "you don't know what a fortunate day this has been for me and for us all, excepting some poor fellows who were killed and wounded. we have fought at last alongside of white troops. two hundred of my men on picket this morning were attacked by five regiments of infantry, some cavalry, and a battery of artillery. the tenth connecticut were on their left, and say they would have had a bad time if the fifty-fourth men had not stood so well. the whole division was under arms in fifteen minutes, and after coming up close in front of us, the enemy, finding us so strong, fell back. . . . general terry sent me word he was highly gratified with the behavior of our men, and the officers and privates of other regiments praise us very much. all this is very gratifying to us personally, and a fine thing for the colored troops. i know this will give you pleasure for it wipes out the remembrance of the darien affair, which you could not but grieve over, though we were innocent participators." the adjutant of the fifty-fourth, who made report of this skirmish to general terry, well expresses the feelings of loneliness that still prevailed in that command:-- "the general's favorite regiment," writes the adjutant,[ ] "the twenty-fourth massachusetts infantry, one of the best that had so far faced the rebel foe, largely officered by boston men, was surrounding his headquarters. it had been a living breathing suspicion with us--perhaps not altogether justly--that all white troops abhorred our presence in the army, and that the twenty-fourth would rather hear of us in some remote corner of the confederacy than tolerate us in advance of any battle in which they themselves were to act as reserves or lookers-on. can you not then readily imagine the pleasure which i felt as i alighted from my horse before general terry and his staff--i was going to say his unfriendly staff, but of this i am not sure--to report to him, with colonel shaw's compliments, that we had repulsed the enemy without the loss of a single inch of ground. general terry bade me mount again and tell colonel shaw that he was proud of the conduct of his men, and that he must still hold the ground against any future sortie of the enemy. you can even now share with me the sensation of that moment of soldierly satisfaction." the next night but one after this episode was spent by the fifty-fourth in disembarking on morris island in the rain, and at noon colonel shaw was able to report their arrival to general strong, to whose brigade he was assigned. a terrific bombardment was playing on fort wagner, then the most formidable earthwork ever built, and the general, knowing shaw's desire to place his men beside white troops, said to him: "colonel, fort wagner is to be stormed this evening, and you may lead the column, if you say yes. your men, i know, are worn out, but do as you choose." shaw's face brightened. "before answering the general, he instantly turned to me," writes the adjutant, who reports the interview, "and said, tell colonel hallowell to bring up the fifty-fourth immediately.'" this was done, and just before nightfall the attack was made. shaw was serious, for he knew the assault was desperate, and had a premonition of his end. walking up and down in front of the regiment, he briefly exhorted them to prove that they were men. then he gave the order: "move in quick time till within a hundred yards, then double quick and charge. forward!" and the fifty-fourth advanced to the storming, its colonel and colors at its head. on over the sand, through a narrow defile which broke up the formation, double quick over the chevaux de frise, into the ditch and over it, as best they could, and up the rampart with fort sumter, which had seen them, playing on them, and fort wagner, now one mighty mound of fire, tearing out their lives. shaw led from first to last. gaining successfully the parapet, he stood there for a moment with uplifted sword, shouting, "forward, fifty-fourth!" and then fell headlong, with a bullet through his heart. the battle raged for nigh two hours. regiment after regiment, following upon the fifty-fourth, hurled themselves upon its ramparts, but fort wagner was nobly defended, and for that night stood safe. the fifty-fourth withdrew after two-thirds of its officers and five-twelfths or nearly half its men had been shot down or bayoneted within the fortress or before its walls. it was good behavior for a regiment, no one of whose soldiers had had a musket in his hands more than eighteen weeks, and which had seen the enemy for the first time only two days before. "the negroes fought gallantly," wrote a confederate officer, "and were headed by as brave a colonel as ever lived." as for the colonel, not a drum was heard nor a funeral note, not a soldier discharged his farewell shot, when the confederates buried him, the morning after the engagement. his body, half stripped of its clothing, and the corpses of his dauntless negroes were flung into one common trench together, and the sand was shovelled over them, without a stake or stone to signalize the spot. in death as in life, then, the fifty-fourth bore witness to the brotherhood of man. the lover of heroic history could wish for no more fitting sepulchre for shaw's magnanimous young heart. there let his body rest, united with the forms of his brave nameless comrades. there let the breezes of the atlantic sigh, and its gales roar their requiem, while this bronze effigy and these inscriptions keep their fame alive long after you and i and all who meet here are forgotten. how soon, indeed, are human things forgotten! as we meet here this morning, the southern sun is shining on their place of burial, and the waves sparkling and the sea-gulls circling around fort wagner's ancient site. but the great earthworks and their thundering cannon, the commanders and their followers, the wild assault and repulse that for a brief space made night hideous on that far-off evening, have all sunk into the blue gulf of the past, and for the majority of this generation are hardly more than an abstract name, a picture, a tale that is told. only when some yellow-bleached photograph of a soldier of the 'sixties comes into our hands, with that odd and vivid look of individuality due to the moment when it was taken, do we realize the concreteness of that by-gone history, and feel how interminable to the actors in them were those leaden-footed hours and years. the photographs themselves erelong will fade utterly, and books of history and monuments like this alone will tell the tale. the great war for the union will be like the siege of troy; it will have taken its place amongst all other "old, unhappy, far-off things and battles long ago." in all such events two things must be distinguished--the moral service of them from the fortitude which they display. war has been much praised and celebrated among us of late as a school of manly virtue; but it is easy to exaggerate upon this point. ages ago, war was the gory cradle of mankind, the grim-featured nurse that alone could train our savage progenitors into some semblance of social virtue, teach them to be faithful one to another, and force them to sink their selfishness in wider tribal ends. war still excels in this prerogative; and whether it be paid in years of service, in treasure, or in life-blood, the war tax is still the only tax that men ungrudgingly will pay. how could it be otherwise, when the survivors of one successful massacre after another are the beings from whose loins we and all our contemporary races spring? man is once for all a fighting animal; centuries of peaceful history could not breed the battle-instinct out of us; and our pugnacity is the virtue least in need of reinforcement by reflection, least in need of orator's or poet's help. what we really need the poet's and orator's help to keep alive in us is not, then, the common and gregarious courage which robert shaw showed when he marched with you, men of the seventh regiment. it is that more lonely courage which he showed when he dropped his warm commission in the glorious second to head your dubious fortunes, negroes of the fifty-fourth. that lonely kind of courage (civic courage as we call it in times of peace) is the kind of valor to which the monuments of nations should most of all be reared, for the survival of the fittest has not bred it into the bone of human beings as it has bred military valor; and of five hundred of us who could storm a battery side by side with others, perhaps not one would be found ready to risk his worldly fortunes all alone in resisting an enthroned abuse. the deadliest enemies of nations are not their foreign foes; they always dwell within their borders. and from these internal enemies civilization is always in need of being saved. the nation blest above all nations is she in whom the civic genius of the people does the saving day by day, by acts without external picturesqueness; by speaking, writing, voting reasonably; by smiting corruption swiftly; by good temper between parties; by the people knowing true men when they see them, and preferring them as leaders to rabid partisans or empty quacks. such nations have no need of wars to save them. their accounts with righteousness are always even; and god's judgments do not have to overtake them fitfully in bloody spasms and convulsions of the race. the lesson that our war ought most of all to teach us is the lesson that evils must be checked in time, before they grow so great. the almighty cannot love such long-postponed accounts, or such tremendous settlements. and surely he hates all settlements that do such quantities of incidental devils' work. our present situation, with its rancors and delusions, what is it but the direct outcome of the added powers of government, the corruptions and inflations of the war? every war leaves such miserable legacies, fatal seeds of future war and revolution, unless the civic virtues of the people save the state in time. robert shaw had both kinds of virtue. as he then led his regiment against fort wagner, so surely would he now be leading us against all lesser powers of darkness, had his sweet young life been spared. you think of many as i speak of one. for, north and south, how many lives as sweet, unmonumented for the most part, commemorated solely in the hearts of mourning mothers, widowed brides, or friends did the inexorable war mow down! instead of the full years of natural service from so many of her children, our country counts but their poor memories, "the tender grace of a day that is dead," lingering like echoes of past music on the vacant air. but so and so only was it written that she should grow sound again. from that fatal earlier unsoundness those lives have brought for north and south together permanent release. the warfare is accomplished; the iniquity is pardoned. no future problem can be like that problem. no task laid on our children can compare in difficulty with the task with which their fathers had to deal. yet as we face the future, tasks enough await us. the republic to which robert shaw and a quarter of a million like him were faithful unto death is no republic that can live at ease hereafter on the interest of what they have won. democracy is still upon its trial. the civic genius of our people is its only bulwark, and neither laws nor monuments, neither battleships nor public libraries, nor great newspapers nor booming stocks; neither mechanical invention nor political adroitness, nor churches nor universities nor civil service examinations can save us from degeneration if the inner mystery be lost. that mystery, as once the secret and the glory of our english-speaking race, consists in nothing but two common habits, two inveterate habits carried into public life,--habits so homely that they lend themselves to no rhetorical expression, yet habits more precious, perhaps, than any that the human race has gained. they can never be too often pointed out or praised. one of them is the habit of trained and disciplined good temper towards the opposite party when it fairly wins its innings. it was by breaking away from this habit that the slave states nearly wrecked our nation. the other is that of fierce and merciless resentment toward every man or set of men who break the public peace. by holding to this habit the free states saved her life. o my countrymen, southern and northern, brothers hereafter, masters, slaves, and enemies no more, let us see to it that both of those heirlooms are preserved. so may our ransomed country, like the city of the promise, lie forever foursquare under heaven, and the ways of all the nations be lit up by its light. [ ] oration at the exercises in the boston music hall, may , , upon the unveiling of the shaw monument. [ ] g. w. james: "the assault upon fort wagner," in _war papers read before the commandery of the state of wisconsin, military order of the loyal legion of the united states_. milwaukee, . iv francis boott[ ] how often does it happen here in new england that we come away from a funeral with a feeling that the service has been insufficient. if it be purely ritual, the individuality of the departed friend seems to play too small a part in it. if the minister conducts it in his own fashion, it is apt to be too thin and monotonous, and if he were not an intimate friend, too remote and official. we miss direct discourse of simple human affection about the person, which we find so often in those lay speeches at the grave of which in france they set us nowadays so many good examples. in the case of the friend whose memory brings us together on the present occasion, it was easy to organize this supplementary service. not everyone leaves musical compositions of his own to fill the hour with. and if we may believe that spirits can know aught of what transpires in the world which they have forsaken, it must please us all to think how dear old francis boott's shade must now be touched at seeing in the chapel of this university to which his feelings clung so loyally, his music and his life at last become the subjects of cordial and admiring recognition and commemorated by so many of his neighbors. i can imagine nothing at any rate of which the foreknowledge could have given him deeper satisfaction. shy and sensitive, craving praise as every normal human being craves it, yet getting little, he had, i think, a certain consciousness of living in the shadow. i greatly doubt whether his daydreams ever went so far as to let him imagine a service like this. such a cordial and spontaneous outgoing towards him on our part would surprise as much as it would delight him. his life was private in the strongest sense of the term. his contributions to literature were all anonymous, book-reviews chiefly, or letters and paragraphs in the new york nation on musical or literary topics. good as was their quality, and witty as was their form,--his only independent volume was an almost incredibly witty little book of charades in verse--they were too slight in bulk for commemoration; and it was only as a musical composer that he touched on any really public function. with so many of his compositions sounding in your ears, it would be out of place, even were i qualified, to attempt to characterize mr. boott's musical genius. let it speak for itself. i prefer to speak of the man and friend whom we knew and whom so many of us loved so dearly. one of the usual classifications of men is into those of expansive and those of conservative temper. the word conservative commonly suggests a dose of religious and political prejudice, and a fondness for traditional opinions. mr. boott was a liberal in politics and theology; and all his opinions were self-made, and as often as not at variance with every tradition. yet in a wider sense he was profoundly conservative. he respected bounds of ordinance, and emphasized the fact of limits. he knew well his own limits. the knowledge of them was in fact one of the things he lived by. to judge of abstract philosophy, of sculpture and painting, of certain lines of literary art, he admitted, was not of his competency. but within the sphere where he thought he had a right to judge, he parted his likes from his dislikes and preserved his preferences with a pathetic steadfastness. he was faithful in age to the lights that lit his youth, and obeyed at eve the voice obeyed at prime, with a consistency most unusual. elsewhere the opinions of others might perplex him, but he laughed and let them live. within his own appropriated sphere he was too scrupulous a lover of the truth not to essay to correct them, when he thought them erroneous. a certain appearance comes in here of a self-contradictory character, for mr. boott was primarily modest and sensitive, and all his interests and pre-occupations were with life's refinements and delicacies. yet one's mind always pictured him as a rugged sort of person, opposing successful resistance to all influences that might seek to change his habits either of feeling or of action. his admirable health, his sober life, his regular walk twice a day, whatever might be the weather, his invariable evenness of mood and opinion, so that, when you once knew his range, he never disappointed you--all this was at variance with popular notions of the artistic temperament. he was indeed, a man of reason, no romancer, sentimentalist or dreamer, in spite of the fact that his main interests were with the muses. he was exact and accurate; affectionate, indeed, and sociable, but neither gregarious nor demonstrative; and such words as "honest," "sturdy," "faithful," are the adjectives first to rise when one thinks of him. a friend said to me soon after his death: "i seem still to see mr. boott, with his two feet planted on the ground, and his cane in front of him, making of himself a sort of tripod of honesty and veracity." old age changes men in different ways. some it softens; some it hardens; some it degenerates; some it alters. our old friend boott was identical in spiritual essence all his life, and the effect of his growing old was not to alter, but only to make the same man mellower, more tolerant, more lovable. sadder he was, i think, for his life had grown pretty lonely; but he was a stoic and he never complained either of losses or of years, and that contagious laugh of his at any and every pretext for laughter rang as free and true upon his deathbed as at any previous time of his existence. born in , he had lived through three generations, and seen enormous social and public changes. when a carpenter has a surface to measure, he slides his rule along it, and over all its peculiarities. i sometimes think of boott as such a standard rule against which the changing fashions of humanity of the last century might come to measurement. a character as healthy and definite as his, of whatsoever type it be, need only remain entirely true to itself for a sufficient number of years, while the outer conditions change, to grow into something like a common measure. compared with its repose and permanent fitness to continue, the changes of the generations seem ephemeral and accidental. it remains the standard, the rule, the term of comparison. mr. boott's younger friends must often have felt in his presence how much more vitally near they were than they had supposed to the old boston long before the war, to the older harvard, to the older rome and florence. to grow old after his manner is of itself to grow important. i said that mr. boott was not demonstrative or sentimental. tender-hearted he was and faithful as few men are, in friendship. he made new friends, and dear ones, in the very last years of his life, and it is good to think of him as having had that consolation. the will in which he surprised so many persons by remembering them--"one of the only purely beautiful wills i have ever read," said a lawyer,--showed how much he cared at heart for many of us to whom he had rarely made express professions of affection. good-by, then, old friend. we shall nevermore meet the upright figure, the blue eye, the hearty laugh, upon these cambridge streets. but in that wider world of being of which this little cambridge world of ours forms so infinitesimal a part, we may be sure that all our spirits and their missions here will continue in some way to be represented, and that ancient human loves will never lose their own. [ ] an address delivered at the memorial service to francis boott in the harvard chapel, sunday, may , . printed in _harvard monthly_, . v thomas davidson: a knight-errant of the intellectual life.[ ] i wish to pay my tribute to the memory of a scottish-american friend of mine who died five years ago, a man of a character extraordinarily and intensely human, in spite of the fact that he was classed by obituary articles in england among the twelve most learned men of his time. it would do no honor to thomas davidson's memory not to be frank about him. he handled people without gloves, himself, and one has no right to retouch his photograph until its features are softened into insipidity. he had defects and excesses which he wore upon his sleeve, so that everyone could see them. they made him many enemies, and if one liked quarrelling he was an easy man to quarrel with. but his heart and mind held treasures of the rarest. he had a genius for friendship. money, place, fashion, fame, and other vulgar idols of the tribe had no hold on his imagination. he led his own life absolutely, in whatever company he found himself, and the intense individualism which he taught by word and deed, is the lesson of which our generation is perhaps most in need. all sorts of contrary adjectives come up as i think of him. to begin with, there was something physically rustic which suggested to the end his farm-boy origin. his voice was sweet and its scottish cadences most musical, and the extraordinary sociability of his nature made friends for him as much among women as among men; he had, moreover, a sort of physical dignity; but neither in dress nor in manner did he ever grow quite "gentlemanly" or _salonfähig_ in the conventional and obliterated sense of the terms. he was too cordial and emphatic for that. his broad brow, his big chest, his bright blue eyes, his volubility in talk and laughter told a tale of vitality far beyond the common; but his fine and nervous hands, and the vivacity of all his reactions suggested a degree of sensibility that one rarely finds conjoined with so robustly animal a frame. the great peculiarity of davidson did indeed consist in this combination of the acutest sensibilities with massive faculties of thought and action, a combination which, when the thought and actions are important, gives to the world its greatest men. davidson's native mood was happy. he took optimistic views of life and of his own share in it. a sort of permanent satisfaction radiated from his face; and this expression of inward glory (which in reality was to a large extent structural and not "expressive" at all) was displeasing to many new acquaintances on whom it made an impression of too much conceit. the impression of conceit was not diminished in their eyes by the freedom with which davidson contradicted, corrected and reprehended other people. a longer acquaintance invariably diminished the impression. but it must be confessed that t. d. never was exactly humble-minded, and that the solidity of his self-consciousness withstood strains under which that of weaker men would have crumbled. the malady which finally killed him was one of the most exhausting to the nervous tone to which our flesh is subject, and it wore him out before it ended him. he told me of the paroxysms of motiveless nervous dread which used to beset him in the night-watches. yet these never subdued his stalwartness, nor made him a "sick-soul" in the theological sense of that appelation. "god is afraid of me," was the phrase by which he described his well-being to me one morning when his night had been a good one, and he was feeling so cannibalistic that he thought he might get well. there are men whose attitude is always that of seeking for truth, and men who on the contrary always believe that they have the root of it already in them. davidson was of the latter class. like his countrymen, carlyle and ruskin, he felt himself to be in the possession of something, whether articulate or as yet articulated by himself, that authorized him (and authorized him with uncommon openness and frequency) to condemn the errors of others. i think that to the last he never fully extricated this philosophy. it was a tendency, a faith in a direction, which gave him an active persuasion that other directions were false, but of which the central insight never got fully formulated, but remained in a state which frederic myers would have called subliminal. he varied to a certain extent his watchwords and his heroes. when i first knew him all was aristotle. later all was rosmini. later still rosmini seemed forgotten. he knew so many writers that he grew fond of very various ones and had a strange tolerance for systematizers and dogmatizers whom, as the consistent individualist that he was, he should have disliked. hegel, it is true, he detested; but he always spoke with reverence of kant. of mill and spencer he had a low opinion; and when i lent him paulsen's introduction to philosophy (then just out), as an example of a kind of eclectic thought that seemed to be growing, and with which i largely sympathized, he returned it with richer expressions of disdain than often fell even from his lips: "it's the shabbiest, seediest pretence at a philosophy i ever dreamed of as possible. it's like a man dressed in a black coat so threadbare as to be all shiny. the most poverty-stricken, out-at-elbows thing i ever read. a perfect monument of seediness and shabbiness," etc. the truth is that davidson, brought up on the older classical traditions, never outgrew those habits of judging the world by purely aesthetic criteria which men fed on the sciences of nature are so willing to abandon. even if a philosophy were true, he could easily fail to relish it unless it showed a certain formal nobility and dogmatic pretension to finality. but i must not describe him so much from my own professional point of view--it is as a vessel of life at large that one ought to keep him in remembrance. he came to boston from st. louis, where he had been teaching, about the year . he was ruddy and radiant, and i soon saw much of him, though at first it was without the thoroughness of sympathy which we afterwards acquired and which made us overflow, on meeting after long absences, into such laughing greetings as: "ha! you old thief! ha! you old blackguard!"--pure "contrast-effects" of affection and familiarity passing beyond their bounds. at that time i saw most of him at a little philosophical club which used to meet every fortnight at his rooms in temple street in boston. of the other members, j. elliot cabot and c. c. everett, are now dead--i will not name the survivors. we never worked out harmonious conclusions. davidson used to crack the whip of aristotle over us; and i remember that, whatever topic was formally appointed for the day, we invariably wound up with a quarrel about space and space-perception. the club had existed before davidson's advent. the previous year we had gone over a good part of hegel's larger logic, under the self-constituted leadership of two young business men from illinois, who had become enthusiastic hegelians and, knowing almost no german, had actually possessed themselves of a manuscript translation of the entire three volumes of logic, made by an extraordinary pomeranian immigrant, named brockmeyer. these disciples were leaving business for the law and studying at the harvard law-school; but they saw the whole universe through hegelian spectacles, and a more admirable _homo unius libri_ than one of them, with his three big folios of hegelian manuscript, i have never had the good fortune to know. i forget how davidson was earning his subsistence at this time. he did some lecturing and private teaching, but i do not think they were great in amount. in the springs and summers he frequented the coast, and indulged in long swimming bouts and salt-water immersions, which seemed to agree with him greatly. his sociability was boundless, and his time seemed to belong to anyone who asked for it. i soon conceived that such a man would be invaluable in harvard university--a kind of socrates, a devotee of truth and lover of youth, ready to sit up to any hour, and drink beer and talk with anyone, lavish of learning and counsel, a contagious example of how lightly and humanly a burden of erudition might be borne upon a pair of shoulders. in faculty-business he might not run well in harness, but as an inspiration and ferment of character, as an example of the ranges of combination of scholarship with manhood that are possible, his influence on the students would be priceless. i do not know whether this scheme of mine could under any circumstances have been carried out. in point of fact it was nipped in the bud by t. d. himself. a natural chair for him would have been greek philosophy. unfortunately, just at the decisive hour, he offended our greek department by a savage onslaught on its methods, which, without taking anyone's counsel, he sent to the _atlantic monthly_, whose editor printed it. this, with his other unconventionalisms, made advocating his cause more difficult, and the university authorities, never, i believe, seriously thought of an appointment for him. i believe that in this case, as in one or two others like it, which i might mention, harvard university lost a great opportunity. organization and method mean much, but contagious human characters mean more in a university, where a few undisciplinables like t. d. may be infinitely more precious than a faculty-full of orderly routinists. as to what davidson might have become under the conventionalizing influences of an official position, it would be idle to speculate. as things fell out, he became more and more unconventional and even developed a sort of antipathy to all regular academic life. it subdued individuality, he thought, and made for philistinism. he earnestly dissuaded his young friend bakewell from accepting a professorship; and i well remember one dark night in the adirondacks, after a good dinner at a neighbor's, the eloquence with which, as we trudged down-hill to his own quarters with a lantern, he denounced me for the musty and mouldy and generally ignoble academicism of my character. never before or since, i fancy, has the air of the adirondack wilderness vibrated more repugnantly to a vocable than it did that night to the word "academicism." yet davidson himself was always essentially a teacher. he must give forth, inspire, and have the young about him. after leaving boston for europe and africa, founding the fellowship of the new life in london and new york (the present fabian society in england is its offshoot), he hit upon the plan which pleased him best of all when, in or thereabouts, he bought a couple of hundred acres on east hill, which closes the beautiful keene valley in the adirondacks, on the north, and founded there, at the foot of hurricane mountain, his place "glenmore" and its "summer school of the culture sciences." although the primeval forest has departed from its immediate vicinity, the region is still sylvan, the air is sweet and strong and almost alpine in quality, and the mountain panorama spread before one is superlative. davidson showed a business faculty which i should hardly have expected from him, in organizing his settlement. he built a number of cottages pretty in design and of the simplest construction, and disposed them well for effect. he turned a couple of farm buildings which were on the grounds into a lecturing place and a refectory; and there, arriving in early april and not leaving till late in november, he spent the happiest part of all his later years, surrounded during the summer months by colleagues, friends, and listeners to lectures, and in the spring and fall by a few independent women who were his faithful friends, and who had found east hill a congenial residence. twice i went up with t. d. to open the place in april. i remember leaving his fireside one night with three ladies who were also early comers, and finding the thermometer at degrees fahrenheit and a tremendous gale blowing the snow about us. davidson loved these blustering vicissitudes of climate. in the early years the brook was never too cold for him to bathe in, and he spent days in rambling over the hills and up the glens and through the forest. his own cottage was full of books whose use was free to all who visited the settlement. it stood high on a hill in a grove of silver-birches and looked upon the western mountains; and it always seemed to me an ideal dwelling for such a bachelor-scholar. here in may and june he became almost one with the resurgent vegetation. here, in october, he was a witness of the jewelled pageant of the dying foliage, and saw the hillsides reeking, as it were, and aflame with ruby and gold and emerald and topaz. one september day in , at the "kurhaus" at nauheim, i took up a copy of the paris _new york herald_, and read in capitals: "death of professor thomas davidson." i had well known how ill he was, yet such was his vitality that the shock was wholly unexpected. i did not realize till that moment how much that free companionship with him every spring and autumn, surrounded by that beautiful nature, had signified to me, or how big a piece would be subtracted from my life by its cessation. davidson's capacity for imparting information seemed endless. there were few subjects, especially "humanistic" subjects, in which at some time or other he had not taken an interest; and as everything that had ever touched him was instantaneously in reach of his omnipotent memory, he easily became a living dictionary of reference. as such all his friends were wont to use him. he was, for example, never at a loss to supply a quotation. he loved poetry passionately, and the sympathetic voice with which he would recall page after page of it--english, french, german, or italian--is a thing always to be remembered. but notwithstanding the instructive part he played in every conceivable conversation, he was never prolix, and he never "lectured." from davidson i learned what immunities a perfect memory bestows upon one. i never could discover when he amassed his learning for he never seemed "occupied." the secret of it was that any odd time would do, for he never had to acquire a thing twice over. he avoided stated hours of work on principle. reprehending (mildly) a certain chapter of my own on "habit," he said that it was a fixed rule with him to form no regular habits. when he found himself in danger of settling into even a good one, he made a point of interrupting it. habits and methods make a prisoner of a man, destroy his readiness, keep him from answering the call of the fresh moment. individualist _à outrance_, davidson felt that every hour was an unique entity, to whose claims one should lie open. thus he was never abstracted or preoccupied, but always seemed, when with you, as if you were the one person whom it was then right to attend to. it was this individualistic religion that made t. d., democrat as he nevertheless was, so hostile to all socialisms and administrative panaceas. life must be flexible. you ask for a free man, and these utopias give you an "interchangeable part," with a fixed number, in a rule-bound organism. the real thing to aim at is liberation of the inner interests. give man possession of a _soul_, and he will work out his own happiness under any set of conditions. accordingly, when, in the penultimate year of his life, he proposed his night-school to a meeting of young east-side workingmen in new york, he told them that he had no sympathy whatever with the griefs of "labor," that outward circumstances meant nothing in his eyes; that through their individual wills and intellects they could share, just as they were, in the highest spiritual life of humanity, and that he was there to help them severally to that privilege. the enthusiasm with which they responded speaks volumes, both for his genius as a teacher and for the sanity of his position. a small posthumous book of articles by davidson and of letters written from glenmore to his class, just published, with an introduction by his disciple professor bakewell,[ ] gives a full account of the experiment, and ought to stand as a model and inspirer to similar attempts the world over. davidson's idea of the universe was that of a republic of immortal spirits, the chief business of whom in their several grades of existence, should be to know and love and help one another. "creeds are nothing, life is everything. . . . you can do far more by presenting to the world the example of noble social relations than by enumerating any set of principles. know all you can, love all you can, do all you can--that is the whole duty of man. . . . be friends, in the truest sense, each to the other. there is nothing in all the world like friendship, when it is deep and real. . . . the divine . . . is a republic of self-existent spirits, each seeking the realization of its ideas through love, through intimacy with all the rest, and finding its heaven in such intimacy." we all say and think that we believe this sort of thing; but davidson believed it really and actively, and that made all the difference. when the young wage-earners whom he addressed found that here was a man of measureless learning ready to give his soul to them as if he had nothing else to do with it, life's ideal possibilities widened to their view. when he was taken from them, they founded in new york the thomas davidson society, for study and neighborhood work, which will probably become perpetual, and of which his epistles from glenmore will be the rule, and keep the standards set by him from degenerating--unless, indeed, the society should some day grow too rich, of which there is no danger at present, and from which may heaven long preserve it. in one of his letters to the class, davidson sums up the results of his own experience of life in twenty maxims, as follows: . rely upon your own energies, and do not wait for, or depend on other people. . cling with all your might to your own highest ideals, and do not be led astray by such vulgar aims as wealth, position, popularity. be yourself. . your worth consists in what you are, and not in what you have. what you are will show in what you do. . never fret, repine, or envy. do not make yourself unhappy by comparing your circumstances with those of more fortunate people; but make the most of the opportunities you have. employ profitably every moment. . associate with the noblest people you can find; read the best books; live with the mighty. but learn to be happy alone. . do not believe that all greatness and heroism are in the past. learn to discover princes, prophets, heroes, and saints among the people about you. be assured they are there. . be on earth what good people hope to be in heaven. . cultivate ideal friendships, and gather into an intimate circle all your acquaintances who are hungering for truth and right. remember that heaven itself can be nothing but the intimacy of pure and noble souls. . do not shrink from any useful or kindly act, however hard or repellent it may be. the worth of acts is measured by the spirit in which they are performed. . if the world despise you because you do not follow its ways, pay no heed to it. but be sure your way is right. . if a thousand plans fail, be not disheartened. as long as your purposes are right, you have not failed. . examine yourself every night, and see whether you have progressed in knowledge, sympathy, and helpfulness during the day. count every day a loss in which no progress has been made. . seek enjoyment in energy, not in dalliance. our worth is measured solely by what we do. . let not your goodness be professional; let it be the simple, natural outcome of your character. therefore cultivate character. . if you do wrong, say so, and make what atonement you can. that is true nobleness. have no moral debts. . when in doubt how to act, ask yourself, what does nobility command? be on good terms with yourself. . look for no reward for goodness but goodness itself. remember heaven and hell are utterly immoral institutions, if they are meant as reward and punishment. . give whatever countenance and help you can to every movement and institution that is working for good. be not sectarian. . wear no placards, within or without. be human fully. . never be satisfied until you have understood the meaning of the world, and the purpose of our own life, and have reduced your world to a rational cosmos. one of the "placards" davidson tried hardest to keep his society from wearing was that of "socialism." yet no one felt more deeply than he the evils of rapacious individual competition. spontaneously and flexibly organized social settlements or communities, with individual leaders as their centres, seem to have been his ideal, each with its own religious or ethical elements of discipline. the present isolation of the family is too inhuman. the ideal type of future life, he thought, will be something like the monastery, with the family instead of the individual, for its unit. leveller upwards of men as davidson was, upon the intellectual and moral level, he seemed wholly without that sort of religion which makes so many of our contemporary anarchists think that they ought to dip, at least, into some manual occupation, in order to share the common burden of humanity i never saw t. d. work with his hands in any way. he accepted material services of all kinds without apology, as if he were a patrician, evidently feeling that if he played his own more intellectual part rightly, society could make no further claim upon him. this confidence that the life of the spirit is the absolutely highest, made davidson serene about his outward fortunes. pecuniary worry would not tally with his program. he had a very small provision against a rainy day, but he did little to increase it. he used to write as many articles and give as many "lectures," "talks," or "readings" every winter as would suffice to pay the year's expenses, and thereafter he refused additional invitations, and repaired to glenmore as early in the spring as possible. i could but admire the temper he showed when the principal building there was one night burned to ashes. there was no insurance on it, and it would cost a couple of thousand dollars to replace it. excitable as davidson was about small contrarieties, he watched this fire without a syllable of impatience. _plaie d'argent n'est pas mortelle_, he seemed to say, and if he felt sharp regrets, he disdained to express them. no more did care about his literary reputation trouble him. in the ordinary greedy sense, he seemed quite free from ambition. during his last years he had prepared a large amount of material for that history of the interaction of greek, christian, hebrew, and arabic thought upon one another before the revival of learning, which was to be his _magnum opus_. it was a territory to which, in its totality, few living minds had access, and in which a certain proprietary feeling was natural. knowing how short his life might be, i once asked him whether he felt no concern lest the work already done by him should be frustrate, from the lack of its necessary complement, in case he were suddenly cut off. his answer surprised me by its indifference. he would work as long as he lived, he said, but not allow himself to worry, and look serenely at whatever might be the outcome. this seemed to me uncommonly high-minded. i think that davidson's conviction of immortality had much to do with such a superiority to accidents. on the surface, and towards small things, he was irritable enough, but the undertone of his character was remarkable for equanimity. he showed it in his final illness, of which the misery was really atrocious. there were no general complaints or lamentations about the personal situation or the arrest to his career. it was the human lot and he must even bear it; so he kept his mind upon objective matters. but, as i said at the outset, the paramount thing in davidson in my eyes was his capacity for friendship. his friends were innumerable--boys and girls and old boys and old girls, papists and protestants, jews and gentiles, married and single; and he cared deeply for each one of them, admiring them often too extravagantly. what term can name those recurrent waves of delighted laughter that expressed his greeting, beginning from the moment he saw you and accompanying his words continuously, as if his pleasure in you were interminable? his hand too, stretched out when yards away, so that a country neighbor said it reached farther than any hand he ever met with. the odd thing was that friendship in davidson seemed so little to interfere with criticism. persons with whom intercourse was one long contradiction on his part, and who appeared to annoy him to extermination, he none the less loved tenderly, and enjoyed living with them. "he's the most utterly selfish, illiberal and narrow-hearted human being i ever knew," i heard him once say of someone, "and yet he's the dearest, nicest fellow living." his enthusiastic belief in any young person who gave a promise of genius was touching. naturally a man who is willing, as he was, to be a prophet, always finds some women who are willing to be disciples. i never heard of any sentimental weakness in davidson in this relation, save possibly in one case. they harmed themselves at the fire of his soul, and he told them truths without accommodation. "you 're farther off from god than any woman i ever heard of." "nay, if you believe in a protective tariff, you 're in hell already, though you may not know it." "you had a fine hysterical time last night, didn't you, when miss b was brought up from the ravine with her dislocated shoulder." to miss b he said: "i don't pity you. it served you right for being so ignorant as to go there at that hour." seldom, strange to say, did the recipients of these deliverances seem to resent them. what with davidson's warmth of heart and sociability, i used to wonder at his never marrying. two years before his death he told me the reason--an unhappy youthful love-affair in scotland. twice in later life, he said, temptation had come to him, and he had had to make his decision. when he had come to the point, he had felt each time that the tie with the dead girl was prohibitive. "when two persons have known each other as we did," he said, "neither can ever fully belong to a stranger. so it would n't do." "it would n't do, it would n't do!" he repeated, as we lay on the hillside, in a tone so musically tender that it chimes in my ear now as i write down his confession. it can surely be no breach of confidence to publish it--it is too creditable to the profundity of davidson's affections. as i knew him, he was one of the purest of human beings. if one asks, now, what the _value_ of thomas davidson was, what was the general significance of his life, apart from his particular books and articles, i have to say that it lay in the example he set to us all of how, even in the midst of this intensely worldly social system of ours, in which each human interest is organized so collectively and so commercially, a single man may still be a knight-errant of the intellectual life, and preserve full freedom in the midst of sociability. extreme as was his need of friends, and faithful as he was to them, he yet lived mainly in reliance on his private inspiration. asking no man's permission, bowing the knee to no tribal idol, renouncing the conventional channels of recognition, he showed us how a life devoted to purely intellectual ends could be beautifully wholesome outwardly, and overflow with inner contentment. fortunately this type of man is recurrent, and from generation to generation, literary history preserves examples. but it is infrequent enough for few of us to have known more than one example--i count myself happy in knowing two and a half! the memory of davidson will always strengthen my faith in personal freedom and its spontaneities, and make me less unqualifiedly respectful than ever of "civilization," with its herding and branding, licensing and degree-giving, authorizing and appointing, and in general regulating and administering by system the lives human beings. surely the individual, the person in the singular number, is the more fundamental phenomenon, and the social institution, of whatever grade, is but secondary and ministerial. many as are the interests which social systems satisfy, always unsatisfied interests remain over, and among them are interests to which system, as such, does violence whenever it lays its hand upon us. the best commonwealth will always be the one that most cherishes the men who represent the residual interests, the one that leaves the largest scope to their peculiarities. [ ] first published in _mcclure's magazine_ for may, . [ ] "the education of the wage-earners." boston, ginn & company, . vi herbert spencer's autobiography[ ] "god moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform." if the greatest of all his wonders be the human individual, the richness with which the specimens thereof are diversified, the limitless variety of outline, from gothic to classic or flowing arabesque, the contradictory nature of the filling, composed of little and great, of comic, heroic, and pathetic elements blended inextricably, in personalities all of whom can _go_, and go successfully, must surely be reckoned the supreme miracle of creative ingenuity. rarely has nature performed an odder or more dickens-like feat than when she deliberately designed, or accidentally stumbled into, the personality of herbert spencer. greatness and smallness surely never lived so closely in one skin together. the opposite verdicts passed upon his work by his contemporaries bear witness to the extraordinary mingling of defects and merits in his mental character. here are a few, juxtaposed:-- "a philosophic saw-mill."--"the most capacious and powerful thinker of all time. "the arry' of philosophy."--"aristotle and his master were not more beyond the pygmies who preceded them than he is beyond aristotle." "herbert spencer's chromo-philosophy."--"no other man that has walked the earth has so wrought and written himself into the life of the world." "the touch of his mind takes the living flavor out of everything."--"he is as much above and beyond all the other great philosophers who have ever lived as the telegraph is beyond the carrier-pigeon, or the railway beyond the sedan chair." "he has merely combined facts which we knew before into a huge fantastic contradictory system, which hides its nakedness and emptiness partly under the veil of an imposing terminology, and partly in the primeval fog."--"his contributions are of a depth, profundity, and magnitude which have no parallel in the history of mind. taking but one--and one only--of his transcendent reaches of thought,--namely, that referring to the positive sense of the unknown as the basis of religion,--it may unhesitatingly be affirmed that the analysis and synthesis by which he advances to the almost supernal grasp of this mighty truth give a sense of power and reach verging on the preternatural." can the two thick volumes of autobiography which mr. spencer leaves behind him explain such discrepant appreciations? can we find revealed in them the higher synthesis which reconciles the contradictions? partly they do explain, i think, and even justify, both kinds of judgment upon their author. but i confess that in the last resort i still feel baffled. in spencer, as in every concrete individual, there is a uniqueness that defies all formulation. we can feel the touch of it and recognize its taste, so to speak, relishing or disliking, as the case may be, but we can give no ultimate account of it, and we have in the end simply to admire the creator. mr. spencer's task, the unification of all knowledge into an articulate system, was more ambitious than anything attempted since st. thomas or descartes. most thinkers have confined themselves either to generalities or to details, but spencer addressed himself to everything. he dealt in logical, metaphysical, and ethical first principles, in cosmogony and geology, in physics, and chemistry after a fashion, in biology, psychology, sociology, politics, and aesthetics. hardly any subject can be named which has not at least been touched on in some one of his many volumes. his erudition was prodigious. his civic conscience and his social courage both were admirable. his life was pure. he was devoted to truth and usefulness, and his character was wholly free from envy and malice (though not from contempt), and from the perverse egoisms that so often go with greatness. surely, any one hearing this veracious enumeration would think that spencer must have been a rich and exuberant human being. such wide curiosities must have gone with the widest sympathies, and such a powerful harmony of character, whether it were a congenital gift, or were acquired by spiritual wrestling and eating bread with tears, must in any case have been a glorious spectacle for the beholder. since goethe, no such ideal human being can have been visible, walking our poor earth. yet when we turn to the "autobiography," the self-confession which we find is this: an old-maidish personage, inhabiting boarding-houses, equable and lukewarm in all his tastes and passions, having no desultory curiosity, showing little interest in either books or people. a petty fault-finder and stickler for trifles, devoid in youth of any wide designs on life, fond only of the more mechanical side of things, yet drifting as it were involuntarily into the possession of a world-formula which by dint of his extraordinary pertinacity he proceeded to apply to so many special cases that it made him a philosopher in spite of himself. he appears as modest enough, but with a curious vanity in some of his deficiencies,--his lack of desultory interests, for example, and his nonconformity to reigning customs. he gives a queer sense of having no emotional perspective, as if small things and large were on the same plane of vision, and equally commanded his attention. in spite of his professed dislike of monotony, one feels an awfully monotonous quality in him; and in spite of the fact that invalidism condemned him to avoid thinking, and to saunter and potter through large parts of every day, one finds no twilight region in his mind, and no capacity for dreaminess or passivity. all parts of it are filled with the same noonday glare, like a dry desert where every grain of sand shows singly, and there are no mysteries or shadows. "look on this picture and on that," and answer how they can be compatible. for one thing, mr. spencer certainly writes himself _down_ too much. he complains of a poor memory, of an idle disposition, of a general dislike for reading. doubtless there have been more gifted men in all these respects. but when spencer once buckled to a particular task, his memory, his industry, and his reading went beyond those of the most gifted. he had excessive sensibility to stimulation by a challenge, and he had preëminent pertinacity. when the notion of his philosophic system once grasped him, it seemed to possess itself of every effective fibre of his being. no faculty in him was left unemployed,--nor, on the other hand, was anything that his philosophy could contain left unstated. roughly speaking, the task and the man absorbed each other without residuum. compare this type of mind with such an opposite type as ruskin's, or even as j. s. mill's, or huxley's, and you realize its peculiarity. behind the work of those others was a background of overflowing mental temptations. the men loom larger than all their publications, and leave an impression of unexpressed potentialities. spencer tossed all his inexpressibilities into the unknowable, and gladly turned his back on them forever. his books seem to have expressed all that there was to express in his character. he is very frank about this himself. no _sturm und drang periode_, no problematic stage of thought, where the burden of the much-to-be-straightened exceeds the powers of straightening. when george eliot uttered surprise at seeing no lines on his forehead, his reply was:--"i suppose it is because i am never puzzled."--"it has never been my way," he continues, "to set before myself a problem and puzzle out an answer. the conclusions at which i have from time to time arrived, have not been arrived at as solutions of questions raised; but have been arrived at unawares--each as the ultimate outcome of a body of thought which slowly grew from a germ. some direct observation, or some fact met with in reading, would dwell with me; apparently because i had a sense of its significance. . . . a week afterwards, possibly, the matter would be remembered; and with further thought about it, might occur a recognition of some wider application: new instances being aggregated with those already noted. again, after an interval," etc., etc. "and thus, little by little, in unobtrusive ways, without conscious intention or appreciable effort, there would grow up a coherent and organized theory" (vol. i, page ). a sort of mill, this, wound up to grind in a certain way, and irresponsive otherwise. "to apply day after day merely with the general idea of acquiring information, or of increasing ability, was not in me." "anything like passive receptivity is foreign to my nature; and there results an unusually small tendency to be affected by others' thoughts. it seems as though the fabric of my conclusions had in all cases to be developed from within. material which could be taken in and organized so as to form part of a coherent structure, there was always a readiness to receive. but ideas and sentiments of alien kinds, or unorganizable kinds, were, if not rejected, yet accepted with indifference, and soon dropped away." "it has always been out of the question for me to go on reading a book the fundamental principles of which i entirely dissent from. i take it for granted that if the fundamental principles are wrong the rest cannot be right; and thereupon cease reading--being, i suspect, rather glad of an excuse for doing so." "systematic books of a political or ethical kind, written from points of view quite unlike my own, were either not consulted at all, or else they were glanced at and thereafter disregarded" (vol. i, pages , , , ). there is pride rather than compunction in these confessions. spencer's mind was so narrowly systematized, that he was at last almost incapable of believing in the reality of alien ways of feeling. the invariable arrogance of his replies to criticisms shows his absolute self-confidence. every opinion in the world had to be articulately right or articulately wrong,--so proved by some principle or other of his infallible system. he confesses freely his own inflexibility and censoriousness. his account of his father makes one believe in the fatality of heredity. born of old nonconformist stock, the elder spencer was a man of absolute punctuality. always he would step out of his way to kick a stone off the pavement lest somebody should trip over it. if he saw boys quarrelling he stopped to expostulate; and he never could pass a man who was ill-treating a horse without trying to make him behave better. he would never take off his hat to any one, no matter of what rank, nor could he be induced to address any one as "esquire" or as "reverend." he would never put on any sign of mourning, even for father and mother; and he adhered to one style of coat and hat throughout all changes of fashion. improvement was his watchword always and everywhere. whatever he wrote had to be endlessly corrected, and his love of detail led all his life to his neglecting large ends in his care for small ones. a good heart, but a pedantic conscience, and a sort of energetically mechanical intelligence. of himself herbert spencer says: "no one will deny that i am much given to criticism. along with exposition of my own views there has always gone a pointing out of defects in those of others. and if this is a trait in my writing, still more is it a trait in my conversation. the tendency to fault-finding is dominant--disagreeably dominant. the indicating of errors in thought and speech made by those around has all through life been an incurable habit--a habit for which i have often reproached myself, but to no purpose." the "autobiography" abounds in illustrations of the habit. for instance:-- "of late i have observed sundry cases in which, having found the right, people deliberately desert it for the wrong. . . . a generation ago salt-cellars were made of convenient shapes--either ellipses or elongated parallelograms: the advantage being that the salt-spoon, placed lengthwise, remained in its place. but for some time past, fashion has dictated circular salt-cellars, on the edges of which the salt-spoon will not remain without skilful balancing: it falls on the cloth. in my boyhood a jug was made of a form at once convenient and graceful. . . . now, however, the almost universal form of jug in use is a frustum of a cone with a miniature spout. it combines all possible defects. when anything like full, it is impossible to pour out a small quantity without part of the liquid trickling down beneath the spout; and a larger quantity cannot be poured out without exceeding the limits of the spout and running over on each side of it. if the jug is half empty, the tilting must be continued a long time before any liquid comes; and then, when it does come, it comes with a rush; because its surface has now become so large that a small inclination delivers a great deal. to all which add that the shape is as ugly a one as can well be hit upon. still more extraordinary is the folly of a change made in another utensil of daily use"--and spencer goes on to find fault with the cylindrical form of candle extinguisher, proving by a description of its shape that "it squashes the wick into the melted composition, the result being that when, next day, the extinguisher is taken off, the wick, imbedded in the solidified composition, cannot be lighted without difficulty" (vol. ii, page ). the remorseless explicitness, the punctuation, everything, make these specimens of public fault-finding with what probably was the equipment of mr. spencer's latest boarding-house, sound like passages from "the man versus the state." another example:-- "playing billiards became 'my custom always of the afternoon.' those who confess to billiard-playing commonly make some kind of an excuse. . . . it suffices to me that i like billiards, and the attainment of the pleasure given i regard as a sufficient motive. i have for a long time deliberately set my face against that asceticism which makes it an offence to do a thing for the pleasure of doing it; and have habitually contended that, so long as no injury is inflicted on others, nor any ulterior injury on self, and so long as the various duties of life have been discharged, the pursuit of pleasure for its own sake is perfectly legitimate and requires no apology. the opposite view is nothing else than a remote sequence of the old devil worship of the barbarian, who sought to please his god by inflicting pains upon himself, and believed his god would be angry if he made himself happy" (vol. ii, page ). the tone of pedantic rectitude in these passages is characteristic. every smallest thing is either right or wrong, and if wrong, can be articulately proved so by reasoning. life grows too dry and literal, and loses all aërial perspective at such a rate; and the effect is the more displeasing when the matters in dispute have a rich variety of aspects, and when the aspect from which mr. spencer deduces his conclusions is manifestly partial. for instance, in his art-criticisms. spencer in his youth did much drawing, both mechanical and artistic. volume one contains a photo-print of a very creditable bust which he modelled of his uncle. he had a musical ear, and practiced singing. he paid attention to style, and was not wholly insensible to poetry. yet in all his dealings with the art-products of mankind he manifests the same curious dryness and mechanical literality of judgment--a dryness increased by pride in his non-conformity. he would, for example, rather give a large sum than read to the end of homer's iliad,--the ceaseless repetition of battles, speeches, and epithets like well-greaved greeks, horse-breaking trojans; the tedious enumeration of details of dresses, arms, and chariots; such absurdities as giving the genealogy of a horse while in the midst of a battle; and the appeals to savage and brutal passions, having soon made the poem intolerable to him (vol. i, page ). turner's paintings he finds untrue, in that the earth-region is habitually as bright in tone as the air-region. moreover, turner scatters his detail too evenly. in greek statues the hair is falsely treated. renaissance painting, even the best, is spoiled by unreal illumination, and non-rendering of reflected light in the shadows. venetian gothic sins by meaningless ornamentation. st. mark's church may be precious archaeologically, but is not aesthetically precious. of wagner's music he admires nothing but the skilful specialization of the instruments in the orchestra. the fault-finding in all these cases rests on observation, true as far as it goes; but the total absence of genial relations with the entirety of the phenomenon discussed, the clutching at some paltry mechanical aspect of it that lends itself to reasoned proof by _a_ plus _b_, and the practical denial of everything that only appeals to vaguer sentiment, show a mind so oddly limited to ratiocinative and explicit processes, and so wedded to the superficial and flagrantly _insufficient_, that one begins to wonder whether in the philosophic and scientific spheres the same mind can have wrought out results of extraordinary value. both "yes" and "no" are here the answer. every one who writes books or articles knows how he must flounder until he hits upon the proper opening. once the right beginning found, everything follows easily and in due order. if a man, however narrow, strikes even by accident, into one of these fertile openings, and pertinaciously follows the lead, he is almost sure to meet truth on his path. some thoughts act almost like mechanical centres of crystallization; facts cluster of themselves about them. such a thought was that of the gradual growth of all things, by natural processes, out of natural antecedents. until the middle of the nineteenth century no one had grasped it _wholesale_; and the thinker who did so earliest was bound to make discoveries just in proportion to the exclusiveness of his interest in the principle. he who had the keenest eye for instances and illustrations, and was least divertible by casual side-curiosity, would score the quickest triumph. to spencer is certainly due the immense credit of having been the first to see in evolution an absolutely universal principle. if any one else had grasped its universality, it failed at any rate to grasp him as it grasped spencer. for spencer it instantly became "the guiding conception running through and connecting all the concrete sciences" (vol. ii, page ). here at last was "an object at once large and distinct enough" to overcome his "constitutional idleness." "with an important and definite end to achieve, i could work" (vol. i, page ). he became, in short, the victim of a vivid obsession, and for the first time in his life seems to have grown genuinely ambitious. every item of his experience, small or great, every idea in his mental storehouse, had now to be considered with reference to its bearing on the new universal principle. on pages - of volume two he gives an interesting summary of the way in which all his previous and subsequent ideas moved into harmonious coördination and subordination, when once he had this universal key to insight. applying it wholesale as he did, innumerable truths unobserved till then had to fall into his gamebag. and his peculiar trick, a priggish infirmity in daily intercourse, of treating every smallest thing by abstract law, was here a merit. add his sleuth-hound scent for what he was after, and his untiring pertinacity, to his priority in perceiving the one great truth and you fully justify the popular estimate of him as one of the world's geniuses, in spite of the fact that the "temperament" of genius, so called, seems to have been so lacking in him. in one sense, then, spencer's personal narrowness and dryness were not hindering, but helping conditions of his achievement. grant that a vast picture _quelconque_ had to be made before the details could be made perfect, and a greater richness and receptivity of mind would have resulted in hesitation. the quality would have been better in spots, but the extensiveness would have suffered. spencer is thus the philosopher of vastness. misprised by many specialists, who carp at his technical imperfections, he has nevertheless enlarged the imagination, and set free the speculative mind of countless doctors, engineers, and lawyers, of many physicists and chemists, and of thoughtful laymen generally. he is the philosopher whom those who have no other philosopher can appreciate. to be able to say this of any man is great praise, and gives the "yes" answer to my recent question. can the "no" answer be as unhesitatingly uttered? i think so, if one makes the qualitative aspect of spencer's work undo its quantitative aspect. the luke-warm equable temperament, the narrowness of sympathy and passion, the fondness for mechanical forms of thought, the imperfect receptivity and lack of interest in facts as such, dissevered from their possible connection with a theory; nay, the very vividness itself, the keenness of scent and the pertinacity; these all are qualities which may easily make for second-rateness, and for contentment with a cheap and loosely woven achievement. as mr. spencer's "first principles" is the book which more than any other has spread his popular reputation, i had perhaps better explain what i mean by criticising some of its peculiarities. i read this book as a youth when it was still appearing in numbers, and was carried away with enthusiasm by the intellectual perspectives which it seemed to open. when a maturer companion, mr. charles s. peirce, attacked it in my presence, i felt spiritually wounded, as by the defacement of a sacred image or picture, though i could not verbally defend it against his criticisms. later i have used it often as a text-book with students, and the total outcome of my dealings with it is an exceedingly unfavorable verdict. apart from the great truth which it enforces, that everything has evolved somehow, and apart from the inevitable stimulating effect of any such universal picture, i regard its teachings as almost a museum of blundering reasoning. let me try to indicate briefly my grounds for such an opinion. i pass by the section on the unknowable, because this part of mr. spencer's philosophy has won fewer friends than any other. it consists chiefly of a rehash of mansel's rehash of hamilton's "philosophy of the conditioned," and has hardly raised its head since john mill so effectively demolished it. if criticism of our human intellectual constitution is needed, it can be got out of bradley to-day better than out of spencer. the latter's way of reconciling science and religion is, moreover, too absurdly _naïf_. find, he says, a fundamental abstract truth on which they can agree, and that will reconcile them. such a truth, he thinks, is that _there is a mystery_. the trouble is that it is over just such common truths that quarrels begin. did the fact that both believed in the existence of the pope reconcile luther and ignatius loyola? did it reconcile the south and the north that both agreed that there were slaves? religion claims that the "mystery" is interpretable by human reason; "science," speaking through spencer, insists that it is not. the admission of the mystery is the very signal for the quarrel. moreover, for nine hundred and ninety-nine men out of a thousand the sense of mystery is the sense of _more-to-be-known_, not the sense of a more, _not_ to be known. but pass the unknowable by, and turn to spencer's famous law of evolution. "science" works with several types of "law." the most frequent and useful type is that of the "elementary law,"--that of the composition of forces, that of gravitation, of refraction, and the like. such laws declare no concrete facts to exist, and make no prophecy as to any actual future. they limit themselves to saying that if a certain character be found in any fact, another character will co-exist with it or follow it. the usefulness of these laws is proportionate to the extent to which the characters they treat of pervade the world, and to the accuracy with which they are definable. statistical laws form another type, and positively declare something about the world of actuality. although they tell us nothing of the elements of things, either abstract or concrete, they affirm that the resultant of their actions drifts preponderantly in a particular direction. population tends toward cities; the working classes tend to grow discontented; the available energy of the universe is running down--such laws prophesy the real future _en gros_, but they never help us to predict any particular detail of it. spencer's law of evolution is of the statistical variety. it defines what evolution means, and what dissolution means, and asserts that, although both processes are always going on together, there is in the present phase of the world a drift in favor of evolution. in the first edition of "first principles" an evolutive change in anything was described as the passage of it from a state of indefinite incoherent homogeneity to a definite coherent heterogeneity. the existence of a drift in this direction in everything mr. spencer proves, both by a survey of facts, and by deducing it from certain laws of the elementary type, which he severally names "the instability of the homogeneous," "the multiplication of effects," "segregation," and "equilibration." the two former insure the heterogeneity, while "segregation" brings about the definiteness and coherence, and "equilibration" arrests the process, and determines when dissolutive changes shall begin. the whole panorama is resplendent for variety and inclusiveness, and has aroused an admiration for philosophy in minds that never admired philosophy before. like descartes in earlier days, spencer aims at a purely mechanical explanation of nature. the knowable universe is nothing but matter and motion, and its history is nothing but the "redistribution" of these entities. the value of such an explanation for scientific purposes depends altogether on how consistent and exact it is. every "thing" must be interpreted as a "configuration," every "event" as a change of configuration, every predicate ascribed must be of a geometrical sort. measured by these requirements of mechanics spencer's attempt has lamentably failed. his terms are vagueness and ambiguity incarnate, and he seems incapable of keeping the mechanical point of view in mind for five pages consecutively. "definite," for example, is hardly a physical idea at all. every motion and every arrangement of matter is definitely what it is,--a fog or an irregular scrawl, as much so as a billiard ball or a straight line. spencer means by definiteness in a thing any character that makes it arrest our attention, and forces us to distinguish it from other things. the word with him has a human, not a physical connotation. definite things, in his book, finally appear merely as _things that men have made separate names for_, so that there is hardly a pretence of the mechanical view being kept. of course names increase as human history proceeds, so "definiteness" in things must necessarily more and more evolve. "coherent," again. this has the definite mechanical meaning of resisting separation, of sticking together; but spencer plays fast and loose with this meaning. coherence with him sometimes means _permanence in time_, sometimes such _mutual dependence of parts_ as is realized in a widely scattered system of no fixed material configuration; a commercial house, for example, with its "travellers" and ships and cars. an honestly mechanical reader soon rubs his eyes with bewilderment at the orgy of ambiguity to which he is introduced. every term in spencer's fireworks shimmers through a whole spectrum of meanings in order to adapt itself to the successive spheres of evolution to which it must apply. "integration," for instance. a definite coherence is an integration; and examples given of integration are the contraction of the solar nebula, the formation of the earth's crust, the calcification of cartilage, the shortening of the body of crabs, the loss of his tail by man, the mutual dependence of plants and animals, the growth of powerful states, the tendency of human occupations to go to distinct localities, the dropping of terminal inflexions in english grammar, the formation of general concepts by the mind, the use of machinery instead of simple tools, the development of "composition" in the fine arts, etc., etc. it is obvious that no one form of the motion of matter characterizes all these facts. the human ones simply embody the more and more successful pursuit of certain ends. in the second edition of his book, mr. spencer supplemented his first formula by a unifying addition, meant to be strictly mechanical. "evolution," he now said, "is the progressive integration of matter and dissipation of motion," during which both the matter and the motion undergo the previously designated kinds of change. but this makes the formula worse instead of better. the "dissipation of motion" part of it is simple vagueness,--for what particular motion is "dissipated" when a man or state grows more highly evolved? and the integration of matter belongs only to stellar and geologic evolution. neither heightened specific gravity, nor greater massiveness, which are the only conceivable integrations of matter, is a mark of the more evolved vital, mental, or social things. it is obvious that the facts of which spencer here gives so clumsy an account could all have been set down more simply. first there is solar, and then there is geological evolution, processes accurately describable as integrations in the mechanical sense, namely, as decrease in bulk, or growth in hardness. then life appears; and after that neither integration of matter nor dissipation of motion play any part whatever. the result of life, however, is to fill the world more and more with things displaying _organic unity_. by this is meant any arrangement of which one part helps to keep the other parts in existence. some organic unities are material,--a sea-urchin, for example, a department store, a civil service, or an ecclesiastical organization. some are mental, as a "science," a code of laws, or an educational programme. but whether they be material or mental products, organic unities must _accumulate_; for every old one tends to conserve itself, and if successful new ones arise they also "come to stay." the human use of spencer's adjectives "integrated," "definite," "coherent," here no longer shocks one. we are frankly on teleological ground, and metaphor and vagueness are permissible. this tendency of organic unities to accumulate when once they are formed is absolutely all the truth i can distill from spencer's unwieldy account of evolution. it makes a much less gaudy and chromatic picture, but what there is of it is exact. countless other criticisms swarm toward my pen, but i have no heart to express them,--it is too sorry an occupation. a word about spencer's conception of "force," however, insists on being added; for although it is one of his most essential, it is one of his vaguest ideas. over all his special laws of evolution there reigns an absolutely general law, that of the "persistence of force." by this spencer sometimes means the phenomenal law of conservation of energy, sometimes the metaphysical principle that the quantity of existence is unalterable, sometimes the logical principle that nothing can happen without a reason, sometimes the practical postulate that in the absence of any assignable difference you must call a thing the same. this law is one vast vagueness, of which i can give no clear account; but of his special vaguenesses "mental force" and "social force" are good examples. these manifestations of the universal force, he says, are due to vital force, and this latter is due to physical force, both being proportionate to the amount of physical force which is "transformed" into them. but what on earth is "social force"? sometimes he identifies it with "social activity" (showing the latter to be proportionate to the amount of food eaten), sometimes with the work done by human beings and their steam-engines, and shows it to be due ultimately to the sun's heat. it would never occur to a reader of his pages that a social force proper might be anything that acted as a stimulus of social change,--a leader, for example, a discovery, a book, a new idea, or a national insult; and that the greatest of "forces" of this kind need embody no more "physical force" than the smallest. the measure of greatness here is the effect produced on the environment, not a quantity antecedently absorbed from physical nature. mr. spencer himself is a great social force; but he ate no more than an average man, and his body, if cremated, would disengage no more energy. the effects he exerts are of no nature _of releases_,--his words pull triggers in certain kinds of brain. the fundamental distinction in mechanics between forces of push-and-pull and forces of release is one of which mr. spencer, in his earlier years, made no use whatever. only in his sixth edition did he show that it had seriously arrested his attention. in biology, psychology, and sociology the forces concerned are almost exclusively forces of release. spencer's account of social forces is neither good sociology nor good mechanics. his feeble grasp of the conception of force vitiates, in fact, all his work. but the task of a carper is repugnant. the "essays," "biology," "psychology," "sociology," and "ethics" are all better than "first principles," and contain numerous and admirable bits of penetrating work of detail. my impression is that, of the systematic treaties, the "psychology" will rank as the most original. spencer broke new ground here in insisting that, since mind and its environment have evolved together, they must be studied together. he gave to the study of mind in isolation a definitive quietus, and that certainly is a great thing to have achieved. to be sure he overdid the matter, as usual, and left no room for any mental structure at all, except that which passively resulted from the storage of impressions received from the outer world in the order of their frequency by fathers and transmitted to their sons. the belief that whatever is acquired by sires is inherited by sons, and the ignoring of purely inner variations, are weak points; but to have brought in the environment as vital was a master stroke. i may say that spencer's controversy over use-inheritance with weismann, entered into after he was sixty, seems to me in point of quality better than any other part of his work. it is genuine labor over a puzzle, genuine research. spencer's "ethics" is a most vital and original piece of attitude-taking in the world of ideals. his politico-ethical activity in general breathes the purest english spirit liberty, and his attacks on over-administration and criticisms on the inferiority of great centralized systems are worthy to be the textbooks of individualists the world over. i confess that it is with this part of his work, in spite of its hardness and inflexibility of tone, that i personally sympathize most. looking back on mr. spencer as a whole, as this admirably truth-telling "autobiography" reveals him, he is a figure unique for quaint consistency. he never varied from that inimitable blend of small and vast mindedness, of liberality and crabbedness, which was his personal note, and which defies our formulating power. if an abstract logical concept could come to life, its life would be like spencer's,--the same definiteness of exclusion and inclusion, the same bloodlessness of temperament, the same narrowness of intent and vastness of extent, the same power of applying itself to numberless instances. but he was no abstract idea; he was a man vigorously devoted to truth and justice as he saw them, who had deep insights, and who finished, under terrible frustrations from bad health, a piece of work that taken for all in all, is extraordinary. a human life is greater than all its possible appraisers, assessors, and critics. in comparison with the fact of spencer's actual living, such critical characterization of it as i have been at all these pains to produce seems a rather unimportant as well as a decidedly graceless thing. [ ] written upon the publication of herbert spencer's "autobiography." published in the _atlantic monthly_ for july, . vii frederic myers' services to psychology[ ] on this memorial occasion it is from english hearts and tongues belonging, as i never had the privilege of belonging, to the immediate environment of our lamented president, that discourse of him as a man and as a friend must come. it is for those who participated in the endless drudgery of his labors for our society to tell of the high powers he showed there; and it is for those who have something of his burning interest in the problem of our human destiny to estimate his success in throwing a little more light into its dark recesses. to me it has been deemed best to assign a colder task. frederic myers was a psychologist who worked upon lines hardly admitted by the more academic branch of the profession to be legitimate; and as for some years i bore the title of "professor of psychology," the suggestion has been made (and by me gladly welcomed) that i should spend my portion of this hour in defining the exact place and rank which we must accord to him as a cultivator and promoter of the science of the mind. brought up entirely upon literature and history, and interested at first in poetry and religion chiefly; never by nature a philosopher in the technical sense of a man forced to pursue consistency among concepts for the mere love of the logical occupation; not crammed with science at college, or trained to scientific method by any passage through a laboratory, myers had as it were to recreate his personality before he became the wary critic of evidence, the skilful handler of hypothesis, the learned neurologist and omnivorous reader of biological and cosmological matter, with whom in later years we were acquainted. the transformation came about because he needed to be all these things in order to work successfully at the problem that lay near his heart; and the ardor of his will and the richness of his intellect are proved by the success with which he underwent so unusual a transformation. the problem, as you know, was that of seeking evidence for human immortality. his contributions to psychology were incidental to that research, and would probably never have been made had he not entered on it. but they have a value for science entirely independent of the light they shed upon that problem; and it is quite apart from it that i shall venture to consider them. if we look at the history of mental science we are immediately struck by diverse tendencies among its several cultivators, the consequence being a certain opposition of schools and some repugnance among their disciples. apart from the great contrasts between minds that are teleological or biological and minds that are mechanical, between the animists and the associationists in psychology, there is the entirely different contrast between what i will call the classic-academic and the romantic type of imagination. the former has a fondness for clean pure lines and noble simplicity in its constructions. it explains things by as few principles as possible and is intolerant of either nondescript facts or clumsy formulas. the facts must lie in a neat assemblage, and the psychologist must be enabled to cover them and "tuck them in" as safely under his system as a mother tucks her babe in under the down coverlet on a winter night. until quite recently all psychology, whether animistic or associationistic, was written on classic-academic lines. the consequence was that the human mind, as it is figured in this literature, was largely an abstraction. its normal adult traits were recognized. a sort of sun-lit terrace was exhibited on which it took its exercise. but where that terrace stopped, the mind stopped; and there was nothing farther left to tell of in this kind of philosophy but the brain and the other physical facts of nature on the one hand, and the absolute metaphysical ground of the universe on the other. but of late years the terrace has been overrun by romantic improvers, and to pass to their work is like going from classic to gothic architecture, where few outlines are pure and where uncouth forms lurk in the shadows. a mass of mental phenomena are now seen in the shrubbery beyond the parapet. fantastic, ignoble, hardly human, or frankly non-human are some of these new candidates for psychological description. the menagerie and the madhouse, the nursery, the prison, and the hospital, have been made to deliver up their material. the world of mind is shown as something infinitely more complex than was suspected; and whatever beauties it may still possess, it has lost at any rate the beauty of academic neatness. but despite the triumph of romanticism, psychologists as a rule have still some lingering prejudice in favor of the nobler simplicities. moreover, there are social prejudices which scientific men themselves obey. the word "hypnotism" has been trailed about in the newspapers so that even we ourselves rather wince at it, and avoid occasions of its use. "mesmerism," "clairvoyance," "medium,"--_horrescimus referentes_!--and with all these things, infected by their previous mystery-mongering discoverers, even our best friends had rather avoid complicity. for instance, i invite eight of my scientific colleagues severally to come to my house at their own time, and sit with a medium for whom the evidence already published in our "proceedings" had been most noteworthy. although it means at worst the waste of the hour for each, five of them decline the adventure. i then beg the "commission" connected with the chair of a certain learned psychologist in a neighboring university to examine the same medium, whom mr. hodgson and i offer at our own expense to send and leave with them. they also have to be excused from any such entanglement. i advise another psychological friend to look into this medium's case, but he replies that it is useless; for if he should get such results as i report, he would (being suggestible) simply believe himself hallucinated. when i propose as a remedy that he should remain in the background and take notes, whilst his wife has the sitting, he explains that he can never consent to his wife's presence at such performances. this friend of mine writes _ex cathedra_ on the subject of psychical research, declaring (i need hardly add) that there is nothing in it; the chair of the psychologist with the commission was founded by a spiritist, partly with a view to investigate mediums; and one of the five colleagues who declined my invitation is widely quoted as an effective critic of our evidence. so runs the world away! i should not indulge in the personality and triviality of such anecdotes, were it not that they paint the temper of our time, a temper which, thanks to frederic myers more than to any one, will certainly be impossible after this generation. myers was, i think, decidedly exclusive and intolerant by nature. but his keenness for truth carried him into regions where either intellectual or social squeamishness would have been fatal, so he "mortified" his _amour propre_, unclubbed himself completely, and became a model of patience, tact and humility wherever investigation required it. both his example and his body of doctrine will make this temper the only one henceforward scientifically respectable. if you ask me how his doctrine has this effect, i answer: by co-ordinating! for myers' great principle of research was that in order to understand any one species of fact we ought to have all the species of the same general class of fact before us. so he took a lot of scattered phenomena, some of them recognized as reputable, others outlawed from science, or treated as isolated curiosities; he made series of them, filled in the transitions by delicate hypotheses or analogies; and bound them together in a system by his bold inclusive conception of the subliminal self, so that no one can now touch one part of the fabric without finding the rest entangled with it. such vague terms of apperception as psychologists have hitherto been satisfied with using for most of these phenomena, as "fraud," "rot," "rubbish," will no more be possible hereafter than "dirt" is possible as a head of classification in chemistry, or "vermin" in zoology. whatever they are, they are things with a right to definite description and to careful observation. i cannot but account this as a great service rendered to psychology. i expect that myers will ere long distinctly figure in mental science as the radical leader in what i have called the romantic movement. through him for the first time, psychologists are in possession of their full material, and mental phenomena are set down in an adequate inventory. to bring unlike things thus together by forming series of which the intermediary terms connect the extremes, is a procedure much in use by scientific men. it is a first step made towards securing their interest in the romantic facts, that myers should have shown how easily this familiar method can be applied to their study. myers' conception of the extensiveness of the subliminal self quite overturns the classic notion of what the human mind consists in. the supraliminal region, as myers calls it, the classic-academic consciousness, which was once alone considered either by associationists or animists, figures in his theory as only a small segment of the psychic spectrum. it is a special phase of mentality, teleologically evolved for adaptation to our natural environment, and forms only what he calls a "privileged case" of personality. the out-lying subliminal, according to him, represents more fully our central and abiding being. i think the words subliminal and supraliminal unfortunate, but they were probably unavoidable. i think, too, that myers' belief in the ubiquity and great extent of the subliminal will demand a far larger number of facts than sufficed to persuade him, before the next generation of psychologists shall become persuaded. he regards the subliminal as the enveloping mother-consciousness in each of us, from which the consciousness we wot of is precipitated like a crystal. but whether this view get confirmed or get overthrown by future inquiry, the definite way in which myers has thrown it down is a new and specific challenge to inquiry. for half a century now, psychologists have fully admitted the existence of a subliminal mental region, under the name either of unconscious cerebration or of the involuntary life; but they have never definitely taken up the question of the extent of this region, never sought explicitly to map it out. myers definitely attacks this problem, which, after him, it will be impossible to ignore. _what is the precise constitution of the subliminal_--such is the problem which deserves to figure in our science hereafter as the _problem of myers_; and willy-nilly, inquiry must follow on the path which it has opened up. but myers has not only propounded the problem definitely, he has also invented definite methods for its solution. posthypnotic suggestion, crystal-gazing, automatic writing and trance-speech, the willing-game, etc., are now, thanks to him, instruments of research, reagents like litmus paper or the galvanometer, for revealing what would otherwise be hidden. these are so many ways of putting the subliminal on tap. of course without the simultaneous work on hypnotism and hysteria independently begun by others, he could not have pushed his own work so far. but he is so far the only generalizer of the problem and the only user of all the methods; and even though his theory of the extent of the subliminal should have to be subverted in the end, its formulation will, i am sure, figure always as a rather momentous event in the history of our science. any psychologist who should wish to read myers out of the profession--and there are probably still some who would be glad to do so to-day--is committed to a definite alternative. either he must say that we knew all about the subliminal region before myers took it up, or he must say that it is certain that states of super-normal cognition form no part of its content. the first contention would be too absurd. the second one remains more plausible. there are many first hand investigators into the subliminal who, not having themselves met with anything super-normal, would probably not hesitate to call all the reports of it erroneous, and who would limit the subliminal to dissolutive phenomena of consciousness exclusively, to lapsed memories, subconscious sensations, impulses and _phobias_, and the like. messrs. janet and binet, for aught i know, may hold some such position as this. against it myers' thesis would stand sharply out. of the subliminal, he would say, we can give no ultra-simple account: there are discreet regions in it, levels separated by critical points of transition, and no one formula holds true of them all. and any conscientious psychologist ought, it seems to me, to see that, since these multiple modifications of personality are only beginning to be reported and observed with care, it is obvious that a dogmatically negative treatment of them must be premature and that the problem of myers still awaits us as the problem of far the deepest moment for our actual psychology, whether his own tentative solutions of certain parts of it be correct or not. meanwhile, descending to detail, one cannot help admiring the great originality with which myers wove such an extraordinarily detached and discontinuous series of phenomena together. unconscious cerebration, dreams, hypnotism, hysteria, inspirations of genius, the willing-game, planchette, crystal-gazing, hallucinatory voices, apparitions of the dying, medium-trances, demoniacal possession, clairvoyance, thought-transference, even ghosts and other facts more doubtful; these things form a chaos at first sight most discouraging. no wonder that scientists can think of no other principle of unity among them than their common appeal to men's perverse propensity to superstition. yet myers has actually made a system of them, stringing them continuously upon a perfectly legitimate objective hypothesis, verified in some cases and extended to others by analogy. taking the name "automatism" from the phenomenon of automatic writing--i am not sure that he may not himself have been the first so to baptize this latter phenomenon--he made one great simplification at a stroke by treating hallucinations and active impulses under a common head, as _sensory_ and _motor automatisms_. automatism he then conceived broadly as a message of any kind from the subliminal to the supraliminal. and he went a step farther in his hypothetic interpretation, when he insisted on "symbolism" as one of the ways in which one stratum of our personality will often interpret the influences of another. obsessive thoughts and delusions, as well as voices, visions, and impulses, thus fall subject to one mode of treatment. to explain them, we must explore the subliminal; to cure them we must practically influence it. myers' work on automatism led to his brilliant conception, in , of hysteria. he defined it, with good reasons given, as "a disease of the hypnotic stratum." hardly had he done so when the wonderfully ingenious observations of binet, and especially of janet in france, gave to this view the completest of corroborations. these observations have been extended in germany, america, and elsewhere; and although binet and janet worked independently of myers, and did work far more objective, he nevertheless will stand as the original announcer of a theory which, in my opinion, makes an epoch, not only in medical but in psychological science, because it brings in an entirely new conception of our mental possibilities. myers' manner of apprehending the problem of the subliminal shows itself fruitful in every possible direction. while official science practically refuses to attend to subliminal phenomena, the circles which do attend to them treat them with a respect altogether too undiscriminating,--every subliminal deliverance must be an oracle. the result is that there is no basis of intercourse between those who best know the facts and those who are most competent to discuss them. myers immediately establishes a basis by his remark that in so far as they have to use the same organism, with its preformed avenues of expression--what may be very different strata of the subliminal are condemned in advance to manifest themselves in similar ways. this might account for the great generic likeness of so many automatic performances, while their different starting-points behind the threshold might account for certain differences in them. some of them, namely, seem to include elements of super-normal knowledge; others to show a curious subconscious mania for personation and deception; others again to be mere drivel. but myers' conception of various strata or levels in the subliminal sets us to analyzing them all from a new point of view. the word subliminal for him denotes only a region, with possibly the most heterogeneous contents. much of the content is certainly rubbish, matter that myers calls dissolutive, stuff that dreams are made of, fragments of lapsed memory, mechanical effects of habit and ordinary suggestion; some belongs to a middle region where a strange manufacture of inner romances perpetually goes on; finally, some of the content appears superiorly and subtly perceptive. but each has to appeal to us by the same channels and to use organs partly trained to their performance by messages from the other levels. under these conditions what could be more natural to expect than a confusion which myers' suggestion would then have been the first indispensable step towards finally clearing away. once more, then, whatever be the upshot of the patient work required here, myers' resourceful intellect has certainly done a service to psychology. i said a while ago that his intellect was not by nature philosophic in the narrower sense of being that of a logician. in the broader sense of being a man of wide scientific imagination, myers was most eminently a philosopher. he has shown this by his unusually daring grasp of the principle of evolution, and by the wonderful way in which he has worked out suggestions of mental evolution by means of biological analogies. these analogies are, if anything, too profuse and dazzling in his pages; but his conception of mental evolution is more radical than anything yet considered by psychologists as possible. it is absolutely original; and, being so radical, it becomes one of those hypotheses which, once propounded, can never be forgotten, but sooner or later have to be worked out and submitted in every way to criticism and verification. the corner-stone of his conception is the fact that consciousness has no essential unity. it aggregates and dissipates, and what we call normal consciousness,--the "human mind" of classic psychology,--is not even typical, but only one case out of thousands. slight organic alterations, intoxications, and auto-intoxications, give supraliminal forms completely different, and the subliminal region seems to have laws in many respects peculiar. myers thereupon makes the suggestion that the whole system of consciousness studied by the classic psychology is only an extract from a larger total, being a part told-off, as it were, to do service in the adjustments of our physical organism to the world of nature. this extract, aggregated and personified for this particular purpose, has, like all evolving things, a variety of peculiarities. having evolved, it may also dissolve, and in dreams, hysteria, and divers forms of degeneration it seems to do so. this is a retrograde process of separation in a consciousness of which the unity was once effected. but again the consciousness may follow the opposite course and integrate still farther, or evolve by growing into yet untried directions. in veridical automatisms it actually seems to do so. it drops some of its usual modes of increase, its ordinary use of the senses, for example, and lays hold of bits of information which, in ways that we cannot even follow conjecturally, leak into it by way of the subliminal. the ulterior source of a certain part of this information (limited and perverted as it always is by the organism's idiosyncrasies in the way of transmission and expression) myers thought he could reasonably trace to departed human intelligence, or its existing equivalent. i pretend to no opinion on this point, for i have as yet studied the evidence with so little critical care that myers was always surprised at my negligence. i can therefore speak with detachment from this question and, as a mere empirical psychologist, of myers' general evolutionary conception. as such a psychologist i feel sure that the latter is a hypothesis of first-rate philosophic importance. it is based, of course, on his conviction of the extent of the subliminal, and will stand or fall as that is verified or not; but whether it stand or fall, it looks to me like one of those sweeping ideas by which the scientific researches of an entire generation are often moulded. it would not be surprising if it proved such a leading idea in the investigation of the near future; for in one shape or another, the subliminal has come to stay with us, and the only possible course to take henceforth is radically and thoroughly to explore its significance. looking back from frederic myers' vision of vastness in the field of psychological research upon the programme as most academic psychologists frame it, one must confess that its limitation at their hands seems not only implausible, but in truth, a little ridiculous. even with brutes and madmen, even with hysterics and hypnotics admitted as the academic psychologists admit them, the official outlines of the subject are far too neat to stand in the light of analogy with the rest of nature. the ultimates of nature,--her simple elements, it there be such,--may indeed combine in definite proportions and follow classic laws of architecture; but her proximates, in her phenomena as we immediately experience them, nature is everywhere gothic, not classic. she forms a real jungle, where all things are provisional, half-fitted to each other, and untidy. when we add such a complex kind of subliminal region as myers believed in to the official region, we restore the analogy; and, though we may be mistaken in much detail, in a general way, at least, we become plausible. in comparison with myers' way of attacking the question of immortality in particular, the official way is certainly so far from the mark as to be almost preposterous. it assumes that when our ordinary consciousness goes out, the only alternative surviving kind of consciousness that could be possible is abstract mentality, living on spiritual truth, and communicating ideal wisdom--in short, the whole classic platonizing sunday-school conception. failing to get that sort of thing when it listens to reports about mediums, it denies that there can be anything. myers approaches the subject with no such _a priori_ requirement. if he finds any positive indication of "spirits," he records it, whatever it may be, and is willing to fit his conception to the facts, however grotesque the latter may appear, rather than to blot out the facts to suit his conception. but, as was long ago said by our collaborator, mr. canning schiller, in words more effective than any i can write, if any conception should be blotted out by serious lovers of nature, it surely ought to be classic academic sunday-school conception. if anything is unlikely in a world like this, it is that the next adjacent thing to the mere surface-show of our experience should be the realm of eternal essences, of platonic ideas, of crystal battlements, of absolute significance. but whether they be animists or associationists, a supposition something like this is still the assumption of our usual psychologists. it comes from their being for the most part philosophers, in the technical sense, and from their showing the weakness of that profession for logical abstractions. myers was primarily a lover of life and not of abstractions. he loved human life, human persons, and their peculiarities. so he could easily admit the possibility of level beyond level of perfectly concrete experience, all "queer and cactus-like" though it might be, before we touch the absolute, or reach the eternal essences. behind the minute anatomists and the physiologists, with their metallic instruments, there have always stood the out-door naturalists with their eyes and love of concrete nature. the former call the latter superficial, but there is something wrong about your laboratory-biologist who has no sympathy with living animals. in psychology there is a similar distinction. some psychologists are fascinated by the varieties of mind in living action, others by the dissecting out, whether by logical analysis or by brass instruments, of whatever elementary mental processes may be there. myers must decidedly be placed in the former class, though his powerful use of analogy enabled him also to do work after the fashion of the latter. he loved human nature as cuvier and agassiz loved animal nature; in his view, as in their view, the subject formed a vast living picture. whether his name will have in psychology as honorable a place as their names have gained in the sister science, will depend on whether future inquirers shall adopt or reject his theories; and the rapidity with which their decision shapes itself will depend largely on the vigor with which this society continues its labor in his absence. it is at any rate a possibility, and i am disposed to think it a probability, that frederic myers will always be remembered in psychology as the pioneer who staked out a vast tract of mental wilderness and planted the flag of genuine science upon it. he was an enormous collector. he introduced for the first time comparison, classification, and serial order into the peculiar kind of fact which he collected. he was a genius at perceiving analogies; he was fertile in hypotheses; and as far as conditions allowed it in this meteoric region, he relied on verification. such advantages are of no avail, however, if one has struck into a false road from the outset. but should it turn out that frederic myers has really hit the right road by his divining instinct, it is certain that, like the names of others who have been wise, his name will keep an honorable place in scientific history. [ ] written for a meeting of the society for psychical research held after the death of frederic myers and first published in the society's proceedings, part xlii, page ( ). viii final impressions of a psychical researcher[ ] the late professor henry sidgwick was celebrated for the rare mixture of ardor and critical judgment which his character exhibited. the liberal heart which he possessed had to work with an intellect which acted destructively on almost every particular object of belief that was offered to its acceptance. a quarter of a century ago, scandalized by the chaotic state of opinion regarding the phenomena now called by the rather ridiculous name of "psychic"--phenomena, of which the supply reported seems inexhaustible, but which scientifically trained minds mostly refuse to look at--he established, along with professor barrett, frederic myers and edmund gurney, the society for psychical research. these men hoped that if the material were treated rigorously, and, as far as possible experimentally, objective truth would be elicited, and the subject rescued from sentimentalism on the one side and dogmatizing ignorance on the other. like all founders, sidgwick hoped for a certain promptitude of result; and i heard him say, the year before his death, that if anyone had told him at the outset that after twenty years he would be in the same identical state of doubt and balance that he started with, he would have deemed the prophecy incredible. it appeared impossible that that amount of handling evidence should bring so little finality of decision. my own experience has been similar to sidgwick's. for twenty-five years i have been in touch with the literature of psychical research, and have had acquaintance with numerous "researchers." i have also spent a good many hours (though far fewer than i ought to have spent) in witnessing (or trying to witness) phenomena. yet i am theoretically no "further" than i was at the beginning; and i confess that at times i have been tempted to believe that the creator has eternally intended this department of nature to remain _baffling_, to prompt our curiosities and hopes and suspicions all in equal measure, so that, although ghosts and clairvoyances, and raps and messages from spirits, are always seeming to exist and can never be fully explained away, they also can never be susceptible of full corroboration. the peculiarity of the case is just that there are so many sources of possible deception in most of the observations that the whole lot of them _may_ be worthless, and yet that in comparatively few cases can aught more fatal than this vague general possibility of error be pleaded against the record. science meanwhile needs something more than bare possibilities to build upon; so your genuinely scientific inquirer--i don't mean your ignoramus "scientist"--has to remain unsatisfied. it is hard to believe, however, that the creator has really put any big array of phenomena into the world merely to defy and mock our scientific tendencies; so my deeper belief is that we psychical researchers have been too precipitate with our hopes, and that we must expect to mark progress not by quarter-centuries, but by half-centuries or whole centuries. i am strengthened in this belief by my impression that just at this moment a faint but distinct step forward is being taken by competent opinion in these matters. "physical phenomena" (movements of matter without contact, lights, hands and faces "materialized," etc.) have been one of the most baffling regions of the general field (or perhaps one of the least baffling _prima facie_, so certain and great has been the part played by fraud in their production); yet even here the balance of testimony seems slowly to be inclining towards admitting the supernaturalist view. eusapia paladino, the neapolitan medium, has been under observation for twenty years or more. schiaparelli, the astronomer, and lombroso were the first scientific men to be converted by her performances. since then innumerable men of scientific standing have seen her, including many "psychic" experts. every one agrees that she cheats in the most barefaced manner whenever she gets an opportunity. the cambridge experts, with the sidgwicks and richard hodgson at their head, rejected her _in toto_ on that account. yet her credit has steadily risen, and now her last converts are the eminent psychiatrist, morselli, the eminent physiologist, botazzi, and our own psychical researcher, carrington, whose book on "the physical phenomena of spiritualism" (_against_ them rather!) makes his conquest strategically important. if mr. podmore, hitherto the prosecuting attorney of the s. p. r., so far as physical phenomena are concerned becomes converted also, we may indeed sit up and look around us. getting a good health bill from "science," eusapia will then throw retrospective credit on home and stainton moses, florence cook (prof. crookes' medium), and all similar wonder-workers. the balance of _presumptions_ will be changed in favor of genuineness being possible at least in all reports of this particularly crass and low type of supernatural phenomena. not long after darwin's "origin of species" appeared i was studying with that excellent anatomist and man, jeffries wyman, at harvard. he was a convert, yet so far a half-hesitating one, to darwin's views; but i heard him make a remark that applies well to the subject i now write about. when, he said, a theory gets propounded over and over again, coming up afresh after each time orthodox criticism has buried it, and each time seeming solider and harder to abolish, you may be sure that there is truth in it. oken and lamarck and chambers had been triumphantly despatched and buried, but here was darwin making the very same heresy seem only more plausible. how often has "science" killed off all spook philosophy, and laid ghosts and raps and "telepathy" away underground as so much popular delusion. yet never before were these things offered us so voluminously, and never in such authentic-seeming shape or with such good credentials. the tide seems steadily to be rising, in spite of all the expedients of scientific orthodoxy. it is hard not to suspect that here may be something different from a mere chapter in human gullibility. it may be a genuine realm of natural phenomena. _falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus_, once a cheat, always a cheat, such has been the motto of the english psychical researchers in dealing with mediums. i am disposed to think that, as a matter of policy, it has been wise. tactically, it is far better to believe much too little than a little too much; and the exceptional credit attaching to the row of volumes of the s. p. r.'s proceedings, is due to the fixed intention of the editors to proceed very slowly. better a little belief tied fast, better a small investment _salted down_, than a mass of comparative insecurity. but, however wise as a policy the s. p. r.'s maxim may have been, as a test of truth, i believe it to be almost irrelevant. in most things human the accusation of deliberate fraud and falsehood is grossly superficial. man's character is too sophistically mixed for the alternative of "honest or dishonest" to be a sharp one. scientific men themselves will cheat--at public lectures--rather than let experiments obey their well-known tendency towards failure. i have heard of a lecturer on physics, who had taken over the apparatus of the previous incumbent, consulting him about a certain machine intended to show that, however the peripheral parts of it might be agitated, its centre of gravity remained immovable. "it _will_ wobble," he complained. "well," said the predecessor, apologetically, "to tell the truth, whenever _i_ used that machine i found it advisable to _drive a nail_ through the centre of gravity." i once saw a distinguished physiologist, now dead, cheat most shamelessly at a public lecture, at the expense of a poor rabbit, and all for the sake of being able to make a cheap joke about its being an "american rabbit"--for no other, he said, could survive such a wound as he pretended to have given it. to compare small men with great, i have myself cheated shamelessly. in the early days of the sanders theater at harvard, i once had charge of a heart on the physiology of which professor newell martin was giving a popular lecture. this heart, which belonged to a turtle, supported an index-straw which threw a moving shadow, greatly enlarged, upon the screen, while the heart pulsated. when certain nerves were stimulated, the lecturer said, the heart would act in certain ways which he described. but the poor heart was too far gone and, although it stopped duly when the nerve of arrest was excited, that was the final end of its life's tether. presiding over the performance, i was terrified at the fiasco, and found myself suddenly acting like one of those military geniuses who on the field of battle convert disaster into victory. there was no time for deliberation; so, with my forefinger under a part of the straw that cast no shadow, i found myself impulsively and automatically imitating the rhythmical movements which my colleague had prophesied the heart would undergo. i kept the experiment from failing; and not only saved my colleague (and the turtle) from a humiliation that but for my presence of mind would have been their lot, but i established in the audience the true view of the subject. the lecturer was stating this; and the misconduct of one half-dead specimen of heart ought not to destroy the impression of his words. "there is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood," is a maxim which i have heard ascribed to a former venerated president of harvard. the heart's failure would have been misunderstood by the audience and given the lie to the lecturer. it was hard enough to make them understand the subject anyhow; so that even now as i write in cool blood i am tempted to think that i acted quite correctly. i was acting for the _larger_ truth, at any rate, however automatically; and my sense of this was probably what prevented the more pedantic and literal part of my conscience from checking the action of my sympathetic finger. to this day the memory of that critical emergency has made me feel charitable towards all mediums who make phenomena come in one way when they won't come easily in another. on the principles of the s. p. r., my conduct on that one occasion ought to discredit everything i ever do, everything, for example, i may write in this article,--a manifestly unjust conclusion. fraud, conscious or unconscious, seems ubiquitous throughout the range of physical phenomena of spiritism, and false pretence, prevarication and fishing for clues are ubiquitous in the mental manifestations of mediums. if it be not everywhere fraud simulating reality, one is tempted to say, then the reality (if any reality there be) has the bad luck of being fated everywhere to simulate fraud. the suggestion of humbug seldom stops, and mixes itself with the best manifestations. mrs. piper's control, "rector," is a most impressive personage, who discerns in an extraordinary degree his sitter's inner needs, and is capable of giving elevated counsel to fastidious and critical minds. yet in many respects he is an arrant humbug--such he seems to me at least--pretending to a knowledge and power to which he has no title, nonplussed by contradiction, yielding to suggestion, and covering his tracks with plausible excuses. now the non-"researching" mind looks upon such phenomena simply according to their face-pretension and never thinks of asking what they may signify below the surface. since they profess for the most part to be revealers of spirit life, it is either as being absolutely that, or as being absolute frauds, that they are judged. the result is an inconceivably shallow state of public opinion on the subject. one set of persons, emotionally touched at hearing the names of their loved ones given, and consoled by assurances that they are "happy," accept the revelation, and consider spiritualism "beautiful." more hard-headed subjects, disgusted by the revelation's contemptible contents, outraged by the fraud, and prejudiced beforehand against all "spirits," high or low, avert their minds from what they call such "rot" or "bosh" entirely. thus do two opposite sentimentalisms divide opinion between them! a good expression of the "scientific" state of mind occurs in huxley's "life and letters": "i regret," he writes, "that i am unable to accept the invitation of the committee of the dialectical society. . . . i take no interest in the subject. the only case of 'spiritualism' i have ever had the opportunity of examining into for myself was as gross an imposture as ever came under my notice. but supposing these phenomena to be genuine--they do not interest me. if anybody would endow me with the faculty of listening to the chatter of old women and curates in the nearest provincial town, i should decline the privilege, having better things to do. and if the folk in the spiritual world do not talk more wisely and sensibly than their friends report them to do, i put them in the same category. the only good that i can see in the demonstration of the 'truth of spiritualism' is to furnish an additional argument against suicide. better live a crossing-sweeper, than die and be made to talk twaddle by a 'medium' hired at a guinea a _seance_." [ ] obviously the mind of the excellent huxley has here but two whole-souled categories namely revelation or imposture, to apperceive the case by. sentimental reasons bar revelation out, for the messages, he thinks, are not romantic enough for that; fraud exists anyhow; therefore the whole thing is nothing but imposture. the odd point is that so few of those who talk in this way realize that they and the spiritists are using the same major premise and differing only in the minor. the major premise is: "any spirit-revelation must be romantic." the minor of the spiritist is: "this _is_ romantic"; that of the huxley an is: "this is dingy twaddle"--whence their opposite conclusions! meanwhile the first thing that anyone learns who attends seriously to these phenomena is that their causation is far too complex for our feelings about what is or is not romantic enough to be spiritual to throw any light upon it. the causal factors must be carefully distinguished and traced through series, from their simplest to their strongest forms, before we can begin to understand the various resultants in which they issue. myers and gurney began this work, the one by his serial study of the various sorts of "automatism," sensory and motor, the other by his experimental proofs that a split-off consciousness may abide after a post-hypnotic suggestion has been given. here we have subjective factors; but are not transsubjective or objective forces also at work? veridical messages, apparitions, movements without contact, seem _prima facie_ to be such. it was a good stroke on gurney's part to construct a theory of apparitions which brought the subjective and the objective factors into harmonious co-operation. i doubt whether this telepathic theory of gurney's will hold along the whole line of apparitions to which he applied it, but it is unquestionable that some theory of that mixed type is required for the explanation of all mediumistic phenomena; and that when all the psychological factors and elements involved have been told off--and they are many--the question still forces itself upon us: are these all, or are there indications of any residual forces acting on the subject from beyond, or of any "meta-psychic" faculty (to use richet's useful term) exerted by him? this is the problem that requires real expertness, and this is where the simple sentimentalisms of the spiritist and scientist leave us in the lurch completely. "psychics" form indeed a special branch of education, in which experts are only gradually becoming developed. the phenomena are as massive and wide-spread as is anything in nature, and the study of them is as tedious, repellent and undignified. to reject it for its unromantic character is like rejecting bacteriology because _penicillium glaucum_ grows on horse-dung and _bacterium termo_ lives in putrefaction. scientific men have long ago ceased to think of the dignity of the materials they work in. when imposture has been checked off as far as possible, when chance coincidence has been allowed for, when opportunities for normal knowledge on the part of the subject have been noted, and skill in "fishing" and following clues unwittingly furnished by the voice or face of bystanders have been counted in, those who have the fullest acquaintance with the phenomena admit that in good mediums _there is a residuum of knowledge displayed_ that can only be called supernormal: the medium taps some source of information not open to ordinary people. myers used the word "telepathy" to indicate that the sitter's own thoughts or feelings may be thus directly tapped. mrs. sidgwick has suggested that if living minds can be thus tapped telepathically, so possibly may the minds of spirits be similarly tapped--if spirits there be. on this view we should have one distinct theory of the performances of a typical test-medium. they would be all originally due to an odd _tendency to personate_, found in her dream life as it expresses itself in trance. [most of us reveal such a tendency whenever we handle a "ouija-board" or a "planchet," or let ourselves write automatically with a pencil.] the result is a "control," who purports to be speaking; and all the resources of the automatist, including his or her trance-faculty of telepathy are called into play in building this fictitious personage out plausibly. on such a view of the control, the medium's _will to personate_ runs the whole show; and if spirits be involved in it at all, they are passive beings, stray bits of whose memory she is able to seize and use for her purposes, without the spirit being any more aware of it than the sitter is aware of it when his own mind is similarly tapped. this is one possible way of interpreting a certain type of psychical phenomenon. it uses psychological as well as "spiritual" factors, and quite obviously it throws open for us far more questions than it answers, questions about our subconscious constitution and its curious tendency to humbug, about the telepathic faculty, and about the possibility of an existent spirit-world. i do not instance this theory to defend it, but simply to show what complicated hypotheses one is inevitably led to consider, the moment one looks at the facts in their complexity and turns one's back on the _naïve_ alternative of "revelation or imposture," which is as far as either spiritist thought or ordinary scientist thought goes. the phenomena are endlessly complex in their factors, and they are so little understood as yet that off-hand judgments, whether of "spirits" or of "bosh" are the one as silly as the other. when we complicate the subject still farther by considering what connection such things as rappings, apparitions, poltergeists, spirit-photographs, and materializations may have with it, the bosh end of the scale gets heavily loaded, it is true, but your genuine inquirer still is loath to give up. he lets the data collect, and bides his time. he believes that "bosh" is no more an ultimate element in nature, or a really explanatory category in human life than "dirt" is in chemistry. every kind of "bosh" has its own factors and laws; and patient study will bring them definitely to light. the only way to rescue the "pure bosh" view of the matter is one which has sometimes appealed to my own fancy, but which i imagine few readers will seriously adopt. if, namely, one takes the theory of evolution radically, one ought to apply it not only to the rock-strata, the animals and the plants but to the stars, to the chemical elements, and to the laws of nature. there must have been a far-off antiquity, one is then tempted to suppose, when things were really chaotic. little by little, out of all the haphazard possibilities of that time, a few connected things and habits arose, and the rudiments of regular performance began. every variation in the way of law and order added itself to this nucleus, which inevitably grew more considerable as history went on; while the aberrant and inconstant variations, not being similarly preserved, disappeared from being, wandered off as unrelated vagrants, or else remained so imperfectly connected with the part of the world that had grown regular as only to manifest their existence by occasional lawless intrusions, like those which "psychic" phenomena now make into our scientifically organized world. on such a view, these phenomena ought to remain "pure bosh" forever, that is, they ought to be forever intractable to intellectual methods, because they should not yet be organized enough in themselves to follow any laws. wisps and shreds of the original chaos, they would be connected enough with the cosmos to affect its periphery every now and then, as by a momentary whiff or touch or gleam, but not enough ever to be followed up and hunted down and bagged. their relation to the cosmos would be tangential solely. looked at dramatically, most occult phenomena make just this sort of impression. they are inwardly as incoherent as they are outwardly wayward and fitful. if they express anything, it is pure "bosh," pure discontinuity, accident, and disturbance, with no law apparent but to interrupt, and no purpose but to baffle. they seem like stray vestiges of that primordial irrationality, from which all our rationalities have been evolved. to settle dogmatically into this bosh-view would save labor, but it would go against too many intellectual prepossessions to be adopted save as a last resort of despair. your psychical researcher therefore bates no jot of hope, and has faith that when we get our data numerous enough, some sort of rational treatment of them will succeed. when i hear good people say (as they often say, not without show of reason), that dabbling in such phenomena reduces us to a sort of jelly, disintegrates the critical faculties, liquifies the character, and makes of one a _gobe-mouche_ generally, i console myself by thinking of my friends frederic myers and richard hodgson. these men lived exclusively for psychical research, and it converted both to spiritism. hodgson would have been a man among men anywhere; but i doubt whether under any other baptism he would have been that happy, sober and righteous form of energy which his face proclaimed him in his later years, when heart and head alike were wholly satisfied by his occupation. myers' character also grew stronger in every particular for his devotion to the same inquirings. brought up on literature and sentiment, something of a courtier, passionate, disdainful, and impatient naturally, he was made over again from the day when he took up psychical research seriously. he became learned in science, circumspect, democratic in sympathy, endlessly patient, and above all, happy. the fortitude of his last hours touched the heroic, so completely were the atrocious sufferings of his body cast into insignificance by his interest in the cause he lived for. when a man's pursuit gradually makes his face shine and grow handsome, you may be sure it is a worthy one. both hodgson and myers kept growing ever handsomer and stronger-looking. such personal examples will convert no one, and of course they ought not to. nor do i seek at all in this article to convert any one to belief that psychical research is an important branch of science. to do that, i should have to quote evidence; and those for whom the volumes of s. p. r. "proceedings" already published count for nothing would remain in their dogmatic slumber, though one rose from the dead. no, not to convert readers, but simply to _put my own state of mind upon record publicly_ is the purpose of my present writing. some one said to me a short time ago that after my twenty-five years of dabbling in "psychics," it would be rather shameful were i unable to state any definite conclusions whatever as a consequence. i had to agree; so i now proceed to take up the challenge and express such convictions as have been engendered in me by that length of experience, be the same true or false ones. i may be dooming myself to the pit in the eyes of better-judging posterity; i may be raising myself to honor; i am willing to take the risk, for what i shall write is _my_ truth, as i now see it. i began this article by confessing myself baffled. i _am_ baffled, as to spirit-return, and as to many other special problems. i am also constantly baffled as to what to think of this or that particular story, for the sources of error in any one observation are seldom fully knowable. but weak sticks make strong faggots; and when the stories fall into consistent sorts that point each in a definite direction, one gets a sense of being in presence of genuinely natural types of phenomena. as to there being such real natural types of phenomena ignored by orthodox science, i am not baffled at all, for i am fully convinced of it. one cannot get demonstrative proof here. one has to follow one's personal sense, which, of course, is liable to err, of the dramatic probabilities of nature. our critics here obey their sense of dramatic probability as much as we do. take "raps" for example, and the whole business of objects moving without contact. "nature," thinks the scientific man, is not so unutterably silly. the cabinet, the darkness, the tying, suggest a sort of human rat-hole life exclusively and "swindling" is for him the dramatically sufficient explanation. it probably is, in an indefinite majority of instances; yet it is to me dramatically improbable that the swindling should not have accreted round some originally genuine nucleus. if we look at human imposture as a historic phenomenon, we find it always imitative. one swindler imitates a previous swindler, but the first swindler of that kind imitated some one who was honest. you can no more create an absolutely new trick than you can create a new word without any previous basis.--you don't know how to go about it. try, reader, yourself, to invent an unprecedented kind of "physical phenomenon of spiritualism." when _i_ try, i find myself mentally turning over the regular medium-stock, and thinking how i might improve some item. this being the dramatically probable human way, i think differently of the whole type, taken collectively, from the way in which i may think of the single instance. i find myself believing that there is "something in" these never ending reports of physical phenomena, although i have n't yet the least positive notion of the something. it becomes to my mind simply a very worthy problem for investigation. either i or the scientist is of course a fool, with our opposite views of probability here; and i only wish he might feel the liability, as cordially as i do, to pertain to both of us. i fear i look on nature generally with more charitable eyes than his, though perhaps he would pause if he realized as i do, how vast the fraudulency is which inconsistency he must attribute to her. nature is brutal enough, heaven knows; but no one yet has held her non-human side to be _dishonest_, and even in the human sphere deliberate deceit is far rarer than the "classic" intellect, with its few and rigid categories, was ready to acknowledge. there is a hazy penumbra in us all where lying and delusion meet, where passion rules beliefs as well as conduct, and where the term "scoundrel" does not clear up everything to the depths as it did for our forefathers. the first automatic writing i ever saw was forty years ago. i unhesitatingly thought of it as deceit, although it contained vague elements of supernormal knowledge. since then i have come to see in automatic writing one example of a department of human activity as vast as it is enigmatic. every sort of person is liable to it, or to something equivalent to it; and whoever encourages it in himself finds himself personating someone else, either signing what he writes by fictitious name, or, spelling out, by ouija-board or table-tips, messages from the departed. our subconscious region seems, as a rule, to be dominated either by a crazy "will to make-believe," or by some curious external force impelling us to personation. the first difference between the psychical researcher and the inexpert person is that the former realizes the commonness and typicality of the phenomenon here, while the latter, less informed, thinks it so rare as to be unworthy of attention. _i wish to go on record for the commonness_. the next thing i wish to go on record for is _the presence_, in the midst of all the humbug, _of really supernormal knowledge_. by this i mean knowledge that cannot be traced to the ordinary sources of information--the senses namely, of the automatist. in really strong mediums this knowledge seems to be abundant, though it is usually spotty, capricious and unconnected. really strong mediums are rarities; but when one starts with them and works downwards into less brilliant regions of the automatic life, one tends to interpret many slight but odd coincidences with truth as possibly rudimentary forms of this kind of knowledge. what is one to think of this queer chapter in human nature? it is odd enough on any view. if all it means is a preposterous and inferior monkey-like tendency to forge messages, systematically embedded in the soul of all of us, it is weird; and weirder still that it should then own all this supernormal information. if on the other hand the supernormal information be the key to the phenomenon, it ought to be superior; and then how ought we to account for the "wicked partner," and for the undeniable mendacity and inferiority of so much of the performance? we are thrown, for our conclusions, upon our instinctive sense of the dramatic probabilities of nature. my own dramatic sense tends instinctively to picture the situation as an interaction between slumbering faculties in the automatist's mind and a cosmic environment of _other consciousness_ of some sort which is able to work upon them. if there were in the universe a lot of diffuse soul-stuff, unable of itself to get into consistent personal form, or to take permanent possession of an organism, yet always craving to do so, it might get its head into the air, parasitically, so to speak, by profiting by weak spots in the armor of human minds, and slipping in and stirring up there the sleeping tendency to personate. it would induce habits in the subconscious region of the mind it used thus, and would seek above all things to prolong its social opportunities by making itself agreeable and plausible. it would drag stray scraps of truth with it from the wider environment, but would betray its mental inferiority by knowing little how to weave them into any important or significant story. this, i say, is the dramatic view which my mind spontaneously takes, and it has the advantage of falling into line with ancient human traditions. the views of others are just as dramatic, _for the phenomenon is actuated by will of some sort anyhow_, and wills give rise to dramas. the spiritist view, as held by messrs. hyslop and hodgson, sees a "will to communicate," struggling through inconceivable layers of obstruction in the conditions. i have heard hodgson liken the difficulties to those of two persons who on earth should have only dead-drunk servants to use as their messengers. the scientist, for his part, sees a "will to deceive," watching its chance in all of us, and able (possibly?) to use "telepathy" in its service. which kind of will, and how many kinds of will are most inherently probable? who can say with certainty? the only certainty is that the phenomena are enormously complex, especially if one includes in them such intellectual flights of mediumship as swedenborg's, and if one tries in any way to work the physical phenomena in. that is why i personally am as yet neither a convinced believer in parasitic demons, nor a spiritist, nor a scientist, but still remain a psychical researcher waiting for more facts before concluding. out of my experience, such as it is (and it is limited enough) one fixed conclusion dogmatically emerges, and that is this, that we with our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the forest. the maple and the pine may whisper to each other with their leaves, and conanicut and newport hear each other's fog-horns. but the trees also commingle their roots in the darkness underground, and the islands also hang together through the ocean's bottom. just so there is a continuum of cosmic consciousness, against which our individuality builds but accidental fences, and into which our several minds plunge as into a mother-sea or reservoir. our "normal" consciousness is circumscribed for adaptation to our external earthly environment, but the fence is weak in spots, and fitful influences from beyond leak in, showing the otherwise unverifiable common connection. not only psychic research, but metaphysical philosophy, and speculative biology are led in their own ways to look with favor on some such "panpsychic" view of the universe as this. assuming this common reservoir of consciousness to exist, this bank upon which we all draw, and in which so many of earth's memories must in some way be stored, or mediums would not get at them as they do, the question is, what is its own structure? what is its inner topography? this question, first squarely formulated by myers, deserves to be called "myers' problem" by scientific men hereafter. what are the conditions of individuation or insulation in this mother-sea? to what tracts, to what active systems functioning separately in it, do personalities correspond? are individual "spirits" constituted there? how numerous, and of how many hierarchic orders may these then be? how permanent? how transient? and how confluent with one another may they become? what again, are the relations between the cosmic consciousness and matter? are there subtler forms of matter which upon occasion may enter into functional connection with the individuations in the psychic sea, and then, and then only, show themselves?--so that our ordinary human experience, on its material as well as on its mental side, would appear to be only an extract from the larger psycho-physical world? vast, indeed, and difficult is the inquirer's prospect here, and the most significant data for his purpose will probably be just these dingy little mediumistic facts which the huxleyan minds of our time find so unworthy of their attention. but when was not the science of the future stirred to its conquering activities by the little rebellious exceptions to the science of the present? hardly, as yet, has the surface of the facts called "psychic" begun to be scratched for scientific purposes. it is through following these facts, i am persuaded, that the greatest scientific conquests of the coming generation will be achieved. _kühn ist das mühen, herrlich der lohn!_ [ ] published under the title "confidences of a psychical researcher" in the _american magazine_, october, . for a more complete and less popular statement of some theories suggested in this article see the last pages of a "report on mrs. piper's hodgson-control" in _proceedings of the [eng.] society for psychical research_, , ; also printed in _proc. of am. soc. for psychical research_ for the same year. [ ] t. h. huxley, "life and letters," i, . ix on some mental effects of the earthquake[ ] when i departed from harvard for stanford university last december, almost the last good-by i got was that of my old californian friend b: "i hope they'll give you a touch of earthquake while you 're there, so that you may also become acquainted with that californian institution." accordingly, when, lying awake at about half past five on the morning of april in my little "flat" on the campus of stanford, i felt the bed begin to waggle, my first consciousness was one of gleeful recognition of the nature of the movement. "by jove," i said to myself, "here's b'ssold [transcriber's note: 'b's old'?] earthquake, after all!" and then, as it went _crescendo_. "and a jolly good one it is, too!" i said. sitting up involuntarily, and taking a kneeling position, i was thrown down on my face as it went _fortior_ shaking the room exactly as a terrier shakes a rat. then everything that was on anything else slid off to the floor, over went bureau and chiffonier with a crash, as the _fortissimo_ was reached; plaster cracked, an awful roaring noise seemed to fill the outer air, and in an instant all was still again, save the soft babble of human voices from far and near that soon began to make itself heard, as the inhabitants in costumes _negligés_ in various degrees sought the greater safety of the street and yielded to the passionate desire for sympathetic communication. the thing was over, as i understand the lick observatory to have declared, in forty-eight seconds. to me it felt as if about that length of time, although i have heard others say that it seemed to them longer. in my case, sensation and emotion were so strong that little thought, and no reflection or volition, were possible in the short time consumed by the phenomenon. the emotion consisted wholly of glee and admiration; glee at the vividness which such an abstract idea or verbal term as "earthquake" could put on when translated into sensible reality and verified concretely; and admiration at the way in which the frail little wooden house could hold itself together in spite of such a shaking. i felt no trace whatever of fear; it was pure delight and welcome. "_go_ it," i almost cried aloud, "and go it _stronger_!" i ran into my wife's room, and found that she, although awakened from sound sleep, had felt no fear, either. of all the persons whom i later interrogated, very few had felt any fear while the shaking lasted, although many had had a "turn," as they realized their narrow escapes from bookcases or bricks from chimney-breasts falling on their beds and pillows an instant after they had left them. as soon as i could think, i discerned retrospectively certain peculiar ways in which my consciousness had taken in the phenomenon. these ways were quite spontaneous, and, so to speak, inevitable and irresistible. first, i personified the earthquake as a permanent individual entity. it was _the_ earthquake of my friend b's augury, which had been lying low and holding itself back during all the intervening months, in order, on that lustrous april morning, to invade my room, and energize the more intensely and triumphantly. it came, moreover, directly to _me_. it stole in behind my back, and once inside the room, had me all to itself, and could manifest itself convincingly. animus and intent were never more present in any human action, nor did any human activity ever more definitely point back to a living agent as its source and origin. all whom i consulted on the point agreed as to this feature in their experience. "it expressed intention," "it was vicious," "it was bent on destruction," "it wanted to show its power," or what not. to me, it wanted simply to manifest the full meaning of its name. but what was this "it"? to some, apparently, a vague demonic power; to me an individualized being, b's earthquake, namely. one informant interpreted it as the end of the world and the beginning of the final judgment. this was a lady in a san francisco hotel, who did not think of its being an earthquake till after she had got into the street and some one had explained it to her. she told me that the theological interpretation had kept fear from her mind, and made her take the shaking calmly. for "science," when the tensions in the earth's crust reach the breaking-point, and strata fall into an altered equilibrium, earthquake is simply the collective _name_ of all the cracks and shakings and disturbances that happen. they _are_ the earthquake. but for me _the_ earthquake was the _cause_ of the disturbances, and the perception of it as a living agent was irresistible. it had an overpowering dramatic convincingness. i realize now better than ever how inevitable were men's earlier mythologic versions of such catastrophes, and how artificial and against the grain of our spontaneous perceiving are the later habits into which science educates us. it was simply impossible for untutored men to take earthquakes into their minds as anything but supernatural warnings or retributions. a good instance of the way in which the tremendousness of a catastrophe may banish fear was given me by a stanford student. he was in the fourth story of encina hall, an immense stone dormitory building. awakened from sleep, he recognized what the disturbance was, and sprang from the bed, but was thrown off his feet in a moment, while his books and furniture fell round him. then with an awful, sinister, grinding roar, everything gave way, and with chimneys, floor-beams, walls and all, he descended through the three lower stories of the building into the basement. "this is my end, this is my death," he felt; but all the while no trace of fear. the experience was too overwhelming for anything but passive surrender to it. (certain heavy chimneys had fallen in, carrying the whole centre of the building with them.) arrived at the bottom, he found himself with rafters and _débris_ round him, but not pinned in or crushed. he saw daylight, and crept toward it through the obstacles. then, realizing that he was in his nightgown, and feeling no pain anywhere, his first thought was to get back to his room and find some more presentable clothing. the stairways at encina hall are at the ends of the building. he made his way to one of them, and went up the four flights, only to find his room no longer extant. then he noticed pain in his feet, which had been injured, and came down the stairs with difficulty. when he talked with me ten days later he had been in hospital a week, was very thin and pale, and went on crutches, and was dressed in borrowed clothing. so much for stanford, where all our experiences seem to have been very similar. nearly all our chimneys went down, some of them disintegrating from top to bottom; parlor floors were covered with bricks; plaster strewed the floors; furniture was everywhere upset and dislocated; but the wooden dwellings sprang back to their original position, and in house after house not a window stuck or a door scraped at top or bottom. wood architecture was triumphant! everybody was excited, but the excitement at first, at any rate, seemed to be almost joyous. here at last was a _real_ earthquake after so many years of harmless waggle! above all, there was an irresistible desire to talk about it, and exchange experiences. most people slept outdoors for several subsequent nights, partly to be safer in case of recurrence, but also to work off their emotion, and get the full unusualness out of the experience. the vocal babble of early-waking girls and boys from the gardens of the campus, mingling with the birds' songs and the exquisite weather, was for three or four days delightful sunrise phenomenon. now turn to san francisco, thirty-five miles distant, from which an automobile ere long brought us the dire news of a city in ruins, with fires beginning at various points, and the water-supply interrupted. i was fortunate enough to board the only train of cars--a very small one--that got up to the city; fortunate enough also to escape in the evening by the only train that left it. this gave me and my valiant feminine escort some four hours of observation. my business is with "subjective" phenomena exclusively; so i will say nothing of the material ruin that greeted us on every hand--the daily papers and the weekly journals have done full justice to that topic. by midday, when we reached the city, the pall of smoke was vast and the dynamite detonations had begun, but the troops, the police and the firemen seemed to have established order, dangerous neighborhoods were roped off everywhere and picketed, saloons closed, vehicles impressed, and every one at work who _could_ work. it was indeed a strange sight to see an entire population in the streets, busy as ants in an uncovered ant-hill scurrying to save their eggs and larvae. every horse, and everything on wheels in the city, from hucksters' wagons to automobiles, was being loaded with what effects could be scraped together from houses which the advancing flames were threatening. the sidewalks were covered with well-dressed men and women, carrying baskets, bundles, valises, or dragging trunks to spots of greater temporary safety, soon to be dragged farther, as the fire kept spreading! in the safer quarters, every doorstep was covered with the dwelling's tenants, sitting surrounded with their more indispensable chattels, and ready to flee at a minute's notice. i think every one must have fasted on that day, for i saw no one eating. there was no appearance of general dismay, and little of chatter or of inco-ordinated excitement. every one seemed doggedly bent on achieving the job which he had set himself to perform; and the faces, although somewhat tense and set and grave, were inexpressive of emotion. i noticed only three persons overcome, two italian women, very poor, embracing an aged fellow countrywoman, and all weeping. physical fatigue and seriousness were the only inner states that one could read on countenances. with lights forbidden in the houses, and the streets lighted only by the conflagration, it was apprehended that the criminals of san francisco would hold high carnival on the ensuing night. but whether they feared the disciplinary methods of the united states troops, who were visible everywhere, or whether they were themselves solemnized by the immensity of the disaster, they lay low and did not "manifest," either then or subsequently. the only very discreditable thing to human nature that occurred was later, when hundreds of lazy "bummers" found that they could keep camping in the parks, and make alimentary storage-batteries of their stomachs, even in some cases getting enough of the free rations in their huts or tents to last them well into the summer. this charm of pauperized vagabondage seems all along to have been satan's most serious bait to human nature. there was theft from the outset, but confined, i believe, to petty pilfering. cash in hand was the only money, and millionaires and their families were no better off in this respect than any one. whoever got a vehicle could have the use of it; but the richest often went without, and spent the first two nights on rugs on the bare ground, with nothing but what their own arms had rescued. fortunately, those nights were dry and comparatively warm, and californians are accustomed to camping conditions in the summer, so suffering from exposure was less great than it would have been elsewhere. by the fourth night, which was rainy, tents and huts had brought most campers under cover. i went through the city again eight days later. the fire was out, and about a quarter of the area stood unconsumed. intact skyscrapers dominated the smoking level majestically and superbly--they and a few walls that had survived the overthrow. thus has the courage of our architects and builders received triumphant vindication! the inert elements of the population had mostly got away, and those that remained seemed what mr. h. g. wells calls "efficients." sheds were already going up as temporary starting-points of business. every one looked cheerful, in spite of the awful discontinuity of past and future, with every familiar association with material things dissevered; and the discipline and order were practically perfect. as these notes of mine must be short, i had better turn to my more generalized reflections. two things in retrospect strike me especially, and are the most emphatic of all my impressions. both are reassuring as to human nature. the first of these was the rapidity of the improvisation of order out of chaos. it is clear that just as in every thousand human beings there will be statistically so many artists, so many athletes, so many thinkers, and so many potentially good soldiers, so there will be so many potential organizers in times of emergency. in point of fact, not only in the great city, but in the outlying towns, these natural ordermakers, whether amateurs or officials, came to the front immediately. there seemed to be no possibility which there was not some one there to think of, or which within twenty-four hours was not in some way provided for. a good illustration is this: mr. keith is the great landscape-painter of the pacific slope, and his pictures, which are many, are artistically and pecuniarily precious. two citizens, lovers of his work, early in the day diverted their attention from all other interests, their own private ones included, and made it their duty to visit every place which they knew to contain a keith painting. they cut them from their frames, rolled them up, and in this way got all the more important ones into a place of safety. when they then sought mr. keith, to convey the joyous news to him, they found him still in his studio, which was remote from the fire, beginning a new painting. having given up his previous work for lost, he had resolved to lose no time in making what amends he could for the disaster. the completeness of organization at palo alto, a town of ten thousand inhabitants close to stanford university, was almost comical. people feared exodus on a large scale of the rowdy elements of san francisco. in point of tact, very few refugees came to palo alto. but within twenty-four hours, rations, clothing, hospital, quarantine, disinfection, washing, police, military, quarters in camp and in houses, printed information, employment, all were provided for under the care of so many volunteer committees. much of this readiness was american, much of it californian; but i believe that every country in a similar crisis would have displayed it in a way to astonish the spectators. like soldiering, it lies always latent in human nature. the second thing that struck me was the universal equanimity. we soon got letters from the east, ringing with anxiety and pathos; but i now know fully what i have always believed, that the pathetic way of feeling great disasters belongs rather to the point of view of people at a distance than to the immediate victims. i heard not a single really pathetic or sentimental word in california expressed by any one. the terms "awful," "dreadful" fell often enough from people's lips, but always with a sort of abstract meaning, and with a face that seemed to admire the vastness of the catastrophe as much as it bewailed its cuttingness. when talk was not directly practical, i might almost say that it expressed (at any rate in the nine days i was there) a tendency more toward nervous excitement than toward grief. the hearts concealed private bitterness enough, no doubt, but the tongues disdained to dwell on the misfortunes of self, when almost everybody one spoke to had suffered equally. surely the cutting edge of all our usual misfortunes comes from their character of loneliness. we lose our health, our wife or children die, our house burns down, or our money is made way with, and the world goes on rejoicing, leaving us on one side and counting us out from all its business. in california every one, to some degree, was suffering, and one's private miseries were merged in the vast general sum of privation and in the all-absorbing practical problem of general recuperation. the cheerfulness, or, at any rate, the steadfastness of tone, was universal. not a single whine or plaintive word did i hear from the hundred losers whom i spoke to. instead of that there was a temper of helpfulness beyond the counting. it is easy to glorify this as something characteristically american, or especially californian. californian education has, of course, made the thought of all possible recuperations easy. in an exhausted country, with no marginal resources, the outlook on the future would be much darker. but i like to think that what i write of is a normal and universal trait of human nature. in our drawing-rooms and offices we wonder how people ever do go through battles, sieges and shipwrecks. we quiver and sicken in imagination, and think those heroes superhuman. physical pain whether suffered alone or in company, is always more or less unnerving and intolerable. but mental pathos and anguish, i fancy, are usually effects of distance. at the place of action, where all are concerned together, healthy animal insensibility and heartiness take their place. at san francisco the need will continue to be awful, and there will doubtless be a crop of nervous wrecks before the weeks and months are over, but meanwhile the commonest men, simply because they _are_ men, will go on, singly and collectively, showing this admirable fortitude of temper. [ ] at the time of the san francisco earthquake the author was at leland stanford university nearby. he succeeded in getting into san francisco on the morning of the earthquake, and spent the remainder of the day in the city. these observations appeared in the _youth's companion_ for june , . x the energies of men[ ] everyone knows what it is to start a piece of work, either intellectual or muscular, feeling stale--or _oold_, as an adirondack guide once put it to me. and everybody knows what it is to "warm up" to his job. the process of warming up gets particularly striking in the phenomenon known as "second wind." on usual occasions we make a practice of stopping an occupation as soon as we meet the first effective layer (so to call it) of fatigue. we have then walked, played, or worked "enough," so we desist. that amount of fatigue is an efficacious obstruction on this side of which our usual life is cast. but if an unusual necessity forces us to press onward a surprising thing occurs. the fatigue gets worse up to a certain critical point, when gradually or suddenly it passes away, and we are fresher than before. we have evidently tapped a level of new energy, masked until then by the fatigue-obstacle usually obeyed. there may be layer after layer of this experience. a third and a fourth "wind" may supervene. mental activity shows the phenomenon as well as physical, and in exceptional cases we may find, beyond the very extremity of fatigue-distress, amounts of ease and power that we never dreamed ourselves to own,--sources of strength habitually not taxed at all, because habitually we never push through the obstruction, never pass those early critical points. for many years i have mused on the phenomenon of second wind, trying to find a physiological theory. it is evident that our organism has stored-up reserves of energy that are ordinarily not called upon, but that may be called upon: deeper and deeper strata of combustible or explosible material, discontinuously arranged, but ready for use by anyone who probes so deep, and repairing themselves by rest as well as do the superficial strata. most of us continue living unnecessarily near our surface. our energy-budget is like our nutritive budget. physiologists say that a man is in "nutritive equilibrium" when day after day he neither gains nor loses weight. but the odd thing is that this condition may obtain on astonishingly different amounts of food. take a man in nutritive equilibrium, and systematically increase or lessen his rations. in the first case he will begin to gain weight, in the second case to lose it. the change will be greatest on the first day, less on the second, less still on the third; and so on, till he has gained all that he will gain, or lost all that he will lose, on that altered diet. he is now in nutritive equilibrium again, but with a new weight; and this neither lessens nor increases because his various combustion-processes have adjusted themselves to the changed dietary. he gets rid, in one way or another, of just as much n, c, h, etc., as he takes in _per diem_. just so one can be in what i might call "efficiency-equilibrium" (neither gaining nor losing power when once the equilibrium is reached) on astonishingly different quantities of work, no matter in what direction the work may be measured. it may be physical work, intellectual work, moral work, or spiritual work. of course there are limits: the trees don't grow into the sky. but the plain fact remains that men the world over possess amounts of resource which only very exceptional individuals push to their extremes of use. but the very same individual, pushing his energies to their extreme, may in a vast number of cases keep the pace up day after day, and find no "reaction" of a bad sort, so long as decent hygienic conditions are preserved. his more active rate of energizing does not wreck him; for the organism adapts itself, and as the rate of waste augments, augments correspondingly the rate of repair. i say the _rate_ and not the _time_ of repair. the busiest man needs no more hours of rest than the idler. some years ago professor patrick, of the iowa state university, kept three young men awake for four days and nights. when his observations on them were finished, the subjects were permitted to sleep themselves out. all awoke from this sleep completely refreshed, but the one who took longest to restore himself from his long vigil only slept one-third more time than was regular with him. if my reader will put together these two conceptions, first, that few men live at their maximum of energy, and second, that anyone may be in vital equilibrium at very different rates of energizing, he will find, i think, that a very pretty practical problem of national economy, as well as of individual ethics, opens upon his view. in rough terms, we may say that a man who energizes below his normal maximum fails by just so much to profit by his chance at life; and that a nation filled with such men is inferior to a nation run at higher pressure. the problem is, then, how can men be trained up to their most useful pitch of energy? and how can nations make such training most accessible to all their sons and daughters. this, after all, is only the general problem of education, formulated in slightly different terms. "rough" terms, i said just now, because the words "energy" and "maximum" may easily suggest only _quantity_ to the reader's mind, whereas in measuring the human energies of which i speak, qualities as well as quantities have to be taken into account. everyone feels that his total _power_ rises when he passes to a higher _qualitative_ level of life. writing is higher than walking, thinking is higher than writing, deciding higher than thinking, deciding "no" higher than deciding "yes"--at least the man who passes from one of these activities to another will usually say that each later one involves a greater element of _inner work_ than the earlier ones, even though the total heat given out or the foot-pounds expended by the organism, may be less. just how to conceive this inner work physiologically is as yet impossible, but psychologically we all know what the word means. we need a particular spur or effort to start us upon inner work; it tires us to sustain it; and when long sustained, we know how easily we lapse. when i speak of "energizing," and its rates and levels and sources, i mean therefore our inner as well as our outer work. let no one think, then, that our problem of individual and national economy is solely that of the maximum of pounds raisable against gravity, the maximum of locomotion, or of agitation of any sort, that human beings can accomplish. that might signify little more than hurrying and jumping about in inco-ordinated ways; whereas inner work, though it so often reinforces outer work, quite as often means its arrest. to relax, to say to ourselves (with the "new thoughters") "peace! be still!" is sometimes a great achievement of inner work. when i speak of human energizing in general, the reader must therefore understand that sum-total of activities, some outer and some inner, some muscular, some emotional, some moral, some spiritual, of whose waxing and waning in himself he is at all times so well aware. how to keep it at an appreciable maximum? how not to let the level lapse? that is the great problem. but the work of men and women is of innumerable kinds, each kind being, as we say, carried on by a particular faculty; so the great problem splits into two sub-problems, thus: ( ). what are the limits of human faculty in various directions? ( ). by what diversity of means, in the differing types of human beings, may the faculties be stimulated to their best results? read in one way, these two questions sound both trivial and familiar: there is a sense in which we have all asked them ever since we were born. yet _as a methodical programme of scientific inquiry_, i doubt whether they have ever been seriously taken up. if answered fully; almost the whole of mental science and of the science of conduct would find a place under them. i propose, in what follows, to press them on the reader's attention in an informal way. the first point to agree upon in this enterprise is that _as a rule men habitually use only a small part of the powers which they actually possess and which they might use under appropriate conditions_. every one is familiar with the phenomenon of feeling more or less alive on different days. every one knows on any given day that there are energies slumbering in him which the incitements of that day do not call forth, but which he might display if these were greater. most of us feel as if a sort of cloud weighed upon us, keeping us below our highest notch of clearness in discernment, sureness in reasoning, or firmness in deciding. compared with what we ought to be, we are only half awake. our fires are damped, our drafts are checked. we are making use of only a small part of our possible mental and physical resources. in some persons this sense of being cut off from their rightful resources is extreme, and we then get the formidable neurasthenic and psychasthenic conditions with life grown into one tissue of impossibilities, that so many medical books describe. stating the thing broadly, the human individual thus lives usually far within his limits; he possesses powers of various sorts which he habitually fails to use. he energizes below his _maximum_, and he behaves below his _optimum_. in elementary faculty, in co-ordination, in power of _inhibition_ and control, in every conceivable way, his life is contracted like the field of vision of an hysteric subject--but with less excuse, for the poor hysteric is diseased, while in the rest of us it is only an inveterate _habit_--the habit of inferiority to our full self--that is bad. admit so much, then, and admit also that the charge of being inferior to their full self is far truer of some men than of others; then the practical question ensues: _to what do the better men owe their escape? and, in the fluctuations which all men feel in their own degree of energizing, to what are the improvements due, when they occur_? in general terms the answer is plain: either some unusual stimulus fills them with emotional excitement, or some unusual idea of necessity induces them to make an extra effort of will. _excitements, ideas, and efforts_, in a word, are what carry us over the dam. in those "hyperesthetic" conditions which chronic invalidism so often brings in its train, the dam has changed its normal place. the slightest functional exercise gives a distress which the patient yields to and stops. in such cases of "habit-neurosis" a new range of power often comes in consequence of the "bullying-treatment," of efforts which the doctor obliges the patient, much against his will, to make. first comes the very extremity of distress, then follows unexpected relief. there seems no doubt that _we are each and all of us to some extent victims of habit-neurosis_. we have to admit the wider potential range and the habitually narrow actual use. we live subject to arrest by degrees of fatigue which we have come only from habit to obey. most of us may learn to push the barrier farther off, and to live in perfect comfort on much higher levels of power. country people and city people, as a class, illustrate this difference. the rapid rate of life, the number of decisions in an hour, the many things to keep account of, in a busy city man's or woman's life, seem monstrous to a country brother. he does n't see how we live at all. a day in new york or chicago fills him with terror. the danger and noise make it appear like a permanent earthquake. but _settle_ him there, and in a year or two he will have caught the pulse-beat. he will vibrate to the city's rhythms; and if he only succeeds in his avocation, whatever that may be, he will find a joy in all the hurry and the tension, he will keep the pace as well as any of us, and get as much out of himself in any week as he ever did in ten weeks in the country. the stimuli of those who successfully spend and undergo the transformation here, are duty, the example of others, and crowd-pressure and contagion. the transformation, moreover, is a chronic one: the new level of energy becomes permanent. the duties of new offices of trust are constantly producing this effect on the human beings appointed to them. the physiologists call a stimulus "dynamogenic" when it increases the muscular contractions of men to whom it is applied; but appeals can be dynamogenic morally as well as muscularly. we are witnessing here in america to-day the dynamogenic effect of a very exalted political office upon the energies of an individual who had already manifested a healthy amount of energy before the office came. humbler examples show perhaps still better what chronic effects duty's appeal may produce in chosen individuals. john stuart mill somewhere says that women excel men in the power of keeping up sustained moral excitement. every case of illness nursed by wife or mother is a proof of this; and where can one find greater examples of sustained endurance than in those thousands of poor homes, where the woman successfully holds the family together and keeps it going by taking all the thought and doing all the work--nursing, teaching, cooking, washing, sewing, scrubbing, saving, helping neighbors, "choring" outside--where does the catalogue end? if she does a bit of scolding now and then who can blame her? but often she does just the reverse; keeping the children clean and the man good tempered, and soothing and smoothing the whole neighborhood into finer shape. eighty years ago a certain montyon left to the académie française a sum of money to be given in small prizes, to the best examples of "virtue" of the year. the academy's committees, with great good sense, have shown a partiality to virtues simple and chronic, rather than to her spasmodic and dramatic flights; and the exemplary housewives reported on have been wonderful and admirable enough. in paul bourget's report for this year we find numerous cases, of which this is a type; jeanne chaix, eldest of six children; mother insane, father chronically ill. jeanne, with no money but her wages at a pasteboard-box factory, directs the household, brings up the children, and successfully maintains the family of eight, which thus subsists, morally as well as materially, by the sole force of her valiant will. in some of these french cases charity to outsiders is added to the inner family burden; or helpless relatives, young or old, are adopted, as if the strength were inexhaustible and ample for every appeal. details are too long to quote here; but human nature, responding to the call of duty, appears nowhere sublimer than in the person of these humble heroines of family life. turning from more chronic to acuter proofs of human nature's reserves of power, we find that the stimuli that carry us over the usually effective dam are most often the classic emotional ones, love, anger, crowd-contagion or despair. despair lames most people, but it wakes others fully up. every siege or shipwreck or polar expedition brings out some hero who keeps the whole company in heart. last year there was a terrible colliery explosion at courrieres in france. two hundred corpses, if i remember rightly, were exhumed. after twenty days of excavation, the rescuers heard a voice. "_me voici_," said the first man unearthed. he proved to be a collier named nemy, who had taken command of thirteen others in the darkness, disciplined them and cheered them, and brought them out alive. hardly any of them could see or speak or walk when brought into the day. five days later, a different type of vital endurance was unexpectedly unburied in the person of one berton who, isolated from any but dead companions, had been able to sleep away most of his time. a new position of responsibility will usually show a man to be a far stronger creature than was supposed. cromwell's and grant's careers are the stock examples of how war will wake a man up. i owe to professor c. e. norton, my colleague, the permission to print part of a private letter from colonel baird-smith written shortly after the six weeks' siege of delhi, in , for the victorious issue of which that excellent officer was chiefly to be thanked. he writes as follows: ". . . my poor wife had some reason to think that war and disease between them had left very little of a husband to take under nursing when she got him again. an attack of camp-scurvy had filled my mouth with sores, shaken every joint in my body, and covered me all over with sores and livid spots, so that i was marvellously unlovely to look upon. a smart knock on the ankle-joint from the splinter of a shell that burst in my face, in itself a mere _bagatelle_ of a wound, had been of necessity neglected under the pressing and incessant calls upon me, and had grown worse and worse till the whole foot below the ankle became a black mass and seemed to threaten mortification. i insisted, however, on being allowed to use it till the place was taken, mortification or no; and though the pain was sometimes horrible i carried my point and kept up to the last. on the day after the assault i had an unlucky fall on some bad ground, and it was an open question for a day or two whether i hadn't broken my arm at the elbow. fortunately it turned out to be only a severe sprain, but i am still conscious of the wrench it gave me. to crown the whole pleasant catalogue, i was worn to a shadow by a constant diarrhoea, and consumed as much opium as would have done credit to my father-in-law [thomas de quincey]. however, thank god, i have a good share of tapleyism in me and come out strong under difficulties. i think i may confidently say that no man ever saw me out of heart, or ever heard one croaking word from me even when our prospects were gloomiest. we were sadly scourged by the cholera, and it was almost appalling to me to find that out of twenty-seven officers present, i could only muster fifteen for the operations of the attack. however, it was done, and after it was done came the collapse. don't be horrified when i tell you that for the whole of the actual siege, and in truth for some little time before, i almost lived on brandy. appetite for food i had none, but i forced myself to eat just sufficient to sustain life, and i had an incessant craving for brandy as the strongest stimulant i could get. strange to say, i was quite unconscious of its affecting me in the slightest degree. _the excitement of the work was so great that no lesser one seemed to have any chance against it, and i certainly never found my intellect clearer or my nerves stronger in my life_. it was only my wretched body that was weak, and the moment the real work was done by our becoming complete masters of delhi, i broke down without delay and discovered that if i wished to live i must continue no longer the system that had kept me up until the crisis was passed. with it passed away as if in a moment all desire to stimulate, and a perfect loathing of my late staff of life took possession of me." such experiences show how profound is the alteration in the manner in which, under excitement, our organism will sometimes perform its physiological work. the processes of repair become different when the reserves have to be used, and for weeks and months the deeper use may go on. morbid cases, here as elsewhere, lay the normal machinery bare. in the first number of dr. morton prince's _journal of abnormal psychology_, dr. janet has discussed five cases of morbid impulse, with an explanation that is precious for my present point of view. one is a girl who eats, eats, eats, all day. another walks, walks, walks, and gets her food from an automobile that escorts her. another is a dipsomaniac. a fourth pulls out her hair. a fifth wounds her flesh and burns her skin. hitherto such freaks of impulse have received greek names (as bulimia, dromomania, etc.) and been scientifically disposed of as "episodic syndromata of hereditary degeneration." but it turns out that janet's cases are all what he calls psychasthenics, or victims of a chronic sense of weakness, torpor, lethargy, fatigue, insufficiency, impossibility, unreality and powerlessness of will; and that in each and all of them the particular activity pursued, deleterious though it be, has the temporary result of raising the sense of vitality and making the patient feel alive again. these things reanimate: they would reanimate us, but it happens that in each patient the particular freak-activity chosen is the only thing that does reanimate; and therein lies the morbid state. the way to treat such persons is to discover to them more usual and useful ways of throwing their stores of vital energy into gear. colonel baird-smith, needing to draw on altogether extraordinary stores of energy, found that brandy and opium were ways of throwing them into gear. such cases are humanly typical. we are all to some degree oppressed, unfree. we don't come to our own. it is there, but we don't get at it. the threshold must be made to shift. then many of us find that an eccentric activity--a "spree," say--relieves. there is no doubt that to some men sprees and excesses of almost any kind are medicinal, temporarily at any rate, in spite of what the moralists and doctors say. but when the normal tasks and stimulations of life don't put a man's deeper levels of energy on tap, and he requires distinctly deleterious excitements, his constitution verges on the abnormal. the normal opener of deeper and deeper levels of energy is the will. the difficulty is to use it, to make the effort which the word volition implies. but if we do make it (or if a god, though he were only the god chance, makes it through us), it will act dynamogenically on us for a month. it is notorious that a single successful effort of moral volition, such as saying "no" to some habitual temptation, or performing some courageous act, will launch a man on a higher level of energy for days and weeks, will give him a new range of power. "in the act of uncorking the whiskey bottle which i had brought home to get drunk upon," said a man to me, "i suddenly found myself running out into the garden, where i smashed it on the ground. i felt so happy and uplifted after this act, that for two months i was n't tempted to touch a drop." the emotions and excitements due to usual situations are the usual inciters of the will. but these act discontinuously; and in the intervals the shallower levels of life tend to close in and shut us off. accordingly the best practical knowers of the human soul have invented the thing known as methodical ascetic discipline to keep the deeper levels constantly in reach. beginning with easy tasks, passing to harder ones, and exercising day by day, it is, i believe, admitted that disciples of asceticism can reach very high levels of freedom and power of will. ignatius loyola's spiritual exercises must have produced this result in innumerable devotees. but the most venerable ascetic system, and the one whose results have the most voluminous experimental corroboration is undoubtedly the yoga system in hindustan. from time immemorial, by hatha yoga, raja yoga, karma yoga, or whatever code of practice it might be, hindu aspirants to perfection have trained themselves, month in and out, for years. the result claimed, and certainly in many cases accorded by impartial judges, is strength of character, personal power, unshakability of soul. in an article in the _philosophical review_,[ ] from which i am largely copying here, i have quoted at great length the experience with "hatha yoga" of a very gifted european friend of mine who, by persistently carrying out for several months its methods of fasting from food and sleep, its exercises in breathing and thought-concentration, and its fantastic posture-gymnastics, seems to have succeeded in waking up deeper and deeper levels of will and moral and intellectual power in himself, and to have escaped from a decidedly menacing brain-condition of the "circular" type, from which he had suffered for years. judging by my friend's letters, of which the last i have is written fourteen months after the yoga training began, there can be no doubt of his relative regeneration. he has undergone material trials with indifference, travelled third-class on mediterranean steamers, and fourth-class on african trains, living with the poorest arabs and sharing their unaccustomed food, all with equanimity. his devotion to certain interests has been put to heavy strain, and nothing is more remarkable to me than the changed moral tone with which he reports the situation. a profound modification has unquestionably occurred in the running of his mental machinery. the gearing has changed, and his will is available otherwise than it was. my friend is a man of very peculiar temperament. few of us would have had the will to start upon the yoga training, which, once started, seemed to conjure the further willpower needed out of itself. and not all of those who could launch themselves would have reached the same results. the hindus themselves admit that in some men the results may come without call or bell. my friend writes to me: "you are quite right in thinking that religious crises, love-crises, indignation-crises may awaken in a very short time powers similar to those reached by years of patient yoga-practice." probably most medical men would treat this individual's case as one of what it is fashionable now to call by the name of "self-suggestion," or "expectant attention"--as if those phrases were explanatory, or meant more than the fact that certain men can be influenced, while others cannot be influenced, by certain sorts of _ideas_. this leads me to say a word about ideas considered as dynamogenic agents, or stimuli for unlocking what would otherwise be unused reservoirs of individual power. one thing that ideas do is to contradict other ideas and keep us from believing them. an idea that thus negates a first idea may itself in turn be negated by a third idea, and the first idea may thus regain its natural influence over our belief and determine our behavior. our philosophic and religious development proceeds thus by credulities, negations, and the negating of negations. but whether for arousing or for stopping belief, ideas may fail to be efficacious, just as a wire, at one time alive with electricity, may at another time be dead. here our insight into causes fails us, and we can only note results in general terms. in general, whether a given idea shall be a live idea depends more on the person into whose mind it is injected than on the idea itself. which is the suggestive idea for this person, and which for that one? mr. fletcher's disciples regenerate themselves by the idea (and the fact) that they are chewing, and re-chewing, and super-chewing their food. dr. dewey's pupils regenerate themselves by going without their breakfast--a fact, but also an ascetic idea. not every one can use _these_ ideas with the same success. but apart from such individually varying susceptibilities, there are common lines along which men simply as men tend to be inflammable by ideas. as certain objects naturally awaken love, anger, or cupidity, so certain ideas naturally awaken the energies of loyalty, courage, endurance, or devotion. when these ideas are effective in an individual's life, their effect is often very great indeed. they may transfigure it, unlocking innumerable powers which, but for the idea, would never have come into play. "fatherland," "the flag," "the union," "holy church," "the monroe doctrine," "truth," "science," "liberty," garibaldi's phrase, "rome or death," etc., are so many examples of energy-releasing ideas. the social nature of such phrases is an essential factor of their dynamic power. they are forces of detent in situations in which no other force produces equivalent effects, and each is a force of detent only in a specific group of men. the memory that an oath or vow has been made will nerve one to abstinences and efforts otherwise impossible; witness the "pledge" in the history of the temperance movement. a mere promise to his sweetheart will clean up a youth's life all over--at any rate for time. for such effects an educated susceptibility is required. the idea of one's "honor," for example, unlocks energy only in those of us who have had the education of a "gentleman," so called. that delightful being, prince pueckler-muskau, writes to his wife from england that he has invented "a sort of artificial resolution respecting things that are difficult of performance. my device," he continues, "is this: _i give my word of honor most solemnly to myself_ to do or to leave undone this or that. i am of course extremely cautious in the use of this expedient, but when once the word is given, even though i afterwards think i have been precipitate or mistaken, i hold it to be perfectly irrevocable, whatever inconveniences i foresee likely to result. if i were capable of breaking my word after such mature consideration, i should lose all respect for myself,--and what man of sense would not prefer death to such an alternative? . . . when the mysterious formula is pronounced, no alteration in my own view, nothing short of physical impossibilities, must, for the welfare of my soul, alter my will. . . . i find something very satisfactory in the thought that man has the power of framing such props and weapons out of the most trivial materials, indeed out of nothing, merely by the force of his will, which thereby truly deserves the name of omnipotent." [ ] _conversions_, whether they be political, scientific, philosophic, or religious, form another way in which bound energies are let loose. they unify us, and put a stop to ancient mental interferences. the result is freedom, and often a great enlargement of power. a belief that thus settles upon an individual always acts as a challenge to his will. but, for the particular challenge to operate, he must be the right challeng_ee_. in religious conversions we have so fine an adjustment that the idea may be in the mind of the challengee for years before it exerts effects; and why it should do so then is often so far from obvious that the event is taken for a miracle of grace, and not a natural occurrence. whatever it is, it may be a highwater mark of energy, in which "noes," once impossible, are easy, and in which a new range of "yeses" gains the right of way. we are just now witnessing a very copious unlocking of energies by ideas in the persons of those converts to "new thought," "christian science," "metaphysical healing," or other forms of spiritual philosophy, who are so numerous among us to-day. the ideas here are healthy-minded and optimistic; and it is quite obvious that a wave of religious activity, analogous in some respects to the spread of early christianity, buddhism, and mohammedanism, is passing over our american world. the common feature of these optimistic faiths is that they all tend to the suppression of what mr. horace fletcher calls "fearthought." fearthought he defines as the "self-suggestion of inferiority"; so that one may say that these systems all operate by the suggestion of power. and the power, small or great, comes in various shapes to the individual,--power, as he will tell you, not to "mind" things that used to vex him, power to concentrate his mind, good cheer, good temper--in short, to put it mildly, a firmer, more elastic moral tone. the most genuinely saintly person i have ever known is a friend of mine now suffering from cancer of the breast--i hope that she may pardon my citing her here as an example of what ideas can do. her ideas have kept her a practically well woman for months after she should have given up and gone to bed. they have annulled all pain and weakness and given her a cheerful active life, unusually beneficent to others to whom she has afforded help. her doctors, acquiescing in results they could not understand, have had the good sense to let her go her own way. how far the mind-cure movement is destined to extend its influence, or what intellectual modifications it may yet undergo, no one can foretell. it is essentially a religious movement, and to academically nurtured minds its utterances are tasteless and often grotesque enough. it also incurs the natural enmity of medical politicians, and of the whole trades-union wing of that profession. but no unprejudiced observer can fail to recognize its importance as a social phenomenon to-day, and the higher medical minds are already trying to interpret it fairly, and make its power available for their own therapeutic ends. dr. thomas hyslop, of the great west riding asylum in england, said last year to the british medical association that the best sleep-producing agent which his practice had revealed to him, was _prayer_. i say this, he added (i am sorry here that i must quote from memory), purely as a medical man. the exercise of prayer, in those who habitually exert it, must be regarded by us doctors as the most adequate and normal of all the pacifiers of the mind and calmers of the nerves. but in few of us are functions not tied up by the exercise of other functions. relatively few medical men and scientific men, i fancy, can pray. few can carry on any living commerce with "god." yet many of us are well aware of how much freer and abler our lives would be, were such important forms of energizing not sealed up by the critical atmosphere in which we have been reared. there are in every one potential forms of activity that actually are shunted out from use. part of the imperfect vitality under which we labor can thus be easily explained. one part of our mind dams up--even _damns_ up!--the other parts. conscience makes cowards of us all. social conventions prevent us from telling the truth after the fashion of the heroes and heroines of bernard shaw. we all know persons who are models of excellence, but who belong to the extreme philistine type of mind. so deadly is their intellectual respectability that we can't converse about certain subjects at all, can't let our minds play over them, can't even mention them in their presence. i have numbered among my dearest friends persons thus inhibited intellectually, with whom i would gladly have been able to talk freely about certain interests of mine, certain authors, say, as bernard shaw, chesterton, edward carpenter, h. g. wells, but it would n't do, it made them too uncomfortable, they would n't play, i had to be silent. an intellect thus tied down by literality and decorum makes on one the same sort of an impression that an able-bodied man would who should habituate himself to do his work with only one of his fingers, locking up the rest of his organism and leaving it unused. i trust that by this time i have said enough to convince the reader both of the truth and of the importance of my thesis. the two questions, first, that of the possible extent of our powers; and, second, that of the various avenues of approach to them, the various keys for unlocking them in diverse individuals, dominate the whole problem of individual and national education. we need a topography of the limits of human power, similar to the chart which oculists use of the field of human vision. we need also a study of the various types of human being with reference to the different ways in which their energy-reserves may be appealed to and set loose. biographies and individual experiences of every kind may be drawn upon for evidence here.[ ] [ ] this was the title originally given to the presidential address delivered before the american philosophical association at columbia university, december , , and published as there delivered in the _philosophical review_ for january, . the address was later published, after slight alteration, in the _american magazine_ for october, , under the title "the powers of men." the more popular form is here reprinted under the title which the author himself preferred. [ ] "the energies of men." _philosophical review_, vol. xvi, no. , january, . [cf. note on p. .] [ ] "tour in england, ireland, and france," philadelphia, , p. . [ ] "this would be an absolutely concrete study . . . the limits of power must be limits that have been realized in actual persons, and the various ways of unlocking the reserves of power must have been exemplified in individual lives . . . so here is a program of concrete individual psychology . . . it is replete with interesting facts, and points to practical issues superior in importance to anything we know." _from the address as originally delivered before the philosophical association_; see xvi. _philosophical review_, , . xi the moral equivalent of war[ ] the war against war is going to be no holiday excursion or camping party. the military feelings are too deeply grounded to abdicate their place among our ideals until better substitutes are offered than the glory and shame that come to nations as well as to individuals from the ups and downs of politics and the vicissitudes of trade. there is something highly paradoxical in the modern man's relation to war. ask all our millions, north and south, whether they would vote now (were such a thing possible) to have our war for the union expunged from history, and the record of a peaceful transition to the present time substituted for that of its marches and battles, and probably hardly a handful of eccentrics would say yes. those ancestors, those efforts, those memories and legends, are the most ideal part of what we now own together, a sacred spiritual possession worth more than all the blood poured out. yet ask those same people whether they would be willing in cold blood to start another civil war now to gain another similar possession, and not one man or women would vote for the proposition. in modern eyes, precious though wars may be, they must not be waged solely for the sake of the ideal harvest. only when forced upon one, only when an enemy's injustice leaves us no alternative, is a war now thought permissible. it was not thus in ancient times. the earlier men were hunting men, and to hunt a neighboring tribe, kill the males, loot the village and possess the females, was the most profitable, as well as the most exciting, way of living. thus were the more martial tribes selected, and in chiefs and peoples a pure pugnacity and love of glory came to mingle with the more fundamental appetite for plunder. modern war is so expensive that we feel trade to be a better avenue to plunder; but modern man inherits all the innate pugnacity and all the love of glory of his ancestors. showing war's irrationality and horror is of no effect upon him. the horrors make the fascination. war is the _strong_ life; it is life _in extremis_; war-taxes are the only ones men never hesitate to pay, as the budgets of all nations show us. history is a bath of blood. the iliad is one long recital of how diomedes and ajax, sarpedon and hector _killed_. no detail of the wounds they made is spared us, and the greek mind fed upon the story. greek history is a panorama of jingoism and imperialism--war for war's sake, all the citizens being warriors. it is horrible reading, because of the irrationality of it all--save for the purpose of making "history"--and the history is that of the utter ruin of a civilization in intellectual respects perhaps the highest the earth has ever seen. those wars were purely piratical. pride, gold, women, slaves, excitement, were their only motives. in the peloponnesian war for example, the athenians ask the inhabitants of melos (the island where the "venus of milo" was found), hitherto neutral, to own their lordship. the envoys meet, and hold a debate which thucydides gives in full, and which, for sweet reasonableness of form, would have satisfied matthew arnold. "the powerful exact what they can," said the athenians, "and the weak grant what they must." when the meleans say that sooner than be slaves they will appeal to the gods, the athenians reply: "of the gods we believe and of men we know that, by a law of their nature, wherever they can rule they will. this law was not made by us, and we are not the first to have acted upon it; we did but inherit it, and we know that you and all mankind, if you were as strong as we are, would do as we do. so much for the gods; we have told you why we expect to stand as high in their good opinion as you." well, the meleans still refused, and their town was taken. "the athenians," thucydides quietly says, "thereupon put to death all who were of military age and made slaves of the women and children. they then colonized the island, sending thither five hundred settlers of their own." alexander's career was piracy pure and simple, nothing but an orgy of power and plunder, made romantic by the character of the hero. there was no rational principle in it, and the moment he died his generals and governors attacked one another. the cruelty of those times is incredible. when rome finally conquered greece, paulus aemilius, was told by the roman senate to reward his soldiers for their toil by "giving" them the old kingdom of epirus. they sacked seventy cities and carried off a hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants as slaves. how many they killed i know not; but in etolia they killed all the senators, five hundred and fifty in number. brutus was "the noblest roman of them all," but to reanimate his soldiers on the eve of philippi he similarly promises to give them the cities of sparta and thessalonica to ravage, if they win the fight. such was the gory nurse that trained societies to cohesiveness. we inherit the warlike type; and for most of the capacities of heroism that the human race is full of we have to thank this cruel history. dead men tell no tales, and if there were any tribes of other type than this they have left no survivors. our ancestors have bred pugnacity into our bone and marrow, and thousands of years of peace won't breed it out of us. the popular imagination fairly fattens on the thought of wars. let public opinion once reach a certain fighting pitch, and no ruler can withstand it. in the boer war both governments began with bluff but could n't stay there, the military tension was too much for them. in our people had read the word "war" in letters three inches high for three months in every newspaper. the pliant politician mckinley was swept away by their eagerness, and our squalid war with spain became a necessity. at the present day, civilized opinion is a curious mental mixture. the military instincts and ideals are as strong as ever, but are confronted by reflective criticisms which sorely curb their ancient freedom. innumerable writers are showing up the bestial side of military service. pure loot and mastery seem no longer morally avowable motives, and pretexts must be found for attributing them solely to the enemy. england and we, our army and navy authorities repeat without ceasing, arm solely for "peace," germany and japan it is who are bent on loot and glory. "peace" in military mouths to-day is a synonym for "war expected." the word has become a pure provocative, and no government wishing peace sincerely should allow it ever to be printed in a newspaper. every up-to-date dictionary should say that "peace" and "war" mean the same thing, now _in posse_, now _in actu_. it may even reasonably be said that the intensely sharp competitive _preparation_ for war by the nations _is the real war_, permanent, unceasing; and that the battles are only a sort of public verification of the mastery gained during the "peace"-interval. it is plain that on this subject civilized man has developed a sort of double personality. if we take european nations, no legitimate interest of any one of them would seem to justify the tremendous destructions which a war to compass it would necessarily entail. it would seem as though common sense and reason ought to find a way to reach agreement in every conflict of honest interests. i myself think it our bounden duty to believe in such international rationality as possible. but, as things stand, i see how desperately hard it is to bring the peace-party and the war-party together, and i believe that the difficulty is due to certain deficiencies in the program of pacificism which set the militarist imagination strongly, and to a certain extent justifiably, against it. in the whole discussion both sides are on imaginative and sentimental ground. it is but one utopia against another, and everything one says must be abstract and hypothetical. subject to this criticism and caution, i will try to characterize in abstract strokes the opposite imaginative forces, and point out what to my own very fallible mind seems the best utopian hypothesis, the most promising line of conciliation. in my remarks, pacificist though i am, i will refuse to speak of the bestial side of the war-_régime_ (already done justice to by many writers) and consider only the higher aspects of militaristic sentiment. patriotism no one thinks discreditable; nor does any one deny that war is the romance of history. but inordinate ambitions are the soul of every patriotism, and the possibility of violent death the soul of all romance. the militarily patriotic and romantic-minded everywhere, and especially the professional military class, refuse to admit for a moment that war may be a transitory phenomenon in social evolution. the notion of a sheep's paradise like that revolts, they say, our higher imagination. where then would be the steeps of life? if war had ever stopped, we should have to re-invent it, on this view, to redeem life from flat degeneration. reflective apologists for war at the present day all take it religiously. it is a sort of sacrament. its profits are to the vanquished as well as to the victor; and quite apart from any question of profit, it is an absolute good, we are told, for it is human nature at its highest dynamic. its "horrors" are a cheap price to pay for rescue from the only alternative supposed, of a world of clerks and teachers, of co-education and zo-ophily, of "consumer's leagues" and "associated charities," of industrialism unlimited, and feminism unabashed. no scorn, no hardness, no valor any more! fie upon such a cattleyard of a planet! so far as the central essence of this feeling goes, no healthy minded person, it seems to me, can help to some degree partaking of it. militarism is the great preserver of our ideals of hardihood, and human life with no use for hardihood would be contemptible. without risks or prizes for the darer, history would be insipid indeed; and there is a type of military character which every one feels that the race should never cease to breed, for every one is sensitive to its superiority. the duty is incumbent on mankind, of keeping military characters in stock--of keeping them, if not for use, then as ends in themselves and as pure pieces of perfection,--so that roosevelt's weaklings and mollycoddles may not end by making everything else disappear from the face of nature. this natural sort of feeling forms, i think, the innermost soul of army-writings. without any exception known to me, militarist authors take a highly mystical view of their subject, and regard war as a biological or sociological necessity, uncontrolled by ordinary psychological checks and motives. when the time of development is ripe the war must come, reason or no reason, for the justifications pleaded are invariably fictitious. war is, in short, a permanent human _obligation_. general homer lea, in his recent book "the valor of ignorance," plants himself squarely on this ground. readiness for war is for him the essence of nationality, and ability in it the supreme measure of the health of nations. nations, general lea says, are never stationary--they must necessarily expand or shrink, according to their vitality or decrepitude. japan now is culminating; and by the fatal law in question it is impossible that her statesmen should not long since have entered, with extraordinary foresight, upon a vast policy of conquest--the game in which the first moves were her wars with china and russia and her treaty with england, and of which the final objective is the capture of the philippines, the hawaiian islands, alaska, and the whole of our coast west of the sierra passes. this will give japan what her ineluctable vocation as a state absolutely forces her to claim, the possession of the entire pacific ocean; and to oppose these deep designs we americans have, according to our author, nothing but our conceit, our ignorance, our commercialism, our corruption, and our feminism. general lea makes a minute technical comparison of the military strength which we at present could oppose to the strength of japan, and concludes that the islands, alaska, oregon, and southern california, would fall almost without resistance, that san francisco must surrender in a fortnight to a japanese investment, that in three or four months the war would be over, and our republic, unable to regain what it had heedlessly neglected to protect sufficiently, would then "disintegrate," until perhaps some caesar should arise to weld us again into a nation. a dismal forecast indeed! yet not implausible, if the mentality of japan's statesmen be of the caesarian type of which history shows so many examples, and which is all that general lea seems able to imagine. but there is no reason to think that women can no longer be the mothers of napoleonic or alexandrian characters; and if these come in japan and find their opportunity, just such surprises as "the valor of ignorance" paints may lurk in ambush for us. ignorant as we still are of the innermost recesses of japanese mentality, we may be foolhardy to disregard such possibilities. other militarists are more complex and more moral in their considerations. the "philosophie des krieges," by s. r. steinmetz is a good example. war, according to this author, is an ordeal instituted by god, who weighs the nations in its balance. it is the essential form of the state, and the only function in which peoples can employ all their powers at once and convergently. no victory is possible save as the resultant of a totality of virtues, no defeat for which some vice or weakness is not responsible. fidelity, cohesiveness, tenacity, heroism, conscience, education, inventiveness, economy, wealth, physical health and vigor--there is n't a moral or intellectual point of superiority that does n't tell, when god holds his assizes and hurls the peoples upon one another. _die weltgeschichte ist das weltgericht_; and dr. steinmetz does not believe that in the long run chance and luck play any part in apportioning the issues. the virtues that prevail, it must be noted, are virtues anyhow, superiorities that count in peaceful as well as in military competition; but the strain on them, being infinitely intenser in the latter case, makes war infinitely more searching as a trial. no ordeal is comparable to its winnowings. its dread hammer is the welder of men into cohesive states, and nowhere but in such states can human nature adequately develop its capacity. the only alternative is "degeneration." dr. steinmetz is a conscientious thinker, and his book, short as it is, takes much into account. its upshot can, it seems to me, be summed up in simon patten's word, that mankind was nursed in pain and fear, and that the transition to a "pleasure-economy" may be fatal to a being wielding no powers of defence against its disintegrative influences. if we speak of the _fear of emancipation from the fear-régime_, we put the whole situation into a single phrase; fear regarding ourselves now taking the place of the ancient fear of the enemy. turn the fear over as i will in my mind, it all seems to lead back to two unwillingnesses of the imagination, one aesthetic, and the other moral; unwillingness, first to envisage a future in which army-life, with its many elements of charm, shall be forever impossible, and in which the destinies of peoples shall nevermore be decided, quickly, thrillingly, and tragically, by force, but only gradually and insipidly by "evolution"; and, secondly, unwillingness to see the supreme theatre of human strenuousness closed, and the splendid military aptitudes of men doomed to keep always in a state of latency and never show themselves in action. these insistent unwillingnesses, no less than other aesthetic and ethical insistencies, have, it seems to me, to be listened to and respected. one cannot meet them effectively by mere counter-insistency on war's expensiveness and horror. the horror makes the thrill; and when the question is of getting the extremest and supremest out of human nature, talk of expense sounds ignominious. the weakness of so much merely negative criticism is evident--pacificism makes no converts from the military party. the military party denies neither the bestiality nor the horror, nor the expense; it only says that these things tell but half the story. it only says that war is _worth_ them; that, taking human nature as a whole, its wars are its best protection against its weaker and more cowardly self, and that mankind cannot _afford_ to adopt a peace-economy. pacificists ought to enter more deeply into the aesthetical and ethical point of view of their opponents. do that first in any controversy, says j. j. chapman, then _move the point_, and your opponent will follow. so long as anti-militarists propose no substitute for war's disciplinary function, no _moral equivalent_ of war, analogous, as one might say, to the mechanical equivalent of heat, so long they fail to realize the full inwardness of the situation. and as a rule they do fail. the duties, penalties, and sanctions pictured in the utopias they paint are all too weak and tame to touch the military-minded. tolstoi's pacificism is the only exception to this rule, for it is profoundly pessimistic as regards all this world's values, and makes the fear of the lord furnish the moral spur provided elsewhere by the fear of the enemy. but our socialistic peace-advocates all believe absolutely in this world's values; and instead of the fear of the lord and the fear of the enemy, the only fear they reckon with is the fear of poverty if one be lazy. this weakness pervades all the socialistic literature with which i am acquainted. even in lowes dickinson's exquisite dialogue,[ ] high wages and short hours are the only forces invoked for overcoming man's distaste for repulsive kinds of labor. meanwhile men at large still live as they always have lived, under a pain-and-fear economy--for those of us who live in an ease-economy are but an island in the stormy ocean--and the whole atmosphere of present-day utopian literature tastes mawkish and dishwatery to people who still keep a sense for life's more bitter flavors. it suggests, in truth, ubiquitous inferiority. inferiority is always with us, and merciless scorn of it is the keynote of the military temper. "dogs, would you live forever?" shouted frederick the great. "yes," say our utopians, "let us live forever, and raise our level gradually." the best thing about our "inferiors" to-day is that they are as tough as nails, and physically and morally almost as insensitive. utopianism would see them soft and squeamish, while militarism would keep their callousness, but transfigure it into a meritorious characteristic, needed by "the service," and redeemed by that from the suspicion of inferiority. all the qualities of a man acquire dignity when he knows that the service of the collectivity that owns him needs them. if proud of the collectivity, his own pride rises in proportion. no collectivity is like an army for nourishing such pride; but it has to be confessed that the only sentiment which the image of pacific cosmopolitan industrialism is capable of arousing in countless worthy breasts is shame at the idea of belonging to _such_ a collectivity. it is obvious that the united states of america as they exist to-day impress a mind like general lea's as so much human blubber. where is the sharpness and precipitousness, the contempt for life, whether one's own, or another's? where is the savage "yes" and "no," the unconditional duty? where is the conscription? where is the blood-tax? where is anything that one feels honored by belonging to? having said thus much in preparation, i will now confess my own utopia. i devoutly believe in the reign of peace and in the gradual advent of some sort of a socialistic equilibrium. the fatalistic view of the war-function is to me nonsense, for i know that war-making is due to definite motives and subject to prudential checks and reasonable criticisms, just like any other form of enterprise. and when whole nations are the armies, and the science of destruction vies in intellectual refinement with the sciences of production, i see that war becomes absurd and impossible from its own monstrosity. extravagant ambitions will have to be replaced by reasonable claims, and nations must make common cause against them. i see no reason why all this should not apply to yellow as well as to white countries, and i look forward to a future when acts of war shall be formally outlawed as between civilized peoples. all these beliefs of mine put me squarely into the anti-militarist party. but i do not believe that peace either ought to be or will be permanent on this globe, unless the states pacifically organized preserve some of the old elements of army-discipline. a permanently successful peace-economy cannot be a simple pleasure-economy. in the more or less socialistic future towards which mankind seems drifting we must still subject ourselves collectively to those severities which answer to our real position upon this only partly hospitable globe. we must make new energies and hardihoods continue the manliness to which the military mind so faithfully clings. martial virtues must be the enduring cement; intrepidity, contempt of softness, surrender of private interest, obedience to command, must still remain the rock upon which states are built--unless, indeed, we wish for dangerous reactions against commonwealths fit only for contempt, and liable to invite attack whenever a centre of crystallization for military-minded enterprise gets formed anywhere in their neighborhood. the war-party is assuredly right in affirming and reaffirming that the martial virtues, although originally gained by the race through war, are absolute and permanent human goods. patriotic pride and ambition in their military form are, after all, only specifications of a more general competitive passion. they are its first form, but that is no reason for supposing them to be its last form. men now are proud of belonging to a conquering nation, and without a murmur they lay down their persons and their wealth, if by so doing they may fend off subjection. but who can be sure that _other aspects of one's country_ may not, with time and education and suggestion enough, come to be regarded with similarly effective feelings of pride and shame? why should men not some day feel that it is worth a blood-tax to belong to a collectivity superior in _any_ ideal respect? why should they not blush with indignant shame if the community that owns them is vile in any way whatsoever? individuals, daily more numerous, now feel this civic passion. it is only a question of blowing on the spark till the whole population gets incandescent, and on the ruins of the old morals of military honor, a stable system of morals of civic honor builds itself up. what the whole community comes to believe in grasps the individual as in a vise. the war-function has grasped us so far; but constructive interests may some day seem no less imperative, and impose on the individual a hardly lighter burden. let me illustrate my idea more concretely. there is nothing to make one indignant in the mere fact that life is hard, that men should toil and suffer pain. the planetary conditions once for all are such, and we can stand it. but that so many men, by mere accidents of birth and opportunity, should have a life of _nothing else_ but toil and pain and hardness and inferiority imposed upon them, should have no vacation, while others natively no more deserving never get any taste of this campaigning life at all,--_this_ is capable of arousing indignation in reflective minds. it may end by seeming shameful to all of us that some of us have nothing but campaigning, and others nothing but unmanly ease. if now--and this is my idea--there were, instead of military conscription a conscription of the whole youthful population to form for a certain number of years a part of the army enlisted against _nature_, the injustice would tend to be evened out, and numerous other goods to the commonwealth would follow. the military ideals of hardihood and discipline would be wrought into the growing fibre of the people; no one would remain blind as the luxurious classes now are blind, to man's relations to the globe he lives on, and to the permanently sour and hard foundations of his higher life. to coal and iron mines, to freight trains, to fishing fleets in december, to dishwashing, clothes-washing, and window-washing, to road-building and tunnel-making, to foundries and stoke-holes, and to the frames of skyscrapers, would our gilded youths be drafted off, according to their choice, to get the childishness knocked out of them, and to come back into society with healthier sympathies and soberer ideas. they would have paid their blood-tax, done their own part in the immemorial human warfare against nature; they would tread the earth more proudly, the women would value them more highly, they would be better fathers and teachers of the following generation. such a conscription, with the state of public opinion that would have required it, and the many moral fruits it would bear, would preserve in the midst of a pacific civilization the manly virtues which the military party is so afraid of seeing disappear in peace. we should get toughness without callousness, authority with as little criminal cruelty as possible, and painful work done cheerily because the duty is temporary, and threatens not, as now, to degrade the whole remainder of one's life. i spoke of the "moral equivalent" of war. so far, war has been the only force that can discipline a whole community, and until an equivalent discipline is organized, i believe that war must have its way. but i have no serious doubt that the ordinary prides and shames of social man, once developed to a certain intensity, are capable of organizing such a moral equivalent as i have sketched, or some other just as effective for preserving manliness of type. it is but a question of time, of skilful propagandism, and of opinion-making men seizing historic opportunities. the martial type of character can be bred without war. strenuous honor and disinterestedness abound elsewhere. priests and medical men are in a fashion educated to it and we should all feel some degree of it imperative if we were conscious of our work as an obligatory service to the state. we should be owned, as soldiers are by the army, and our pride would rise accordingly. we could be poor, then, without humiliation, as army officers now are. the only thing needed henceforward is to inflame the civic temper as past history has inflamed the military temper. h. g. wells, as usual, sees the centre of the situation. "in many ways," he says, "military organization is the most peaceful of activities. when the contemporary man steps from the street, of clamorous insincere advertisement, push, adulteration, underselling and intermittent employment into the barrack-yard, he steps on to a higher social plane, into an atmosphere of service and cooperation and of infinitely more honorable emulations. here at least men are not flung out of employment to degenerate because there is no immediate work for them to do. they are fed and drilled and trained for better services. here at least a man is supposed to win promotion by self-forgetfulness and not by self-seeking. and beside the feeble and irregular endowment of research by commercialism, its little short-sighted snatches at profit by innovation and scientific economy, see how remarkable is the steady and rapid development of method and appliances in naval and military affairs! nothing is more striking than to compare the progress of civil conveniences which has been left almost entirely to the trader, to the progress in military apparatus during the last few decades. the house-appliances of to-day for example, are little better than they were fifty years ago. a house of to-day is still almost as ill-ventilated, badly heated by wasteful fires, clumsily arranged and furnished as the house of . houses a couple of hundred years old are still satisfactory places of residence, so little have our standards risen. but the rifle or battleship of fifty years ago was beyond all comparison inferior to those we possess; in power, in speed, in convenience alike. no one has a use now for such superannuated things." [ ] wells adds[ ] that he thinks that the conceptions of order and discipline, the tradition of service and devotion, of physical fitness, unstinted exertion, and universal responsibility, which universal military duty is now teaching european nations, will remain a permanent acquisition, when the last ammunition has been used in the fireworks that celebrate the final peace. i believe as he does. it would be simply preposterous if the only force that could work ideals of honor and standards of efficiency into english or american natures should be the fear of being killed by the germans or the japanese. great indeed is fear; but it is not, as our military enthusiasts believe and try to make us believe, the only stimulus known for awakening the higher ranges of men's spiritual energy. the amount of alteration in public opinion which my utopia postulates is vastly less than the difference between the mentality of those black warriors who pursued stanley's party on the congo with their cannibal war-cry of "meat! meat!" and that of the "general-staff" of any civilized nation. history has seen the latter interval bridged over: the former one can be bridged over much more easily. [ ] written for and first published by the association for international conciliation (leaflet no. ) and also published in _mcclure's magazine_, august, , and _the popular science monthly_, october, . [ ] "justice and liberty," n. y., . [ ] "first and last things," , p. . [ ] "first and last things," , p. . xii remarks at the peace banquet[ ] i am only a philosopher, and there is only one thing that a philosopher can be relied on to do, and that is, to contradict other philosophers. in ancient times philosophers defined man as the rational animal; and philosophers since then have always found much more to say about the rational than about the animal part of the definition. but looked at candidly, reason bears about the same proportion to the rest of human nature that we in this hall bear to the rest of america, europe, asia, africa and polynesia. reason is one of the very feeblest of nature's forces, if you take it at only one spot and moment. it is only in the very long run that its effects become perceptible. reason assumes to settle things by weighing them against each other without prejudice, partiality or excitement; but what affairs in the concrete are settled by is, and always will be, just prejudices, partialities, cupidities and excitements. appealing to reason as we do, we are in a sort of forlorn-hope situation, like a small sandbank in the midst of a hungry sea ready to wash it out of existence. but sand-banks grow when the conditions favor; and weak as reason is, it has this unique advantage over its antagonists that its activity never lets up and that it presses always in one direction, while men's prejudices vary, their passions ebb and flow, and their excitements are intermittent. our sand-bank, i absolutely believe, is bound to grow. bit by bit it will get dyked and breakwatered. but sitting as we do in this warm room, with music and lights and smiling faces, it is easy to get too sanguine about our task; and since i am called to speak, i feel as if it might not be out of place to say a word about the strength. our permanent enemy is the rooted bellicosity of human nature. man, biologically considered, and whatever else he may be into the bargain, is the most formidable of all beasts of prey, and, indeed, the only one that preys systematically on his own species. we are once for all adapted to the military status. a millennium of peace would not breed the fighting disposition out of our bone and marrow, and a function so ingrained and vital will never consent to die without resistance, and will always find impassioned apologists and idealizers. not only men born to be soldiers, but non-combatants by trade and nature, historians in their studies, and clergymen in their pulpits, have been war's idealizers. they have talked of war as of god's court of justice. and, indeed, if we think how many things beside the frontiers of states the wars of history have decided, we must feel some respectful awe, in spite of all the horrors. our actual civilization, good and bad alike, has had past wars for its determining condition. great mindedness among the tribes of men has always meant the will to prevail, and all the more, so if prevailing included slaughtering and being slaughtered. rome, paris, england, brandenburg, piedmont,--possibly soon japan,--along with their arms have their traits of character and habits of thought prevail among their conquered neighbors. the blessings we actually enjoy, such as they are, have grown up in the shadow of the wars of antiquity. the various ideals were backed by fighting wills, and when neither would give way, the god of battles had to be the arbiter. a shallow view this, truly; for who can say what might have prevailed if man had ever been a reasoning and not a fighting animal? like dead men, dead causes tell no tales, and the ideals that went under in the past, along with all the tribes that represented them, find to-day no recorder, no explainer, no defender. but apart from theoretic defenders, and apart from every soldierly individual straining at the leash and clamoring for opportunity, war has an omnipotent support in the form of our imagination. man lives _by_ habits indeed, but what he lives _for_ is thrills and excitements. the only relief from habit's tediousness is periodical excitement. from time immemorial wars have been, especially for non-combatants, the supremely thrilling excitement. heavy and dragging at its end, at its outset every war means an explosion of imaginative energy. the dams of routine burst, and boundless prospects open. the remotest spectators share the fascination of that awful struggle now in process on the confines of the world. there is not a man in this room, i suppose, who doesn't buy both an evening and a morning paper, and first of all pounce on the war column. a deadly listlessness would come over most men's imagination of the future if they could seriously be brought to believe that never again in _soecula soeculorum_ would a war trouble human history. in such a stagnant summer afternoon of a world, where would be the zest or interest? this is the constitution of human nature which we have to work against. the plain truth is that people _want_ war. they want it anyhow; for itself, and apart from each and every possible consequence. it is the final bouquet of life's fireworks. the born soldiers want it hot and actual. the non-combatants want it in the background, and always as an open possibility, to feed imagination on and keep excitement going. its clerical and historical defenders fool themselves when they talk as they do about it. what moves them is not the blessings it has won for us, but a vague religious exaltation. war is human nature at its uttermost. we are here to do our uttermost. it is a sacrament. society would rot without the mystical blood-payment. we do ill, i think, therefore, to talk much of universal peace or of a general disarmament. we must go in for preventive medicine, not for radical cure. we must cheat our foe, circumvent him in detail, not try to change his nature. in one respect war is like love, though in no other. both leave us intervals of rest; and in the intervals life goes on perfectly well without them, though the imagination still dallies with their possibility. equally insane when once aroused and under headway, whether they shall be aroused or not depends on accidental circumstances. how are old maids and old bachelors made? not by deliberate vows of celibacy, but by sliding on from year to year with no sufficient matrimonial provocation. so of the nations with their wars. let the general possibility of war be left open, in heaven's name, for the imagination to dally with. let the soldiers dream of killing, as the old maids dream of marrying. but organize in every conceivable way the practical machinery for making each successive chance of war abortive. put peace men in power; educate the editors and statesmen to responsibility. how beautifully did their trained responsibility in england make the venezuela incident abortive! seize every pretext, however small, for arbitration methods, and multiply the precedents; foster rival excitements, and invent new outlets for heroic energy; and from one generation to another the chances are that irritation will grow less acute and states of strain less dangerous among the nations. armies and navies will continue, of course, and fire the minds of populations with their potentialities of greatness. but their officers will find that somehow or other, with no deliberate intention on any one's part, each successive "incident" has managed to evaporate and to lead nowhere, and that the thought of what might have been remains their only consolation. the last weak runnings of the war spirit will be "punitive expeditions." a country that turns its arms only against uncivilized foes is, i think, wrongly taunted as degenerate. of course it has ceased to be heroic in the old grand style. but i verily believe that this is because it now sees something better. it has a conscience. it will still perpetrate peccadillos. but it is afraid, afraid in the good sense, to engage in absolute crimes against civilization. [ ] published in the official report of the universal peace congress, held in boston in , and in the _atlantic monthly_, december, . xiii the social value of the college-bred[ ] of what use is a college training? we who have had it seldom hear the question raised; we might be a little nonplussed to answer it offhand. a certain amount of meditation has brought me to this as the pithiest reply which i myself can give: the best claim that a college education can possibly make on your respect, the best thing it can aspire to accomplish for you, is this: that it should _help you to know a good man when you see him_. this is as true of women's as of men's colleges; but that it is neither a joke nor a one-sided abstraction i shall now endeavor to show. what talk do we commonly hear about the contrast between college education and the education which business or technical or professional schools confer? the college education is called higher because it is supposed to be so general and so disinterested. at the "schools" you get a relatively narrow practical skill, you are told, whereas the "colleges" give you the more liberal culture, the broader outlook, the historical perspective, the philosophic atmosphere, or something which phrases of that sort try to express. you are made into an efficient instrument for doing a definite thing, you hear, at the schools; but, apart from that, you may remain a crude and smoky kind of petroleum, incapable of spreading light. the universities and colleges, on the other hand, although they may leave you less efficient for this or that practical task, suffuse your whole mentality with something more important than skill. they redeem you, make you well-bred; they make "good company" of you mentally. if they find you with a naturally boorish or caddish mind, they cannot leave you so, as a technical school may leave you. this, at least, is pretended; this is what we hear among college-trained people when they compare their education with every other sort. now, exactly how much does this signify? it is certain, to begin with, that the narrowest trade or professional training does something more for a man than to make a skilful practical tool of him--it makes him also a judge of other men's skill. whether his trade be pleading at the bar or surgery or plastering or plumbing, it develops a critical sense in him for that sort of occupation. he understands the difference between second-rate and first-rate work in his whole branch of industry; he gets to know a good job in his own line as soon as he sees it; and getting to know this in his own line, he gets a faint sense of what good work may mean anyhow, that may, if circumstances favor, spread into his judgments elsewhere. sound work, clean work, finished work: feeble work, slack work, sham work--these words express an identical contrast in many different departments of activity. in so far forth, then, even the humblest manual trade may beget in one a certain small degree of power to judge of good work generally. now, what is supposed to be the line of us who have the higher college training? is there any broader line--since our education claims primarily not to be "narrow"--in which we also are made good judges between what is first-rate and what is second-rate only? what is especially taught in the colleges has long been known by the name of the "humanities," and these are often identified with greek and latin. but it is only as literatures, not as languages, that greek and latin have any general humanity-value; so that in a broad sense the humanities mean literature primarily, and in a still broader sense the study of masterpieces in almost any field of human endeavor. literature keeps the primacy; for it not only _consists_ of masterpieces, but is largely _about_ masterpieces, being little more than an appreciative chronicle of human master-strokes, so far as it takes the form of criticism and history. you can give humanistic value to almost anything by teaching it historically. geology, economics, mechanics, are humanities when taught with reference to the successive achievements of the geniuses to which these sciences owe their being. not taught thus literature remains grammar, art a catalogue, history a list of dates, and natural science a sheet of formulas and weights and measures. the sifting of human creations!--nothing less than this is what we ought to mean by the humanities. essentially this means biography; what our colleges should teach is, therefore, biographical history, that not of politics merely, but of anything and everything so far as human efforts and conquests are factors that have played their part. studying in this way, we learn what types of activity have stood the test of time; we acquire standards of the excellent and durable. all our arts and sciences and institutions are but so many quests of perfection on the part of men; and when we see how diverse the types of excellence may be, how various the tests, how flexible the adaptations, we gain a richer sense of what the terms "better" and "worse" may signify in general. our critical sensibilities grow both more acute and less fanatical. we sympathize with men's mistakes even in the act of penetrating them; we feel the pathos of lost causes and misguided epochs even while we applaud what overcame them. such words are vague and such ideas are inadequate, but their meaning is unmistakable. what the colleges--teaching humanities by examples which may be special, but which must be typical and pregnant--should at least try to give us, is a general sense of what, under various disguises, _superiority_ has always signified and may still signify. the feeling for a good human job anywhere, the admiration of the really admirable, the disesteem of what is cheap and trashy and impermanent,--this is what we call the critical sense, the sense for ideal values. it is the better part of what men know as wisdom. some of us are wise in this way naturally and by genius; some of us never become so. but to have spent one's youth at college, in contact with the choice and rare and precious, and yet still to be a blind prig or vulgarian, unable to scent out human excellence or to divine it amid its accidents, to know it only when ticketed and labelled and forced on us by others, this indeed should be accounted the very calamity and shipwreck of a higher education. the sense for human superiority ought, then, to be considered our line, as boring subways is the engineer's line and the surgeon's is appendicitis. our colleges ought to have lit up in us a lasting relish for the better kind of man, a loss of appetite for mediocrities, and a disgust for cheap jacks. we ought to smell, as it were, the difference of quality in men and their proposals when we enter the world of affairs about us. expertness in this might well atone for some of our awkwardness at accounts, for some of our ignorance of dynamos. the best claim we can make for the higher education, the best single phrase in which we can tell what it ought to do for us, is, then, exactly what i said: it should enable us to _know a good man when we see him_. that the phrase is anything but an empty epigram follows from the fact that if you ask in what line it is most important that a democracy like ours should have its sons and daughters skilful, you see that it is this line more than any other. "the people in their wisdom"--this is the kind of wisdom most needed by the people. democracy is on its trial, and no one knows how it will stand the ordeal. abounding about us are pessimistic prophets. fickleness and violence used to be, but are no longer, the vices which they charge to democracy. what its critics now affirm is that its preferences are inveterately for the inferior. so it was in the beginning, they say, and so it will be world without end. vulgarity enthroned and institutionalized, elbowing everything superior from the highway, this, they tell us, is our irremediable destiny; and the picture-papers of the european continent are already drawing uncle sam with the hog instead of the eagle for his heraldic emblem. the privileged aristocracies of the foretime, with all their iniquities, did at least preserve some taste for higher human quality, and honor certain forms of refinement by their enduring traditions. but when democracy is sovereign, its doubters say, nobility will form a sort of invisible church, and sincerity and refinement, stripped of honor, precedence, and favor, will have to vegetate on sufferance in private corners. they will have no general influence. they will be harmless eccentricities. now, who can be absolutely certain that this may not be the career of democracy? nothing future is quite secure; states enough have inwardly rotted; and democracy as a whole may undergo self-poisoning. but, on the other hand, democracy is a kind of religion, and we are bound not to admit its failure. faiths and utopias are the noblest exercise of human reason, and no one with a spark of reason in him will sit down fatalistically before the croaker's picture. the best of us are filled with the contrary vision of a democracy stumbling through every error till its institutions glow with justice and its customs shine with beauty. our better men _shall_ show the way and we _shall_ follow them; so we are brought round again to the mission of the higher education in helping us to know the better kind of man whenever we see him. the notion that a people can run itself and its affairs anonymously is now well known to be the silliest of absurdities. mankind does nothing save through initiatives on the part of inventors, great or small, and imitation by the rest of us--these are the sole factors active in human progress. individuals of genius show the way, and set the patterns, which common people then adopt and follow. _the rivalry of the patterns is the history of the world_. our democratic problem thus is statable in ultra-simple terms: who are the kind of men from whom our majorities shall take their cue? whom shall they treat as rightful leaders? we and our leaders are the _x_ and the _y_ of the equation here; all other historic circumstances, be they economical, political, or intellectual, are only the background of occasion on which the living drama works itself out between us. in this very simple way does the value of our educated class define itself: we more than others should be able to divine the worthier and better leaders. the terms here are monstrously simplified, of course, but such a bird's-eye view lets us immediately take our bearings. in our democracy, where everything else is so shifting, we alumni and alumnae of the colleges are the only permanent presence that corresponds to the aristocracy in older countries. we have continuous traditions, as they have; our motto, too, is _noblesse oblige_; and, unlike them, we stand for ideal interests solely, for we have no corporate selfishness and wield no powers of corruption. we ought to have our own class-consciousness. "_les intellectuels!_" what prouder club-name could there be than this one, used ironically by the party of "redblood," the party of every stupid prejudice and passion, during the anti-dreyfus craze, to satirize the men in france who still retained some critical sense and judgment! critical sense, it has to be confessed, is not an exciting term, hardly a banner to carry in processions. affections for old habit, currents of self-interest, and gales of passion are the forces that keep the human ship moving; and the pressure of the judicious pilot's hand upon the tiller is a relatively insignificant energy. but the affections, passions, and interests are shifting, successive, and distraught; they blow in alternation while the pilot's hand is steadfast. he knows the compass, and, with all the leeways he is obliged to tack toward, he always makes some headway. a small force, if it never lets up, will accumulate effects more considerable than those of much greater forces if these work inconsistently. the ceaseless whisper of the more permanent ideals, the steady tug of truth and justice, give them but time, _must_ warp the world in their direction. this bird's-eye view of the general steering function of the college-bred amid the driftings of democracy ought to help us to a wider vision of what our colleges themselves should aim at. if we are to be the yeast-cake for democracy's dough, if we are to make it rise with culture's preferences, we must see to it that culture spreads broad sails. we must shake the old double reefs out of the canvas into the wind and sunshine, and let in every modern subject, sure that any subject will prove humanistic, if its setting be kept only wide enough. stevenson says somewhere to his reader: "you think you are just making this bargain, but you are really laying down a link in the policy of mankind." well, your technical school should enable you to make your bargain splendidly; but your college should show you just the place of that kind of bargain--a pretty poor place, possibly--in the whole policy of mankind. that is the kind of liberal outlook, of perspective, of atmosphere, which should surround every subject as a college deals with it. we of the colleges must eradicate a curious notion which numbers of good people have about such ancient seats of learning as harvard. to many ignorant outsiders, the name suggests little more than a kind of sterilized conceit and incapacity for being pleased. in edith wyatt's exquisite book of chicago sketches called "every one his own way" there is a couple who stand for culture in the sense of exclusiveness, richard elliot and his feminine counterpart--feeble caricatures of mankind, unable to know any good thing when they see it, incapable of enjoyment unless a printed label gives them leave. possibly this type of culture may exist near cambridge and boston. there may be specimens there, for priggishness is just like painter's colic or any other trade-disease. but every good college makes its students immune against this malady, of which the microbe haunts the neighborhood of printed pages. it does so by its general tone being too hearty for the microbe's life. real culture lives by sympathies and admirations, not by dislikes and disdains; under all misleading wrappings it pounces unerringly upon the human core. if a college, through the inferior human influences that have grown regnant there, fails to catch the robuster tone, its failure is colossal, for its social function stops: democracy gives it a wide berth, turns toward it a deaf ear. "tone," to be sure, is a terribly vague word to use, but there is no other, and this whole meditation is over questions of tone. by their tone are all things human either lost or saved. if democracy is to be saved it must catch the higher, healthier tone. if we are to impress it with our preferences, we ourselves must use the proper tone, which we, in turn, must have caught from our own teachers. it all reverts in the end to the action of innumerable imitative individuals upon each other and to the question of whose tone has the highest spreading power. as a class, we college graduates should look to it that _ours_ has spreading power. it ought to have the highest spreading power. in our essential function of indicating the better men, we now have formidable competitors outside. _mcclure's magazine_, the _american magazine_, _collier's weekly_, and, in its fashion, the _world's work_, constitute together a real popular university along this very line. it would be a pity if any future historian were to have to write words like these: "by the middle of the twentieth century the higher institutions of learning had lost all influence over public opinion in the united states. but the mission of raising the tone of democracy, which they had proved themselves so lamentably unfitted to exert, was assumed with rare enthusiasm and prosecuted with extraordinary skill and success by a new educational power; and for the clarification of their human sympathies and elevation of their human preferences, the people at large acquired the habit of resorting exclusively to the guidance of certain private literary adventures, commonly designated in the market by the affectionate name of ten-cent magazines." must not we of the colleges see to it that no historian shall ever say anything like this? vague as the phrase of knowing a good man when you see him may be, diffuse and indefinite as one must leave its application, is there any other formula that describes so well the result at which our institutions ought to aim? if they do that, they do the best thing conceivable. if they fail to do it, they fail in very deed. it surely is a fine synthetic formula. if our faculties and graduates could once collectively come to realize it as the great underlying purpose toward which they have always been more or less obscurely groping, a great clearness would be shed over many of their problems; and, as for their influence in the midst of our social system, it would embark upon a new career of strength. [ ] address delivered at a meeting of the association of american alumnae at radcliffe college, november , , and first published in _mcclure's magazine_ for february, . xiv the university and the individual i. the ph.d. octopus[ ] some years ago we had at our harvard graduate school a very brilliant student of philosophy, who, after leaving us and supporting himself by literary labor for three years, received an appointment to teach english literature at a sister-institution of learning. the governors of this institution, however, had no sooner communicated the appointment than they made the awful discovery that they had enrolled upon their staff a person who was unprovided with the ph.d. degree. the man in question had been satisfied to work at philosophy for her own sweet (or bitter) sake, and had disdained to consider that an academic bauble should be his reward. his appointment had thus been made under a misunderstanding. he was not the proper man; and there was nothing to do but to inform him of the fact. it was notified to him by his new president that his appointment must be revoked, or that a harvard doctor's degree must forthwith be procured. although it was already the spring of the year, our subject, being a man of spirit, took up the challenge, turned his back upon literature (which in view of his approaching duties might have seemed his more urgent concern) and spent the weeks that were left him, in writing a metaphysical thesis and grinding his psychology, logic and history of philosophy up again, so as to pass our formidable ordeals. when the thesis came to be read by our committee, we could not pass it. brilliancy and originality by themselves won't save a thesis for the doctorate; it must also exhibit a heavy technical apparatus of learning; and this our candidate had neglected to bring to bear. so, telling him that he was temporarily rejected, we advised him to pad out the thesis properly, and return with it next year, at the same time informing his new president that this signified nothing as to his merits, that he was of ultra ph.d. quality, and one of the strongest men with whom we had ever had to deal. to our surprise we were given to understand in reply that the quality _per se_ of the man signified nothing in this connection, and that three magical letters were the thing seriously required. the college had always gloried in a list of faculty members who bore the doctor's title, and to make a gap in the galaxy, and admit a common fox without a tail, would be a degradation impossible to be thought of. we wrote again, pointing out that a ph.d. in philosophy would prove little anyhow as to one's ability to teach literature; we sent separate letters in which we outdid each other in eulogy of our candidate's powers, for indeed they were great; and at last, _mirabile dictu_, our eloquence prevailed. he was allowed to retain his appointment provisionally, on condition that one year later at the farthest his miserably naked name should be prolonged by the sacred appendage the lack of which had given so much trouble to all concerned. accordingly he came up here the following spring with an adequate thesis (known since in print as a most brilliant contribution to metaphysics), passed a first-rate examination, wiped out the stain, and brought his college into proper relations with the world again. whether his teaching, during that first year, of english literature was made any the better by the impending examination in a different subject, is a question which i will not try to solve. i have related this incident at such length because it is so characteristic of american academic conditions at the present day. graduate schools still are something of a novelty, and higher diplomas something of a rarity. the latter, therefore, carry a vague sense of preciousness and honor, and have a particularly "up-to-date" appearance, and it is no wonder if smaller institutions, unable to attract professors already eminent, and forced usually to recruit their faculties from the relatively young, should hope to compensate for the obscurity of the names of their officers of instruction by the abundance of decorative titles by which those names are followed on the pages of the catalogues where they appear. the dazzled reader of the list, the parent or student, says to himself, "this must be a terribly distinguished crowd,--their titles shine like the stars in the firmament; ph.d.'s, s.d.'s, and litt.d.'s, bespangle the page as if they were sprinkled over it from a pepper caster." human nature is once for all so childish that every reality becomes a sham somewhere, and in the minds of presidents and trustees the ph.d. degree is in point of fact already looked upon as a mere advertising resource, a manner of throwing dust in the public's eyes. "no instructor who is not a doctor" has become a maxim in the smaller institutions which represent demand; and in each of the larger ones which represent supply, the same belief in decorated scholarship expresses itself in two antagonistic passions, one for multiplying as much as possible the annual output of doctors, the other for raising the standard of difficulty in passing, so that the ph.d. of the special institution shall carry a higher blaze of distinction than it does elsewhere. thus we at harvard are proud of the number of candidates whom we reject, and of the inability of men who are not _distingués_ in intellect to pass our tests. america is thus as a nation rapidly drifting towards a state of things in which no man of science or letters will be accounted respectable unless some kind of badge or diploma is stamped upon him, and in which bare personality will be a mark of outcast estate. it seems to me high time to rouse ourselves to consciousness, and to cast a critical eye upon this decidedly grotesque tendency. other nations suffer terribly from the mandarin disease. are we doomed to suffer like the rest? our higher degrees were instituted for the laudable purpose of stimulating scholarship, especially in the form of "original research." experience has proved that great as the love of truth may be among men, it can be made still greater by adventitious rewards. the winning of a diploma certifying mastery and marking a barrier successfully passed, acts as a challenge to the ambitious; and if the diploma will help to gain bread-winning positions also, its power as a stimulus to work is tremendously increased. so far, we are on innocent ground; it is well for a country to have research in abundance, and our graduate schools do but apply a normal psychological spur. but the institutionizing on a large scale of any natural combination of need and motive always tends to run into technicality and to develop a tyrannical machine with unforeseen powers of exclusion and corruption. observation of the workings of our harvard system for twenty years past has brought some of these drawbacks home to my consciousness, and i should like to call the attention of my readers to this disadvantageous aspect of the picture, and to make a couple of remedial suggestions, if i may. in the first place, it would seem that to stimulate study, and to increase the _gelehrtes publikum_, the class of highly educated men in our country, is the only positive good, and consequently the sole direct end at which our graduate schools, with their diploma-giving powers, should aim. if other results have developed they should be deemed secondary incidents, and if not desirable in themselves, they should be carefully guarded against. to interfere with the free development of talent, to obstruct the natural play of supply and demand in the teaching profession, to foster academic snobbery by the prestige of certain privileged institutions, to transfer accredited value from essential manhood to an outward badge, to blight hopes and promote invidious sentiments, to divert the attention of aspiring youth from direct dealings with truth to the passing of examinations,--such consequences, if they exist, ought surely to be regarded as drawbacks to the system, and an enlightened public consciousness ought to be keenly alive to the importance of reducing their amount. candidates themselves do seem to be keenly conscious of some of these evils, but outside of their ranks or in the general public no such consciousness, so far as i can see, exists; or if it does exist, it fails to express itself aloud. schools, colleges, and universities, appear enthusiastic over the entire system, just as it stands, and unanimously applaud all its developments. i beg the reader to consider some of the secondary evils which i have enumerated. first of all, is not our growing tendency to appoint no instructors who are not also doctors an instance of pure sham? will any one pretend for a moment that the doctor's degree is a guarantee that its possessor will be successful as a teacher? notoriously his moral, social and personal characteristics may utterly disqualify him for success in the class-room; and of these characteristics his doctor's examination is unable to take any account whatever. certain bare human beings will always be better candidates for a given place than all the doctor-applicants on hand; and to exclude the former by a rigid rule, and in the end to have to sift the latter by private inquiry into their personal peculiarities among those who know them, just as if they were not doctors at all, is to stultify one's own procedure. you may say that at least you guard against ignorance of the subject by considering only the candidates who are doctors; but how then about making doctors in one subject teach a different subject? this happened in the instance by which i introduced this article, and it happens daily and hourly in all our colleges? the truth is that the doctor-monopoly in teaching, which is becoming so rooted an american custom, can show no serious grounds whatsoever for itself in reason. as it actually prevails and grows in vogue among us, it is due to childish motives exclusively. in reality it is but a sham, a bauble, a dodge, whereby to decorate the catalogues of schools and colleges. next, let us turn from the general promotion of a spirit of academic snobbery to the particular damage done to individuals by the system. there are plenty of individuals so well endowed by nature that they pass with ease all the ordeals with which life confronts them. such persons are born for professional success. examinations have no terrors for them, and interfere in no way with their spiritual or worldly interests. there are others, not so gifted who nevertheless rise to the challenge, get a stimulus from the difficulty, and become doctors, not without some baleful nervous wear and tear and retardation of their purely inner life, but on the whole successfully, and with advantage. these two classes form the natural ph.d.'s for whom the degree is legitimately instituted. to be sure, the degree is of no consequence one way or the other for the first sort of man, for in him the personal worth obviously outshines the title. to the second set of persons, however, the doctor ordeal may contribute a touch of energy and solidity of scholarship which otherwise they might have lacked, and were our candidates all drawn from these classes, no oppression would result from the institution. but there is a third class of persons who are genuinely, and in the most pathetic sense, the institution's victims. for this type of character the academic life may become, after a certain point, a virulent poison. men without marked originality or native force, but fond of truth and especially of books and study, ambitious of reward and recognition, poor often, and needing a degree to get a teaching position, weak in the eyes of their examiners,--among these we find the veritable _chair à canon_ of the wars of learning, the unfit in the academic struggle for existence. there are individuals of this sort for whom to pass one degree after another seems the limit of earthly aspiration. your private advice does not discourage them. they will fail, and go away to recuperate, and then present themselves for another ordeal, and sometimes prolong the process into middle life. or else, if they are less heroic morally they will accept the failure as a sentence of doom that they are not fit, and are broken-spirited men thereafter. we of the university faculties are responsible for deliberately creating this new class of american social failures, and heavy is the responsibility. we advertise our "schools" and send out our degree-requirements, knowing well that aspirants of all sorts will be attracted, and at the same time we set a standard which intends to pass no man who has not native intellectual distinction. we know that there is no test, however absurd, by which, if a title or decoration, a public badge or mark, were to be won by it, some weakly suggestible or hauntable persons would not feel challenged, and remain unhappy if they went without it. we dangle our three magic letters before the eyes of these predestined victims, and they swarm to us like moths to an electric light. they come at a time when failure can no longer be repaired easily and when the wounds it leaves are permanent; and we say deliberately that mere work faithfully performed, as they perform it, will not by itself save them, they must in addition put in evidence the one thing they have not got, namely this quality of intellectual distinction. occasionally, out of sheer human pity, we ignore our high and mighty standard and pass them. usually, however, the standard, and not the candidate, commands our fidelity. the result is caprice, majorities of one on the jury, and on the whole a confession that our pretensions about the degree cannot be lived up to consistently. thus, partiality in the favored cases; in the unfavored, blood on our hands; and in both a bad conscience,--are the results of our administration. the more widespread becomes the popular belief that our diplomas are indispensable hall-marks to show the sterling metal of their holders, the more widespread these corruptions will become. we ought to look to the future carefully, for it takes generations for a national custom, once rooted, to be grown away from. all the european countries are seeking to diminish the check upon individual spontaneity which state examinations with their tyrannous growth have brought in their train. we have had to institute state examinations too; and it will perhaps be fortunate if some day hereafter our descendants, comparing machine with machine, do not sigh with regret for old times and american freedom, and wish that the _régime_ of the dear old bosses might be reinstalled, with plain human nature, the glad hand and the marble heart, liking and disliking, and man-to-man relations grown possible again. meanwhile, whatever evolution our state-examinations are destined to undergo, our universities at least should never cease to regard themselves as the jealous custodians of personal and spiritual spontaneity. they are indeed its only organized and recognized custodians in america to-day. they ought to guard against contributing to the increase of officialism and snobbery and insincerity as against a pestilence; they ought to keep truth and disinterested labor always in the foreground, treat degrees as secondary incidents, and in season and out of season make it plain that what they live for is to help men's souls, and not to decorate their persons with diplomas. there seem to be three obvious ways in which the increasing hold of the ph.d. octopus upon american life can be kept in check. the first way lies with the universities. they can lower their fantastic standards (which here at harvard we are so proud of) and give the doctorate as a matter of course, just as they give the bachelor's degree, for a due amount of time spent in patient labor in a special department of learning, whether the man be a brilliantly gifted individual or not. surely native distinction needs no official stamp, and should disdain to ask for one. on the other hand, faithful labor, however commonplace, and years devoted to a subject, always deserve to be acknowledged and requited. the second way lies with both the universities and colleges. let them give up their unspeakably silly ambition to bespangle their lists of officers with these doctorial titles. let them look more to substance and less to vanity and sham. the third way lies with the individual student, and with his personal advisers in the faculties. every man of native power, who might take a higher degree, and refuses to do so, because examinations interfere with the free following out of his more immediate intellectual aims, deserves well of his country, and in a rightly organized community, would not be made to suffer for his independence. with many men the passing of these extraneous tests is a very grievous interference indeed. private letters of recommendation from their instructors, which in any event are ultimately needful, ought, in these cases, completely to offset the lack of the breadwinning degree; and instructors ought to be ready to advise students against it upon occasion, and to pledge themselves to back them later personally, in the market-struggle which they have to face. it is indeed odd to see this love of titles--and such titles--growing up in a country or which the recognition of individuality and bare manhood have so long been supposed to be the very soul. the independence of the state, in which most of our colleges stand, relieves us of those more odious forms of academic politics which continental european countries present. anything like the elaborate university machine of france, with its throttling influences upon individuals is unknown here. the spectacle of the "rath" distinction in its innumerable spheres and grades, with which all germany is crawling to-day, is displeasing to american eyes; and displeasing also in some respects is the institution of knighthood in england, which, aping as it does an aristocratic title, enables one's wife as well as one's self so easily to dazzle the servants at the house of one's friends. but are we americans ourselves destined after all to hunger after similar vanities on an infinitely more contemptible scale? and is individuality with us also going to count for nothing unless stamped and licensed and authenticated by some title-giving machine? let us pray that our ancient national genius may long preserve vitality enough to guard us from a future so unmanly and so unbeautiful! [ ] published in the _harvard monthly_, march, . ii. the true harvard[ ] when a man gets a decoration from a foreign institution, he may take it as an honor. coming as mine has come to-day, i prefer to take it for that far more valuable thing, a token of personal good will from friends. recognizing the good will and the friendliness, i am going to respond to the chairman's call by speaking exactly as i feel. i am not an alumnus of the college. i have not even a degree from the scientific school, in which i did some study forty years ago. i have no right to vote for overseers, and i have never felt until to-day as if i were a child of the house of harvard in the fullest sense. harvard is many things in one--a school, a forcing house for thought, and also a social club; and the club aspect is so strong, the family tie so close and subtle among our bachelors of arts that all of us here who are in my plight, no matter how long we may have lived here, always feel a little like outsiders on commencement day. we have no class to walk with, and we often stay away from the procession. it may be foolish, but it is a fact. i don't believe that my dear friends shaler, hollis, lanman, or royce ever have felt quite as happy or as much at home as my friend barrett wendell feels upon a day like this. i wish to use my present privilege to say a word for these outsiders with whom i belong. many years ago there was one of them from canada here--a man with a high-pitched voice, who could n't fully agree with all the points of my philosophy. at a lecture one day, when i was in the full flood of my eloquence, his voice rose above mine, exclaiming: "but, doctor, doctor! to be serious for a moment . . . ," in so sincere a tone that the whole room burst out laughing. i want you now to be serious for a moment while i say my little say. we are glorifying ourselves to-day, and whenever the name of harvard is emphatically uttered on such days, frantic cheers go up. there are days for affection, when pure sentiment and loyalty come rightly to the fore. but behind our mere animal feeling for old schoolmates and the yard and the bell, and memorial and the clubs and the river and the soldiers' field, there must be something deeper and more rational. there ought at any rate to be some possible ground in reason for one's boiling over with joy that one is a son of harvard, and was not, by some unspeakably horrible accident of birth, predestined to graduate at yale or at cornell. any college can foster club loyalty of that sort. the only rational ground for pre-eminent admiration of any single college would be its pre-eminent spiritual tone. but to be a college man in the mere clubhouse sense--i care not of what college--affords no guarantee of real superiority in spiritual tone. the old notion that book learning can be a panacea for the vices of society lies pretty well shattered to-day. i say this in spite of certain utterances of the president of this university to the teachers last year. that sanguine-hearted man seemed then to think that if the schools would only do their duty better, social vice might cease. but vice will never cease. every level of culture breeds its own peculiar brand of it as surely as one soil breeds sugar-cane, and another soil breeds cranberries. if we were asked that disagreeable question, "what are the bosom-vices of the level of culture which our land and day have reached?" we should be forced, i think, to give the still more disagreeable answer that they are swindling and adroitness, and the indulgence of swindling and adroitness, and cant, and sympathy with cant--natural fruits of that extraordinary idealization of "success" in the mere outward sense of "getting there," and getting there on as big a scale as we can, which characterizes our present generation. what was reason given to man for, some satirist has said, except to enable him to invent reasons for what he wants to do. we might say the same of education. we see college graduates on every side of every public question. some of tammany's stanchest supporters are harvard men. harvard men defend our treatment of our filipino allies as a masterpiece of policy and morals. harvard men, as journalists, pride themselves on producing copy for any side that may enlist them. there is not a public abuse for which some harvard advocate may not be found. in the successful sense, then, in the worldly sense, in the club sense, to be a college man, even a harvard man, affords no sure guarantee for anything but a more educated cleverness in the service of popular idols and vulgar ends. is there no inner harvard within the outer harvard which means definitively more than this--for which the outside men who come here in such numbers, come? they come from the remotest outskirts of our country, without introductions, without school affiliations; special students, scientific students, graduate students, poor students of the college, who make their living as they go. they seldom or never darken the doors of the pudding or the porcellian; they hover in the background on days when the crimson color is most in evidence, but they nevertheless are intoxicated and exultant with the nourishment they find here; and their loyalty is deeper and subtler and more a matter of the inmost soul than the gregarious loyalty of the clubhouse pattern often is. indeed, there is such an inner spiritual harvard; and the men i speak of, and for whom i speak to-day, are its true missionaries and carry its gospel into infidel parts. when they come to harvard, it is not primarily because she is a club. it is because they have heard of her persistently atomistic constitution, of her tolerance of exceptionality and eccentricity, of her devotion to the principles of individual vocation and choice. it is because you cannot make single one-ideaed regiments of her classes. it is because she cherishes so many vital ideals, yet makes a scale of value among them; so that even her apparently incurable second-rateness (or only occasional first-rateness) in intercollegiate athletics comes from her seeing so well that sport is but sport, that victory over yale is not the whole of the law and the prophets, and that a popgun is not the crack of doom. the true church was always the invisible church. the true harvard is the invisible harvard in the souls of her more truth-seeking and independent and often very solitary sons. _thoughts_ are the precious seeds of which our universities should be the botanical gardens. beware when god lets loose a thinker on the world--either carlyle or emerson said that--for all things then have to rearrange themselves. but the thinkers in their youth are almost always very lonely creatures. "alone the great sun rises and alone spring the great streams." the university most worthy of rational admiration is that one in which your lonely thinker can feel himself least lonely, most positively furthered, and most richly fed. on an occasion like this it would be poor taste to draw comparisons between the colleges, and in their mere clubhouse quality they cannot differ widely:--all must be worthy of the loyalties and affections they arouse. but as a nursery for independent and lonely thinkers i do believe that harvard still is in the van. here they find the climate so propitious that they can be happy in their very solitude. the day when harvard shall stamp a single hard and fast type of character upon her children, will be that of her downfall. our undisciplinables are our proudest product. let us agree together in hoping that the output of them will never cease. [ ] speech at the harvard commencement dinner, june , , after receiving an ll.d. degree. printed in the _graduates' magazine_ for september, . iii. stanford's ideal destiny[ ] foreigners, commenting on our civilization, have with great unanimity remarked the privileged position that institutions of learning occupy in america as receivers of benefactions. our typical men of wealth, if they do not found a college, will at least single out some college or university on which to lavish legacies or gifts. all the more so, perhaps, if they are not college-bred men themselves. johns hopkins university, the university of chicago, clark university, are splendid examples of this rule. steadily, year by year, my own university, harvard, receives from one to two and a half millions. there is something almost pathetic in the way in which our successful business men seem to idealize the higher learning and to believe in its efficacy for salvation. never having shared in its blessings, they do their utmost to make the youth of coming generations more fortunate. usually there is little originality of thought in their generous foundations. the donors follow the beaten track. their good will has to be vague, for they lack the inside knowledge. what they usually think of is a new college like all the older colleges; or they give new buildings to a university or help to make it larger, without any definite idea as to the improvement of its inner form. improvements in the character of our institutions always come from the genius of the various presidents and faculties. the donors furnish means of propulsion, the experts within the pale lay out the course and steer the vessel. you all think of the names of eliot, gilman, hall and harper as i utter these words--i mention no name nearer home. this is founders' day here at stanford--the day set apart each year to quicken and reanimate in all of us the consciousness of the deeper significance of this little university to which we permanently or temporarily belong. i am asked to use my voice to contribute to this effect. how can i do so better than by uttering quite simply and directly the impressions that i personally receive? i am one among our innumerable american teachers, reared on the atlantic coast but admitted for this year to be one of the family at stanford. i see things not wholly from without, as the casual visitor does, but partly from within. i am probably a typical observer. as my impressions are, so will be the impressions of others. and those impressions, taken together, will probably be the verdict of history on the institution which leland and jane stanford founded. "where there is no vision, the people perish." mr. and mrs. stanford evidently had a vision of the most prophetic sort. they saw the opportunity for an absolutely unique creation, they seized upon it with the boldness of great minds; and the passionate energy with which mrs. stanford after her husband's death, drove the original plans through in the face of every dismaying obstacle, forms a chapter in the biography of heroism. heroic also the loyalty with which in those dark years the president and faculty made the university's cause, their cause, and shared the uncertainties and privations. and what is the result to-day? to-day the key-note is triumphantly struck. the first step is made beyond recall. the character of the material foundation is assured for all time as something unique and unparalleled. it logically calls for an equally unique and unparalleled spiritual superstructure. certainly the chief impression which the existing university must make on every visitor is of something unique and unparalleled. its attributes are almost too familiar to you to bear recapitulation. the classic scenery of its site, reminding one of greece, greek too in its atmosphere of opalescent fire, as if the hills that close us in were bathed in ether, milk and sunshine; the great city, near enough for convenience, too far ever to become invasive; the climate, so friendly to work that every morning wakes one fresh for new amounts of work; the noble architecture, so generously planned that there room and to spare for every requirement; the democracy of the life, no one superfluously rich, yet all sharing, so far as their higher needs go, in the common endowment--where could a genius devoted to the search for truth, and unworldly as most geniuses are, find on the earth's whole round a place more advantageous to come and work in? _die luft der freiheit weht_! all the traditions are individualistic. red tape and organization are at their minimum. interruptions and perturbing distractions hardly exist. eastern institutions look all dark and huddled and confused in comparison with this purity and serenity. shall it not be auspicious? surely the one destiny to which this happy beginning seems to call stanford is that it should become something intense and original, not necessarily in point of wealth or extent, but in point of spiritual quality. the founders have, as i said, triumphantly struck the keynote, and laid the basis: the quality of what they have already given is unique in character. it rests with the officials of the present and future stanford, it rests with the devotion and sympathetic insight of the growing body of graduates, to prolong the vision where the founders' vision terminated, and to insure that all the succeeding steps, like the first steps, shall single out this university more and more as the university of quality peculiarly. and what makes essential quality in a university? years ago in new england it was said that a log by the roadside with a student sitting on one end of it, and mark hopkins sitting on the other end, was a university. it is the quality of its men that makes the quality of a university. you may have your buildings, you may create your committees and boards and regulations, you may pile up your machinery of discipline and perfect your methods of instruction, you may spend money till no one can approach you; yet you will add nothing but one more trivial specimen to the common herd of american colleges, unless you send into all this organization some breath of life, by inoculating it with a few men, at least, who are real geniuses. and if you once have the geniuses, you can easily dispense with most of the organization. like a contagious disease, almost, spiritual life passes from man to man by contact. education in the long run is an affair that works itself out between the individual student and his opportunities. methods of which we talk so much, play but a minor part. offer the opportunities, leave the student to his natural reaction on them, and he will work out his personal destiny, be it a high one or a low one. above all things, offer the opportunity of higher personal contacts. a university provides these anyhow within the student body, for it attracts the more aspiring of the youth of the country, and they befriend and elevate one another. but we are only beginning in this country, with our extraordinary american reliance on organization, to see that the alpha and omega in a university is the tone of it, and that this tone is set by human personalities exclusively. the world, in fact, is only beginning to see that the wealth of a nation consists more than in anything else in the number of superior men that it harbors. in the practical realm it has always recognized this, and known that no price is too high to pay for a great statesman or great captain of industry. but it is equally so in the religious and moral sphere, in the poetic and artistic sphere and in the philosophic and scientific sphere. geniuses are ferments; and when they come together as they have done in certain lands at certain times, the whole population seems to share in the higher energy which they awaken. the effects are incalculable and often not easy to trace in detail, but they are pervasive and momentous. who can measure the effects on the national german soul of the splendid series of german poets and german men of learning, most of them academic personages? from the bare economic point of view the importance of geniuses is only beginning to be appreciated. how can we measure the cash-value to france of a pasteur, to england of a kelvin, to germany of an ostwald, to us here of a burbank? one main care of every country in the future ought to be to find out who its first-rate thinkers are and to help them. cost here becomes something entirely irrelevant, the returns are sure to be so incommensurable. this is what wise men the world over are perceiving. and as the universities are already a sort of agency providentially provided for the detection and encouragement of mental superiority, it would seem as if that one among them that followed this line most successfully would quickest rise to a position of paramountcy and distinction. why should not stanford immediately adopt this as her vital policy? her position is one of unprecedented freedom. not trammelled by the service of the state as other universities on this coast are trammelled, independent of students' fees and consequently of numbers, utopian in the material respects i have enumerated, she only needs a boldness like that shown by her founders to become the seat of a glowing intellectual life, sure to be admired and envied the world over. let her claim her place; let her espouse her destiny. let her call great investigators from whatever lands they live in, from england, france, germany, japan, as well as from america. she can do this without presumption, for the advantages of this place for steady mental work are so unparalleled. let these men, following the happy traditions of the place, make the university. the original foundation had something eccentric in it; let stanford not fear to be eccentric to the end, if need be. let her not imitate; let her lead, not follow. especially let her not be bound by vulgar traditions as to the cheapness or dearness of professorial service. the day is certainly about to dawn when some american university will break all precedents in the matter of instructors' salaries, and will thereby immediately take the lead, and reach the winning post for quality. i like to think of stanford being that university. geniuses are sensitive plants, in some respects like _prima donnas_. they have to be treated tenderly. they don't need to live in superfluity; but they need freedom from harassing care; they need books and instruments; they are always overworking, so they need generous vacations; and above all things they need occasionally to travel far and wide in the interests of their souls' development. where quality is the thing sought after, the thing of supreme quality is cheap, whatever be the price one has to pay for it. considering all the conditions, the quality of stanford has from the first been astonishingly good both in the faculty and in the student body. can we not, as we sit here to-day, frame a vision of what it may be a century hence, with the honors of the intervening years all rolled up in its traditions? not vast, but intense; less a place for teaching youths and maidens than for training scholars; devoted to truth; radiating influence; setting standards; shedding abroad the fruits of learning; mediating between america and asia, and helping the more intellectual men of both continents to understand each other better. what a history! and how can stanford ever fail to enter upon it? [ ] an address at stanford university on founders' day, . printed in _science_, for may , . xv a pluralistic mystic[ ] not for the ignoble vulgar do i write this article, but only for those dialectic-mystic souls who have an irresistible taste, acquired or native, for higher flights of metaphysics. i have always held the opinion that one of the first duties of a good reader is to summon other readers to the enjoyment of any unknown author of rare quality whom he may discover in his explorations. now for years my own taste, literary as well as philosophic, has been exquisitely titillated by a writer the name of whom i think must be unknown to the readers of this article; so i no longer continue silent about the merits of benjamin paul blood. mr. blood inhabits a city otherwise, i imagine, quite unvisited by the muses, the town called amsterdam, situated on the new york central railroad. what his regular or bread-winning occupation may be i know not, but it can't have made him super-wealthy. he is an author only when the fit strikes him, and for short spurts at a time; shy, moreover, to the point of publishing his compositions only as private tracts, or in letters to such far-from-reverberant organs of publicity as the _gazette_ or the _recorder_ of his native amsterdam, or the _utica herald_ or the _albany times_. odd places for such subtile efforts to appear in, but creditable to american editors in these degenerate days! once, indeed, the lamented w. t. harris of the old "journal of speculative philosophy" got wind of these epistles, and the result was a revision of some of them for that review (_philosophic reveries_, ). also a couple of poems were reprinted from their leaflets by the editor of _scribner's magazine_ ("the lion of the nile," , and| "nemesis," ). but apart from these three dashes before the footlights, mr. blood has kept behind the curtain all his days.[ ] the author's maiden adventure was the _anoesthetic revelation_, a pamphlet printed privately at amsterdam in . i forget how it fell into my hands, but it fascinated me so "weirdly" that i am conscious of its having been one of the stepping-stones of my thinking ever since. it gives the essence of blood's philosophy, and shows most of the features of his talent--albeit one finds in it little humor and no verse. it is full of verbal felicity, felicity sometimes of precision, sometimes of metaphoric reach; it begins with dialectic reasoning, of an extremely fichtean and hegelian type, but it ends in a trumpet-blast of oracular mysticism, straight from the insight wrought by anaesthetics--of all things in the world--and unlike anything one ever heard before. the practically unanimous tradition of "regular" mysticism has been unquestionably _monistic_; and inasmuch as it is the characteristic of mystics to speak, not as the scribes, but as men who have "been there" and seen with their own eyes, i think that this sovereign manner must have made some other pluralistic-minded students hesitate, as i confess that it has often given pause to me. one cannot criticise the vision of a mystic--one can but pass it by, or else accept it as having some amount of evidential weight. i felt unable to do either with a good conscience until i met with mr. blood. his mysticism, which may, if one likes, be understood as monistic in this earlier utterance, develops in the later ones a sort of "left-wing" voice of defiance, and breaks into what to my ear has a radically pluralistic sound. i confess that the existence of this novel brand of mysticism has made my cowering mood depart. i feel now as if my own pluralism were not without the kind of support which mystical corroboration may confer. morrison can no longer claim to be the only beneficiary of whatever right mysticism may possess to lend _prestige_. this is my philosophic, as distinguished from my literary, interest, in introducing mr. blood to this more fashionable audience: his philosophy, however mystical, is in the last resort not dissimilar from my own. i must treat him by "extracting" him, and simplify--certainly all too violently--as i extract. he is not consecutive as a writer, aphoristic and oracular rather; and being moreover sometimes dialectic, sometimes poetic, and sometimes mystic in his manner; sometimes monistic and sometimes pluralistic in his matter, i have to run my own risk in making him orate _pro domo mea_, and i am not quite unprepared to hear him say, in case he ever reads these pages, that i have entirely missed his point. no matter; i will proceed. i i will separate his diverse phases and take him first as a pure dialectician. dialectic thought of the hegelian type is a whirlpool into which some persons are sucked out of the stream which the straightforward understanding follows. once in the eddy, nothing but rotary motion can go on. all who have been in it know the feel of its swirl--they know thenceforward that thinking unreturning on itself is but one part of reason, and that rectilinear mentality, in philosophy at any rate, will never do. though each one may report in different words of his rotational experience, the experience itself is almost childishly simple, and whosoever has been there instantly recognizes other authentic reports. to have been in that eddy is a freemasonry of which the common password is a "fie" on all the operations of the simple popular understanding. in hegel's mind the vortex was at its liveliest, and any one who has dipped into hegel will recognize mr. blood to be of the same tribe. "that hegel was pervaded by the great truth," blood writes, "cannot be doubted. the eyes of philosophy, if not set directly on him, are set towards the region which he occupied. though he may not be the final philosopher, yet pull him out, and all the rest will be drawn into his vacancy." drawn into the same whirlpool, mr. blood means. non-dialectic thought takes facts as singly given, and accounts for one fact by another. but when we think of "_all_ fact," we see that nothing of the nature of fact can explain it, "for that were but one more added to the list of things to be accounted for. . . . the beginning of curiosity, in the philosophic sense," mr. blood again writes, "is the stare [transcriber's note: state?] of being at itself, in the wonder why anything is at all, and what this being signifies. naturally we first assume the void, and then wonder how, with no ground and no fertility, anything should come into it." we treat it as a positive nihility, "a barrier from which all our batted balls of being rebound." upon this idea mr. blood passes the usual transcendentalist criticism. there _is_ no such separate opposite to being; yet we never think of being as such--of pure being as distinguished from specific forms of being--save as what stands relieved against this imaginary background. being has no _outline_ but that which non-being makes, and the two ideas form an inseparable pair. "each limits and defines the other. either would be the other in the same position, for here (where there is as yet no question of content, but only of being itself) the position is all and the content is nothing. hence arose that paradox: 'being is by nothing more real than not-being.'" "popularly," mr. blood goes on, "we think of all that is as having got the better of non-being. if all were not--_that_, we think, were easy: there were no wonder then, no tax on ingenuity, nothing to be accounted for. this conclusion is from the thinking which assumes all reality as immediately given assumes knowledge as a simple physical light, rather than as a distinction involving light and darkness equally. we assume that if the light were to go out, the show would be ended (and so it would); but we forget that if the darkness were to go out, that would be equally calamitous. it were bad enough if the master had lost his crayon, but the loss of the blackboard would be just as fatal to the demonstration. without darkness light would be useless--universal light as blind as universal darkness. universal thing and universal no-thing were indistinguishable. why, then, assume the positive, the immediately affirmative, as alone the ingenious? is not the mould as shapely as the model? the original ingenuity does not show in bringing light out of darkness, nor in bringing things out of nothing, but in evolving, through the just opposition of light and darkness, this wondrous picture, in which the black and white lines have equal significance--in evolving from life and death at once, the conscious spirit. . . . "it is our habit to think of life as dear, and of death as cheap (though tithonus found them otherwise), or, continuing the simile of the picture, that paper is cheap while drawing is expensive; but the engraver had a different estimation in one sense, for all his labor was spent on the white ground, while he left untouched those parts of the block which make the lines in the picture. if being and non-being are both necessary to the presence of either, neither shall claim priority or preference. indeed, we may fancy an intelligence which, instead of regarding things as simply owning entity, should regard chiefly their background as affected by the holes which things are making in it. even so, the paper-maker might see your picture as intrusive!" thus "does the negation of being appear as indispensable in the making of it." but to anyone who should appeal to particular forms of being to refute this paradox, mr. blood admits that "to say that a picture, or any other sensuous thing, is the same as the want of it, were to utter nonsense indeed: there is a difference equivalent to the whole stuff and merit of the picture; but in so far as the picture can be there for thought, as something either asserted or negated, its presence or its absence are the same and indifferent. by _its_ absence we do not mean the absence of anything else, nor absence in general; and how, forsooth, does its absence differ from these other absences, save by containing a complete description of the picture? the hole is as round as the plug; and from our thought the 'picture' cannot get away. the negation is specific and descriptive, and what it destroys it preserves tor our conception." the result is that, whether it be taken generally or taken specifically, all that which _either is or is not_ is or is not _by distinction or opposition_. "and observe the life, the process, through which this slippery doubleness endures. let us suppose the present tense, that gods and men and angels and devils march all abreast in this present instant, and the only real time and date in the universe is now. and what _is_ this instant now? whatever else, it is _process_--becoming and departing; with what between? simply division, difference; the present has no breadth for if it had, that which we seek would be the middle of that breadth. there is no precipitate, as on a stationary platform, of the process of becoming, no residuum of the process of departing, but between the two is a curtain, _the apparition of difference_, which is all the world." i am using my scissors somewhat at random on my author's paragraphs, since one place is as good as another for entering a ring by, and the expert reader will discern at once the authentic dialectic circling. other paragraphs show mr. blood as more hegelian still, and thoroughly idealistic:-- "assume that knowing is distinguishing, and that distinction is of difference; if one knows a difference, one knows it as of entities which afford it, and which also he knows; and he must know the entities and the difference apart,--one from the other. knowing all this, he should be able to answer the twin question, 'what is the difference _between sameness and difference_?' it is a 'twin' question, because the two terms are equal in the proposition, and each is full of the other. . . . "sameness has 'all the difference in the world'--from difference; and difference is an entity as difference--it being identically that. they are alike and different at once, since either is the other when the observer would contrast it with the other; so that the sameness and the difference are 'subjective,' are the property of the observer: his is the 'limit' in their unlimited field. . . . "we are thus apprized that distinction involves and carries its own identity; and that ultimate distinction--distinction in the last analysis--is self-distinction, 'self-knowledge,' as we realize it consciously every day. knowledge is self-referred: to know is to know that you know, and to be known as well. "'ah! but _both in the same time_?' inquires the logician. a subject-object knowing itself as a seamless unit, while yet its two items show a real distinction: this passes all understanding." but the whole of idealism goes to the proof that the two sides _cannot_ succeed one another in a time-process. "to say you know, and you know that you know, is to add nothing in the last clause; it is as idle as to say that you lie, and you know that you lie," for if you know it not you lie not. philosophy seeks to grasp totality, "but the power of grasping or consenting to totality involves the power of thought to make itself its own object. totality itself may indeed be taken by the _naïve_ intellect as an immediate topic, in the sense of being just an _object_, but it cannot be just that; for the knower, as other or opposite, would still be within that totality. the 'universe' by definition must contain all opposition. if distinction should vanish, what would remain? to what other could it change as a whole? how can the loss of distinction make a _difference_? any loss, at its utmost, offers a new status with the old, but obviously it is too late now to efface distinction by a _change_. there is no possible conjecture, but such as carries with it the subjective that holds it; and when the conjecture is of distinction in general, the subjective fills the void with distinction of itself. the ultimate, ineffaceable distinction is self-distinction, self-consciousness. . . . 'thou art the unanswered question, couldst see thy proper eye.' . . . the thought that must be is the very thought of our experience; the ultimate opposition, the to be _and_ not to be, is personality, spirit--somewhat that is in knowing that it is, and is nothing else but this knowing in its vast relations.[ ] "here lies the bed-rock; here the brain-sweat of twenty-five centuries crystallizes to a jewel five words long: 'the universe has no opposite.' for there the wonder of that which is, rests safe in the perception that all things _are_ only through the opposition which is their only fear." "the inevitable generally," in short, is exactly and identically that which in point of fact is actually here. this is the familiar nineteenth-century development of kant's idealistic vision. to me it sounds monistic enough to charm the monist in me unreservedly. i listen to the felicitously-worded concept-music circling round itself, as on some drowsy summer noon one listens under the pines to the murmuring of leaves and insects, and with as little thought of criticism. but mr. blood strikes a still more vibrant note: "no more can be than rationally is; and this was always true. there is no reason for what is not; but for what there is reason, that is and ever was. especially is there no becoming of reason, and hence no reason for becoming, to a sufficient intelligence. in the sufficient intelligence all things always are, and are rational. to say there is something yet to be which never was, not even in the sufficient intelligence wherein the world is rational and not a blind and orphan waif, is to ignore all reason. aught that might be assumed as contingently coming to be could only have 'freedom' for its origin; and 'freedom' has not fertility or invention, and is not a reason for any special thing, but the very vacuity of a ground for anything in preference to its room. neither is there in bare time any principle or originality where anything should come or go. . . . "such idealism enures greatly to the dignity and repose of man. no blind fate, prior to what is, shall necessitate that all first be and afterward be known, but knowledge is first, with fate in her own hands. when we are depressed by the weight and immensity of the immediate, we find in idealism a wondrous consolation. the alien positive, so vast and overwhelming by itself, reduces its pretensions when the whole negative confronts it on our side.[ ] it matters little for its greatness when an equal greatness is opposed. when one remembers that the balance and motion of the planets are so delicate that the momentary scowl of an eclipse may fill the heavens with tempest, and even affect the very bowels of the earth--when we see a balloon, that carries perhaps a thousand pounds, leap up a hundred feet at the discharge of a sheet of note paper--or feel it stand deathly still in a hurricane, because it goes with the hurricane, sides with it, and ignores the rushing world below--we should realize that one tittle of pure originality would outweigh this crass objective, and turn these vast masses into mere breath and tissue-paper show." [ ] but whose is the originality? there is nothing in what i am treating as this phase of our author's thought to separate it from the old-fashioned rationalism. there must be a reason for every fact; and so much reason, so fact. the reason is always the whole foil and background and negation of the fact, the whole remainder of reality. "a man may feel good only by feeling better. . . . pleasure is ever in the company and contrast of pain; for instance, in thirsting and drinking, the pleasure of the one is the exact measure of the pain of the other, and they cease precisely together--otherwise the patient would drink more. the black and yellow gonfalon of lucifer is indispensable in any spiritual picture." thus do truth's two components seem to balance, vibrating across the centre of indifference; "being and non-being have equal value and cost," and "mainly are convertible in their terms." [ ] this sounds radically monistic; and monistic also is the first account of the ether-revelation, in which we read that "thenceforth each is all, in god. . . . the one remains, the many change and pass; and every one of us is the one that remains." ii it seems to me that any transcendental idealist who reads this article ought to discern in the fragmentary utterances which i have quoted thus far, the note of what he considers the truer dialectic profundity. he ought to extend the glad hand of fellowship to mr. blood; and if he finds him afterwards palavering with the enemy, he ought to count him, not as a simple ignoramus or philistine, but as a renegade and relapse. he cannot possibly be treated as one who sins because he never has known better, or as one who walks in darkness because he is congenitally blind. well, mr. blood, explain it as one may, does turn towards the darkness as if he had never seen the light. just listen for a moment to such irrationalist deliverances on his part as these:-- "reason is neither the first nor the last word in this world. reason is an equation; it gives but a pound for a pound. nature is excess; she is evermore, without cost or explanation. 'is heaven so poor that _justice_ metes the bounty of the skies? so poor that every blessing fills the debit of a cost? that all process is returning? and all gain is of the lost?' go back into reason, and you come at last to fact, nothing more--a given-ness, a something to wonder at and yet admit, like your own will. and all these tricks for logicizing originality, self-relation, absolute process, subjective contradiction, will wither in the breath of the mystical tact; they will swirl down the corridors before the besom of the everlasting yea." or again: "the monistic notion of a oneness, a centred wholeness, ultimate purpose, or climacteric result of the world, has wholly given way. thought evolves no longer a centred whole, a one, but rather a numberless many, adjust it how we will." or still again: "the pluralists have talked philosophy to a standstill--nature is contingent, excessive and mystical essentially." have we here contradiction simply, a man converted from one faith to its opposite? or is it only dialectic circling, like the opposite points on the rim of a revolving disc, one moving up, one down, but replacing one another endlessly, while the whole disc never moves? if it be this latter--mr. blood himself uses the image--the dialectic is too pure for me to catch: a deeper man must mediate the monistic with the pluralistic blood. let my incapacity be castigated, if my "subject" ever reads this article, but let me treat him from now onwards as the simply pluralistic mystic which my reading of the rest of him suggests. i confess to some dread of my own fate at his hands. in making so far an ordinary transcendental idealist of him, i have taken liberties, running separate sentences together, inverting their order, and even altering single words, for all which i beg pardon; but in treating my author from now onwards as a pluralist, interpretation is easier, and my hands can be less stained (if they _are_ stained) with exegetic blood. i have spoken of his verbal felicity, and alluded to his poetry. before passing to his mystic gospel, i will refresh the reader (doubtless now fatigued with so much dialectic) by a sample of his verse. "the lion of the nile" is an allegory of the "champion spirit of the world" in its various incarnations. thus it begins:-- "whelped on the desert sands, and desert bred from dugs whose sustenance was blood alone-- a life translated out of other lives, i grew the king of beasts; the hurricane leaned like a feather on my royal fell; i took the hyrcan tiger by the scruff and tore him piecemeal; my hot bowels laughed and my fangs yearned for prey. earth was my lair: i slept on the red desert without fear: i roamed the jungle depths with less design than e'en to lord their solitude; on crags that cringe from lightning--black and blasted fronts that crouch beneath the wind-bleared stars, i told my heart's fruition to the universe, and all night long, roaring my fierce defy, i thrilled the wilderness with aspen terrors, and challenged death and life. . . ." again: "naked i stood upon the raked arena beneath the pennants of vespasian, while seried thousands gazed--strangers from caucasus, men of the grecian isles, and barbary princes, to see me grapple with the counterpart of that i had been--the raptorial jaws, the arms that wont to crush with strength alone, the eyes that glared vindictive.--fallen there, vast wings upheaved me; from the alpine peaks whose avalanches swirl the valley mists and whelm the helpless cottage, to the crown of chimborazo, on whose changeless jewels the torrid rays recoil, with ne'er a cloud to swathe their blistered steps, i rested not, but preyed on all that ventured from the earth, an outlaw of the heavens.--but evermore must death release me to the jungle shades; and there like samson's grew my locks again in the old walks and ways, till scapeless fate won me as ever to the haunts of men, luring my lives with battle and with love." . . . i quote less than a quarter of the poem, of which the rest is just as good, and i ask: who of us all handles his english vocabulary better than mr. blood?[ ] his proclamations of the mystic insight have a similar verbal power:-- "there is an invariable and reliable condition (or uncondition) ensuing about the instant of recall from anaesthetic stupor to 'coming to,' in which the genius of being is revealed. . . . no words may express the imposing certainty of the patient that he is realizing the primordial adamic surprise of life. "repetition of the experience finds it ever the same, and as if it could not possibly be otherwise. the subject resumes his normal consciousness only to partially and fitfully remember its occurrence, and to try to formulate its baffling import,--with but this consolatory afterthought: that he has known the oldest truth, and that he has done with human theories as to the origin, meaning, or destiny of the race. he is beyond instruction in 'spiritual things.' . . . "it is the instant contrast of this 'tasteless water of souls' with formal thought as we 'come to,' that leaves in the patient an astonishment that the awful mystery of life is at last but a homely and a common thing, and that aside from mere formality the majestic and the absurd are of equal dignity. the astonishment is aggravated as at a thing of course, missed by sanity in overstepping, as in too foreign a search, or with too eager an attention: as in finding one's spectacles on one's nose, or in making in the dark a step higher than the stair. my first experiences of this revelation had many varieties of emotion; but as a man grows calm and determined by experience in general, so am i now not only firm and familiar in this once weird condition, but triumphant, divine. to minds of sanguine imagination there will be a sadness in the tenor of the mystery, as if the key-note of the universe were low; for no poetry, no emotion known to the normal sanity of man, can furnish a hint of its primeval prestige, and its all-but appalling solemnity; but for such as have felt sadly the instability of temporal things there is a comfort of serenity and ancient peace; while for the resolved and imperious spirit there are majesty and supremacy unspeakable. nor can it be long until all who enter the anaesthetic condition (and there are hundreds every secular day) will be taught to expect this revelation, and will date from its experience their initiation into the secret of life. . . . "this has been my moral sustenance since i have known of it. in my first printed mention of it i declared: 'the world is no more the alien terror that was taught me. spurning the cloud-grimed and still sultry battlements whence so lately jehovan thunders boomed, my gray gull lifts her wing against the night fall, and takes the dim leagues with a fearless eye.' and now, after twenty-seven years of this experience, the wing is grayer, but the eye is fearless still, while i renew and doubly emphasize that declaration. i know, as having known, the meaning of existence; the sane centre of the universe--at once the wonder and the assurance of the soul." after this rather literary interlude i return to blood's philosophy again. i spoke a while ago of its being an "irrationalistic" philosophy in its latest phase. behind every "fact" rationalism postulates its "reason." blood parodizes this demand in true nominalistic fashion. "the goods are not enough, but they must have the invoice with them. there must be a _name_, something to _read_. i think of dickens's horse that always fell down when they took him out of the shafts; or of the fellow who felt weak when naked, but strong in his overcoat." no bad mockery, this, surely, of rationalism's habit of explaining things by putting verbal doubles of them beneath them as their ground! "all that philosophy has sought as cause, or reason," he says, "pluralism subsumes in the status and the given fact, where it stands as plausible as it may ever hope to stand. there may be disease in the presence of a question as well as in the lack of an answer. we do not wonder so strangely at an ingenious and well-set-up effect, for we feel such in ourselves; but a cause, reaching out beyond the verge [of fact] and dangling its legs in nonentity, with the hope of a rational foothold, should realize a strenuous life. pluralism believes in truth and reason, but only as mystically realized, as lived in experience. up from the breast of a man, up to his tongue and brain, comes a free and strong determination, and he cries, originally, and in spite of his whole nature and environment, 'i will.' this is the jovian _fiat_, the pure cause. this is reason; this or nothing shall explain the world for him. for how shall he entertain a reason bigger than himself? . . . let a man stand fast, then, as an axis of the earth; the obsequious meridians will bow to him, and gracious latitudes will measure from his feet." this seems to be blood's mystical answer to his own monistic statement which i quoted above, that "freedom" has no fertility, and is no reason for any special thing.[ ] "philosophy," mr. blood writes to me in a letter, "is past. it was the long endeavor to logicize what we can only realize practically or in immediate experience. i am more and more impressed that heraclitus insists on the equation of reason and unreason, or chance, as well as of being and not-being, etc. this throws the secret beyond logic, and makes mysticism outclass philosophy. the insight that mystery,--the mystery, as such is final, is the hymnic word. if you use reason pragmatically, and deny it absolutely, you can't be beaten; be assured of that. but the _fact_ remains, and of course the mystery." [ ] the "fact," as i understand the writer here to mean it, remains in its native disseminated shape. from every realized amount of fact some other fact is _absent_, as being uninvolved. "there is nowhere more of it consecutively, perhaps, than appears upon this present page." there is, indeed, to put it otherwise, no more one all-enveloping fact than there is one all-enveloping spire in an endlessly growing spiral, and no more one all-generating fact than there is one central point in which an endlessly converging spiral ends. hegel's "bad infinite" belongs to the eddy as well as to the line. "progress?" writes our author. "and to what? time turns a weary and a wistful face; has he not traversed an eternity? and shall another give the secret up? we have dreamed of a climax and a consummation, a final triumph where a world shall burn _en barbecue_; but there is not, cannot be, a purpose of eternity; it shall pay mainly as it goes, or not at all. the show is on; and what a show, if we will but give our attention! barbecues, bonfires, and banners? not twenty worlds a minute would keep up our bonfire of the sun; and what banners of our fancy could eclipse the meteor pennants of the pole, or the opaline splendors of the everlasting ice? . . . doubtless we _are_ ostensibly progressing, but there have been prosperity and highjinks before. nineveh and tyre, rome, spain, and venice also had their day. we are going, but it is a question of our standing the pace. it would seem that the news must become less interesting or tremendously more so--'a breath can make us, as a breath has made.'" elsewhere we read: "variety, not uniformity, is more likely to be the key to progress. the genius of being is whimsical rather than consistent. our strata show broken bones of histories all forgotten. how can it be otherwise? there can be no purpose of eternity. it is process all. the most sublime result, if it appeared as the ultimatum, would go stale in an hour; it could not be endured." of course from an intellectual point of view this way of thinking must be classed as scepticism. "contingency forbids any inevitable history, and conclusions are absurd. nothing in hegel has kept the planet from being blown to pieces." obviously the mystical "security," the "apodal sufficiency" yielded by the anaesthetic revelation, are very different moods of mind from aught that rationalism can claim to father--more active, prouder, more heroic. from his ether-intoxication blood may feel towards ordinary rationalists "as clive felt towards those millions of orientals in whom honor had no part." on page , above, i quoted from his "nemesis"--"is heaven so poor that justice," etc. the writer goes on, addressing the goddess of "compensation" or rational balance;-- "how shalt thou poise the courage that covets all things hard? how pay the love unmeasured that could not brook reward? how prompt self-loyal honor supreme above desire, that bids the strong die for the weak, the martyrs sing in fire? why do i droop in bower and sigh in sacred hall? why stifle under shelter? yet where, through forest tall, the breath of hungry winter in stinging spray resolves, i sing to the north wind's fury and shout with the coarse-haired wolves? * * * * * * what of thy priests' confuting, of fate and form and law, of being and essence and counterpoise, of poles that drive and draw? ever some compensation, some pandering purchase still! but the vehm of achieving reason is the all-patrician will!" mr. blood must manage to re-write the last two lines; but the contrast of the two securities, his and the rationalist's, is plain enough. the rationalist sees safe conditions. but mr. blood's revelation, whatever the conditions be, helps him to stand ready for a life among them. in this, his attitude seems to resemble that of nietzsche's _amor fati_! "simply," he writes to me, "_we do not know_. but when we say we do not know, we are not to say it weakly and meekly, but with confidence and content. . . . knowledge is and must ever be _secondary_, a witness rather than a principal, or a 'principle'!--in the case. therefore mysticism for me!" "reason," he prints elsewhere, "is but an item in the duplex potency of the mystery, and behind the proudest consciousness that ever reigned, reason and wonder blushed face to face. the legend sinks to burlesque if in that great argument which antedates man and his mutterings, lucifer had not a fighting chance. . . . "it is given to the writer and to others for whom he is permitted to speak--and we are grateful that it is the custom of gentlemen to believe one another--that the highest thought is not a milk-and-water equation of so much reason and so much result--'no school sum to be cast up.' we have realized the highest divine thought of itself, and there is in it as much of wonder as of certainty; inevitable, and solitary and safe in one sense, but queer and cactus-like no less in another sense, it appeals unutterably to experience alone. "there are sadness and disenchantment for the novice in these inferences, as if the keynote of the universe were low, but experience will approve them. certainty is the root of despair. the inevitable stales, while doubt and hope are sisters. not unfortunately the universe is wild--game flavored as a hawk's wing. nature is miracle all. she knows no laws; the same returns not, save to bring the different. the slow round of the engraver's lathe gains but the breadth of a hair, but the difference is distributed back over the whole curve, never an instant true--ever not quite." "ever not quite!"--this seems to wring the very last panting word out of rationalistic philosophy's mouth. it is fit to be pluralism's heraldic device. there is no complete generalization, no total point of view, no all-pervasive unity, but everywhere some residual resistance to verbalization, formulation, and discursification, some genius of reality that escapes from the pressure of the logical finger, that says "hands off," and claims its privacy, and means to be left to its own life. in every moment of immediate experience is somewhat absolutely original and novel. "we are the first that ever burst into this silent sea." philosophy must pass from words, that reproduce but ancient elements, to life itself, that gives the integrally new. the "inexplicable," the "mystery," as what the intellect, with its claim to reason out reality, thinks that it is in duty bound to resolve, and the resolution of which blood's revelation would eliminate from the sphere of our duties, remains; but it remains as something to be met and dealt with by faculties more akin to our activities and heroisms and willingnesses, than to our logical powers. this is the anesthetic insight, according to our author. let _my_ last word, then, speaking in the name of intellectual philosophy, be _his_ word.--"there is no conclusion. what has concluded, that we might conclude in regard to it? there are no fortunes to be told, and there is no advice to be given.--farewell!" [ ] written during the early summer of and published in the _hibbert journal_ for july of that year. [ ] "yes! paul is quite a correspondent!" said a good citizen of amsterdam, from whom i inquired the way to mr. blood's dwelling many years ago, after alighting from the train. i had sought to identify him by calling him an "author," but his neighbor thought of him only as a writer of letters to the journals i have named. [ ] "how shall a man know he is alive--since in thought the knowing constitutes the being alive, without knowing that thought (life) from its opposite, and so knowing both, and so far as being is knowing, being both? each defines and relieves the other, each is impossible in thought without the other; therefore each has no distinction save as presently contrasting with the other, and each by itself is the same, and nothing. clearly, then, consciousness is neither of one nor of the other nor of both, but a knowing subject perceiving them and itself together and as one. . . . so, in coming out of the anaesthetic exhilaration . . . we want to tell something; but the effort instantly proves that something will stay back and do the telling--one must utter one's own throat, one must eat one's own teeth, to express the being that possesses one. the result is ludicrous and astounding at once--astounding in the clear perception that this is the ultimate mystery of life, and is given you as the old adamic secret, which you then feel that all intelligence must sometime know or have known; yet ludicrous in its familiar simplicity, as somewhat that any man should always perceive at his best, if his head were only level, but which in our ordinary thinking has grown into a thousand creeds and theories dignified as religion and philosophy." [ ] elsewhere mr. blood writes of the "force of the negative" thus:--"as when a faded lock of woman's hair shall cause a man to cut his throat in a bedroom at five o'clock in the morning; or when albany resounds with legislation, but a little henpecked judge in a dusty office at herkimer or johnstown sadly writes across the page the word 'unconstitutional'--the glory of the capitol has faded." [ ] elsewhere blood writes:--"but what then, in the name of common sense, _is_ the external world? if a dead man could answer he would say nothing, or as macbeth said of the air-drawn dagger, 'there is no such thing.' but a live man's answer might be in this way: what is the multiplication table when it is not written down? it is a necessity of thought; it was not created, it cannot but be; every intelligence which goes to it, and thinks, must think in that form or think falsely. so the universe is the static necessity of reason; it is not an object for any intelligence to find, but it is half object and half subject; it never cost anything as a whole; it never _was_ made, but always _is_ made, in the logos, or expression of reason--the word; and slowly but surely it will be understood and uttered in every intelligence, until he is one with god or reason itself. as a man, for all he knows, or has known, stands at any given instant the realization of only one thought, while all the rest of him is invisibly linked to that in the necessary form and concatenation of reason, so the man as a whole of exploited thoughts is a moment in the front of the concatenated reason of the universal whole; and this whole is personal only as it is personally achieved. this is the kingdom that is 'within you, and the god which 'no man hath seen at any time.'" [ ] there are passages in blood that sound like a well-known essay by emerson. for instance:--"experience burns into us the fact and the necessity of universal compensation. the philosopher takes it from heraclitus, in the insight that everything exists through its opposite; and the bummer comforts himself for his morning headache as only the rough side of a square deal. we accept readily the doctrine that pain and pleasure, evil and good, death and life, chance and reason, are necessary equations--that there must be just as much of each as of its other. "it grieves us little that this great compensation cannot at every instant balance its beam on every individual centre, and dispense with an under dog in every fight; we know that the parts must subserve the whole; we have faith that our time will come; and if it comes not at all in this world, our lack is a bid for immortality, and the most promising argument for a world hereafter. 'though he slay me, yet will i trust in him.' "this is the faith that baffles all calamity, and ensures genius and patience in the world. let not the creditor hasten the settlement: let not the injured man hurry toward revenge; there is nothing that draws bigger interest than a wrong, and to 'get the best of it' is ever in some sense to get the worst." [ ] or what thinks the reader of the verbiage of these verses?--addressed in a mood of human defiance to the cosmic gods-- "whose lightnings tawny leap from furtive lairs, to helpless murder, while the ships go down swirled in the crazy stound, and mariners' prayers go up in noisome bubbles--such to them;-- or when they tramp about the central fires, bending the strata with aeonian tread till steeples totter, and all ways are lost,-- deem they of wife or child, or home or friend, doing these things as the long years lead on only to other years that mean no more, that cure no ill, nor make for use or proof-- destroying ever, though to rear again." [ ] i subjoin a poetic apostrophe of mr. blood's to freedom: "let it ne'er be known. if in some book of the inevitable, dog-eared and stale, the future stands engrossed e'en as the past. there shall be news in heaven, and question in the courts thereof; and chance shall have its fling, e'en at the [ermined] bench. * * * * * * ah, long ago, above the indian ocean, where wan stars brood over the dreaming east, i saw, white, liquid, palpitant, the cross; and faint and far came bells of calvary as planets passed, singing that they were saved, saved from themselves: but ever low orion-- for hunter too was i, born of the wild, and the game flavor of the infinite tainted me to the bone--he waved me on, on to the tangent field beyond all orbs, where form nor order nor continuance hath thought nor name; there unity exhales in want of confine, and the protoplasm may beat and beat, in aimless vehemence, through vagrant spaces, homeless and unknown. * * * * * * there ends one's empire!--but so ends not all; one knows not all; my griefs at least are mine-- by me their measure, and to me their lesson; e'en i am one--(poor deuce to call the ace!) and to the open bears my gonfalon, mine aegis, freedom!--let me ne'er look back accusing, for the withered leaves and lives the sated past hath strewn, the shears of fate, but forth to braver days. o, liberty, burthen of every sigh!--thou gold of gold, beauty of the beautiful, strength of the strong! my soul for ever turns agaze for thee. there is no purpose of eternity for faith or patience; but thy buoyant torch still lighted from the islands of the blest, o'erbears all present for potential heavens which are not--ah, so more than all that are! whose chance postpones the ennui of the skies! be thou my genius--be my hope in thee! for this were heaven: to be, and to be free." [ ] in another letter mr. blood writes:--"i think we are through with 'the whole,' and with '_causa sui_,' and with the 'negative unity' which assumes to identify each thing as being what it lacks of everything else. you can, of course, build out a chip by modelling the sphere it was chipped from;--but if it was n't a sphere? what a weariness it is to look back over the twenty odd volumes of the 'journal of speculative philosophy' and see harris's mind wholly filled by that one conception of self-determination--everything to be thought as 'part of a system'--a 'whole' and '_causa sui_.'--i should like to see such an idea get into the head of edison or george westinghouse." three addresses to girls at school three addresses to girls at school by the rev. j. m. wilson, m.a. head master of clifton college and vice-president of the clifton high school for girls london percival & co. _king street, covent garden_ preface. the following addresses were printed for private circulation among those to whom they were delivered. but they fell also into other hands; and i have been frequently asked to publish them. i hesitated, on account of the personal and local allusions; but i have found it impossible to remove these allusions, and i have therefore reprinted the addresses in their original form. j.m.w. clifton college, _sept. ._ contents. page i. education _october , ._ the high school, clifton. ii. high school education for girls _december, ._ the high schools at bath and clifton. iii. religion _april , ._ st. leonard's school, st. andrews, fife. three addresses to girls at school i. education. education.[ ] now that i have given away the certificates it will be expected that i should make a few remarks on that inexhaustible subject, education. my remarks will be brief. i take this opportunity of explaining to our visitors the nature of the higher certificate examination. it is an examination instituted originally to test the efficiency of the highest forms of our public schools, and to enable boys to pass the earlier university examinations while still at school. the subjects of study are divided into four groups. in order to obtain a certificate it is necessary to pass in four subjects taken from not less than three groups. a certificate therefore ensures a sound and fairly wide education. the subjects of the groups are languages, mathematics, english history, and lastly science. one concession is made to girls which is not made to boys. they are allowed to pass in two subjects one year, and two others the next, and thus obtain their certificates piecemeal. boys have to pass in all four subjects the same year. the high school sent in seventeen candidates for the examination in two or three of the subjects--history, elementary mathematics, french, german, and latin,--and fifteen of these passed in two subjects at least: and, inasmuch as seven of them had in a previous year passed in two other subjects, they obtained their certificates. the rest carry on their two subjects, and will, we hope, obtain their certificates next summer; six of them appear to be still in the school. this is a very satisfactory result. the value of these certificates to the public is the testimony they give to the very high efficiency of the teaching. these examinations are not of the standard of the junior or senior local examinations. they are very much harder. and all who know about these matters see at a glance that a school that ventures to send in its girls for this examination only is aiming very high. the certificates for music, given by the harrow music school examiners, are also recognised by the profession as having a considerable value. but on this subject i cannot speak with the same knowledge. the value of these examinations to the mistresses is that they serve as a guide and standard for teaching. we are all of us the better for being thus kept up to the mark. their value to you is that they help to make your work definite and sound: and that, if it is slipshod, you shall at any rate know that it is slipshod. therefore, speaking for the council, and as the parent of a high school girl, and as one of the public, i may say that we set a very high value on these examinations and their results. they test and prove absolute merit. now, you may have noticed that one of the characteristics of this school is the absence of all prizes and personal competitions within the school itself; all that only brings out the relative merit of individuals. i dare say you have wondered why this should be so, and perhaps grumbled a little. "other girls," you say, "bring home prizes: our brothers bring home prizes; or at any rate have the chance of doing so--why don't we?" and not only you, but some friends of the school who would like to give prizes--for it is a great pleasure to give prizes--have sometimes wondered why miss woods says "no." i will tell you why. miss woods holds--and i believe she is quite right--that to introduce the element of competition, while it would certainly stimulate the clever and industrious to more work, would also certainly tend to obscure and weaken the real motives for work in all, which ought to outlive, but do not always outlive, the age at which prizes are won. intelligent industry, without the inducement of prizes, is a far more precious and far more durable habit than industry stimulated by incessant competition. teaching and learning are alike the better for the absence of this element, when possible. i consider this to be one of the most striking characteristics of our high school, and one of which you ought to be most proud. it is a distinction of this school. and when you speak of it, as you well may do, with some pride, you will not forget that it is due entirely to the genius and character of your head-mistress. i believe that one result will be, that you will be the more certain to continue to educate yourselves, and not to imagine that education is over when you leave school. is it necessary to say anything to you about the value of education? i think it is; because so many of the processes of education seem at the time to be drudgery, that any glimpses and reminders of the noble results attained by all this drudgery are cheering and encouraging. the reason why it is worth your while to get the best possible education you can, to continue it as long as you can, to make the very most of it by using all your intelligence and industry and vivacity, and by resolving to enjoy every detail of it, and indeed of all your school life, is that it will make you--_you yourself_--so much more of a person. more--as being more pleasant to others, more useful to others, in an ever-widening sphere of influence, but also more as attaining a higher development of your own nature. let us look at two or three ways in which, as you may easily see, education helps to do some of these things. education increases your interest in everything; in art, in history, in politics, in literature, in novels, in scenery, in character, in travel, in your relation to friends, to servants, to everybody. and it is _interest_ in these things that is the never-failing charm in a companion. who could bear to live with a thoroughly uneducated woman?--a country milkmaid, for instance, or an uneducated milliner's girl. she would bore one to death in a week. now, just so far as girls of your class approach to the type of the milkmaid or the milliner, so far they are sure to be eventually mere gossips and bores to friends, family, and acquaintance, in spite of amiabilities of all sorts. many-sided and ever-growing interests, a life and aims capable of expansion--the fruits of a trained and active mind--are the durable charms and wholesome influences in all society. these are among the results of a really liberal education. education does something to overcome the prejudices of mere ignorance. of all sorts of massive, impenetrable obstacles, the most hopeless and immovable is the prejudice of a thoroughly ignorant and narrow-minded woman of a certain social position. it forms a solid wall which bars all progress. argument, authority, proof, experience avail nought. and remember, that the prejudices of ignorance are responsible for far more evils in this world than ill-nature or even vice. ill-nature and vice are not very common, at any rate in the rank of ladies; they are discountenanced by society; but the prejudices of ignorance--i am sure you wish me to tell you the truth--these are not rare. think, moreover, for a moment how much the cultivated intelligence of a few does to render the society in which we move more enjoyable: how it converts "the random and officious sociabilities of society" into a quickening and enjoyable intercourse and stimulus: everybody can recall instances of such a happy result of education. this can only be done by educated women. how much more might be done if there were more of them! and think, too, how enormously a great increase of trained intelligence in our own class--among such as you will be in a few years--would increase the power of dealing with great social questions. all sorts of work is brought to a standstill for want of trained intelligence. it is not good will, it is not enthusiasm, it is not money that is wanted for all sorts of work; it is good sense, trained intelligence, cultivated minds. some rather difficult piece of work has to be done; and one runs over in one's mind who could be found to do it. one after another is given up. one lacks the ability--another the steadiness--another the training--another the mind awakened to see the need: and so the work is not done. "the harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few." a really liberal education, and the influence at school of cultivated and vigorous minds, is the cure for this. again, you will do little good in the world unless you have wide and strong sympathies: wide--so as to embrace many different types of character; strong--so as to outlast minor rebuffs and failures. now understanding is the first step to sympathy, and therefore education widens and strengthens our sympathies: it delivers us from ignorant prepossessions, and in this way alone it doubles our powers, and fits us for far greater varieties of life, and for the unknown demands that the future may make upon us. i spoke of the narrowness and immovability of ignorance. there is another narrowness which is not due to ignorance so much as to persistent exclusiveness in the range of ideas admitted. fight against this with all your might. the tendency of all uneducated people is to view each thing as it is by itself, each part without reference to the whole; and then increased knowledge of that part does little more than intensify the narrowness. education--liberal education--and the association with many and active types of mind, among people of your own age, as well as your teachers, is the only cure for this. try to understand other people's point of view. don't think that you and a select few have a monopoly of all truth and wisdom. "it takes all sorts to make a world," and you must understand "all sorts" if you would understand the world and help it. you are living in a great age, when changes of many kinds are in progress in our political and social and religious ideas. there never was a greater need of trained intelligence, clear heads, and earnest hearts. and the part that women play is not a subordinate one. they act directly, and still more indirectly. the best men that have ever lived have traced their high ideals to the influence of noble women as mothers or sisters or wives. no man who is engaged in the serious work of the world, in the effort to purify public opinion and direct it aright, but is helped or hindered by the women of his household. few men can stand the depressing and degrading influence of the uninterested and placid amiability of women incapable of the true public spirit, incapable of a generous or noble aim--whose whole sphere of ideas is petty and personal. it is not only that such women do nothing themselves--they slowly asphyxiate their friends, their brothers, or their husbands. these are the unawakened women; and education may deliver you from this dreadful fate, which is commoner than you think. in no respect is the influence of women more important than in religion. much might be said of the obstacles placed in the way of religious progress by the crude and dogmatic prepossessions of ignorant women, who will rush in with confident assertion where angels might fear to tread: but this is neither the time nor the place for such remarks. it is enough to remind you that in no part of your life do you more need the width and modesty and courage of thought, and the delicacy of insight given by culture, than when you are facing the grave religious questions of the day, either for yourself or others. but let me turn to a somewhat less serious subject. we earnestly desire that women should be highly educated. and yet is there not a type of educated woman which we do not wholly admire? i am not going to caricature a bluestocking, but to point out one or two real dangers. education is good; but perfect sanity is better still. sanity is the most excellent of all women's excellences. we forgive eccentricity and one-sidedness--the want of perfect sanity--in men, and especially men of genius; and we rather reluctantly forgive it in women of genius; but in ordinary folk, no. these are the strong-minded women; ordinary folk, who make a vigorous protest against one or two of the minor mistakes of society, instead of lifting the whole: i should call these, women of imperfect sanity. it is a small matter that you should protest against some small maladjustment or folly; but it is a great matter that you should be perfectly sane and well-balanced. now education helps sanity. it shows the proportion of things. an american essayist bids us "keep our eyes on the fixed stars." education helps us to do this. it helps us to live the life we have to lead on a higher mental and spiritual level it glorifies the actual. and now, seeing these things are so, what ought to be the attitude of educated girls and women towards pleasures, the usual pleasures of society? certainly not the cynical one--"life would be tolerable if it were not for its pleasures." pleasures do make up, and ought to make up, a considerable portion of life. now i have no time for an essay on pleasures. i will only offer two remarks. one is that the pleasure open to all cultivated women, even in the pleasures that please them least, is the pleasure of giving pleasure. go to give pleasure, not to get it, and that converts anything into a pleasure. the other remark is, pitch your ordinary level of life on so quiet a note that simple things shall not fail to please. if home, and children, and games, and the daily routine of life--if the sight of october woods and the severn sea, and of human happy faces fail to please, then either in fact or in imagination you are drugging yourself with some strong drink of excitement, and spoiling the natural healthy appetite for simple pleasures. this is one of the dangers of educated women: but it is their danger because they are imperfectly educated: educated on one side, that of books; and not on the other and greater side, of wide human sympathies. society seems to burden and narrow and dull the uneducated woman, but it also hardens and dulls a certain sort of educated woman too, one who refuses her sympathies to the pleasures of life. but to the fuller nature, society brings width and fresh clearness. it gives the larger heart and the readier sympathy, and the wider the sphere the more does such a nature expand to fill it. what i am now saying amounts to this, that an educated intelligence is good, but an educated sympathy is better. i recall certain lines written by the late lord carlisle on being told that a lady was plain and commonplace:-- "you say that my love is plain, but that i can never allow, when i look at the thought for others that is written on her brow. "the eyes are not fine, i own, she has not a well-cut nose, but a smile for others' pleasure and a sigh for others' woes. "quick to perceive a want, quicker to set it right, quickest in overlooking injury, wrong, or slight. "hark to her words to the sick, look at her patient ways, every word she utters speaks to the speaker's praise. "purity, truth, and love, are they such common things? if hers were a common nature women would all have wings. "talent she may not have, beauty, nor wit, nor grace, but until she's among the angels she cannot be commonplace." there is something to remember: cultivate sympathy, gentleness, forgiveness, purity, truth, love: and then, though you may have no other gifts, "until you're among the angels, you cannot be commonplace." and here i might conclude. but i should not satisfy myself or you, if i did so without paying my tribute of genuine commendation to the high school, and of hearty respect for the head-mistress and her staff of teachers. clifton owes miss woods a great debt for the tone of high-mindedness and loyalty, for the moral and intellectual stamp that she has set on the school. she has won, as we all know, the sincere respect and attachment of her mistresses and her old pupils; and the older and wiser you grow the more you all will learn to honour and love her. and you will please her best by thorough loyalty to the highest aims of the school which she puts before you by her words and by her example. footnotes: [footnote : an address given at the high school, clifton, oct. , .] ii. high school education for girls. high school education for girls.[ ] it is a real pleasure to find myself in bath on an educational mission. i have ancestral and personal educational connections with bath of very old standing. my father was curate of st. michael's before i was born; my grandfather and uncle were in succession head-masters of the grammar school here, fine scholars both, of the old school. my first visit to bath was when i was nine years old, and on that occasion i had my first real stand-up fight with a small bath grammar school boy. i think that if the old house is still standing i could find the place where we fought, and where a master brutally interrupted us with a walking-stick. since those days, my relations with bath have been rare, but peaceful; unless, indeed, the honourable competition between clifton college and its brilliant daughter, bath college, may be regarded as a ceaseless but a friendly combat between their two head-masters whom you see so peaceably side by side. i propose, first, to say a few words about the condition of schools twenty years ago, before the present impulse towards the higher education of women gave us high schools and colleges at the universities, and other educational movements. there is a most interesting chapter in the report of the endowed schools commission of on girls' schools, and some valuable evidence collected by the assistant commissioners. it is not ancient history yet, and therein lies its great value to us. it shows us the evils from which we are only now escaping in our high schools: evils which still prevail to a formidable extent in a large section of girls' education, and from which i can scarcely imagine bath is wholly free. the report speaks of the general indifference of parents to the education of their girls in our whole upper and middle class, both absolutely and relatively to that of their boys. that indifference in part remains. there was a strong prejudice that girls could not learn the same subjects as boys, and that even if they could, such an education was useless and even injurious. that prejudice still survives, in face of facts. the right education, it was thought, for girls, was one of accomplishments and of routine work, with conversational knowledge of french. the ideal of a girl's character was that she was to be merely amiable, ready to please and be pleased; it was, as was somewhat severely said by one of the assistant commissioners, not to be good and useful when married, but to _get_ married. there was no ideal for single women. they did not realize how much of the work of the world must go undone unless there is a large class of highly educated single women. this view of girls' education is not yet extinct. corresponding to the ideal on the part of the ordinary british parent was, of course, the school itself. there was no high ideal of physical health, and but little belief that it depended on physical conditions; therefore the schools were neither large and airy, nor well provided with recreation ground; not games and play, but an operation known as "crocodiling" formed the daily and wearisome exercise of girls. that defect also is common still. there was no ideal of art, or belief in the effect of artistic surroundings, and therefore the schools were unpretending even to ugliness and meanness. the walls were not beautified with pictures, nor were the rooms furnished with taste. there was no high ideal of cultivating the intelligence, and therefore most of the lessons that were not devoted to accomplishments, such as music, flower-painting, fancy work, hand-screen making, etc., were given to memory work, and note-books, in which extracts were made from standard authors and specimen sums worked with flourishes wondrous to behold. the serious study of literature and history was almost unknown. the memory work consisted in many schools in learning mangnall's questions and brewer's guide to science--fearful books. the first was miscellaneous: what is lightning? how is sago made? what were the sicilian vespers, the properties of the atmosphere, the length of the mississippi, and the pelagian heresy? these are, i believe, actual specimens of the questions; and the answers were committed to memory. about twenty-five years ago i examined some girls in brewer's guide to science. the verbal knowledge of some of them was quite wonderful; their understanding of the subject absolutely _nil_. they could rattle off all about positive and negative electricity, and leyden jars and batteries; but the words obviously conveyed no ideas whatever, and they cheerfully talked utter nonsense in answer to questions not in the book. examinations for schools were not yet instituted; the education was unguided, and therefore largely misguided. do not let us imagine for an instant that these evils have been generally cured. the secondary education of the country is still in a deplorable condition; and it behoves us to repeat on all occasions that it is so. the schools i am describing from the report of twenty years ago exist and abound and flourish still, owing to the widespread indifference of parents to the education of their girls, to the qualifications and training of their mistresses, and the efficiency of the schools. untested, unguided, they exist and even thrive, and will do so until a sounder public opinion and the proved superiority of well-trained mistresses and well-educated girls gradually exterminates the inefficient schools. but we are, i fear, a long way still from this desirable consummation. what were the mistresses? for the most part worthy, even excellent ladies, who had no other means of livelihood, and who had no special education themselves, and no training whatever. naturally they taught what they could, and laid stress on what was called the _formation of character_, which they usually regarded as somehow alternative with intellectual attainments and stimulus, and progress in which could not be submitted to obvious tests. i suppose most of us think that there is no more valuable assistance in the formation of character than any pursuit that leads the mind away from frivolous pursuits, egotistic or morbid fancies, and fills it with memories of noble words and lives, teaches it to love our great poets and writers, and gives it sympathies with great causes. but this was not the prevailing opinion twenty years ago. the influence of good people, good homes, good example--in a word truly religious influence, as we shall all admit--is the strongest element in the formation of character; but the next strongest is assuredly that education which teaches us to admire "whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are lovely, and whatsoever things are of good report;" and this ought to be, and is, one of the results of the literary teaching given by well-educated mistresses. i have been describing the common type of what used to be called the "seminaries" and "establishments for young ladies" of twenty years ago. and it may give you the impression that there was no good education to be got in those days, and that the ladies of my generation were therefore very ill-educated. permit me to correct that impression. there were homes in which the girls learned something from father or from mother, or, perhaps, something from a not very talented governess; but in which they educated themselves with a hunger and thirst after knowledge, and an enjoyment of literature that is rare in any school. do not imagine that any school education under mistresses however skilled, or resulting in certificates however brilliant, is really as effective in the formation of strong intellectual tastes and clear judgment and ability as the self-education which was won by the mothers of some of you, by the women of my generation and those before. such education was rare, but it was possible, and it is possible still. under such a system a few are educated and the many fail altogether. the advantage of our day is that education is offered to a much larger number. but i cannot call it better than that which was won by a few in the generation of your mothers. if we would combine the exceptional merits of the old system with the high average merits of the new we must jealously preserve the element of freedom and self-education. to return to the report. the indifference of parents and the public, the inadequacy of school buildings and appliances, the low intellectual ideals of mistresses, were the evils of twenty years ago, prevailing very widely and lowering school education, and we must not expect to have got rid of them altogether. an educational atmosphere is not changed in twenty years. but our high schools are a very real step in advance. the numbers of your school show that there is a considerable and increasing fraction of residents in bath who do care for the intellectual quality of the education of their girls; and the report of the examiners is a most satisfactory guarantee that the instruction given here is thoroughly efficient along the whole line. bath must be congratulated on its high school for girls, as it must be congratulated on its college for boys. but are we therefore to rest and be thankful in the complacent belief that we have now at length attained perfection, at least in our high schools? i am called in to bless high school education, and i do bless it from my heart. i know something of it. my own daughter was at such a school; i have been vice-president of a high school for ten years. i wish there were high schools in every town in england. they have done and are doing much to lift the standard of girls' education in england. but i will again remind you that high schools are educating but a fraction of the population, and that the faults of twenty years ago still characterise our girls' education as a whole. and now, having said this, i shall not be misunderstood if i go on to speak of some of the deficiencies in our ideals of girls' education which seem to me to affect high schools as well as all other schools. one point, in which the older education with its manifold defects had a real merit, is that there was no over-teaching, no hurry to produce results, and therefore no disgust aroused with learning and literature. at any rate, the girls, or the best of them, left school or governess "with an appetite." now i consider this is a real test of teaching at school or college, in science or literature: does it leave boys and girls hungry for more, with such a love for learning that they will go on studying of themselves? if the teaching of some science is such that you never want to go to another science lecture as long as you live: your lessons on literature such that your shakespeare, your spenser, your burke, your browning will never again descend from your shelves: then, whatever else schools may have done, they have sacrificed the future to the present. it is on this account that the pressure of external examinations and its effect on the teaching of mistresses must be most carefully watched. to get immediate results is easy, but it is sometimes at the cost of later results. our aim should be not so much to teach, as to make our pupils love to learn, and have methods of learning; and every teacher should remember that our pupils can learn far more than we can teach them; and, as thring used to say, "hammering is not teaching." with a system of competitive examinations for the army and civil service, boys must sometimes sacrifice the future to the present. girls need never do so, and therefore girls' schools need not copy the faults as well as the excellences of boys' schools. i have ventured to say so much for an intellectual danger in high schools. i do not doubt that your head-mistress is aware of it, and on her guard: i speak much more to the public, to the parents, and to the council (if i may say so), as an expert, because i know that the public sometimes want to be satisfied that the education is good at every stage, and they ought to be content if it is good at the final stage. another point on which i would venture to say a word to parents is this. do not take your girls away from school too early. every schoolmaster knows that the most valuable years, those which leave the deepest marks in character and intellect, are those from sixteen to eighteen. it is equally true with girls, as schoolmistresses know equally well. it is in the later years that they get the full benefit of the higher teaching, and that much of what may have seemed the drudgery of earlier work reaps its natural and deserved reward. let your children come early, so as to be taught well from the beginning, and let them stay late. i do not myself know what your buildings may be; but a friend to whom i wrote speaks of them as inadequate and somewhat unworthy of the city. may i venture to say to a bath public that it is worth while to have first-rate buildings for educational purposes? no money is better spent. if the bath public will take this up in earnest it cannot be doubted that the girls' school company would second their efforts in such an important centre. come over and see our clifton high school, with its spacious lawns and playgrounds and pleasant rooms, and you will be discontented with a righteous discontent. and now i will point out another defect in high school education which parents and mistresses may do much to remedy. there is usually--and i am assuming without direct knowledge that it is the case here--no system by which any one girl is known through her whole school career to any one mistress; nothing corresponding to the tutor system of our public schools. it follows that a girl passes from form to form, and the relation between her and her mistress is so constantly broken that it is morally less powerful than it might be. the friendly and permanent relation of old days is converted into an official and temporary relation. it will be obvious to any one who reflects that the loss is great. the cure for it is twofold. the parents may do much by establishing a friendly relation with the form mistresses of their girls. i have known parents who had never taken the trouble to inquire even the names of their girls' mistress. if parents wish to get really the best out of a school, i would say to them (and i am speaking specially to mothers), you are delegating to the form mistress a very large share of the responsibility for the formation of your daughter's character; the least you can do is to be in the most friendly and confidential communication with her that circumstances permit. and i would say to the mistresses that, as far as is possible, you should be to the girls what form masters are in a good school to their boys--friends in school and out of school, acquainted with their tastes, companions sometimes in their games or their walks, and in all ways breaking down the merely formal relation of teacher and pupil. the ideally bad master, as i have often said to my young masters on a first appointment, is one who as soon as his boys clear out of the class-room, puts his hands in his pockets and whistles, and thanks heaven that he will see no more of the boys for so many hours. i do not know what the corresponding action on the part of a mistress may be, as i believe they have no pockets and can't whistle, but there is probably a corresponding state of mind. i venture, therefore, to suggest that in our high schools there should be a greater _rapprochement_ than is usual between parents and mistresses and girls in order to make the system more truly educational in the best sense. i am now going to turn to a wholly different subject; and i am going to talk to the girls. in the crusade against the lower type of education that prevailed twenty years ago, and still exists, who are the most important agents? it is the girls who are still in the high schools, or who are passing out of them, or who are otherwise getting the higher education in a few private schools. "ye are our epistle, known and read of all men," and read of all women too, with their still keener eyes. there is a very real danger in our high schools that the intellectual side of education may be overestimated and overpressed, not by mistresses, but by yourselves; and that the natural, human, domestic, and family elements in it may be undervalued. what are you yourselves at home, in society, with parents, brothers, sisters, children, friends, schoolfellows, servants? is the better education, that you are undoubtedly getting, widening your sympathies, opening your heart and mind to all the educational influences which do not consist in books or in work? is it giving you greater delicacy of touch? is it opening new channels for influences, streaming in on you or streaming out from you? your daily life may become a higher education, and is so to the truly noble-minded and well-educated girl or woman. do not regard as interruptions, and as teasing, the calls of household, the duties to parents, visitors, children, and the rest; it is part of the education of life to fulfil all these duties well, delightfully, brilliantly, joyously, enthusiastically; these things are not interruptions to life, they are life itself. there was a pitiful magazine article written the other day by some lady complaining that social duties, the having to see her friends, her cook, her gardener, her dress-maker, etc., prevented her from reading herbert spencer, and developing her small fragment of soul. social duties, rightly done, are one of the developments of soul. let it be seen that you girls who can enjoy your literature, and your history, and your music, and your drawing with keen appreciation are not made thereby selfish or unsociable; but that you are more delightful creatures than those who have no such independent resources and joys. a girl who gets her certificate or prize and is cross or dull at home, and does not think it worth while to be kind and agreeable to a young brother or an old nurse, to every creature in her household down to the cat and the canary, is a traitor to the cause of higher education. again, it has been observed that the practical and artistic elements in school education have been, in general, more thoroughly developed of late years since they were put into a secondary place. this is as it should be. such subjects as music, drawing, cooking, housekeeping, wood-carving, nursing, needlework, when they are studied at all, are studied more professionally and thoroughly and intelligently, and less in the spirit of the amateur and dabbler. so i would say to you, both now and when you leave, show that your education in intelligence has given you wide interests and powers to master all such subjects. take them up all the more thoroughly. closely akin to this merit of thoroughness is the large spirit of unselfishness that ought to come, and certainly in many instances does come, with wider interests, a more intelligent education, and a more active imagination. women in our class have more leisure than men; they can actually do what is impossible by the conditions of life for us men to do, link class to class by knowledge and sympathy and help and kindness. they can be of immense service in this way. there is a story in the life of an american lady, mrs. lynam, that occurs to me. there was much conversation about a certain mr. robbins, who had lately died; he had been such a benefactor, such a good man, and so on. a visitor asked, "did mr. robbins found a benevolent institution?" "no," was the reply, "he _was_ a benevolent institution." women of our class may be, they ought to be, "benevolent institutions." and such women exist among us; pity is there are so few of them. they can unobtrusively be centres of happiness, and knowledge, and generous attitudes of mind. now there ought to be more of such women, and i look to our high schools with hope. they ought to make girls public-spirited and large-minded. there is another element in girls' education which is only imperfectly as yet brought out, and which you yourselves can do something to develop. i mean the better appreciation of an education which is not in books, and not in accomplishments, and not in duties, and not in social intercourse. how shall i describe it? think of the old greek education of men. there was a large element of literature and poetry and natural religion and imagination in it; and a large element of gymnastic also; but besides all this it was an education of eye and ear; it was a training that sprang from reverence for nature, as a whole, for an ideal of complete life, in body and mind and soul; and not only for complete individual life, but also for the city, the nation. it was a consummate perfection of life that was ever leading the athenian upward, by a life-long education, to strive for a certain grace and finish in every one of his faculties. and we see to what splendid results in literature and art and civic and personal beauty it led them. this element is still wanting in our higher education; it is the ideal of nobility of life and perfection. we lack it in our physical education. that is still far from perfect. if we all, parents, children, boys and girls, schoolmasters and schoolmistresses, had some of the greek feeling of high admiration of physical perfection of form and grace and activity, we should not see so many boys and girls of very imperfect gracefulness, nor should we see fashions of dress so ruinous to all ideals of perfection and grace. we cannot make up for the want of this national artistic ideal of beauty of figure by artificial gymnastics, scientific posturings, and ladders and bars. they are better than nothing, they are a protest, they certainly remedy some defects and prevent others. but do not you be content with them. by self-respect and self-discipline, by healthy life, early hours, open air, natural exercise, the joyous and free use of all your powers, by dancing, playing games, by refusal to give way to unhealthy and disfiguring fashions, and, above all, by an aspiration after grace and perfection, do what you can to remedy this national defect in our ideals for girls. did you ever read kingsley's "nausicaa in london"? do you all know who nausicaa was? if not, let me advise you to borrow worsley's "odyssey" and read book vi., and read kingsley's essay too. nausicaa was a greek maiden who played at ball; and i think you are doing more to approach the old greek ideal when you play at lawn tennis and cricket and hockey, and i would add rounders and many another game, than when you are going through ordered exercises, valuable as they are, or even than when you are learning greek or copying greek statues. this leads me to say that games contribute much to remedy another deficiency in our ideal. there is a defective power of real enjoyment of life, of healthy spirits among us moderns. there is more enjoyment now than there was. i think my generation was better than the one that preceded us in this respect; we had more games, more fun, more _abandon_ in enjoyment than our fathers and mothers, your grandfathers and grandmothers, had, if we may judge from letters published and unpublished. and they too often thought we were a frivolous generation, not so staid and decorous as we might be, and repressed and checked us; while we on the contrary urge on you to enjoy more fully the splendour of your youth and vitality. we desire to see you dance and sing and laugh and bubble over with the delicious inexhaustible flow of vital energy; we know that it need not interfere with the refinement of perfect manners and decorum, and we know too that there is the force which will sober down and do good work, and there is the health-giving exercise, the geniality, and the joy that will make you stronger and pleasanter, more patient and more persuasive to good in years to come. so it is with boys: men are made in our playgrounds as much as in the class-room; so, too, is it with you. i must give you a quotation from "fo'c's'le yarns," that delightfullest of volumes-- "it's likely god has got a plan to put a spirit in a man that's more than you can stow away in the heart of a child. but he'll see the day when he'll not have a bit too much for the work he's got to do. and the little turk is good for nothing but shouting and fighting and carrying on; and god delighting to make him strong and bold and free and thinking the man he's going to be-- more beef than butter, more lean than lard, hard if you like, but the world is hard. you'll see a river how it dances from rock to rock wherever it chances: in and out, and here and there a regular young divil-may-care. but, caught in the sluice, it's another case, and it steadies down, and it flushes the race very deep and strong, but still it's not too much to work the mill. the same with hosses: kick and bite and winch away--all right, all right, wait a bit and give him his ground, and he'll win his rider a thousand pound." there is a word in german which has no english equivalent; it expresses just the missing ideal i am speaking of. it is a terrible mouthful, as german words often are--lebensglückseligkeit--it is the rapture and blessedness and happiness of living. carry the idea away with you, and make it one of your personal ideals, and home ideals, and school ideals, and life ideals, this lebensglückseligkeit. "'tis life, whereof our nerves are scant, oh life, not death, for which we pant; more life, and fuller, that i want." you can carry this idea with you into society, and use it to brighten its conventional sociabilities, and stimulate them into positive enjoyability by more of intelligence and animation. we had a visit the other day from an american gentleman, mr. muybridge, who came to give a lecture at clifton college. i believe he also lectured in bath. he remarked to mrs. wilson in the lecture-room that he was glad to see some ladies present. "i like ladies at my lectures; they are so intelligent." "yes," she replied, "but i fear you are attributing to us the qualities of american ladies; we are not particularly intelligent." "you are joking!" was his reply. "no," she went on, "we are always told how much more intelligent american ladies are than english." he paused for some time, and then slowly said, "well, i'll not deny they are smarter." well, this quality that mr. muybridge describes as "smartness" is an american equivalent of lebensglückseligkeit; it is a sort of intensity of life, of vivacity, of willingness to take trouble, to interest and be interested, that is a little lacking in our english ideal of young ladies: and we must be on our guard lest any school ideals of study and bookishness should actually increase this deficiency. any one, mistress or girl, who makes good education to be associated with dulness and boredom and insipidity is again a traitor to the cause of higher education. i have run to greater length than i intended, and i will conclude. it should be the aim of us all, council, parents, mistresses, and girls, to show that our ideal of education includes both the training of the intelligence and reason, and the storing the mind with treasures of beauty and instruments of power for opening new avenues into the storehouse of knowledge and delight that the world contains; and also the development of the practical ability, the benevolence and sympathy, the vivacity, the enjoyment of life, the fulness of activity, bodily and mental, that makes the lebensglückseligkeit i spoke of, and the superadding, or rather diffusing through it all, an unobtrusive but deep christian faith and reverence and charity. the archbishop of canterbury lately said in his charge that "public schools were infinitely more conducive to a strong morality than any other institution." he was thinking of boys' schools, of which he speaks with intimate knowledge; but i believe that, where girls' schools have at their head one who in the spirit of dr. arnold recognizes the responsibility for giving an unostentatious, unpartisan-like, but all-pervading and intelligent religious tone to the life, the aims, and the ideal of the school, and where the council and parents value this influence, there the influence of girls' high schools may be more conducive to strong morality and true religion in england than even that of our great public schools. for the high schools are training more and more of the most influential class among the women of england, as the public schools are training the men, and the influence of women must of necessity be of the first importance; for it is they who determine the religious training and the atmosphere of the home, and thus profoundly affect the national character. let us all alike try to keep before ourselves from day to day and from year to year these high ideals of education which can nowhere be so well attained, both by mistresses and girls, as in a high school. and in particular let me appeal to you, the inhabitants of bath, to be proud of this school, to foster it, to assist it in every way, and be assured that in so doing you are conferring a lasting benefit on your famous city. footnotes: [footnote : an address delivered at the high school, bath, and the high school, clifton, dec. .] iii. religion. religion.[ ] i am not going to preach you a sermon of quite the usual type, but intend rather to offer a few detached remarks without attempting to weave them into any unity of plan, or to connect them with any particular text from the bible. such unity as these remarks may possess will result not from design but from the nature of the subject. for i am going to speak about religion. now as i write this word i almost fancy i hear the rustle of an audience composing itself to endure what it foresees must be a dull and uninteresting address. "religion! he can't make that interesting." now, why is this? what is religion, that in the eyes of so many clever and intelligent and well-educated young people it should be thought dull? of this one point i am quite sure, that it is the fault of our misunderstanding and misrepresentation, in the past and the present, that religion seems dull. religion is, in its essence, the opening to the young mind of all the higher regions of thought and aspiration and imagination and spirituality. when you are quite young you are occupied of course with the visible things and people round you; each hour brings its amusements, its occupations and its delights, and reflection scarcely begins. but soon questions of right and wrong spring up; a world of ideas and imaginations opens before you; you are led by your teachers and your books into the presence of great thoughts, the inspirations that come from beauty in all forms, from nature, from art, from literature, and especially from poets; you come under the influence of friends--fathers, mothers, or other elders--who evidently have springs of conduct and aspirations you as yet only dimly recognize; and mixed with all these influences there is that influence on us from childhood upward of our prayers that we have been taught, our religious services, our bibles, and most of all the sacred figure, dimly seen, but never long absent from our thoughts, enveloped in a sort of sacred and mysterious halo--the figure of our lord jesus christ enshrined in our hearts, and that father in heaven of whom he spoke. all these are among the religious influences; and what is their aim and object? what is it that we should try and extract from them for ourselves? how should we use them in our turn to better those who come after us? well, i reply, they should all be regarded as the avenues by which our human nature as a whole ought to rise, and the only avenues by which it can rise, to its rightful and splendid heritage and its true development. we cannot be all that we might be without straining our efforts in this direction of aspiration towards god, towards all that is ideal, spiritual and divine. we are often inert, effortless, and then the religion i have spoken of repels us because it demands an effort; we are often selfish, and it repels us because it calls us out of self; we are often absorbed in the small and immediate aims for present enjoyment, interested in our own small circles, and religion insists that these are not enough. it is for ever calling us, as all true education calls us, as literature and history call us, to rise higher, to see more, to widen our sympathies, to enlarge our hearts, to open the doors of feeling and emotion. religion therefore may make great demands on us; it may disturb our repose; it may shake us, and say, look, look; look up, look round; it may be importunate, insistent, omnipresent, but it is not dull. there is a sham semblance of religion which you are right in regarding as dull, for it is dull. when it is unreal and insincere it is deadly dull; when phrases are repeated, parrotwise, by people who have either never felt or have long lost their power and inspiration, then too it is deadly dull. when a sharp line, moreover, is made between all the various influences that elevate us, and place us in presence of the ideal and spiritual world; when the common relations of life, when art, poetry, criticism, science; when educated and refining intercourse and conversation, and all that occupies us on our intellectual sides is classed as secular, and the only helps to religion that are recognized are services and creeds and traditions of our particular church, then such religion cuts itself off from many of its springs, and from most of its fairest fields, and _is_ barren, and unprofitable, and dull. you are not likely to make this error. you are perhaps more likely to make the opposite error, by a natural reaction from this. because, when all the world of interest and beauty and human life is opening before you, you cannot believe that religion is confined to the narrow sphere of ideas in which it was once thought to consist, and is still sometimes declared to consist, you may think that you can dispense with that narrow but central sphere of ideas; and there you are wrong. i am quite sure that there is no inspiring and sustaining force, which shall make your lives worthy, comparable to the faith which christ taught the world, that we are verily the children of god, and sharers of his divine life, heirs of an eternal life in christ towards which we may press, and the appointed path to which lies in the highest duties that our daily life presents and consecrates. on this inspiring power of faith in christ i shall not speak to-day. i mean to speak on one only of the duties which form the path to the higher life, which you may overlook, and yet which is inherent in religion. the duty which i shall speak of is the necessity of entering into the life and needs and sympathies of others; of living not with an eye exclusively on yourself, but with the constant thought for others. it is the law of our being that admits of no exception. you may hope that the law of gravitation will be suspended in your case, and leap out of the window; but you will suffer for your mistake; and you will be equally mistaken and equally maim your life, if you think that somehow the law of the spiritual world would admit of exception, and that you can win happiness, goodness, and the full tide of life; become the best that you are capable of being, while remaining isolated, self-absorbed--by being centripetal, not centrifugal. it cannot be. now this is worth saying to you, because you know here at school what a united social life is. all girls do not know this. you do. there is distinctly here a school life, a school feeling, a house feeling. no casual visitor to your playing fields and hall can mistake this. and you know that this enlarges and draws something out of your nature that would never have been suspected had it not been for school life. but when school life ends, what will become of this discovery that you have made? boys, when they leave school and have developed the passionate feeling of love for their old school,--the strong _esprit de corps_, the conviction that in brotherhood and union is their strength and happiness,--contrive to find fresh united activities, and transfer to new bodies their public spirit and power of co-operation. their college, their regiment, their football club, their work with young employés, their parish, their town--something is found into which they can throw themselves. and again and again i have watched how this has become a religion, a binding and elevating and educating power in the mind of young men; and again and again, too, i have noticed how without it men lose interest, lose growth and greatness; individualism creeps on them, half their nature is stunted. for the individual life is only half the life; and even that cannot be the rich and full and glorious thing it might be, unless it is enlarged on all sides, and rests on a wide social sympathy and love. but how is it for girls when they leave school? it is distinctly harder for you to find lines of united action. society tends to individualize young ladies; its ideal for them is elegant inaction and graceful waiting, to an extent infinitely beyond what it is for young men. you do not find at your homes ready-made associations to join, or even an obvious possibility of doing anything for anybody. and so i have witnessed generous and fine school-girl natures dwarfed, cabined, confined; cheated of the activities which they had learned to desire to exercise, becoming individualistic, and therefore commonplace; not without inward fury and resistance, secret remonstrance, but concealing it all under the impassive manner which society demands. something is wrong: and your generation is finding this out, and finding out also its cure. year by year greater liberty of action is open to educated women; and educated women are themselves seeing, and others are seeing for them, that they have a part to play in the world which none others can play; if they do not play it, then work, indispensable to the good of society, and therefore to their own good, is undone. i say to _their own good_, for we all want happiness: but happiness is not won by seeking for it. make up your minds on this point, that there are certain things only to be got by not aiming directly at them. aim, for example, at being influential, and you become a prig; aim at walking and posing gracefully, and you become an affected and ludicrous object; aim even at breathing quite regularly, and you fail. so if you aim at happiness or self-culture or individualistic completeness, the world seems to combine to frustrate you. people, circumstances, opportunities, temper, everything goes wrong; and you lay the blame on everything except the one thing that is the cause of it all, the fact that you yourself are aiming at the wrong thing. but aim at making everything go well where you are; aim at using this treasure of life that god has given you for helping lame dogs over stiles, for making schools, households, games, parishes, societies, sick-rooms, girls' clubs, what not?--run more smoothly; wake every morning with the thought what can i do to-day to oil the wheels of my little world; and behold people, circumstances, opportunities, temper, even health, all get into a new adjustment, and all combine to fill your life with interests, warmth, affection, culture, and growth: you will find it true: good measure, shaken down, heaped together, and running over, shall men give into your bosoms. ah! but _what_ can one do? it is so hard to find out the right thing. yes; and no possible general rule can be given. you must fix the ideal in your mind, and be sure that in some way or other openings will arise. i will not touch life at school; you know more about that than i do, and perhaps need not that i should speak of public spirit, and generous temper, and the united life. i will only say that a girl who does not throw herself into school life with the generous wish to give pleasure and to lift the tone around her, does not get more than a fraction of the good that a school life like this can give, and does not do her duty. i speak of later years alone. and in the first instance, and always in the first place, stand the claims of home. i dare say you remember the young lady who wanted to go and learn nursing in a hospital, and was asked by the doctor why she desired this. "father is paralysed," she said, "and mother is nearly blind, and my sisters are all married, and it is so dull at home; so i thought i should like nursing." i don't want you to emulate that young person. grudge no love and care at home: no one can give such happiness to parents, brothers, sisters, as you can, and to make people happy is in itself a worthy mission; it is the next best thing to making them good. and remember also, that there are many years before you: and that though it may seem that years are spent with nothing effected except that somehow things have gone more smoothly, you yourself will have been matured, deepened, and consolidated by a life of duty, in a way in which no self-chosen path of life could have trained you. and if, as is quite possible, some of you are impatient already for the exercise of your powers in some great work, i will preach patience to you from another motive. it is this: that you are not yet capable of doing much that is useful, from want of training and general ability. i remember miss octavia hill once saying that she could get any quantity of money, and any quantity of enthusiasm, but that her difficulty was to get trained intelligence, either in men or women. so, a few days ago, miss clementina black, who is hon. secretary of the women's trade association, said to a friend of my own that she had had many voluntary lady helpers of various degrees of education and culture, and that she had found without exception that the highly educated students were the most fitted to do the work well; that they alone were capable of the patience, accuracy, and attention to detail which were one essential quality to the doing of such work, and that they alone could provide the other essentials, which can only spring from a cultivated mind--viz., wideness of view, sense of proportion, and capacity for general interest in other important questions--social, literary, and intellectual. "it is this cultivation of mind which prevents you from being crushed under the difficulty and tedium and disappointment which must attend every effort to teach principles and promote ideal aims among the mass of ignorant, apathetic, uninterested, and helpless working women, who must themselves in the last resort be the agents in bringing about a better condition of industry." you may rest assured that if you set your mind on a career of splendid usefulness for your fellows (and i hope every one of you here aims at this), then you will need all the training that the highest and most prolonged education can give you. become the most perfect creature you have it in your power to become. if oxford or cambridge are open to you, welcome the opportunity, and use the extra power they will give you. if not, then utilise the years that lie before you, in perfecting your accomplishments, in self-education; in interesting and informing yourself on social questions, in enlarging your horizon, while you cheerfully, happily, brilliantly perform _all_ your home duties. and during this period of preparation which you all must go through, remember that there are some things which you can do better in your inexperience and ignorance than any other people. how is this? tell me why it would be more comfort, and do more good sometimes to a poor sick woman to bring her a few primroses or daffodils than to give her any substantial relief. the reason is the same. the very freshness and innocence of young faces, that sympathise without having the faintest suspicion of the sin and misery of the world, is more refreshing and helpful than the stronger sympathy of one who really knows all the evil. you can be primroses and daffodils, and give glimpses into a purer world of love and gentleness and peace. and if a prolonged training is impossible to you, it is often possible for you to assist in some humble capacity some lady who is so engaged in work on a scale which you could not yourself touch. be her handmaid and fag and slave, and so gradually train yourself to become capable of independent action. but to sum up all i am saying it amounts to this--where there's a will there's a way, and i want you to have the will. did you ever think for what reason you should have had such a splendid time of it in your lives? not two girls in a thousand are getting such an education as you are, such varied studies, such vigorous public school life, such historic associations. and why? because you are better than others? i think not. it is that you play your part in the great social organism our national life; hundreds are toiling for us, digging, spinning, weaving, mining, building, navigating, that we may have leisure for the thought, the love, the wisdom that shall lighten and direct their lives. you cannot dissociate yourselves from the labouring masses, and in particular from the women and girls of england. they are your sisters; and a blight and a curse rests on you if you ignore them, and grasp at all the pleasures and sweetness and cultivation of your life with no thought or toil for them. their lives are the foundations on which ours rest. it is horrible in one class to live without this consciousness of a mutual obligation, and mutual responsibility. all that we get, we get on trust, as trustee for them. i remember that thring says somewhere, that "no beggar who creeps through the street living on alms and wasting them is baser than those who idly squander at school and afterwards the gifts received on trust." i know that our class education isolates us and separates us from the uneducated and common people as we call them, makes us perhaps regard them as uninteresting, even repellent. part of what we hope from the girls who come from great schools like this is, that they shall have a larger sympathy, a truer heart. remember all your life long a saying of abraham lincoln's, when he was president of the united states. some one remarked in his hearing that he was quite a common-looking man. "friend," he replied, gently, "the lord loves common-looking people best; that is why he has made so many of them." you can all make a _few_ friends out of the lower class; you cannot do much; but learn to know and love a few, and then you will do wider good than you suspect. but you are beginning to ask--is all this religion? you expected something else. let me remind you of the man who came to jesus christ, and asked him what he should do to obtain eternal life. and this question, i may explain, means--what shall i do that i may enter on that divine and higher life now while i live; how can i most fully develop my spiritual nature? and the answer was--love god; and love your neighbour as yourself. go outside yourself in love to all that is divine and ideal in thought and duty; go outside yourself in love to your neighbour--and your neighbour is every one with whom you have any relation; and then, and then alone, does your own nature grow to its highest and best. this is the open secret of true religion. eastertide is the teacher of ideals. its great lesson is--"if ye were raised together with christ, seek the things that are above." if by calling yourself a christian you mean that you aim at the higher, the spiritual, the divine life, then think of things that are above. [greek: ta anô phroneite], think heaven itself. and heaven lies around us in our daily life--not in the cloister, in incense-breathing aisle, in devotions that isolate us, and force a sentiment unreal, morbid, and even false, but in the generous and breathing activities of our life. religion glorifies, because it idealizes, that very life we are each called on to lead. look, therefore, round in your various lives and homes, and ask yourselves what is the ideal life for me here, in this position, as school-girl, daughter, sister, friend, mistress, or in any other capacity. education ought to enable you to frame an ideal; it ought to give you imagination, and sympathy, and intelligence, and resource; and religion ought to give you the strong motive, the endurance, the width of view, the nobleness of purpose, to make your life a light and a blessing wherever you are. footnotes: [footnote : an address given to st. leonard's school, st. andrews, on sunday, april , .] modern eloquence library of after-dinner speeches, lectures occasional addresses [illustration: reproductions of mural decorations from the library of congress, washington "_justice_" _photo-engraving in colors after the original painting by george w. maynard_ this picture is one of a series of eight panels representing "the virtues"--fortitude, justice, patriotism, courage, temperance, prudence, industry, and concord. the number of virtues to be represented was limited to the number of panels, so the selection was necessarily somewhat arbitrary. each figure is about five and a half feet high, clad in floating classic drapery, and represented to the spectator as appearing before him in the air, without a support or background other than the deep red of the wall. "justice" holds the globe in one hand, signifying the extent of her sway. in the other hand she holds a naked sword upright, in token of the terribleness of her punishment.] modern eloquence editor thomas b reed justin mccarthy, rossiter johnson, albert ellery bergh associate editors volume ii after-dinner speeches e--o geo. l. shuman & co. chicago copyright, john r. shuman _committee of selection_ edward everett hale, author of "the man without a country." john b. gordon, former united states senator. nathan haskell dole, associate editor "international library of famous literature." james b. pond, manager lecture bureau; author of "eccentricities of genius." george mclean harper, professor of english literature, princeton university. lorenzo sears, professor of english literature, brown university. edwin m. bacon, former editor "boston advertiser" and "boston post." j. walker mcspadden, managing editor "Édition royale" of balzac's works. f. cunliffe owen, member editorial staff "new york tribune." truman a. deweese, member editorial staff "chicago times-herald." champ clark, member of congress from missouri. marcus benjamin, editor, national museum, washington, d. c. clark howell, editor "atlanta constitution." introductions and special articles by thomas b. reed, hamilton wright mabie, lorenzo sears, jonathan p. dolliver, champ clark, edward everett hale, albert ellery bergh. note--a large number of the most distinguished speakers of this country and great britain have selected their own best speeches for this library. these speakers include whitelaw reid, william jennings bryan, henry van dyke, henry m stanley, newell dwight hillis, joseph jefferson, sir henry irving, arthur t. hadley, john d. long, david starr jordan, and many others of equal note. contents volume ii page eggleston, george cary southern literature eliot, charles william harvard and yale eliot, samuel a. the source of song and story emerson, ralph waldo england, mother of nations the memory of burns war the wisdom of china evarts, william maxwell international arbitration the republic and its outlook the french alliance tribute to herbert spencer the classics in education liberty enlightening the world ewing, thomas c. ohio and the northwest farrar, frederic william poet and painter fellows, john r. north and south field, david dudley the telegraph early connecticut finch, francis m. the office of the law foord, john the land o' cakes ford, simeon me and sir henry a run on the banker froude, james anthony men of letters fuller, melville weston the supreme court garland, hamlin realism versus romanticism gilbert, john playing old men parts gilbert, william schwenk pinafore gilman, daniel coit the era of universities gladstone, william ewart the age of research grady, henry w. the race problem grand, sarah mere man grant, ulysses simpson a remarkable climate characteristics of newspaper men the adopted citizen griggs, john william social discontent hale, edward everett the mission of culture boston hall, william f. yarn of the manager bold halstead, murat our new country harrison, benjamin the union of states hawley, joseph roswell the press hay, john omar khayyam hayes, rutherford b. national sentiments hendrix, joseph c. the wampum of the indians herschell, lord great britain and the united states hillard, george stillman the influence of men of genius hole, samuel reynolds with brains, sir! holmes, oliver wendell welcome to the alumni dorothy q. holmes, oliver wendell, jr. sons of harvard who fell in battle the joy of life houghton, lord (richard monckton milnes) your speech and ours bonds of national sympathy howe, julia ward tribute to oliver wendell holmes howell, clark our reunited country howells, william dean the "atlantic" and its contributors howland, henry elias russia our ancestors and ourselves huxley, thomas henry science and art ingersoll, robert green the music of wagner irving, sir henry looking forward the drama the function of the newspaper jebb, richard claverhouse literature and art jefferson, joseph my farm in jersey in memory of edwin booth kitchener, lord the relief of khartum lang, andrew problem novels laurier, wilfrid canada lawrence, frank r. the future of new york lecky, william e. h. the artistic side of literature lee, fitzhugh the flag of the union forever leighton, sir frederic variety in british art leland, charles godfrey hans breitmann's return lincoln, abraham central ideas of the republic lodge, henry cabot the blue and the gray long, john davis the navy low, seth the chamber of commerce lowell, james russell harvard alumni national growth of a century the stage commerce after-dinner speaking "the return of the native" literature international copyright lowell, john humors of the bench lytton, lord (sir edward bulwer-lytton) macready and the english stage farewell to charles dickens mabie, hamilton wright spirit of new england literature mackay, donald sage the dutch domine mackenzie, alexander c. music macready, william charles farewell to the stage mccarthy, justin ireland's struggle mcclure, alexander kelly an editorial retrospect mckelway, st. clair smashed crockery tribute to mark twain mckinley, william our country the future of the philippines melish, william b. the ladies miles, nelson appleton the spanish-american war miller, samuel freeman federal judges morley, john literature and politics motley, john lothrop the poets' corner newman, john philip commerce norton, charles eliot castles in spain oglesby, richard the royal corn o'reilly, john boyle moore, the bard of erin _illustrations_ volume ii "justice" _frontispiece_ photo-engraving in colors after an original painting by george w. maynard henry woodfin grady photogravure after a photograph from life oliver wendell holmes photogravure after a photograph from life robert green ingersoll photogravure after a photograph from life menu card photogravure after a design by thompson willing faneuil hall photogravure after a photograph "patriotism" photo-engraving in colors after an original painting by george w. maynard george cary eggleston southern literature [speech of george cary eggleston at the first annual banquet of the new york southern society, february , . algernon sidney sullivan, president of the society, was in the chair. in introducing the speaker mr. sullivan said: "we want to hear a word about 'southern literature,' and we will now call upon mr. george cary eggleston to respond to that sentiment."] mr. president:--i have cheered myself so hoarse that i do not think i can make a speech at all. i will say a word or two if my voice holds out. it is patriotically hoarse. if i manage to make a speech it will be the one speech of the evening which was most carefully prepared. the preparations were all made, arrangements were completed and it was perfectly understood that i should not make it. the name set down under this toast is that of hon. john randolph tucker, and the wild absurdity of asking a writer who does not make speeches, to take the place of such an orator as john randolph tucker would seem to be like asking a seasick land-lubber to take the captain's place upon the bridge of the ocean steamer in a storm, and there is another reason by which i am peculiarly unfit to speak in response to the toast--"southern literature," and that is, that i am firmly convinced that there is no southern literature; that there never was a southern literature; that there never will be a southern literature, and that there never ought to be a southern literature. some very great and noble work in literature has been produced by men of southern lineage and birth and residence. john marshall, if he had not been the greatest of american jurists, would have been counted, because of his "life of washington," the greatest of biographers. i might name an extended list of workers in this field, all of southern birth. sims; my dead friend, john esten cooke; his brother, philip cooke; cable, who is married to new england; the gifted woman who calls herself charles egbert craddock; and a host of others including that noble woman now going blind in lexington, who has done some of the sweetest work in american poetry, margaret j. preston. [applause.] i might go further and claim howells, every drop of whose blood is virginian. if it were not getting personal and becoming a family affair, i might mention the fact that the author of the "hoosier schoolmaster," with whom i used to play on the hills of ohio river, was of direct southern descent; that he was born as i was, exactly on mason and dixon's line, and one of us fell over on one side and the other on the other when the trouble came. notwithstanding all this, i hold that there can be no such thing as a southern literature, because literature is never provincial, and to say of any literature that it is southern or western or northern or eastern is to say that it is a provincial utterance and not a literature. the work to which i have referred is american literature. it is work of which american literature is proud and will ever be proud, whatever is worthy in literature or in achievement of any kind in any part of the country goes ultimately in the common fund of american literature or of american achievement; and that is the joy i have had in being here to-night, when i ought to have been at home. the joy i have had to-night has been that this sentiment of americanism has seemed to be all around me, and to run through and through everything that has been said here to-night--a sentiment which was taken out of my mouth, as it were, by the president this evening, that our first devotion above all is to what i call the american idea. it seems to me that we are sometimes forgetting what idea it is that has made this country great; what it is that has made of it a nation of free men and educated men--a nation in which the commonest laborer has the school open to him, as well as the workshop; in which the commonest laborer can sit down three times every day to a bountiful table. we sometimes forget the idea on which our country was founded; the idea which prompted jefferson, as a young man, to stand up in the legislature of virginia and fight through three bills directly affecting mere questions of law, but determining the future of this country more largely than any other acts,--even the acts of washington himself. those three bills, one providing for the separation of church and state, one for the abolition of primogeniture, and the third for the abolition of entail. the idea that ran through that time was the idea of equal individual manhood--of the supremacy of the man to all else, to the state itself, to government and society; that the individual man was the one thing to be taken care of; that it is the sole business of the government to give him rights of manhood, to protect him in his personal freedom, and then to let him alone. we have imported of late subtly sophistical advocates of socialism who would set up in opposition to these american ideas the system of state paternalism, and assert the doctrine that the state should not let a man alone to make the best use he can of his abilities and opportunities, but should guide him and support him and direct him and provide for him and, in short, make a moral and intellectual cripple of him. that is the new and un-american idea which has recently been promulgated and which has found expression in new york in , votes; it is the idea which has been seized upon by those persons who have leagued themselves together to secure to themselves larger profits upon their industry or investments by taxing the whole people for the benefit of the few, making the state the pap-giver, taking from the people the taxes that should be rigidly limited to the needs of the government and turning them into the pockets of the individual; supporting, helping and making, as i have said, a cripple of him. that is the idea which has prompted in large degree disturbances through which we have passed, and to which reference has been made here to-night. it is the idea that somehow or in some particular way a man should have some support other than his own individual exertion, and absolute freedom can provide for him. it seems to me that one lesson we here to-night should take most to heart is that lesson taught by the whole history of our country, that the american idea--the idea of the individuality and manhood of man, the idea of a government formed simply to protect man, as individuals in their rights, and leave them free in their action and mode of thought--is the idea that has made this country great. it is in pursuance of that that we have become the nation we are; it is by adherence to that that we have become a model to all other nations, so much so that in the german election yesterday, with the aid of friendly foreign despots, with the aid of a threatened war, with all the aids that imperialism can call to its assistance, bismarck was able to carry his point only by a small majority. this is the idea under which we have founded our nation and grown great, and it is by that idea that we shall continue great, if we are so to continue. [applause.] charles william eliot harvard and yale [speech of charles w. eliot, president of harvard university, at the seventy-second anniversary banquet of the new england society in the city of new york, december , . the president of the society, william borden, presided, and said by way of introducing the speaker: "gentlemen, i now give you the sixth regular toast: 'harvard and yale, the two elder sisters among the educational institutions of new england, where generous rivalry has ever promoted patriotism and learning. their children have, in peace and war, in life and death, deserved well of the republic. smile, heaven, upon this fair conjunction.' [applause.] we are fortunate to-night, gentlemen, in having with us the representatives of both these institutions, and i will ask president eliot, of harvard, first, to respond." the allusion made by president eliot to the words of the secretary of state refers to the following remarks which william m. evarts made in the course of his address: "new england, i observe, while it retains all its sterling qualities, is nevertheless moving forward in the direction of conciliation and peace. i remember when i was a boy, i travelled miles by stage-coach from boston to new haven to avoid going to harvard university which was across the bridge. [great applause and laughter.] it was because of the religious animosities which pervaded the community, and i suppose animated my youthful breast; and now here i come to a new england society, and sit between the presidents of those renowned universities, who have apparently come here for the purpose of enjoying themselves, and of exhibiting that proximity is no longer dangerous to the peace of those universities. [applause and laughter.] no doubt there is a considerable warfare going on between them as to the methods of instruction; but to us who have looked on, we have seen no more obtrusive manifestation of it than that the president on my left, of yale, in dealing with the subjects that have successively been placed before him, has pursued the methods of that university, its comprehensive method, that takes in the whole curriculum; while on my right, the eclectic principle is exercised by my friend, president eliot [applause and laughter], and he has confined himself to the dainty morsels of the repast. i speak of this to show that, although an amelioration of climate or an obliteration of virtues is not to be expected in new england, or in new england men, yet there may be an advancement of the sunshine of the heart, and that an incorporation of our narrow territory in a great nation, and a transfusion of our opinions, our ideas, our purposes into the veins of a nation of forty millions of people, may enlarge and liberalize even the views, the plans, and the action of new england."] mr. president and gentlemen:--i am obliged to my friend dr. clarke [james freeman clarke, d.d.] for the complimentary terms in which he has presented me to you. but i must appeal to your commiseration. harvard and yale! can any undergraduate of either institution, can any recent graduate of either institution, imagine a man responding to that toast? [laughter.] however, i must make the best of the position, and speak of some points upon which the two institutions are clearly agreed. and here i am reminded of a story of a certain new england farmer, who said that he and 'squire jones had more cows between them than all the rest of the village; and his brag being disputed, he said he could prove it, for the 'squire had forty-five cows and he had one, and the village altogether had not forty-six. [laughter.] we shall all agree that it is for the best interests of this country that it have sundry universities, of diverse tone, atmosphere, sphere, representing different opinions and different methods of study to some extent, and in different trainings, though with the same end. [applause.] holding this view, i have been somewhat concerned to see of late that the original differences between harvard and yale seem to be rapidly disappearing. for example, a good many years ago, harvard set out on what is called the "elective" system, and now i read in the yale catalogue a long list of studies called "optional," which strikes me as bearing a strong resemblance to our elective courses. [laughter.] again, my friend the secretary of state has done me the honor of alluding to the reasons which induced his father, i suppose, rather than himself, to send him on that journey, which we harvard men all deplore. [laughter.] now, it is unquestioned, that about the year a certain number of congregationalist clergymen, who belonged to the established church (for we are too apt to forget that congregationalism was the "established church" of that time, and none other was allowed), thought that harvard was getting altogether too latitudinarian, and though they were every one of them graduates of harvard, they went off and set up another college in connecticut, where a stricter doctrine should be taught. harvard men have rather nursed the hope that this distinction between harvard and yale might be permanent. [laughter.] but i regret to say that i have lately observed many strong indications that it is wholly likely to disappear. for example, to come at once to the foundations, i read in the papers the other day, and i am credibly informed it is true, that the head of yale college voted to install a minister whose opinions upon the vital, pivotal, fundamental doctrine of eternal damnation are unsound. [laughter.] then, again, i look at the annual reports of the bureau of education on this department at washington, and i read there for some years that harvard college was unsectarian; and i knew that it was right, because i made the return myself. [laughter.] i read also that yale college was a congregationalist college; and i had no doubt that that was right, because i supposed dr. porter had made the report. but now we read in that same report that yale college is unsectarian. that is a great progress. the fact is, both these universities have found out that in a country which has no established church and no dominant sect you cannot build a university on a sect at all--you must build it upon the nation. [applause.] but, gentlemen, there are some other points, i think, of national education on which we shall find these two early founded universities to agree. for example, we have lately read, in the message of the chief magistrate, that a national university would be a good thing. [applause.] harvard and yale are of one mind upon that subject, but they want to have a national university defined. [laughter.] if it means a university of national resort, we say amen. if it means a university where the youth of this land are taught to love their country and to serve her, we say amen [applause]; and we point, both of us, to our past in proof that we are national in that sense. [applause.] but if it means that the national university is to be a university administered and managed by the wise congress of the united states, then we should agree in taking some slight exceptions. [laughter.] we should not question for a moment the capacity of congress to pick out and appoint the professors of latin and greek, and the ancient languages, because we find that there is an astonishing number of classical orators in congress, and there is manifested there a singular acquaintance with the legislation of all the latin races. [laughter.] but when it should come to some other humbler professorships we might perhaps entertain a doubt. for example, we have not entire faith in the trust that congress has in the unchangeableness of the laws of arithmetic. [laughter.] we might think that their competency to select a professor of history might be doubted. they seem to have an impression that there is such a thing as "american" political economy, which can no more be than "american" chemistry or "american" physics. [applause.] finally, gentlemen, we should a little distrust the selection by congress of a professor of ethics. [laughter.] of course, we should feel no doubt in regard to the tenure of office of the professors being entirely suitable, it being the well-known practice of both branches of congress to select men solely for fitness, without regard to locality, and to keep them in office as long as they are competent and faithful. [laughter and applause.] but, gentlemen, i think we ought to recur for a moment, perhaps, to the pilgrim fathers [laughter], and i desire to say that both harvard and yale recognize the fact that there are some things before which universities "pale their ineffectual fires." "words are but breath; but where great deeds were done, a power abides, transferred from sire to son." now, gentlemen, on that sandy, desolate spot of plymouth great deeds were done, and we are here to commemorate them. those were hard times. it was a terrible voyage, and they were hungry and cold and worn out with labor, and they took their guns to the church and the field, and the half of them died in the first winter. they were not prosperous times that we recall with this hour. let us take some comfort from that in the present circumstances of our beloved country. she is in danger of a terrible disaster, but let us remember that the times which future generations delight to recall are not those of ease and prosperity, but those of adversity bravely borne. [applause.] samuel a. eliot the source of song and story [speech of rev. samuel a. eliot at the fifteenth annual dinner of the new england society in the city of brooklyn, december , . the president of the society, robert d. benedict, presided. in introducing mr. eliot, he said: "i am not aware that there were any poets among the pilgrim fathers. they had something else to do besides versifying. but poesy has found many a home among the hills of new england. and many a home, not only in new england, but in old england also, was saddened during the year that is gone to hear that the song of one of the poets of new england was hushed forever. i give you as the next sentiment: 'the poets and poetry of new england,' and i call upon the rev. samuel a. eliot, of the church of the saviour, in this city, to respond."] mr. president and gentlemen of the new england society in brooklyn:--i have been given to understand, sir, that in these unpuritanic days lovers keep late hours; and as i listened to the wooing of fair brooklyn by the eloquent son[ ] of new york i thought we might be here till papa turned out the gas. brooklyn is a new england maiden and a trifle coy, and it may take even more than an hour's pleading and persuasive wooing to win her. [applause.] you ask me, sir, to turn our thoughts back from these considerations of pressing and immediate problems, from discussion of international and even intercontinental relations, to the beginnings and the causes of our rejoicings here. i am glad to do that, for i love to trace the connections and contrasts of past and present, and to mark the growth and evolution of that new england genius and character which are illustrated at these tables. the early history of new england seems to many minds as dry and unromantic as it was hard and narrow. no mist of distance softens the harsh outlines, no mirage of tradition lifts events and characters into picturesque beauty. there seems a poverty of sentiment. the transplanting of a people breaks the successions and associations of history. no memories of conqueror and crusader stir for us poetic fancy. instead of the glitter of chivalry there is but the sombre homespun of puritan peasants. in place of the "long-drawn aisle and fretted vault" of gothic cathedral there is but the rude log meeting-house and schoolhouse. instead of christmas merriment there is only the noise of axe and hammer or the dreary droning of psalms. it seems a history bleak and barren of poetic inspiration, at once plebeian and prosaic. how is it then that out of the hard soil of the puritan thought and character, out of the sterile rocks of the new england conscience, have sprung the flowers of poetry which you bid me celebrate to-night? from those songless beginnings have burst, in later generations, melodies that charm and uplift our land--now a deep organ peal filling the air with music, now a trumpet blast thrilling the blood of patriotism, now a drum-beat to which duty delights to march, now a joyous fantasy of the violin bringing smiles to the lips, now the soft vibrations of the harp that fill the eyes with tears. what is it in the puritan heritage, externally so bare and cold, that make it intrinsically so poetic and inspiring? there is no poetry in the darkness of the puritan's creed nor in the rigid rectitude of his morality. his surly boldness, his tough hold on the real, his austere piety enforce respect, but do not allure affection. the genial graces cannot bear company with ruthless bigotry and hebraic energy. nor is there any poetry in the mere struggle for existence, and the mean poverty that marked the outward life. the pilgrims were often pinched for food; they suffered in a bitter climate; they lived in isolation. we think lightly of these things because we cannot help imagining that they knew that they were founding a mighty nation. but that knowledge was denied them. generations of them sank into nameless graves without any vision of the days when their descendants should rise up and call them blessed. nor is there any inspiration in the measure of their outward success. judged by their own ideals, the puritans failed. they would neither recognize nor approve the civilization that has sprung from the seeds of their planting. they tried to establish a theocracy; they stand in history as the heroes of democracy. alike in their social and religious aims they ignored ineradicable elements in human nature. they attempted the impossible. how then have their deeds become the source of song and story? why all the honor that we pay them? it is not because in danger, in sacrifice, and in failure, they were stout-hearted. many a freebooter or soldier of fortune has been that. it is, as one said whose name i bear, "because they were stout-hearted for an ideal--their ideal, not ours, of civil and religious liberty. wherever and whenever resolute men and women devote themselves, not to material, but to spiritual ends, there the world's heroes are made," and made to be remembered, and to become the inspiration of poem and romance and noble daring. scratch a new englander to-day, it is said, and you find the puritan. that is no less true of the poets than of the warriors and the men of facts and figures. the new england poets derived their nourishment from the deep earth of that wholesome past, into which the roots of all our lives go down. the mystical and mediæval side of puritanism finds its embodiment in hawthorne; its moral ideals shine in bryant; its independency is incarnated in emerson. emerson is the type of the nineteenth-century puritan, in life pure, in temperament saintly, in spirit detached from the earth, blazing a path for himself through the wilderness of speculation, seeing things from the centre, working for the reconstruction of christian society and the readjustment of the traditional religion. an enfranchised puritan is a puritan still. of such is holmes, who shot his flashing arrows at all shams and substitutes for reality, and never failed to hit the mark; of such is whittier, "whose swelling and vehement heart strains the strait-breasted drab of the quaker apart;" of such is lowell, to whom belongs the supreme distinction of having written the greatest poem yet produced on this continent. we who have undergone the shock of material, intellectual and spiritual growth too often fail to recognize our debt to the deserted cause. our poets remind us that our very freedom is our inheritance from the system we reject. it was inevitable that our six great poets should have been in literature, idealists; in politics, abolitionists; in religion, unitarians. it was the progressive independency of a puritan ancestry declaring itself. save, perhaps, in longfellow, no gloss or glamour of europe obscures their poetry. no hush of servility rests on it. no patronage summoned it, and no indifference silenced it. our poetry is the genuine utterance of democracy, and betrays in every syllable the fibre of freemen. new england poetry is well nigh as puritan in its form as in its spirit. there is in it a true cromwellian temper. our poets have been patriots, firm and prophetic believers in their country's destiny, loving their country so well that they dared to tell the sometimes unwelcome truth about her. the biblical strain is in our poetry. if our english bible were lost to us we could reconstruct almost all of its best verses out of whittier's poems. the thunders of sinai still roll in lowell's fiery denunciations of smug conventionalities and wickedness in high places. the music of the psalmist is in longfellow's meditations, and all the prophet's vision in emerson's inspired utterance. the puritan restraint is on new england poetry. there is no noisy rhetoric, no tossing about of big adjectives and stinging epithets, no abuse of our noble english tongue by cheap exaggerations. our poets do not need to underscore words or to use heavy headlines and italics. their invective has been mighty because so restrained and so compressed. there is none of the common cant or the common plausibilities. there is no passing off of counterfeits for realities, no "pouring of the waters of concession into the bottomless buckets of expediency." thus do our poets declare their inheritance. but they do not stop there. to the indomitable power of the puritan conscience they have added a wealth of imaginative sympathy. they have made sweetness to be the issue of strength, and beauty to be the halo of power. they have seen the vision of the rainbow round the throne. they have touched with divine light the prosaic story of new england, and found the picturesque in what seemed commonplace. they have seen the great in the little, and ennobled the humbler ways of existence with spiritual insight. they have set to music the homely service and simple enjoyments of common life. they have touched the chords that speak to the universal heart. the very provincialism of our poets endears them to us. their work, as some foreign critic said, has been done in a corner. we do not deny it. but, verily we believe, that new england is the corner lot of our national estate. our poets have preserved for us in ballads our homespun legends. they have imaged in verse the beauty of new england's hills and waters. as we read there comes the whiff of fragrance which transports us to the hillside pasture where the sweet fern and sorrel grow, or the salt breeze of the sea blows again on our cheeks, or the rippling merrimac sings in our ears, or the heights of katahdin or wachusett, lift our eyes upward. finally, our poets, in their characters, disprove the reproach that a democracy can produce only average men. as they wrote, they were. the harp of new england is silent. the master hands sweep the chords no more. but shall we dare to think that the coming generation will have no songs and no singers? shall we build the sepulchre of poetry? shall we express ourselves only in histories and criticisms? shall man no longer behold god and nature face to face? "things are in the saddle to-day," said emerson; and indeed it may well depress us to see our greatness as a nation measured by the number of bushels of wheat raised, or the number of hogs packed. "the value of a country," said lowell, "is weighed in scales more delicate than the balance of trade. on a map of the world you may cover judea with your thumb, athens with a finger tip, and neither of them figures in the prices current, yet they still live in the thought and action of every civilized man. material success is good, but only as the necessary preliminary of better things. the measure of a nation's true success is the amount it has contributed to the thought, the moral energy, the intellectual happiness, the spiritual hope and consolation of mankind." before we can have a rebirth of poetry, we must have a fresh infusion of the puritan devotion to ideal ends. we must be baptized again into the spirit of non-conformity, of intellectual and moral honesty, the spirit which does not suffer men to go with the crowd, when reason and conscience and a living god bid them go alone. there never was a time when we needed more the background of puritanism. we need in our business and our politics a sterner sense of the fear of god, and in our home life a renewed simplicity. if we are to build up to the level of our best opportunities, we must build down to solid foundation on the sense of obligation. we have new times, new land and new men. shall we not have new thought, new work and new worship? [applause.] ralph waldo emerson england, mother of nations [speech of ralph waldo emerson at the annual banquet of the manchester athenæum, manchester, england, november, . sir archibald alison, the historian, presided] mr. chairman and gentlemen:--it is pleasant to me to meet this great and brilliant company, and doubly pleasant to see the faces of so many distinguished persons on this platform. but i have known all these persons already. when i was at home, they were as near to me as they are to you. the arguments of the league and its leader are known to all the friends of free trade. the gaieties and genius, the political, the social, the parietal wit of "punch" go duly every fortnight to every boy and girl in boston and new york. sir, when i came to sea, i found the "history of europe"[ ] on the ship's cabin table, the property of the captain;--a sort of programme or play-bill to tell the seafaring new englander what he shall find on landing here. and as for dombey, sir, there is no land where paper exists to print on, where it is not found; no man who can read, that does not read it, and, if he cannot, he finds some charitable pair of eyes that can, and hears it. but these things are not for me to say; these compliments, though true, would better come from one who felt and understood these merits more. i am not here to exchange civilities with you, but rather to speak of that which i am sure interests these gentlemen more than their own praises; of that which is good in holidays and working-days, the same in one century and in another century. that which lures a solitary american in the woods with the wish to see england, is the moral peculiarity of the saxon race,--its commanding sense of right and wrong,--the love and devotion to that,--this is the imperial trait, which arms them with the sceptre of the globe. it is this which lies at the foundation of that aristocratic character, which certainly wanders into strange vagaries, so that its origin is often lost sight of, but which, if it should lose this, would find itself paralyzed; and in trade, and in the mechanic's shop, gives that honesty in performance, that thoroughness and solidity of work, which is a national characteristic. this conscience is one element, and the other is that loyal adhesion, that habit of friendship, that homage of man to man, running through all classes,--the electing of worthy persons to a certain fraternity, to acts of kindness and warm and staunch support, from year to year, from youth to age,--which is alike lovely and honorable to those who render and those who receive it;--which stands in strong contrast with the superficial attachments of other races, their excessive courtesy, and short-lived connection. you will think me very pedantic, gentlemen, but holiday though it be, i have not the smallest interest in any holiday, except as it celebrates real and not pretended joys; and i think it just, in this time of gloom and commercial disaster, of affliction and beggary in these districts, that on these very accounts i speak of, you should not fail to keep your literary anniversary. i seem to hear you say that, for all that is come and gone, yet we will not reduce by one chaplet or one oak-leaf the braveries of our annual feast. for i must tell you, i was given to understand in my childhood that the british island, from which my forefathers came, was no lotus-garden, no paradise of serene sky and roses and music and merriment all the year round, no, but a cold, foggy, mournful country, where nothing grew well in the open air, but robust men and virtuous women, and these of a wonderful fibre and endurance; that their best parts were slowly revealed; their virtues did not come out until they quarrelled; they did not strike twelve the first time; good lovers, good haters, and you could know little about them till you had seen them long, and little good of them till you had seen them in action; that in prosperity they were moody and dumpish, but in adversity they were grand. is it not true, sir, that the wise ancients did not praise the ship parting with flying colors from the port, but only that brave sailor which came back with torn sheets and battered sides, stript of her banners, but having ridden out the storm? and so, gentlemen, i feel in regard to this aged england, with the possessions, honors and trophies, and also with the infirmities of a thousand years gathering around her, irretrievably committed as she now is to many old customs which cannot be suddenly changed; pressed upon by the transitions of trade, and new and all incalculable modes, fabrics, arts, machines and competing populations,--i see her not dispirited, not weak, but well remembering that she has seen dark days before; indeed, with a kind of instinct that she sees a little better in a cloudy day, and that in storm of battle and calamity, she has a secret vigor and a pulse like a cannon. i see her in her old age, not decrepit, but young, and still daring to believe in her power of endurance and expansion. seeing this, i say, all hail! mother of nations, mother of heroes, with strength still equal to the time; still wise to entertain and swift to execute the policy which the mind and heart of mankind require in the present hour, and thus only hospitable to the foreigner, and truly a home to the thoughtful and generous who are born in the soil. so be it! so let it be! if it be not so, if the courage of england goes with the chances of a commercial crisis, i will go back to the capes of massachusetts, and my own indian stream, and say to my countrymen, the old race are all gone, and the elasticity and hope of mankind must henceforth remain on the alleghany ranges, or nowhere. * * * * * the memory of burns [speech of ralph waldo emerson at the festival of the boston burns club, at the parker house, boston, mass., january , , commemorating the hundredth anniversary of the birth of the scottish bard. around the tables were gathered a company numbering nearly three hundred, including emerson, lowell, holmes, george s. hillard, nathaniel p. willis, and others of the literary guild. among the decorations of the banqueting-hall was displayed a bust of burns crowned with a wreath of roses and bays. mr. emerson spoke to the principal toast of the evening, "the memory of burns," and his graceful flights of oratory were received with cheers, and calls for "more! more!" which the presiding officer, general john s. tyler, quieted with the remark: "mr. emerson begs to be excused, not because the well of gushing waters is exhausted, but because, in the kindness of his heart, he thinks he ought to leave room for gentlemen who are to succeed him." willis, writing later of the festival, said of this speech, "why, in that large and convivially excited audience, there was not, while he spoke, a wandering eye--not a pulse or a breath that was not held absolutely captive. wherein lies the wonderful spell?"] mr. president and gentlemen:--i do not know by what untoward accident it has chanced--and i forbear to inquire--that, in this accomplished circle, it should fall to me, the worst scotsman of all, to receive your commands, and at the latest hour, too, to respond to the sentiment just offered, and which, indeed, makes the occasion. but i am told there is no appeal, and i must trust to the inspiration of the theme to make a fitness which does not otherwise exist. yet, sir, i heartily feel the singular claims of the occasion. at the first announcement, from i know not whence, that the twenty-fifth of january was the hundredth anniversary of the birth of robert burns, a sudden consent warned the great english race, in all its kingdoms, colonies and states, all over the world, to keep the festival. we are here to hold our parliament with love and poesy, as men were wont to do in the middle ages. those famous parliaments might or might not have had more stateliness, and better singers than we--though that is yet to be known--but they could not have better reason. i can only explain this singular unanimity in a race which rarely acts together--but rather after their watchword, each for himself--by the fact that robert burns, the poet of the middle class, represents in the mind of men to-day that great uprising of the middle class against the armed and privileged minorities--that uprising which worked politically in the american and french revolutions, and which, not in governments so much as in education and in social order, has changed the face of the world. in order for this destiny, his birth, breeding and fortune were low. his organic sentiment was absolute independence, and resting, as it should, on a life of labor. no man existed who could look down on him. they that looked into his eyes saw that they might look down the sky as easily. his muse and teaching was common sense, joyful, aggressive, irresistible. not latimer, nor luther, struck more telling blows against false theology than did this brave singer. the "confession of augsburg," the "declaration of independence," the french "rights of man," and the "marseillaise," are not more weighty documents in the history of freedom than the songs of burns. his satire has lost none of its edge. his musical arrows yet sing through the air. he is so substantially a reformer, that i find his grand, plain sense in close chain with the greatest masters--rabelais, shakespeare in comedy, cervantes, butler, and burns. if i should add another name, i find it only in a living countryman of burns. he is an exceptional genius. the people who care nothing for literature and poetry care for burns. it was indifferent--they thought who saw him--whether he wrote verse or not; he could have done anything else as well. yet how true a poet is he! and the poet, too, of poor men, of hodden-gray, and the guernsey-coat, and the blouse. he has given voice to all the experiences of common life; he has endeared the farmhouse and cottage, patches and poverty, beans and barley; ale, the poor man's wine; hardship, the fear of debt, the dear society of weans and wife, of brothers and sisters, proud of each other, knowing so few, and finding amends for want and obscurity in books and thought. what a love of nature! and--shall i say it?--of middle-class nature. not great, like goethe, in the stars, or like byron, on the ocean, or moore, in the luxurious east, but in the homely landscape which the poor see around them--bleak leagues of pasture and stubble, ice, and sleet, and rain, and snow-choked brooks; birds, hares, field-mice, thistles, and heather, which he daily knew. how many "bonny doons," and "john anderson my joes," and "auld lang synes," all around the earth, have his verses been applied to! and his love songs still woo and melt the youths and maids; the farm work, the country holiday, the fishing cobble, are still his debtors to-day. and, as he was thus the poet of the poor, anxious, cheerful, working humanity, so had he the language of low life. he grew up in a rural district, speaking a patois unintelligible to all but natives, and he has made that lowland scotch a doric dialect of fame. it is the only example in history of a language made classic by the genius of a single man. but more than this. he had that secret of genius to draw from the bottom of society the strength of its speech, and astonish the ears of the polite with these artless words, better than art, and filtered of all offence through his beauty. it seemed odious to luther that the devil should have all the best tunes; he would bring them into the churches; and burns knew how to take from fairs and gypsies, blacksmiths and drovers, the speech of the market and street, and clothe it with melody. but i am detaining you too long. the memory of burns--i am afraid heaven and earth have taken too good care of it to leave us anything to say. the west winds are murmuring it. open the windows behind you, and hearken for the incoming tide, what the waves say of it. the doves, perching always on the eaves of the stone chapel [king's chapel] opposite, may know something about it. every home in broad scotland keeps his fame bright. the memory of burns--every man's, and boy's, and girl's head carries snatches of his songs, and can say them by heart, and, what is strangest of all, never learned them from a book, but from mouth to mouth. the wind whispers them, the birds whistle them, the corn, barley, and bulrushes hoarsely rustle them; nay, the music-boxes at geneva are framed and toothed to play them; the hand-organs of the savoyards in all cities repeat them, and the chimes of bells ring them in the spires. they are the property and the solace of mankind. [cheers.] * * * * * war [speech of ralph waldo emerson at the dinner of harvard alumni at cambridge, mass., july , , on the occasion of the commemoration of the patriot heroes of harvard college in the civil war.] mr. chairman and gentlemen:--with whatever opinions we come here, i think it is not in man to see, without a feeling of pride and pleasure, a tried soldier, the armed defender of the right. i think that, in these last years, all opinions have been affected by the magnificent and stupendous spectacle, which divine providence has offered us, of the energies that slept in the children of this country,--that slept and have awakened. i see thankfully those who are here; but dim eyes in vain explore for some who are not. they shine the brighter "in the domain of tender memory." the old greek, heraclitus, said: "war is the father of all things." he said it, no doubt, as science, but we of this day can repeat it as a political and social truth. war passes the power of all chemical solvents, breaking up the old cohesions, and allowing the atoms of society to take a new order. it is not the government but the war that has appointed the great generals, sifted out the pedants, put in the new and vigorous blood. [great applause.] the war has lifted many other people, besides grant and sherman, into their true places. even divine providence, we may say, always seems to work after a certain military necessity. every nation punishes the general who is not victorious. it is a rule in games of chance that "the cards beat all the players," and revolutions disconcert and outwit all the insurgents. the revolutions carry their own points, sometimes to the ruin of those who set them on foot. the proof that war also is within the highest right, is a marked benefactor in the hands of divine providence, is its _morale_. the war gave back integrity to the erring and immoral nation. it charged with power, peaceful, amiable, men, to whose whole life war and discord were abhorrent. what an infusion of character went out from this and the other colleges! what an infusion of character down to the ranks! the experience has been uniform, that it is the gentle soul that makes the firm hero, after all. it is easy to recall the mood in which our young men, snatched from every peaceful pursuit, went to war. many of them had never handled a gun. they said, "it is not in me to resist. i go because i must. it is a duty which i shall never forgive myself if i decline. i do not know that i can make a soldier. i may be very clumsy; perhaps i shall be timid; but you can rely on me. only one thing is certain, i can well die, but i cannot afford to misbehave." [loud applause.] in fact, the infusion of culture and tender humanity from these scholars and idealists who went to the war in their own despite,--god knows they had no fury for killing their old friends and countrymen,--had its signal and lasting effect. it was found that enthusiasm was a more potent ally than science and munitions of war without it. "'tis a principle of war," said napoleon--_principe de guerre_--"that when you can use the thunderbolt, you must prefer it to the cannon." enthusiasm was the thunderbolt. here in this little massachusetts, in smaller rhode island, in this little nest of new england republics, it flamed out when that guilty gun was aimed at sumter. mr. chairman, standing here in harvard college, the parent of all the colleges, in massachusetts, the mother of all the north, when i consider her influence on the country as a principal planter of the western states, and now by her teachers, preachers, journalists and books, as well as by traffic and production, the diffuser of religious, literary and political opinion, and when i see how irresistible the convictions of massachusetts are on those swarming populations, i think the little state bigger than i knew; and when her blood is up, she has a fist that could knock down an empire. and her blood was roused. [great applause.] scholars exchanged the black coat for the blue. a single company in the th massachusetts contained thirty-five sons of harvard. you all know as well as i the story of these dedicated men, who knew well on what duty they went, whose fathers and mothers said of each slaughtered son, "we gave him up when he enlisted." one mother said, when her son was offered the command of the first negro regiment, "if he accepts it, i shall be as proud as if i had heard that he was shot." [applause.] these men, thus tender, thus high-bred, thus peaceable, were always in the front, and always employed. they might say with their forefathers, the old norse vikings, "we sang the mass of lances from morning until evening;" and in how many cases it chanced, when the hero had fallen, they who came by night to his funeral on the morrow returned to his war-path, to show his slayers the way to death! ah! young brothers, all honor and gratitude to you! you, manly defenders, liberty's and humanity's home guard. we shall not again disparage america, now that we have seen what men it will bear. we see--we thank you for it--a new era, worth to mankind all the treasure and the lives it has cost; yes, worth to the world the lives of all this generation of american men, if they had been demanded. [loud applause.] * * * * * the wisdom of china [speech of ralph waldo emerson at the banquet given by the city of boston, august , , to the hon. anson burlingame, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary from china, and his associates, chih ta-jin and sun ta-jin, of the chinese embassy to the united states and the european powers. mr. emerson responded to the toast: "the union of the farthest east and the farthest west."] mr. mayor:--i suppose we are all of one opinion on this remarkable occasion of meeting the embassy sent from the oldest empire in the world to the youngest republic. all share the surprise and pleasure when the venerable oriental dynasty, hitherto a romantic legend to most of us, suddenly steps into the fellowship of nations. this auspicious event, considered in connection with the late innovations in japan, marks a new era, and is an irresistible result of the science which has given us the power of steam and the electric telegraph. it is the more welcome for the surprise. we had said of china, as the old prophet said of egypt, "her strength is to sit still." her people had such elemental conservatism, that by some wonderful force of race and national manners the wars and revolutions that occur in her annals proved but momentary swells or surges on the pacific ocean of her history, leaving no trace. but in its immovability this race has claims. china is old not in time only, but in wisdom, which is gray hair to a nation, or rather, truly seen, is eternal youth. as we know, china had the magnet centuries before europe; and block-printing and stereotype, and lithography, and gunpowder, and vaccination, and canals; had anticipated linnæus's nomenclature of plants; had codes, journals, clubs, hackney coaches, and, thirty centuries before new york, had the custom of new-year's calls of comity and reconciliation. i need not mention its useful arts,--its pottery, indispensable to the world; the luxury of silks; and its tea, the cordial of nations. but i must remember that she had respectable remains of astronomic science, and historic records of forgotten time, that have supplied important gaps in the ancient history of the western nations. then she has philosophers who cannot be spared. confucius has not yet gathered all his fame. when socrates heard that the oracle declared that he was the wisest of men, he said, it must mean that other men held that they were wise, but that he knew that he knew nothing. confucius had already affirmed this of himself: and what we call the golden rule of jesus, confucius had uttered in the same terms, five hundred years before. his morals, though addressed to a state of society utterly unlike ours, we read with profit to-day. his rare perception appears in his golden mean, his doctrine of reciprocity, his unerring insight, putting always the blame of our misfortunes on our selves; as when to the governor who complained of thieves he said: "if you, sir, were not covetous, though you should reward them for it, they would not steal." his ideal of greatness predicts marcus antoninus. at the same time, he abstained from paradox, and met the ingrained prudence of his nation by saying always: "bend one cubit to straighten eight." china interests us at this moment in a point of politics. i am sure that gentlemen around me bear in mind the bill which hon. mr. jenckes, of rhode island, has twice attempted to carry through congress, requiring that candidates for public offices shall first pass examination on their literary qualifications for the same. well, china has preceded us, as well as england and france, in this essential correction of a reckless usage; and the like high esteem of education appears in china in social life, to whose distinctions it is made an indispensable passport. it is gratifying to know that the advantages of the new intercourse between the two countries are daily manifest on the pacific coast. the immigrants from asia come in crowds. their power of continuous labor, their versatility in adapting themselves to new conditions, their stoical economy, are unlooked-for virtues. they send back to their friends, in china, money, new products of art, new tools, machinery, new foods, etc., and are thus establishing a commerce without limit. i cannot help adding, after what i have heard to-night, that i have read in the journals a statement from an english source, that sir frederic bruce attributed to mr. burlingame the merit of the happy reform in the relations of foreign governments to china. i am quite sure that i heard from mr. burlingame in new york, in his last visit to america, that the whole merit of it belonged to sir frederic bruce. it appears that the ambassadors were emulous in their magnanimity. it is certainly the best guaranty for the interests of china and of humanity. william maxwell evarts international arbitration [speech of william m. evarts at the sixty-seventh anniversary banquet of the new england society in the city of new york, december , . the president, elliot c. cowden, occupied the chair. introducing the speaker, he said: "i now ask your attention to the eighth regular toast: 'the geneva tribunal of arbitration, a victory of peace, demonstrating that the statesman's wisdom is mightier than the warrior's sword.' this sentiment will be responded to by one who has added a new lustre to a fame already achieved by his consummate argument in defence of our claims before the late tribunal of arbitration, your honored ex-president, mr. evarts."] mr. president and gentlemen of the new england society:--it has, i believe, in the history of our race, never been permitted that a great nation should pass through the perils of a serious internal conflict without suffering, in some form or other, an intervention in its affairs by other nations that would not have been permitted, or been possible, but for the distraction of its power, or the stress to which it was exposed by its intestine strifes. and when, in our modern civilization, a nation so great as ours was pressed by so great a stress as our civil war imposed upon us, we could not escape this common fate in human affairs. it has rarely, in the history of our race, been permitted to a nation that has suffered this foreign intervention, in whatever form, to preserve its peace and the peace of the world, and yet settle its account with the nations which had interposed in its affairs. [applause.] when the great power of france seized upon the occasion of our civil war to renew a european possession upon our boundaries, and when england, upon the same opportunity, swept the seas of our commerce; properly to deal with those forms of intervention, when our domestic troubles were ended by the triumph of our arms, called for the exercise of the highest statesmanship and the most powerful diplomacy. it was at this juncture that our great minister of foreign affairs (than whom no greater has been seen in our country, and than whom no greater has been presented in the service of any foreign nation) was able, without war, to drive the french from mexico, and to establish the _principle_ of arbitration, for the settlement of our controversy with england. [applause.] it was reserved for the present administration to extricate the imperfect work of the adjustment of the differences between england and the united states from a difficulty of the gravest character, and to place the negotiations upon a footing satisfactory to the public sense of our people by the illustrious work of the joint high commission at washington. it was reserved for that administration to complete, within its first term of power, the absolute extinction of all antecedent causes, occasions or opportunities for future contention between our nation and the mother country, by the actual result of the geneva arbitration. [applause.] and now, gentlemen, i think we may well be proud of that self-contained, yet adequate, appreciation of our power, of our right, and of our duty, that could thus, while abating not one jot or tittle of our rights, compose such grave differences by the wisdom of statesmanship, instead of renewing the struggles of war. i may, i think, recognize in the general appreciation by our countrymen of the excellence of this great adjustment between england and the united states, their satisfaction with this settlement, which, without in the least abating the dignity or disturbing the peace of england, has maintained the dignity and made secure the peace of the united states. [applause.] i think i may recognize in this general satisfaction of our countrymen, their conviction that the result of the geneva arbitration has secured for us every point that was important as indemnity for the past, and yet has so adjusted the difficult question between neutrality and belligerency as to make it safe for us, in maintaining our natural, and, as we hope, our perpetual, position in the future, of a neutral, and not a belligerent. the gentlemen to whom were entrusted, by the favor of the president of the united states, the representation of our country in this great forensic controversy, have been somewhat differently situated from lawyers, in ordinary lawsuits, charged with the interests of clients. for, as we all know, the interest of the client and the duty of the lawyer are, for the most part, limited to success in the particular controversy that is being agitated, and, therein, the whole power of the lawyer and all his resources may be properly directed to secure the completest victory in the particular suit. but, when a nation is a party, and when the lawsuit is but an incident, in its perpetual duty and its perpetual interests, in which it must expect to change sides, in the changing circumstances of human affairs, it is very plainly its interest, and the duty of those to whom its interests are entrusted, to see to it, that in the zeal of the particular contest there shall be no triumph that shall disturb, embarrass, or burden its future relations with foreign nations. [applause.] in other words, when our government was calling to account a neutral which had interfered with our rights as belligerents, it was of very great importance that we should insist upon neither a measure of right nor a measure of indemnity, that we could not, wisely and safely, submit to in the future ourselves. [applause.] while, then, there was a preliminary question of gravest importance to be determined in this arbitration--this peaceful substitute for war--"the terrible litigation of states"--no less than this, how widely and how heavily we should press the question of accountability against a neutral, and how far the question should be pressed, in the future, against us, i must congratulate the country for having received, at the outset of the deliberations at geneva, a determination from the tribunal, upon the general principles of public law, that when peaceful adjustments in redress of wrongs are attempted between friendly states, no measure of indemnity can be claimed which at all savors of the exactions made only by a victorious over a beaten foe. [applause.] and when we come to the final award of this high tribunal, i think the country may be congratulated, and the world may be congratulated, that while we have secured a judgment of able and impartial publicists in favor of the propositions of international law on which we had insisted, and have received amends by its judgment for the wrongs we had suffered from great britain, we have also secured great principles in favor of neutrality in the future, making it easier, instead of harder, for nations to repress the sympathies, the passions and the enlistments of their people, and to keep, during the pendency of war, the action of a neutral state within and subject to the dictates of duty and of law. for we have there established that the duty of a neutral government to preserve its subjects from interference with belligerent rights is in proportion to the magnitude of the evils that will be suffered by the nation against whom, and at whose cost, the infraction of neutrality is provoked. we have made it apparent, also, that a powerful nation, in the advanced civilization of our age, cannot escape from an accountability upon the rough calculation, upon which so much reliance has doubtless been placed in the past, upon the unwillingness of the offended and injured nation, in the correction of its wrongs, to rush into the costs and sacrifices of war. and we have made it apparent to the proudest power in the world (and there is none prouder than our own nation,) that there must be a peaceful accounting for errors and wrongs, in which justice shall be done without the effusion of blood. [prolonged applause.] practically, too, we have established principles of great importance in aid of the efforts of every government to preserve its neutrality in trying and difficult situations of sympathy. an error long provided, that if a vessel, in violation of neutrality, should escape to commit its ravages upon the sea, and should once secure the protection of a commission from the offending belligerent, that that was an end of it, and all the nations of the world must bow their heads before these bastard flags of belligerency. but the tribunal has determined, as the public law of the world, that a commission from a belligerent gives no protection to a vessel that owes its power and place upon the seas to a violation of neutrality. [applause.] the consequence is, that so far from our success in this arbitration having exposed us, as a neutral nation, in the future, to greater difficulties, we have established principles of law that are to aid our government, and every other government, to restrain our people and every other people, in the future, from such infractions of neutrality. and now, gentlemen, is it too much for us to say that, coming out from a strife with our own blood and kindred, upon the many hard-fought fields of our civil war, with our government confirmed, with the principles of our confederation made secure forever, we have also come out from this peaceful contest with a great power of the world, with important principles established between this nation and our principal rival in the business affairs of the world, and with an established conviction, alike prevalent in both countries, that, hereafter, each must do its duty to the other, and that each must be held accountable for that duty? i give you, gentlemen, in conclusion, this sentiment: "the little court-room at geneva--where our royal mother england, and her proud though untitled daughter, alike bent their heads to the majesty of law and accepted justice as a greater and better arbiter than power." [prolonged applause.] * * * * * the republic and its outlook [speech of william m. evarts at the first banquet of the new england society of the city of brooklyn, december , . benjamin d. silliman, president of the society, occupied the chair and introduced mr. evarts to speak to the toast, "the republic and its outlook," saying: "he may well speak of the 'outlook' who is on the watch-tower. his brethren of the bar would prefer his remaining here but if he will return to the competitions and collisions of the courts, he will be welcomed as a brother, however unwelcome he may be as an adversary. meantime, that he may tell us of the outlook of the republic, let us listen to the secretary of state, the honorable william m. evarts."] mr. president and gentlemen of the new england society of brooklyn:--i have been accustomed to the city of new york, and have been accustomed to the estimate which the people of new york make of the people of brooklyn. [laughter.] i now come to make some trial of the estimate which the people of brooklyn put upon the people of new york. [applause.] in one distinct feature of the city of new york--i mean in its population--and in one distinct feature of the city of brooklyn--in its population--you will see the secret of your vast superiority to us. [laughter.] in the city of new york there are more irishmen than there are in dublin. [applause.] in the city of brooklyn there are more bostonians than there are in boston. [laughter.] we have always felt it as a reproach, however little we relish the satire, that our new england festivals--mean in new york--were little in keeping with the poverty and frugality, and perhaps with the virtues, of our ancestors. but here i see exactly such a company, and exactly such a feast, as in the first years of the emigration, our ancestors would have sat down to. [laughter.] we honor our fathers with loud praises, you, by noble and self-denying example. [laughter.] the republic, which is the theme i am to speak to, is the republic which has grown from the seed that was planted in new england. it has gained as the oak has gained in its growth, from the soil, and from the air; so in the body and the strength, and the numbers and the wealth of the republic, it has gained by the accretions of other races, and the incoming population from many shores. but the oak, nevertheless, is an oak, because the seed which was planted was the seed of an oak. [loud applause.] now, our pilgrim fathers seem to have been frustrated by providence a good deal, in many of their plans. they came with the purpose, it is said, of occupying the pleasant seat of all this wealth and prosperity which these great cities enjoy. but the point was to plant them in new england, where they might grow, but would never stay. one of the first letters which i received after taking charge of the department over which i preside was an extremely well-written one from a western state, asking for a consulate, and beginning in this wise: "i have no excuse for intruding on your busy occupations except a pardonable desire to live elsewhere." [laughter.] now that has been the mainspring of new englanders ever since they were seated by providence on its barren shores, a pardonable desire to live elsewhere. [laughter.] if they had been planted here--if they had been seated in the luxurious climate and with the fertile soil of the south, they would have had no desire, pardonable or otherwise, to live elsewhere. though they might have grown and lived they never would have proved the seed that was to make the great republic as it now is. [applause.] there has been an idea that some part of the active, spreading and increasing influence of the new england people as they moved about the world, was from a meddlesome disposition to interfere with other people. there is nothing in that. if there ever was a race that confined itself strictly to minding its own business, it is the new englanders; and they mind it, with great results. the solution of this apparent discord is simply this: that a new englander considers everybody else's business his business. [loud laughter.] now these two essential notions of wishing to live elsewhere, and regarding everybody else's business as our business, furnish the explanation of the processes by which this republic has come to be what it is--great in every form of power, of strength, of wealth. this dissemination of new england men, and this permeation through other people's business--of our control of it--have made the nation what it is. [applause.] the statesmanship of the new england character, was the greatest statesmanship of the world. it did not undertake to govern by authority, or by power, but by those ideas and methods which were common to human nature, and were to make a people great, and able to govern themselves. [applause.] the great elements of that state thus developed, were education, industry and commerce. education which, as aristotle says, "makes one do by choice what others do by force;" industry, which by occupying and satisfying all the avidities of our nature, leaves to government only the simple duty of curbing the vicious and punishing the wicked. commerce, that, by unfolding to the world the relations of people with people, makes a system of foreign relations that is greater and firmer, and more beneficent, than can be brought about by all the powers of armies, or all the skill of cabinets. [applause.] this being, then, the republic which has grown up from the seed thus planted, that has established our relations among ourselves over our wide heritage, and established our relations with the rest of the world, what is its outlook to-day? what is it in the sense of material prosperity? who can measure it? who can circumscribe it? who can, except by the simple rule of three, which never errs, determine its progress? as the early settlement of plymouth is to the united states of america, as it now is, so is the united states of america to the future possession and control of the world as they are to be. [cheering.] this is to be, not by armies of invasion, nor by navies that are to carry the thunders of our powers. it is to be by our finding our place in the moral government of the world, and by the example, and its magnificent results, of a free people, governed by education, occupied by industry, and maintaining our connection with the world by commerce. thus we are to disarm the armies of europe, when they dare not disarm them themselves. [cheers.] we present to mankind the simple, yet the wonderful evidence that a peasant in germany, or france, or ireland, or england carrying a soldier on his back, cannot compete in their own markets with a peasant in america who has no soldier on his back, though there be , miles distance between their farms. [loud applause.] no doubt wonderful commotions are to take place in the great nations of europe, under this example. there is to be overturning, and overturning, for which we have no responsibility, except, that by this great instruction, worked out by providence on this continent, there is to be a remodelling of society in the ancient countries of the world. [applause.] now you see in the magnitude of the designs of providence, how, planting the puritans where they would desire to spread themselves abroad, and filling a continent, whence the ideas that they develop intelligibly to the whole world, are to distribute themselves over the world, that this is the way in which the redemption of society at home first, and abroad afterward, is to be accomplished by the power of the wisdom of god. and now for the outlook in other senses than that of material prosperity, how is it? as difficult and critical junctures have been reached in the development of the nation, and collisions, as when two tides meet, have awakened our own fears, and tried our own courage, and have raised the question whether these true ideas of our republic were to triumph or to be checked--has not the issue always shown us, that faith in god, and faith in man, are a match for all the powers of evil in our midst and elsewhere? [cheering.] if there needed to be a march to the sea, it was to be through the southern country. [loud applause.] if there needed to be a surrender of one portion of this people to the other, it was to be in and of virginia, and not in and of new england. [applause.] and now what a wonderful spectacle is presented to our nation, and to the world, when the direst calamities that ever afflict a people--those of civil war, had fallen upon us; when the marshalling of armies, in a nation that tolerated no armies, was greater and more powerful than the conflicts of the world had ever seen; when the exhaustion of life, of treasure, of labor, had been such as was unparalleled; yet, in the brief space of fifteen years, the nation is more homogeneous, more bound together, more powerful and richer than it ever could have been but for the triumph of the good over the weak elements of this republic. [applause.] and what does all this show but the essential idea that it is man--man developed as an individual--man developed by thousands, by hundreds of thousands, by millions, and tens of millions, these make the strength and the wealth of a nation. these being left us, the nation, the consumption as by a fire, attacking a city, or ravaging a whole territory, or sweeping the coffers of the rich, or invading the cottages of the poor--all this material wealth may easily be repaired. if the nation remains with its moral and intellectual strength, brighter and larger and more indestructible possessions than the first will soon replace them. on the three great pillars of american society--equality of right, community of interest, and reciprocity of duty, rests this great republic. riches and honor and length of days will mark the nation which rests on that imperishable basis. [prolonged applause.] * * * * * the french alliance [speech of william m. evarts at a banquet of the chamber of commerce of the state of new york, new york city, november , . the banquet was given in honor of the guests of the nation, the french diplomatic representatives in america, and members of the families descended from our foreign sympathizers and helpers, general lafayette, count de rochambeau, count de grasse, baron von steuben, and others, who were present at the centennial celebration of the victory at yorktown. the chairman, james m. brown, vice-president of the chamber of commerce, proposed the following toast: "the french alliance; the amicable relations between our two countries founded in , by the treaty of amity and commerce, between the nation of france and the american people, cemented in blood in , renewed by this visit of our distinguished guests, will, we trust, be perpetuated through all time."] mr. chairman and gentlemen of the chamber of commerce:--it is with great pride, as well as with great pleasure, that i respond to the call in behalf of the merchants of the united states, as represented by the merchants of the great city of the united states, through this ancient guild of the chamber of commerce, in paying their tribute of honor and applause to the french nation, that was present as a nation in the contest of our revolution, and is present here as a nation by its representatives to-day [applause]; and to the great frenchmen that were present with their personal heroism in the struggles of the revolution, and are present here in their personal descendants, to see the fruits of that revolution, and to receive our respectful greeting [applause]; and to the germans who were present, where they could not have been spared in the great trials of our feeble nation in its struggles against the greatest power in the world, and who are here, by the descendants of those heroic germans, to join in this feast of freedom and of glory. [applause.] but i felt a little doubt, mr. chairman, whether the etiquette of this occasion required me to speak in my own tongue, or in the german or the french, for i speak french and german equally well [laughter], but i thought it would be a poor compliment, after all, to talk to these frenchmen, or these germans, in their native tongues. they surely hear enough of that at home. [laughter.] well, mr. president, the french alliance was one of the noblest transactions in history. the sixth day of february, , witnessed the treaty of alliance and the accompanying treaty of amity and commerce which filled out our declaration of independence, and made that an assured triumph, which was until then nothing but a heroic effort on our part. [cheers.] i do not know that the sixth of february has anywhere been honored in any due proportion to the fourth of july; but for my part, as an humble individual, from the earliest moment i have done all in my power to show my homage to that day, for on that day i was born. [laughter and applause.] now, we talk the most and must feel the most and with great propriety, of the presence of our french and of our german aids, and of our own presence at the battle of yorktown and the surrender. but what would that occasion have amounted to, either in the fact of it or in the celebration of it, if the english had not been there? [laughter.] you may remember the composure of the hero that was going to the block and felt that there was no occasion for hurry or confusion in the attendant crowd, as nothing important could take place until he got there [laughter]; and so, in this past history and in the present celebration, we recognize that it is not a question of personal mortification or of personal triumph--not even of national mortification or of national triumph. this was one of the great battles of the world, in which all the nations engaged, and all other nations had an everlasting interest and one through which they were to reap an everlasting good. [applause.] and i would like to know if the granddaughter of george iii has ever had from her subjects, british or indian, any sweeter incense than has just now been poured out from the hearts of the american people, who freely give that homage to her virtues as a woman that they deny to her sceptre and her crown as a queen. [applause.] who would not rather be a great man than a great king? who would not rather be a great woman than a great queen? [applause.] ah, is there not a wider sovereignty over the race, and a deeper homage from human nature than ever can come from an allegiance to power? and for woman, though she be a queen, what personal power in human affairs can equal that of drawing a throb from every heart and a tear from every eye, when she spoke to us as a woman in the distress of our nation? [applause.] it was a very great thing for france to make the treaty of alliance and the treaty of amity and commerce with a nation that, as yet, had received no acceptance from the powers of the earth. and when we remember that france, in the contests of a thousand years, had found england no unequal match in the quarrels that belonged to the two nations, i must think that human history has shown nothing nobler than her espousal of this growing struggle between these colonists and the great power of england. [applause.] how much nearer france was to england than we! how much wider her possessions through the world, open to the thunders of the british navy and the prowess of the british arms! and when france, in a treaty, the equal terms of which will strike every reader with wonder, speaks of the "common cause" to be pursued until the result of our complete independence, governmental and commercial, was attained, i know nothing in the way of the "bearing the burdens of one another," enjoined as the christian spirit, that is greater than this stupendous action of france. [applause.] the relations of blood and history that make england and us one, as we always shall be, do not, nevertheless, make it clear that there is not a closer feeling of attachment, after all, between us and france. it is a very great compliment, no doubt, in classical phrase, to bespoken of as "_matre pulchra filia pulchrior"_--the fairer daughter of a fair mother, but, after all, it is a greater compliment to the daughter than to the mother. i don't know that maternal affection, the purest sentiment on earth, is ever quite pleased that the daughter is taller and fairer and more winning in her ways than the mother is, or ever was [laughter]; and i do know that there comes a time when the daughter leaves the mother and cleaves to a closer affection. and here were we, a young, growing, self-conscious, self-possessed damsel, just peeping from out our mother's apron, when there comes a gallant and noble friend, who takes up our cause, and that, too, at a time when it was not quite apparent whether we should turn out a beauty or a hoyden. [laughter and applause.] and that is our relation to france. nothing can limit, nothing can disturb it; nothing shall disparage it. it is that we, from that time and onward, and now finally in the great consummation of two republics united together against the world, represent in a new sense shakespeare's figure of the "unity and married calm of states." [applause.] the french people have the advantage of us in a great many things, and i don't know that we have any real advantage of them, except in a superior opinion of ourselves. [laughter.] god forbid that anybody should take that from us! great as is our affection and gratitude toward the french and german nations, there is one thing that we cannot quite put up with in those nations, and that is, that, but for them, the english and we should think ourselves the greatest nations in the world. [laughter.] so, with all the bonds of amity between us and them, we must admit that the frenchmen and germans make a pretty good show on the field of history in the past, and, apparently, mean to have a pretty good share of the future of this world. [applause.] in comparing the yorktown era with the present day, we find that then a great many more frenchmen came here than germans; but now a great many more germans come here than frenchmen. the original disparity of numbers seems to have been redressed by the later immigration, and we are reduced to that puzzling equilibrium of the happy swain whenever we are obliged to choose sides in the contest between these nations:-- "how happy could i be with either, were t'other dear charmer away." [laughter.] the french are a great people in their conduct toward us in this respect, that the aid and sympathy and alliance has been all in our favor; they have done everything for us, and have been strong enough not to need anything from us. [applause.] the fault of the french, changing a little mr. canning's memorable lines:-- "the fault of the french, unlike the dutch, is asking too little, and giving too much." [laughter and applause.] now, this treaty commences with the very sensible statement that the two nations being desirous of placing their commerce and correspondence upon permanent and equitable grounds, his most christian majesty and the united states of america had thought, to that end, it was best to place these relations upon perfect equality and reciprocity, without any of those burdensome preferences which are the source of debate and misunderstanding and of discontent between nations. in this spirit it is, no doubt, that we have each pursued toward each other, in commerce, that most equitable and equal system, by prohibitory duties, of keeping all of each other's products out of the other that we can. [laughter.] well, the frenchmen knew, after all, that the americans can never get along without their wines, and without their silks, and without their jewels, and without their art, and without their science, and without the numberless elegancies which make life even in our backwoods tolerable. and we know that they cannot very well dispense with our wheat and corn and the oil from the earth and the cotton to weave into those delicate tissues with which they clothe the world. [applause.] so that, after all, these superficial barriers of customs duties do not really obstruct our commerce; and even if they have too much of our pork, as would seem to be the notion at present, we have no desire to dispense with their wines. [laughter.] but there are some other interchanges between nations besides those of commerce in the raw material or in the products of industry. if we could make more of a moral interchange with the french; if we could take some of the moral sunlight which shines upon that great nation; if we could be more cheerful, more gay, more debonair, and if they could take from us some of the superfluous ice which we produce morally as well as naturally, and some of that cold resistance against the inflammation of enthusiasm which sometimes raises a conflagration among their citizens at home, we have no tariff on either side that would interfere in the blending and intercommunication of the moral resources of both nations, that shall make us more and more one people, in laws, liberties and national glory, and in all the passions that guide and animate the conduct of nations. [applause.] i am happy to announce myself to you, gentlemen, what i am vain enough to suppose you would not suspect, that i am a contemporary of lafayette. as a boston schoolboy, i stood in the ranks at boston when lafayette in passed with a splendid cortége along the malls of boston common. i had the pleasure, as a descendant of one of his revolutionary friends, to be presented to him personally, and to hear him say that he well remembered his old friend, my grandfather. [cheers.] this pleasing courtesy, it may be said, was all french politeness; but i can say to these frenchmen that whether they believe one another at home or not, we always believe them in this country. [applause.] and now your toast desires that this friendship, thus beginning and continued, shall be perpetual. who is to stop it? no power but ourselves and yourselves, sir (turning to the french minister), can interrupt it. what motive have you--what motive have we--what sentiment, but that on either side would be dishonor to the two nations--can ever breathe a breath to spoil its splendor and its purity? [applause.] and, sir, your munificence and your affection is again to be impressed upon the american people in that noble present you are designing to make to us, in the great statue of "liberty enlightening the world," an unexampled munificence from the private citizens of one nation to the people of another. we are to furnish the island for its site and the pedestal to place the statue on. this our people will do with an enthusiasm equal to your own. but, after all, the obligation will be wholly ours, for it is to be a lighthouse in our great harbor, a splendid monument to add new beauty to the glorious bay of new york. [applause.] * * * * * tribute to herbert spencer [speech of william m. evarts at a dinner given to herbert spencer, new york city, november , , the day before his return to england. mr. evarts presided, and delivered this speech, in introducing mr. spencer to the company.] gentlemen:--we are here to-night, to show the feeling of americans toward our distinguished guest. as no room and no city can hold all his friends and admirers, it was necessary that a company should be made up by some method out of the mass, and what so good a method as that of natural selection [laughter] and the inclusion, within these walls, of the ladies? it is a little hard upon the rational instincts and experience of man that we should take up the abstruse subjects of philosophy and of evolution, of all the great topics that make up mr. spencer's contribution to the learning and the wisdom of his time, at this end of the dinner. the most ancient nations, even in their primitive condition, saw the folly of this, and when one wished either to be inspired with the thoughts of others or to be himself a diviner of the thoughts of others, fasting was necessary, and a people from whom i think a great many things might be learned for the good of the people of the present time have a maxim that will commend itself to your common-sense. they say the continually stuffed body cannot see secret things. [laughter.] now, from my personal knowledge of the men i see at these tables, they are owners of continually stuffed bodies. [laughter.] i have addressed them at public dinners, on all topics and for all purposes, and whatever sympathy they may have shown with the divers occasions which brought them together, they come up to this notion of continually stuffed bodies. in primitive times they had a custom which we only under the system of differentiation practise now at this dinner. when men wished to possess themselves of the learning, the wisdom, the philosophy, the courage, the great traits of any person, they immediately proceeded to eat him up as soon as he was dead. [laughter.] having only this diversity in that early time, that he should be either roasted or boiled according as he was fat or thin. [laughter.] now, out of that narrow compass, see how by the process of differentiation and of multiplication of effects we have come to a dinner of a dozen courses and wines of as many varieties; and that simple process of appropriating the virtue and the wisdom of the great man that was brought before the feast is now diversified into an analysis of all the men here under the cunning management of many speakers. no doubt, preserving as we do the identity of all these institutions, it is often considered a great art, or at least a great delight, to roast our friends and put in hot water those against whom we have a grudge. [laughter.] now, mr. spencer, we are glad to meet you here. [applause.] we are glad to see you and we are glad to have you see us. [laughter.] we are glad to see you, for we recognize in the breadth of your knowledge, such knowledge as is useful to your race, a greater comprehension than any living man has presented to our generation. [applause.] we are glad to see you, because in our judgment you have brought to the analysis and distribution of this vast knowledge a more penetrating intelligence and a more thorough insight than any living man has brought even to the minor topics of his special knowledge. [applause.] in theology, in psychology, in natural science, in the knowledge of individual man and his exposition, and in the knowledge of the world, in the proper sense of society, which makes up the world, the world worth knowing, the world worth speaking of, the world worth planning for, the world worth working for, we acknowledge your labors as surpassing those of any of our kind. [applause.] you seem to us to carry away and maintain in the future the same measure of fame among others that we are told was given in the middle ages to albertus magnus, the most learned man of those times, whose comprehension of theology, of psychology, of natural history, of politics, of history and of learning comprehended more than any man since the classic time certainly; and yet it was found of him that his knowledge was rather an accumulation, and that he had added no new processes and no new wealth to the learning which he had achieved. now, i have said that we are glad to have you see us. you have already treated us to a very unique piece of work in this reception, and we are expecting perhaps that the world may be instructed after you are safely on the other side of the atlantic in a more intimate and thorough manner concerning our merits and our few faults. [applause and laughter.] this faculty of laying on a dissecting board an entire nation or an entire age and finding out all the arteries and veins and pulsations of their life is an extension beyond any that our own medical schools afford. you give us that knowledge of man which is practical and useful, and whatever the claims or the debates may be about your system of the system of those who agree with you, and however it may be compared with other competing systems that have preceded it, we must all agree that it is practical, that it is benevolent, that it is serious, and that it is reverent; that it aims at the highest results in virtue; that it treats evil, not as eternal, but as evanescent, and that it expects to arrive at what is sought through the aid of the millennium--that condition of affairs in which there is the highest morality and the greatest happiness. [applause.] and if we can come to that by these processes and these instructions it matters little to the race whether it be called scientific morality and mathematical freedom or by another less pretentious name. [applause.] you will please fill your glasses while we propose the health of our guest, herbert spencer. [continued applause.] * * * * * the classics in education [speech of william m. evarts at the thanksgiving jubilee of the yale alumni, new york city, december , . chauncey m. depew presided. mr. evarts responded for the alumni.] mr. president and gentlemen of the alumni:--i congratulate you, mr. president, on having such a noble, such a generous, such a patient, such an appreciative body to preside over. i congratulate you, gentlemen, on having a president who combines in himself in a marked degree these two great traits of a presiding officer:--confidence in himself [great laughter], and distrust of all who are to come after him. [laughter.] i remember forty years ago to have heard a senator of the united states, making a stump speech in a quiet town in vermont, amuse his audience with a story of a woodsawyer who had worked for him and who had the habit of accompanying the movement of his saw with talking to himself. he asked him one day why he did so. "why," said he, "for two reasons. the first is, that it is a great pleasure to hear a sensible man talk, and the second is that it is a great pleasure to talk to a sensible man." [laughter.] now, sir, i have but one warning to give you. it is said of mercutio, the wittiest creation of shakespeare, who is despatched very early in the play, "my sore wound hath served its turn, although it were not as deep as a well nor as wide as a church door." it is said that if shakespeare hadn't killed mercutio early, mercutio would have killed him. if you [turning to the president] are to preside year after year or to attempt it upon so high and brilliant and bold a key as you have assumed here to-night, if you don't kill the alumni dinners, the alumni dinners will kill you. [great laughter.] yale college, as represented by its graduates, is not self-conceited nor obtrusive. it is true they have always felt the magnificent compliment paid to the college by that greatest of english thinkers and philosophers lord bacon, who said in a famous passage, as you will recall: "eating makes a full man, drinking a ready man, but to be an alumnus of yale, a wise man." yet we are modest and even reverent toward the claims of other universities. we are satisfied at the humble position which the french bishop took towards that great berry, the strawberry. "doubtless," said he, "god almighty might have made a better berry than the strawberry, but doubtless he has not." [laughter.] that is our opinion of yale college. [applause.] now, to be an alumnus of yale college, is the object of all those who enter the college and the object after getting there is to get out. sometimes indeed, the four years are spent without that fortunate result. i remember to have heard of the son of a somewhat conspicuous gentleman who had desired to give his children the benefit of an education such as yale affords, who had spent four years there; but the entire four years were spent as a member of the freshman class. [laughter.] what a fortunate condition to be continually towering over more and more of those who are competing with him in scholarship and for distinction! i know of none greater unless some mode might be discovered by which one could be a senior for four years. there is nothing in human affairs that could equal that happiness! [laughter.] well, college life in my generation--and i certainly had a singular reminder to-night from you, mr. president, that i belonged to a generation that has passed out of memory, for you have excited the enthusiasm of this company only in the applause that you have drawn from those who were graduated under presidents woolsey and porter. what are you to say for us who graduated under president day? college life, i was about to say, is a charming life. the best men, we may presume, are collected from the community, placed under the happiest relations one to another and under the happiest influences from above and around them. the president of the college has spoken to you of the pleasing fact that there is an endowment of seventy thousand dollars for fellowships. well, when i was in college, a very moderate endowment of five dollars contributed by those who were associated as companions was a very good endowment for good fellowship. [laughter.] and now in looking at life as it is, as we remember it in college and have seen it since, who is there that would compare mere fellowship with good-fellowship? what is there that is heartier, what sincerer, what more generous and what more just than the relations of young men of a liberal spirit toward one another in college? how many of us as we have gone on in life, prosperous, as we may have been, with nothing to complain of as to our success or our situation--how many of us have been disposed to repeat that lament of Æneas where he was continually baffled in holding closer conversation with his goddess-mother who was always carried off in a nimbus or her accents lost in the whisper of the wind:-- "cur dextrae jungere dextram non datur, ac veras audire et reddere voces?" maybe in the good-fellowship of after-life, you, mr. president, will not hesitate to walk down broadway with your arm over general jackson's shoulder and his about your waist, and then all the people shall cry with applause: "see how yale men love one another!" you will observe, from this little classic allusion that i am on the side of those who favor in the curriculum the maintenance of the learned languages. for myself, whether an education in the classic languages and in the classic literature should or should not be discarded from the education of the noble youth of the country is the question whether it is worth while in the advancing and strenuous life of modern times that men should have a liberal education. for be sure that there is no trait in that education that entitles it to the name of liberal more sure and more valuable than this education in the literature, in the history, in the language of the great men of the ages past. if any boy is put through what is called a liberal education, and finds when he goes out from it, that he is not on a level with those who understand and cherish the greek language and literature, he will find that he is mistaken in wishing to dispense with that distinguishing trait. i am able to give you a very interesting anecdote, as it seems to me, of this very point, of how a great man, great in his power, great in his fame, yet of an ingenuous and simple nature, may look at this accomplishment. on my return from europe, when i first visited it, upon a public errand, while president lincoln was at the height of his fame from the assured although not completed success and triumph in the war, and from the great transaction that had made him one of the famous men for all ages--the emancipation of the slaves--i had occasion, in a friendly meeting with him, to express a hope that he would find it in his power after the cares of state were laid aside to visit europe and see the statesmen and great men there whose mouths were full of plaudits for his assured accomplished fame. said he: "you are very kind in thinking i should meet with a reception so gratifying as you have proposed, and i certainly should enjoy as much as any one the acquisition and the observation that such a visit would give; but," added he, "as you know very well my early education was of the narrowest, and in the society in which i should move i should be constantly exposed in conversation to have a scrap of greek or latin spoken that i should know nothing about." certainly that was a very peculiar statement to be made by this wonderful man, but it struck me at the moment that his clear mind, his self-poised nature, recognized the fact that his greatness and his fame did not lie in the direction of an association with what he regarded as the accomplished men of society and of public life brought. i believe, therefore, that we will stand by the college while it stands by the greek and the latin, and certainly as representatives of the great mass of graduates we can now talk more of greek and latin as a common accomplishment than the greatest genius and orators of ancient times, demosthenes or cicero, could of english. [laughter.] there are many things, gentlemen, that if i were the president of this association or the president of the university, i should say and expect to be listened to, while saying it. but i confess that i have pretty much exhausted, as i perceive, your patience and my own capacity. i am now living for the reputation of making short speeches, and i am only afraid that my life will not be long enough to succeed. but i promise you that if i get a good forum and a good audience like this i will run a short speech even if i run it into the mud. [applause.] * * * * * liberty enlightening the world [speech of william m. evarts at the banquet given by the chamber of commerce of the state of new york, june , , to the officers of the french national ship "isere," which brought over the bartholdi statue. charles stewart smith, vice-president of the chamber, presided at the dinner and introduced the speaker as follows: "gentlemen, fill your glasses for the seventh regular toast: 'liberty enlightening the world, a great truth beautifully and majestically expressed by the unique gift which our guests of to-night have brought safely to our shores.' the gentleman who will respond to this toast needs no introduction--senator william m. evarts."] mr. chairman and gentlemen:--i may be permitted at the outset, to speak a little about the share that we have taken on this side of the water in this great achievement which in its glorious consummation, now receives the applause of the world. when this great conception of friendship for america, joy at our triumph, and their own undaunted love of liberty, liberty for france, liberty for the united states, liberty for the world, arose, then the french people were set aflame with a desire to bring, as it were, their gifts of frankincense and myrrh to lay on this altar of liberty, that its censer might never die out, but forever perfume and ennoble the air of the world. [applause.] the genius of art, the patriotism of france, the enthusiasm of its people, accomplished by contributions drawn from more than one hundred thousand, perhaps two hundred thousand givers, made up this statue, not equalled in the history of the world, and not conceived in its genius or its courage before. [applause.] then it was for us to say whether we would furnish the pedestal upon which this great gift and emblem of liberty should find its secure and permanent home; without the aid of the government and by the movement of our own people in this city, an organization wholly voluntary, and without pretension or assumption had the faith that the american people would furnish a home fit for the statue of liberty, however magnificent should be the reception, that would comport with its own splendor. [cheers.] this organization undertook actively its work in , before the statue was completed, and while it remained somewhat uncertain to many who doubted whether the great statue would really be brought to its anticipated prosperity and success. but we went on, and now, within three years, this work, both of receiving and collecting subscriptions and of raising the pedestal itself, will have been completed, and i do not hesitate to say, in the face of all critics and all doubters, that a work of so great magnitude, either in its magnificence, or in its labor, has never before been completed in so short a time. [applause.] when we were reasonably assured of adequate funds, we commenced the concrete base on which this pedestal was to rest; and no structure of that kind, of that magnitude, of that necessity, of that perfection and permanence has ever been accomplished in the works of masonry before. [cheers.] commencing on the ninth of october, , it was completed on the seventeenth day of may, --and then commenced the work of the structure proper, of the pedestal, and it went on, and it went on, and it went sure, and it went safe, if it went slow, and there it stands. [cheers.] and now a word or two about the committee. an eminent lawyer of our city was once detected and exposed and applauded for being seen standing with his hands in his own pockets [laughter], and for about three months, if you had visited the meetings of this committee of ours, you would have seen the whole assembly standing with their hands in their own pockets [applause], and taking the first step forward asking their fellow-citizens to follow us, and not for us to follow them. [cheers.] and so we went on, and on the tenth of this present month, we had received in hand $ , , of which $ , came from the grand and popular movement of a great newspaper--"the world" [three cheers for "the world"]--fifty thousand dollars! and that made up substantially what we had announced in advance as what would be required to complete the pedestal. but where did we miscarry even in that calculation? the exploration showed us that the concrete mass must go deeper in the ground, and that cost us alone $ , , about $ , more than we had counted upon before the exploration; and then the $ , more that makes it up to the $ , as our need to complete the pedestal (when we had counted upon $ , ), is made by such delay and such expenses as made the general outlay for this immense structure, continuing longer than would have been necessary, had the promptness of contributions kept pace with the possibility of completion. now, gentlemen, we have been patient and quiet. nearly one-fourth of the contributions of the general citizens came from the pockets of the committee. instead of hearing from enterprising chicago, and ambitious boston, they are talking about the slowness and the dulness of new york's appreciation, of the delays in its contributions. let the example of our patriotism and munificence be an example for them to imitate; and this city of boston--let their people there reflect that, when they built bunker hill monument, it cost i am informed scarcely $ , . they were twenty years in raising it, although the whole country was canvassed in its aid. [laughter.] well, gentlemen, so much for that. and how great is this monument! how noble! how beautiful! how inspiring for the time that looks upon its completion and for the ages that shall mark it hereafter! if our country and france, as we hope, may go on in the enlargement and advancement of a glorious civilization, we may feel sure that if our descendants shall overtop us in wealth, in strength, in art, and equal us in love of liberty, they will not say that this was not a worthy triumph for the age in which we live [applause]; and if, unhappily, malign influences shall degrade our civilization and our fame, and travellers and dwellers here shall find their power has waned, and their love of liberty declined, if they shall have become a poverty-stricken and debased people, what will they think of this remaining monument of a past and lost age, but that it was a creation of the gods and that no men ever lived. [cheers.] well, these french gentlemen, the admiral and the commandant, how shall we appreciate the beneficence of their visit, the urbanity of their attentions to us, and the happy and hearty manner in which they have accepted our hospitality. why the admiral--a greater triumph, let me say, than he could ever have by the power of his navy--has come here and carried new york by storm, without firing a gun. [cheers.] and as for commandant de saune, he has done what in the history of the world--of our modern world, at least--no nation, no ruler has successfully attempted: he has kept "liberty enlightening the world" under the hatches for thirty days. [applause.] it was tried in england, and "liberty enlightening the world" cut off the head of the king. tried again, it drove the dynasty of the stuarts forever from that free island. in france, they tried to suppress it, and it uprooted the ancient monarchy and scattered the forces which were expected to repress it. the milder form of a limited monarchy, even, france would not submit to as a repression of liberty, and again twice over, under an imperial government, "liberty enlightening the world" has broken out from under the hatches. [cheers.] but commandant de saune is not only a bold represser of mutiny on board his vessel, but he is a great and cunning navigator; he did not tell it, but he planned it, and how narrow the calculation was. he arrived here on the seventeenth of june, bunker hill day [applause], and missed the eighteenth, the day of waterloo. [laughter and applause.]--it is thus that this french genius teaches us new lessons, and evokes irrepressible applause. [cheers.] i imagine that a navigator who could thus seize the golden moment, and miss the disastrous one, might, if he undertook it, discover the north pole. [laughter.] but i am sure he has better work before him in the world than that. [applause.] but if he goes on to that destination, oh, let us contribute some portion of the cargo that he will put under the hatches! [laughter.] well, gentlemen, this is a great event, this great triumph of civilization is indeed laden with many instructions, and many illustrations. no doubt "liberty enlightening the world" in modern history finds its greatest instance in that torch which was lighted here; but from the enthusiasm and the inexorable logic of french philosophy on the "equality of man," was furnished we can never say how much of the zeal and of the courage that enabled our forefathers to shape the institutions of equality and liberty here [cheers], and all can mark the reaction upon france, by which our interests, our prosperity under them encouraged, ennobled and maintained the struggle for liberty there which overthrew ancient establishments and raised in their place new. and now both countries, at least, stand on the same happy combination of liberty regulated by law, and law enlightened by liberty. [cheers.] and this great structure, emblem of so much else, example of so much else, guide to so much else, yet this emblem, this example, this guide is of the union between the genius and enthusiasm of liberty, the graceful statue and the massive and compact pedestal of our own granite by which it is upheld. [cheers.] liberty can only be supported by solid and sober institutions, founded upon law as built upon a rock; and the structure solid and sober which sustains it, if liberty has fled, is but a shapeless and unsightly mass that is no longer worthy of respect as a structure, to be torn apart until it can be better rebuilt as the home of liberty. [prolonged applause.] thomas c. ewing ohio and the north-west [speech of thomas c. ewing at the first annual banquet of the new york southern society, february , . algernon s. sullivan, the president of the society, was in the chair, and announced that general ewing would respond to the toast "ohio and the northwest." general ewing was greeted with applause and cheers for ohio.] mr. president and gentlemen:--ohio and her four sisters of the northwest are always proud and happy to be reminded of the fact of their kinship to virginia. it was the valor and the intrepidity of the old dominion which, long before the confederation was formed, wrested that great territory from the frenchmen and the savages. it was her lofty generosity which gave to the poor young republic that vast territory out of which has been formed five of our greatest states, and in which dwell millions of our people. it was her humane and unselfish statesmanship which annexed to the gift the condition that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, excepting punishment for crime, should ever exist in that magnificent domain. thousands of our revolutionary heroes sleep in ohio in land given to them as a recognition of their own priceless services, and the beautiful district between the scioto and the little miami is filled with their descendants. therefore, mr. president, whenever virginia sits at the head of the table, ohio claims a seat as one of the family. i, too, coming from that great state, and proud of it and its condition, may join in congratulating you, gentlemen, on the establishment of this "southern society of new york." after the long season of strife and discontent this is one of the many signs which mark the vernal equinox, and foretell the coming summer. i believe, notwithstanding the infinite disasters of the war, the overthrow of slavery, and with it all the industrial system of the south, and the needless loss and the humiliations of reconstruction--i believe that there is to-day a kinder and more cordial fraternity between the north and south than ever existed since the agitation of the slavery question sixty or seventy years ago. this society formed, and meeting here in this great centre of american political and business life, can do much to promote that peace. we need more social intercourse between the northern and southern men, and we need, above all, a clearer and manlier understanding of each other, in order that the recollections of the war may cease to check the growing accord between us. gentlemen, the north craves a living and lasting peace with the south; it asks no humiliating conditions; it recognizes the fact that the proximate cause of the war was the constitutional question of the right of secession--a question which, until it was settled by the war, had neither a right nor wrong side to it. our forefathers, in framing the constitution purposely left the question unsettled; to have settled it distinctly in the constitution would have been to prevent the formation of the union of the thirteen states. they, therefore, committed that question to the future and the war came on and settled it forever. now, the northern people are not so mean, fanatical or foolish as to blame the south because it believed then and believes now that it had the right side of that question. how could we respect the south if it were to say now that it was insincere then, or if it were to pretend that its convictions on a question of constitutional construction had been changed by the cuffs and blows of the war? it is enough that the north and south alike agree that the war settled that question in favor of the northern construction finally and forever. the north does ask that the settlement of the war as embodied in the constitutional amendments shall be accepted, and obeyed in the letter and spirit, as good faith and good citizenship require. there have been undoubtedly very many instances of violation of the spirit of the amendments and there will be in the future, but no more than from the very nature of things was to have been expected; and i have no doubt that they will decrease in number as time goes on, and will finally disappear in the breaking-up of the color line in the south; and under the influence of that great sentiment become more familiar and more general every year, in favor of equal political rights to every american citizen. aside from these questions, there is nothing to perpetuate alienation between the north and south. the new questions will lead to new divisions on other lines; already the representatives of alabama are getting ready to stand with ohio, pennsylvania and new jersey in support of the tariff on the iron industry; the spinners of the dan and the saco will stand very soon with the spinners of the willimantic and the merrimac in supporting the cotton interests, and now we see the cotton-growers of the south and the wheat-growers of the northwest united in demanding a tariff for revenue only. common political interests, the ministry of social and political intercourse, and perhaps higher than all, the pride of a common citizenship are rapidly supplanting sectionalism among our own people and leading us to stand together and work out our common destiny in fraternal reunion. it has often occurred to me, as a cause of thankfulness to almighty god--and i believe he is guiding this republic so as to work out the problem of self-government for all mankind--that the tremendous fact of the war has caused so little change in our system of government; constitutional amendments have been so limited by interpretation by the supreme court of the united states that they have hardly added anything to the powers of the general government or impaired the powers of the states. the legislation following the war when congress seemed to have run mad with the theory that it could legislate outside of the constitution has to a large extent fallen under the decisions of that high tribunal. one would have supposed that it could have been certain that, considering the fact that the war was waged to extend the extremest proposition of state sovereignty, that the triumph of the federal theory would have added enormously and permanently to the powers of the general government and diminished very greatly and permanently the powers of the states. it is well for republican government that that evil was averted. we have our free state government, states still stand as the fortresses of american liberty, and our federal government moves in its orb with scarcely a perturbation to mark the influence of the war upon it. gentlemen, we have successfully worked out the problem of self-government, and our example will undoubtedly and in due time be followed by the world. what else is there for this republic to do? there is a tremendous question yet unsolved which is now rising unbidden in this and in every enlightened nation. it is the question of the proper distribution of the earnings of labor and capital combined. this is a question that will not down, and we have got to meet it. british publicists and statesmen from whom we have taken in the past far too much of our politics have either ignored that question entirely, or have treated it as practically settled by the apothegm of ricardo, that the laborer is entitled out of his earnings to just enough food and clothing to keep the machine of his body in working order, and that when that machine becomes disarranged or worn out, he must go to the almshouse. in the united states, so far as the question does not lie outside of the powers of the state or general government, so far as those powers can be used fairly to adjust the question, methods of adjustment will fall within the lines relating to revenue, currency, corporations, police regulations. the settlement of the intricate problem and of that immensely important one, will not be added to by flagrant assaults on public authority, nor by the interference by bodies or individuals with the free right of every single workingman to work for whatever he pleases and for whomever he pleases and as many hours as he pleases; nor by the confiscation of real or personal property. and on the other hand that question will not be solved nor aided in its solution by police interference with the right of free assembly and discussion, nor by police interference with the right to form organizations open or secret, nor by police interference with the right of laboring men to combine for their own benefit if they keep within the limits of the law. on the other hand, i dissent _in toto_ from some of the sentiments expressed in the letter of mr. hewitt. [abram s. hewitt, mayor of the city of new york.] this question will only be settled by the people at the ballot-box and by the enactment of such laws as will fairly distribute the net earnings which labor and capital combine to make. gentlemen, let us who have borne the heat and burden of the civil war, commit it and its issues to the past, and join the incoming generation in settling this great industrial question in such a way as will be just to all, and best for the masses of the people. the south has always produced great statesmen. it was her peerless and immortal son whose love of the people and whose faith in their power of self-government did most to establish and animate our free institutions. and again let the new south send forth other statesmen armed with the power and animated with the spirit of jefferson, [applause.] frederic william farrar poet and painter [speech of frederic w. farrar, d.d., at the banquet of the royal academy, london, may , . he was at that time canon and archdeacon of westminster, and in became dean of canterbury. the president, sir frederic leighton, in introducing the speaker said: "in literature as in science a different side of our subject is each year brought into prominence according to the guest who does us the honor to respond to it. to-night i have the pleasure to call on an accomplished and eloquent divine, a writer whose sentences are pictures and his language rich with color and who is known to you not only by his books on the most sacred subjects, but also by the valuable chapters which he has contributed to the study of language, the venerable archdeacon farrar."] my lords and gentlemen:--i have no pretension to be regarded as an adequate representative of english literature, but the toast itself is one which could never be omitted at any banquet of the royal academy. the artist and the man of letters, though they differ in their gifts and in their methods, are essentially united in feeling and in purpose. they appeal to the same emotions; they enforce the same lessons; they illustrate the same truths; they labor for the same objects. the common aim of both is the emancipation and free development of our spiritual nature. the humblest artist as he reads the great works written by men of genius in all ages,--the humblest man of letters as year after year he has the delight of gazing on these splendidly illuminated walls--may claim that he belongs to one and the same great brotherhood--the brotherhood of those who have consistently labored to cheer, to bless and to elevate mankind. turner called himself the "author" not the artist of his pictures; and indeed, writing and painting are but different forms of that one eternal language of which not even babel could confound the significance. there is hardly a single work in this exhibition which does not illustrate the close connection between literature and art. landscape painting has always been the chief glory of our english school, and what are the great poets of all ages but landscape painters, and what are the best landscape painters but poets? alike they reproduce for us aspects of nature translated into human thoughts and tinged with human emotion. when homer shows us bees swarming out of the hollow rock and hanging in grapelike clusters on the blossoms of spring; when Æschylus flashes upon us the unnumbered laughter of the sea-waves; when virgil in a single line paints for us the silvery galæsus flowing now under dark boughs, and now through golden fields; when dante bids us gaze on a sky which is of the sweet color of the eastern sapphire; when wordsworth points us to the daffodils tossing in the winds of march beside the dancing waves of the lake; when tennyson shows us "the gummy chestnut buds that glisten in the april blue;" when even in prose mr. ruskin produces scenes and sunsets as gorgeous as those of his own turner--what are they but landscape painters. again, how many memorable scenes of history are inseparable in our minds alike, and almost equally, from the descriptions of the writer or the conceptions of the artist? shall we ever think of the execution of mary queen of scots without recalling mr. froude's description of her, as she stood, a blood-red figure on the black-robed scaffold? shall we ever think of monmouth pleading for his life with james ii, without remembering the picture which hung last year upon these walls? is there no affinity between novelist and our many painters of ordinary scenes, with their kindred endeavor to shed light and beauty on the hopes and fears, the duties and sorrows of human life? nay, even if the preacher and the divine may claim any part in the domain of letters, they, too, look to the artist for the aid and inspiration which, in their turn, they lend to him. which of us can ever read the words, "these are the wounds with which i was wounded in the house of my friends," or, "behold, i stand at the door and knock," without being helped to realize their meaning by the pathetic allegories of mr. millais and mr. holman hunt? and if, sir, you will pardon the allusion, the verse, "oh! had i the wings of a dove," is in my own mind henceforth inseparably associated, not only with the melody of mendelssohn, in which we seem to see the dove hovering, as it were, in a cloud of golden music, but also with the picture i saw many years ago in this room, of a weary king sitting on his palace roof, his hair sable silvered, and his crown laid humbly upon the parapet beside him, whose eyes wistfully follow the flight of a flock of doves towards the twilight sky. i am sure that i echo the sentiment of every painter, and of every author here when i say we are brothers in the effort to make the happy happier, and the sad less miserable, and in the poet's words, "to teach the young and the gracious of every age to see, to think, to feel, and therefore to become more actively and securely virtuous." "high is our calling, friends! creative art, (whether the instruments of words she use or pencil pregnant with ethereal hues,) demands the service of a mind and heart though sensitive, yet in their weakest part heroically fashioned--to infuse faith in the whispers of the lonely muse, while the whole world seems adverse to desert great is the glory, for the strife was hard." [cheers.] john r. fellows north and south [speech of col. john r. fellows at the third annual banquet of the new york southern society, new york city, february , . col. john c. calhoun, president of the society, said, in introducing him. "now, gentlemen, the next toast is: 'the day we celebrate.' i have been an arkansas traveller. we have here with us to-night as our guest another who has also been an arkansas traveller, but he has come on to this great metropolis and located here, and to-day voices the sentiment of a vast portion of our population. we now propose to hear from the hon. john r. fellows."] mr. president and gentlemen of the southern society, and their guests:--i have just come from a banquet board, the twenty-second of february gathering of a society over which for some time past i have had the honor of presiding, and which, therefore, commanded my first allegiance to-night. it is not often that i am accustomed to appear in the attitude of an apologist when called upon to respond to a sentiment such as you have assigned to me to-night, for it would be but the affectation of modesty to say that i have been unaccustomed to positions of this kind; yet i do feel something of reluctance in your presence to-night, at the first banquet of your society which i have done myself the honor of attending. i do feel some hesitation in attempting to respond to a toast which includes so much, and is so large in its scope as the one your partiality has given to me. it is altogether unexpected, for i had announced to your committee that my presence here would be of exceedingly limited duration, as i am compelled to leave your midst to visit another gathering, where i have other duties to perform to-night. yet i shall not hesitate to say something in response to the toast. he must be very far less than imbued with sentiments of love for his country and of a just conception of its greatness, who can fail to have something of that sentiment awakened upon an occasion like this, or in the presence of such a toast as you have given me. i congratulate you, mr. president, upon the auspicious character of this gathering. the youngest of all the societies which have now arisen to prominence in our midst, you give tokens in your infancy of what your future greatness is to be. it is exceedingly gratifying to hear a statement of your prosperity which insures for you so much of the future, confers so much of hope and promise upon your society as that to which we have listened to-night. especially is it gratifying to know of your financial condition; "the society owes nothing." in that respect the society differs radically from each of its individual members. [laughter.] it is a southern characteristic to owe all you can, to pay if you possibly can. there is a sentiment of honor about the southerner that induces him to pay if he possibly can; but there is a sentiment of chivalry which always actuates him to contract debts without any reference whatever. [laughter.] having started your society on a basis so different from that which characterizes the units of the society is an evidence of how you have become permeated and tinctured with yankee influences. i am glad to hear of your financial prosperity. it is a good augury, a hopeful sign of the success which awaits your efforts. you have called upon me to respond to the toast of "the day we celebrate." i should rather have listened to what would be said of that toast from the lips of the eloquent virginian who so admirably represents the state that was the birthplace of washington, whose personal character and whose family have given so much of additional lustre and glory to the state. [applause and cheers for general lee.] i may not venture, gentlemen, upon a review of the character of washington, upon all that his life, and services, and influence meant to the world. the world, in the language of another, knows that history by heart. an hundred and fifty-seven years ago, i believe, this day, he was born. he lived almost the full age allotted to man, but he crowded that narrow life with deeds that would have rendered illustrious and immortal the history of a thousand years. he gave to the world an impetus, he impressed upon it a character and force, he gave it a conception of new power, of solidity of judgment, of strength of character, of unbending and unyielding integrity, of high devotion to principle, of just conception of duty, of patriotism and heroic resolve in the midst of temptation to wander and be subservient, of self-abnegation, of sacrifices for the benefit of others, such as would have adorned and rendered immortal--i repeat--the history of the lives of ten thousand ordinary men. [applause.] you claim him for virginia, but i speak the universal language when i repeat the eloquent expression of the most eloquent irishman--"no country can claim, no age appropriate him; the boon of providence to the human race, his fame is eternity, and his residence creation." [applause.] well was it that the english subject could say (though it was the defeat of their armies and the disgrace of their policy--even they could bless the convulsion in which he had his origin), "for if the heavens thundered and the earth rocked yet when the storm had passed how pure was the atmosphere it cleared, how bright in the brow of the firmament was the planet it revealed to earth." an hundred years have passed since washington, crowned with the honors of the successful chieftain, having led his country through the turmoil of seven years of blood and strife, in these streets and under these skies was crowned with the highest civic triumph this republic can bestow upon its citizen. and to-night we come to inquire less, perhaps, of washington's history, of washington's influence and character--for every child knows that--than we do of the country of which washington was so conspicuous a part. it seems to me, gentlemen, that the great national holiday we celebrate, the fourth of july, is the most significant of all holidays in the history of all the nations of the world. what does it typify, sirs? what does it signify to us? your chairman has said that we have had an hundred years of national history. it is a little less than an hundred years since we inaugurated our first president. the fourth of july does not celebrate the establishment of the independence of the united states; it marks but the beginning of the strife instead of its successful close. it was at the outset of the revolutionary struggle that the colonies threw down that gauge which defied all tradition, which stamped upon all past history, which mocked at ancient dogmas and hoary traditions, which introduced upon earth an entirely new and distinctive doctrine! before that time men had fought for the realization of noble purposes and high aims; they had fought to win succor from distressful conditions; they had fought for relief against oppression; but they had fought for these only as the gaining of a boon and a privilege from powers that were; and everywhere it was conceded that there was upon earth a class of men ordained by providence to rule, and that the vassal's obedience was the inheritance of the many. and when men rose up in their might to fight upon the plains of runnymede, in earnest contest, for ancient rights, for ancient privileges, it was after all only asking something of the grace of the sovereign, and no one denied his absolute power to withhold or to grant it as he would. but the colonies threw down this defiance to earth--that there was no heaven-ordained class to govern men; that man, by virtue of his existence, by reason of his creation, was a sovereign in his own right; and that in these latter days all just rights in government were derived, not from the will of the ruler, but from the consent of the governed. [applause.] it was a new doctrine, i repeat, and if it could be successfully maintained there was no foundation strong enough for a throne to rest securely upon! and so all the startled nations rose up to oppose it, this innovation of all that had been in the preceding centuries; but guided by that star, led on by the resolute courage, the steadfast integrity of washington, our fathers went on and on in pursuit of this doctrine, in quest of this precious boon, on through blood and toil, on when the struggle seemed like the very madness of despair, on and on when hope seemed to have fled, but patriotism remained; on over trembling dynasties and crumbling thrones, until they wrested that jewel of their love from the reluctant hand of a sullen king, and set it to glitter forever upon the brow of a new-born nation. [applause.] auspicious day, which an hundred years ago proclaimed both civil and religious liberty to all the populations of the earth! to-day we have set four other stars in our national heaven. [applause.] through all the years we shall go on adding to the glories of the constellation, each one with a radiance of its own, each one with an orbit of its own, but all swinging in delightful harmony in that larger orbit within which we recognize our common country, our federal union. [applause.] what did washington do for us? look around you! i cannot but say, as that monument in st. paul's says of the architect of that splendid pile, sir christopher wren. all of him that could die sleeps under the marble, but above his mouldering ashes there is this inscription: "here lies the body of sir christopher wren, architect of st. paul's. reader, would you see his monument, then look around you." [applause.] there could be no higher evidence of the grandeur and greatness, the strength and character of the man and of his mind, than to point to the works he did. so we say of washington. we have had an hundred years of experience in the form of government that his sword conquered for us, and that his statesman-like mind fashioned and controlled at the outset. the guidance he gave us we have never lost; the teachings he inculcated we cherish as dearly to-day as when they were uttered. nay! nay! his memory and his fame grow brighter as the years recede, and as we get away from the frailties and foibles which attach to the weakness of our common humanity, even in the person of the strongest. as we get away it is like moving from some grand mountain peak. as you go away you see its symmetrical form rise clear in the clouds, with the eternal blue around the summit, with all its harsh and rugged outlines obliterated by distance; it is there in its perfect grandeur, in its completeness and beauty, without any of the weaknesses or foibles which attach to it. i think there is no better evidence of the character and influence of washington upon the american mind than what has transpired during and since the war. look, sir, at the south of which you spoke! she was largely a lethargic people prior to the war. she lived in luxury; she was in the midst of a condition which yielded to her abundant support, and eliminated from her life the necessity of hard labor and earnest effort. the war came. we were bound around with a cordon we could not break; we were encircled by fire; we were thrown upon our resources. what resulted? ah, sir, at once there leaped into life, with a splendor and with a giant's strength such as the world, such as ourselves had never conceived of, the true manhood of the south. every man became a laborer, every woman a worker. there was nothing that the necessities of our life demanded that we did not fashion with our own hands. deprived of all support, of all assistance from the outside world, we dug from our hills, and wrested from our soil, and evoked from resources the measure and extent of which we had never dreamed before, whatever was necessary for the support of the loved ones at home and the armies we maintained in the field. [applause.] we illustrated a heroism and valor which is the admiration of the world, which is the highest pride and admiration of our gallant adversaries. they conquered no ignoble foe; the field was worthy even of their efforts. and when the war was over, the terrible strife had ended, while yet the land was filled with mourning, while every church on every sunday in this north was crowded with women wearing the sable garments of woe for sons, for brothers, for husbands, for the loved of every kind and condition who were sleeping their last sleep on southern hillsides--how did the spirit of washington, the toleration, the kindness, the generosity, the magnanimity which in all his life he breathed out toward all exhibit itself here in the north? they took us by the hand. they lifted us to our feet again, or assisted in doing so. they gave us the recognition which one gallant man extends to another whose heroism and courage he has tested; they wrote the title of american citizen upon our brows again, and told us to go on as parts of the union, with our loves and hopes bound up in its common destiny. [applause.] the spirit of washington has never died. the courage of washington has never died. this war was a vital necessity--let us recognize it. this war was an ordination of providence--let us confess it. there were issues distracting and dividing this country which no legislation, no government, and no decrees of courts could settle. at one time or another they had to be fought to their final conclusion upon the battle-field. when the contest was ended it eliminated from our national condition every element of strife, and welded us together in a bond ten thousandfold stronger and better than we had known before. [applause.] now, what remains? ah! so much remains that can never die! there are northern soldiers here, there are southern soldiers here. we stood face to face through the bitterness of that conflict; we stand heart to heart now. [applause.] whenever this country shall call upon her sons to do battle against a common foe, when north and south carolina with massachusetts and vermont, when georgia and ohio, when all the south and all the north march side by side in behalf of old glory, then at the bivouac, then around our council fires, the sons will recall the valorous deeds their fathers wrought upon either side and under opposing flags during the civil strife, as the loudest call and the strongest inspiration to awaken effort in behalf of the rescued and re-united country. [applause.] has it not always been so? if you would awaken a flame of martial life in the sons of france, appeal to them as those whose eagles flew in triumph above wagram, and austerlitz, and lodi bridge, and bore upon the outstretched wings the glorious destinies of her favored child of fortune, her thunderbolt of war! if you would awaken caledonia to battle, appeal to her sons as descendants of-- "scots wha hae wi' wallace bled, scots whom bruce has often led," and at once, from loch lomond, from ben nevis, and from the grampian hills, her kilted warriors will troop to death as to a feast, stimulated by the recollection of the glorious deeds of those from whose loins they sprang! and hereafter, sir, if eloquence shall want a theme to awaken her sublimest efforts, or poetry shall seek some shrine at which to offer its most harmonious numbers, orator and bard will not go back to the romantic period of agincourt and crecy, when henry v led his armies to victory, and douglas poured the vials of his wrath across northumbrian plains--no need to go back there--but they will tell of the deeds of the glorious men who drew their swords at lee's, or johnston's, or longstreet's bidding, or of those who flamed the demigods of war where grant and sherman and sheridan led [applause]; of those whose camp-fires shone out on the dark walls of blue ridge, or lit up with their glow the waters of gauley and of shenandoah; of those who sleep in graves consecrated forevermore, where the starts look down to-night through shadowy trees in spottsylvanian woods and stafford groves; of the long lines whose musketry rang out their sublime peal in the early gray of that april morning at shiloh, whose fierce battle-shout at chancellorsville or in the wilderness mingled with the farewell sounds that broke on jackson's and on sedgwick's ears, sounds scarcely stilled ere the acclamations of angels woke them to sublimer greeting. [applause.] we may safely trust the story of the unequalled valor, the peerless chivalry of those years, on whichever side they fought, to the verdict which the unprejudiced future will utter. but i know if ever this country shall ask us again to flock to her standard and to do duty for her cause, there is no stronger inspiration that can be invoked, there is no enthusiasm that can be created or awakened that will lead men so quickly into the ranks of the foe and hold them so steadily in the face of death as to talk to each other of the deeds their fathers did when they stood as foes battling for what they thought was right. [applause.] nay! out of our very strife we have grown strong. the magnanimity of the conquering party has fused and welded us together in one irresistible, unbreakable party. no internal dissension shall disturb us henceforth; and the world arrayed in arms against us we do not fear. and all of this we derive from the teachings, the heroism, the courage, the patience, the faith, the example of the fathers, at the head of whom stood the illustrious one in whose behalf we celebrate this day. [applause and cheers for colonel fellows.] david dudley field the telegraph [speech of david dudley field at the dinner given in honor of samuel f. b. morse, new york city, december , .] mr. chairman and gentlemen:--in the early days of the electric telegraph, a proposition was made that it should be called the morseograph. i cannot but think that that would have been a distinctive and appropriate designation; thus, in all future time, when the thing should be mentioned, recalling the history of its origin. but the name of the inventor is no secret; and the world will ratify the judgment we pronounce to-night that, as benefactor and discoverer, his name will be immortal. if we were to measure the future of the telegraph by what it has already accomplished, we should predict for it an indefinite extension. less than twenty years ago, the first line was built in the united states. though it extended only from washington to baltimore, it was begun in doubt and completed with difficulty. thence it stretched itself out first to philadelphia and new york, then to other principal cities, and afterward along the great thoroughfares. on the other side of the sea it advanced from city to city, and from one market to another. at first laid with hesitation underneath the rivers, it was next carried beneath narrow seas, and at last plunged into the ocean and passed from continent to continent. compare its feeble beginning with its achievement of to-day. think of the uncertainty with which, after weary months upon dusty maryland roads, the last link of that first line was closed, and then think of the exultation with which great ships in mid-ocean brought up from the bottom of the sea a cable lost two miles down, and the problem was forever solved, not only that an ocean-telegraph cable was possible, but that it could not be so lost as that it might not be found. standing in the presence of the great inventor, i am constrained to congratulate him upon the fulness of his triumph as he remembers the early effort, and contrasts it with the marvels of this night in this hall. that little instrument, no larger than the clock upon the chamber mantel, and making as little noise, is yet speaking to both america and europe; and what it says will be printed before the dawn, and laid at morning under the eyes of millions of readers. did i say before the dawn? it will meet the dawn in its circuit before it reaches the confines of eastern europe. in the opposite quarter, we know that the message which has just left us for the west will outstrip the day. even while i have been speaking, the message has crossed the mississippi, passed the workmen laying the farthest rail of the pacific road, bounded over the sierra nevada, and dashed into the plains of california, as the last ray of to-day's sun is fading from the shore, and the twilight is falling upon the pacific sea. it is, however, not alone its history which justifies us in predicting for the telegraph indefinite extension. its essential character must sooner or later carry it to every part of the habitable globe. of all the agencies yet vouchsafed to man, it is the most accessible and the most potent. while the machinery itself is simple and cheap, the element from which it is fed is abundant and all-pervading. it is in the heaven above, in the earth beneath, and in the water under the earth. you take a little cup and pass into it a slender wire, when lo! there comes to it a spark from air and water, from the cloud and the solid earth, which the highest mountains cannot stop, nor the deepest seas drown, as it dashes on its fiery way, indifferent whether its errand be to the next village or to the antipodes. no other voice can speak to the far and near at the same time. no other hand can write a message which may be delivered within the same hour at quebec and at moscow. by no other means may you converse at once with the farmer of illinois and the merchant of amsterdam, with the german on the danube and the arab under his palm. to the use of such an instrument there can be no limit but the desire of man to converse with man. if from this populous and opulent capital you would speak with any inhabitant of either hemisphere, you have here an agent which may be brought to do your bidding. if any, however distant, desire to speak with us, they have these means at their command. how great will be the effect of all this upon the civilization of the human race, i do not pretend to foresee. but this i foresee, as all men may, that the necessities of governments, the thirst for knowledge, and the restless activity of commerce will make the telegraph girdle the earth and bind it in a network of electric wire. the atlantic, the most dangerous and difficult of all the seas, has been crossed. in the pacific you may pass easily from island to island, till you reach the shores of eastern asia. there an american company will take it up and extend it from side to side of the central flowery land. and an english company is about to cross the straits which divide australia from the elder continent. indeed, i think that i declare not only what is possible but what will come to pass within the next decade, that there will be a telegraph-office wherever there is now a post-office, and that messages by the telegraph will pass almost as frequently as messages by the mail. then the different races and nations of men will stand, as it were in the presence of one another. they will know one another better. they will act and react upon one another. they may be moved by common sympathies and swayed by common interests. thus the electric spark is the true promethean fire, which is to kindle human hearts. then will men learn that they are brethren, and that it is not less their interest than their duty to cultivate good-will and peace throughout all the earth. * * * * * early connecticut [speech of david dudley field at a complimentary dinner given by the saturday night club to the judges of the supreme court, new york city, april , . clark bell, president of the club, said in the course of his introductory remarks: "it is our grand good fortune to have with us to-night the nestor of the american bar, who was born in connecticut, and whose useful life has covered nearly all the years of our present century. his eye has seen much that is far in the past, and beside that love and affection he bears to his birthplace are the reminiscences of the men conspicuous in the judicial annals of his native state, who have been upon the stage of action during the eventful years of the present century. when we shall have separated, when this banquet shall be but a memory and a reminiscence, that which will give us most pleasure, the reminiscence we shall prize among the highest, will be that of the presence of the hon. david dudley field, whose illustrious name i will connect with the toast--'reminiscences of the bench and bar of connecticut'"] mr. president:--when you did me the honor to invite me to this banquet, i was quick to accept the invitation, because i expected to meet the judges of my native state, of which i bear so pleasant a remembrance. i find, however, representatives from other seats of justice come to greet the judges of connecticut. you have here a judge from the dominion of canada, over which shines the mild light of arcturus, and on the other side a representative from texas where glows, not the lone star of other days, but the bright constellation of the southern cross. you have judges from the neighboring state of new jersey, from the further state of pennsylvania, and from delaware, about which i may use the language of john quincy adams, speaking of rhode island: "she is to be measured, not by the smallness of her stature, but by the loftiness of her principles." all these eminent judges are here to join in the salutation to the judges of connecticut, and to them therefore our attention is to be chiefly directed. i am old enough to remember the judges of connecticut when they sat under the authority of the colonial charter, that charter which was hidden in the famous oak of hartford to escape seizure by an emissary of the king of england. i was present at the trial in haddam, my native town, of a man for murder. trumbull was the judge, that trumbull who wrote "mcfingal," and who, being elected for a single year, as was then the rule, was re-elected as long as he lived. he was neatly dressed, wearing ruffles in the bosom, and at the wrists, and was in trim knee-breeches. i remember this incident of the trial. the crowd was so great that the court was adjourned from the court house to the church, then called the meeting-house. the jurors sat in the square pews. one of the jurors, a respectable farmer of the neighborhood, thinking that he had detected some mistake of the counsel rose to correct him, when the counsel retorted that the juror was the one mistaken, and added: "let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." the prisoner was convicted and was hanged at middletown. i went up to see the execution, and when i reached the place trained bands were marching through the streets, playing their music as if for a great festivity. a sermon was preached to a crowded house, and the prisoner was then taken, dressed in a shroud, to a hill near by, and in the presence of thousands of spectators was executed. these scenes were of course impressed strongly on the memory of a boy. i remember the session of the county court at haddam, when the judges, headed by the sheriff, marched in order from the tavern to the court house. i remember seeing in court david daggett, wearing white top boots, and i met roger minot sherman, driving into the village in a sulky. i remember staples and hungerford. the latter went into court one day with a bible under his arm, to show from the first chapter of genesis, as authority in an insurance case, that the day began at sunset, "and the evening and the morning were the first day." in those days party feeling ran high in connecticut, between the democrats and the federalists--"demos" and "feds," as they were called for shortness--and contempt as well. let me recount two anecdotes: the rev. dr. backus, riding along the highway, stopped at a brook to water his horse, when another rider came up from the opposite side, and thus addressed the good man: "good-morning, mr. minister." the latter replied, "good-morning, mr. democrat. how did you know that i was a minister?" "by your dress. how did you know that i was a democrat?" "by your address." at another time dr. backus, being prosecuted for a libel upon mr. jefferson, was taken from his home to hartford to be bailed. the minister and the marshal rode of course, for that was not the heyday of vehicles. the minister rode very fast, so fast that the marshal called out after him: "dr. backus, dr. backus, you ride as if the devil were after you." the doctor turning his head replied, "just so!" mr. president, connecticut has been often abused for the frugality and thrift of its people, and called in derision the nutmeg state. i remember hearing that a new yorker once put into his will an injunction against any child of his being educated in connecticut. an episcopal clergyman removing from new york into a connecticut town was actually boycotted. the people would not sell him anything to eat, and i believe he returned for food and shelter to the hither side of byram river. i remember such a joke as this current in new york; that they had a singular habit in connecticut, when a man cast up his accounts with his neighbor and gave him a note for the balance, he used to exclaim: "thank god, that debt is paid." some of the people have singular tastes now and then; as for example there is a hill behind east haddam that used to be called "stagger-all-hill," but inquiring the other day, i was told its name was now "mount parnassus." they may say all these things if they please, but connecticut has no public debt, or a very small one at most, and her people are industrious, educated, polite to strangers, jealous of their rights and brave enough to defend them. i remember hearing mrs. fanny kemble say, some years ago, of the twelve hundred thousand people then inhabiting massachusetts, that, taking them all in all, she thought they were the foremost twelve hundred thousand people living together in the world, and i can speak in similar terms of the inhabitants of connecticut, as really a part of the same people. in conclusion, mr. president, may i without affectation utter these words of love for my native state, its scenery and its people. flow on, gentle river, shine on, rugged and wooded hills, smile on, green meadows basking in the sun, and you, brave people, who dwell amid these scenes, prove yourselves ever worthy of your progenitors, and flaunt high as you will, the old banner with its hopeful and trustful motto--_qui transtulit sustinet_. francis m. finch the office of the law [speech of francis m. finch on assuming the chair of the president of the new york state bar association, at their annual dinner, albany, n. y., january , . the ex-president, walter j. logan, introduced him in the following words: "before i introduce to you judge finch, i want to say just one word for myself. the new york state bar association has treated me with distinguished consideration, and i shall ever regard every member of the association as my personal friend, and among the pleasantest experiences of my life, which i am only just commencing, that the lawyers of the state of new york thought me worthy of the position which i am now surrendering. allow me to introduce to you judge finch. [applause.] i want to introduce to you, judge finch, the most splendid body of men in the american nation,--the new york state bar association. judge finch is now president."] gentlemen:--i regard it as a very great honor to be called upon to preside over the work of this association for the coming year. i do not know of any other temptation which would have drawn me away from the quiet of my ordinary life into an arena so public and so open to critical observation. it is entirely natural that one who has crossed the line of threescore and ten should covet a life of rest, or at least some restful work which makes no heavy demand upon brain and nerves, but i have received from the bar of the state of new york, in the years that have gone by, and which seem to me now almost like a dream, i have received at their hands so much kindness and courtesy, so much of that encouragement and generous approval which makes the hardest work a pleasure and happiness, that it seemed to me almost ungrateful and ungracious to refuse the duty which was sought to be imposed upon me, and so i have surrendered, with such grace as i may, and will endeavor, to the best of my ability, to push forward the work of this association. [applause.] indeed, gentlemen, i confess, as over our cups confessions are sometimes excusable and in order--i confess that it is something of a comfort not to be quite forgotten. [applause.] it is the lot of the average judge--i don't mean by that these old associates of mine, sitting by me, who are a long way above the average [applause]--it is the lot of the average judge to disappear from the public memory very soon after his work is done. occasionally there is one who makes his appearance in the flush of some new and remarkable era, and fastens his name to its beginning. occasionally there are others who do some excellent work, not altogether judicial, and in that manner keep their memories alive; but the most of us, when our work is done, step down into the mist and the darkness of a very swift and prompt oblivion. and if you, gentlemen of the bar, have chosen for me to draw back the curtains a little, to dissipate somewhat the mist and the darkness, it is just like you; it is only another of those kindly deeds which it is pleasant to remember, and for which i am grateful, and glad to have the opportunity of saying so. [applause.] i wished to confine what i have to say to-night simply to these words of acknowledgment, but the thought comes to me, and i think i must give it expression, that there never was a year in the history of this nation when the work of the intelligent, of the able and of the scholarly lawyer was more imperatively demanded in the interest of the nation and of the race, than this year which now opens before us. [applause.] i have long been of the conviction that the law never leads civilization, but always follows in its wake; that its purpose and its object is to regulate and control the relations of men with each other, and their relations to the state; but those relations must first come, must first be established before there is anything for the law to regulate. progress goes on; new inventions are made; new relations between men occur, and it is the office and the purpose of the law to march behind them, to regulate and order and systematize them, and produce, if need be, justice out of injustice; and to-day beyond the questions of taxation, which are an almost insoluble problem, we have already the beginnings in the metropolis of the state of an underground railway, likely to open and introduce questions as difficult and as remarkable as those which attended the elevated railways. we have a mass of colossal trusts, as they are called, combinations of capital, in an extraordinary degree, with which some of you have already been wrestling, and others of you will be called upon to confront or defend. beyond that the student of international law is about to be obliged to look away from home and reconsider his foundations, to reflect anew upon the conclusions to which he has come in the application of the questions of what is contraband and what is not in the light of an extending commerce. beyond that, again, and what interested me, perhaps, more than it may you, i saw the other day in one of our leading city journals, a statement which i have been able to verify, that the german nation on the first day of january in this year, set in operation a new prussian code, which substituted for the civil law and the latin doctrine the teutonic law of germany. i myself cannot read the german language; but, if there are some among you, within the sound of my voice, who are capable of doing that, i set you the task between now and one year from to-day of studying and examining that new prussian code, which must be a marked departure, and giving us the benefit of your knowledge and your judgment. and, beyond that still, the nation itself stands to-day at the parting of the ways; stands to-day upon the verge of a new and most unexpected and remarkable destiny, and, i repeat, that there never was, i think, there never will be, gentlemen, another year in which the labor and the study and the thought of the scholarly and intelligent and learned lawyer could be more needed or more in demand. [applause.] let me add one word, not quite so serious, and that, with reference to my friend who has been your president during the past year, and who, for his patient industry in your behalf, for the manner in which he has conducted your affairs and looked after your interests, deserves the thanks of this association, which, in your name and behalf, i venture to give him. [applause.] what i want to say, however, outside of that, is a little bit in the line of complaint. he has undertaken to take away from me my surplus over and above ten millions of dollars [laughter], and give it to the state of new york. he says in justification that he thinks and believes that it would be for the best, but, with all deference to his opinion, i venture to say that i would rather trust my children to spend that surplus than the average legislature. [laughter.] more than that, and the suggestion will relieve my friend somewhat, i do not intend to have any surplus over his ten millions, not if i know it. when i reach that happy point, and find that my inventory is running above it, i propose quietly to take that surplus and hand it over, first, on one side, and then on the other, to my children, and that beautiful inheritance law of his will have no application to me whatever. [laughter.] nevertheless, while i disagree with him about those things, and think i see my way out of the difficulty, i pardon all of it, because he has promised me faithfully on his honor that until the close of the festivities he would remain your president, and when in the end he bade you good-night he would do it for me, as well as for himself, and wish you each and all a happy journey to your homes and a safe return to these same tables one year from to-day. [applause.] john foord the land o' cakes [speech of john foord at the d annual banquet of the st. andrew's society of the state of new york, december , . the speech was delivered in response to the toast, "the land o' cakes."] mr. president, members and guests of the st. andrew's society:--i suppose there are some in this company who would find it hard to tell the difference between a bear bannock and a pease scone. for the benefit of such, i may be permitted to say that there was no suggestion of fancy bread about the "cakes" with which the name of scotland has been associated. they were very plain bread, indeed, and quite as destitute of leaven as that which the children of israel were condemned to eat in the wilderness. the only sweetening they had came from the fact that they were the fruit of honest toil; and hunger, as you know, is "gude kitchen." together with the "hale-some parritch, chief o' scotia's food," they formed the staff of life of a people whose tastes were as simple as their ideals were high. "we cultivate literature on a little oatmeal," was the motto proposed by sydney smith for the "edinburgh review"; and, jocular as was the suggestion, it touches the keynote of scottish character and history. for, what have we not done on a little oatmeal? our fathers fought on it, worked on it, thought and studied on it, wrote ballads and preached sermons on it, and created the scotland, kinship with which we are all so proud to claim, on a diet chiefly composed of oat cakes and oatmeal porridge. on such frugal fare, they subdued a harsh and stubborn soil and made it yield its yearly toll of harvest; they took tribute of wool and mutton from the moorland and the hillside, and of hide and beef from the fallow lea; they levied on loch and sea to support their fisher-folk; and kept the rock and the reel and the flying shuttle busy to clothe themselves with homespun, so that the old arbroath toast became a very epitome of the vocations of that primitive time: "the life o' man, the death o' fish, the shuttle, and the plough; corn, horn, linen, yarn, lint, and tarry 'oo." nay more, defying the rigors of an ungenial climate, they set themselves, in their dour and stubborn way, to make flowers grow where nature never intended such flowers to be; and they became so cunning in the mystery of adam's art that the scottish gardener took the place of direction wherever men laid out flower-beds or built greenhouses throughout the civilized world. on such simple lines of industry were laid the foundations of the material greatness of scotland--its mines, its furnaces, its machine shops, its shipyards, its flax and jute mills, and all the other forms of productive energy that have placed this little country and its few millions of people in the front rank of the mechanical activity of the world. but is it because of such triumphs as these that the name of scotland appeals so powerfully to the heart and the imagination of men? i think not. had our race been distinguished only for its care of the bawbees, for its indomitable perseverance, its capacity to endure hardship, its adaptiveness, and its enterprise, i trow that the passionate pilgrim would not turn so eagerly to scotland to cull the flowers of poesy and breathe the air of romance. and remember, our scottish people are rather what the country has made them, than the country is what it has been made by them. i heard governor roosevelt say the other evening that the state of new york was merely another name for the aggregate of the people in it, and i could not help thinking that there must be in the dutch blood a certain deficiency of imagination. can you imagine a scotsman, however matter-of-fact and commonplace, offering such a definition of his native land? the land of brown heath and shaggy wood, land of the mountain and the flood, the land of our sires, must be, indeed, part of ourselves; but it is also something beyond and above ourselves,--the cradle of memories that will fade only with our latest breath, the home of traditions, whose spell we could not, if we would, shake off, the seat of beauty and of grandeur that we somehow think are finer than the fairest or sublimest scenes that earth can show. we know the feeling that prompted byron to say:-- "when i see some tall rock lift its head to the sky, then i think of the hills that o'ershadow culbean." for, to most of us, in all our intercourse with nature, the scottish mind supplies a scottish background. there is nothing that affects me quite so powerfully as a fine sunset; but i confess that, from all the magnificent sunsets that i have seen between the palisades and the rocky mountains, i have derived no such emotion as i have felt when, "gathering his glory for a grand repose," the sun set behind the grampians; and the peak of schehallion, like a spearhead, cleft the evening sky. why, the scottish exile thinks that the sun turns a kindlier face to his native land than it does to countries less favored, like the one who sang:-- "the sun rises bright in france, and fair sets he; but he's tint the blythe blink he had in my ain countrie." we are what we are, gentlemen, because the land of our birth is "bonnie scotland," as well as the "land o' cakes." its beauty has entered into our blood; its majesty and sublimity have given us a certain elevation of soul. thus it came about that, beside the homely kailyard virtues of our forefathers, and their stern uncompromising religious zeal, there grew up in all their wild beauty such a profusion of the flowers of song, of poetry, and of romance that you shall hardly find between tweed's silver stream and where the ocean billows break in thunder on cape wrath, ten square miles of scottish ground which have not been celebrated in ballad, legend, song or story. whence, think you, came that affluence of melody with which every strath and glen and carse of scotland was vocal--melody that auld wives crooned at their spinning wheel: lasses lilted at ewe-milking, before the dawn of day; fiddlers played at weddings and christenings; and pipers sent echoing among the hills to inspire the march of the warlike living or sound a lament for the heroic dead? a long line of nameless scottish minstrels had lived and died generations before burns and ferguson, tannahill and lady nairne, and all the rest of our sweet singers took the old tunes and gave them a form and vesture as immortal as their own fame. we are called a practical, hard-headed people, and so we are; but the most enduring part of our literature tells of the romantic ideals that scotsmen have cherished and the chivalrous deeds they have done. we are thought to be severely logical; and if allowance be made for our point of view, we are that also. but the unsympathetic student of scottish history will not get very far with his subject by keeping steadily in mind our practicalness and our logic. if he thinks of these alone, he will be apt to pronounce those scotsmen fools who sacrificed two centuries of progress for the barren, if glorious, privilege of national independence; he will think they must have been pure fanatics who spilt their blood that they might have christ's kirk and covenant regulated in their own peculiar way; and he will hold them as mere feather-brains who sacrificed their lands and their lives to an obstinate loyalty to the house of stuart. yet it is of such unreason, if unreason it be, that the warp and the woof of the historic annals of scotland have been spun: it is this defiance of what the utilitarian philosopher calls the rules of common sense, as applied to human conduct, that has given the scottish race their unique position among the tribes of men. and, even in this age of steam and electricity, they will still cherish their romance. it was but the other day that there was pointed out to the gordon highlanders in the transvaal the expediency of exchanging the garb of old gaul for a uniform of khaki: the one would be less of a shining mark for the enemy than the other, and, its adoption would probably result in saving many lives. you know their decision. i think i hear them say, "all this may well be true; but we stand by the kilt and the tartan." that, a critical world may say, is magnificent, but it is not war. we say, magnificent or not, it is war; for the kilt and the tartan are inseparable from the sentiment that makes these men the redoubtable soldiers they are. take those away, and you break their touch with a continuous tradition which transforms every man in the regiment, be he scottish, english or irish, into a gordon, with all the dash and vim and dare-devil courage that centre around the name. the gordon blood in him helped byron to understand and express the potency of the highland tradition:-- "but, with the breath that fills their mountain pipe, so fill the mountaineers with the fierce native daring which instills the stirring memories of a thousand years. and evan's, donald's fame rings in each clansman's ears." may there never come a time when the mind of our race will be closed against such a sentiment as that! let us go on doing our share, resolutely, faithfully, conscientiously, of the work of the world; let us keep well to the front with the same success that we have done of yore; but let us not forget that we owe the unconquerable spirit in us to our auld mither scotland, that it is from her breast there has been drawn the celestial ichor which has nourished genius in the cottage as generously as in the hall, and that has made the inheritance of the ploughman's son more precious than a dukedom. we shall, as your president has said, be better, and not worse citizens of this great republic; we shall play our part all the more worthily, in public or private station, if every fibre of our being thrills to an auld scotch sang, and we feel in our inmost heart that-- "where the caller breezes sweep across the mountain's breast, where the free in soul are nurst, is the land that we lo'e best." simeon ford me and sir henry [speech of simeon ford at a banquet given to sir henry irving by the lotos club, new york city, october , . the president, frank r. lawrence, occupied the chair.] gentlemen:--i cannot but envy you the intellectual treat in which you are revelling, in being permitted to listen to the resistless eloquence of both me and sir henry irving. it is not often that two such stars as me and sir henry will consent to twinkle in the same firmament. but your gifted president can accomplish wonders. he is what weber and fields[ ] call a "hypnotister." as the president has said, i am not one of the set speakers. i just blew in here, and blew in my good money to attend this feast, like the rest of the rank and file, and now i have to work my passage as well. i am simply put in as a filler. the president, with his awe-inspiring, chill-producing gavel, is the "wrapper," and i am the filler; and you, who smoke, have observed ere this that a mighty fine wrapper is often associated with a very rank filler. if i had had about twenty minutes' warning i could have prepared a eulogy on sir henry, setting forth his virtues as a man and an actor in such a way that he never would have recognized himself, and with such eloquence that dr. greer [david h. greer] would have looked like thirty cents. but i did not get the twenty minutes, so poor sir henry must content himself with the few scant bouquets with which he has already been bombarded. a sober, able-bodied eulogizer with a good address and a boiled shirt can get a pretty steady winter's job in this club at board wages. i have, in my poor, weak way, eulogized several distinguished men in this historic room, all of whom i am happy to say, are now convalescent. i eulogized joe choate and he got a job at the court of st. james; i eulogized horace porter, and he is now playing one night stands at the moulin rouge; dr. depew, and he not only got sent to washington, but got a raise of wages at the grand central depot; yet when i saw him the next day and delicately intimated that i was yearning to view the scenic beauty of his great four track system, his reception reminded me of the lines of longfellow, beginning-- "try not the pass, the old man said dark lowers the tempest overhead." and so, instead of resting that night on a beautiful wagner hair-mattress, i had to be content with "excelsior." the only man who really appreciated my efforts was dear old joe jefferson. when i gave him to understand that i was anxious to see him in one of his matchless characterizations, he inquired if i had a family that shared my anxiety, and when informed that i had, he generously tendered all hands a pass to the family circle. the lord loves a cheerful giver, but the lord help any one who strikes joe for a free pass. i can understand that the life of an actor must be a trying one, and success difficult to achieve, and it must be a source of great gratification to sir henry to feel that he has done so much to elevate the stage as well as the price of admission. but he deserves success, and the last time i gave up three dollars to behold him, and afterwards, with a lot of enthusiasts, took his horses from his carriage and dragged him in triumph two miles to his hotel, i really felt that i had had a run for my money. but if, sir henry, in gratitude for this beautiful tribute which i have just paid you, you should feel tempted to reciprocate by taking my horses from my carriage and dragging me in triumph through the streets, i beg that you will restrain yourself for two reasons. the first reason is--i have no horses; the second is--i have no carriage. * * * * * a run on the banker [speech of simeon ford at the annual dinner of the manhattan bankers of the new york state bankers' association, february , . the president, warner van norden, presided.] gentlemen:--as i sat here this evening, listening to the strains of that fine old bankers' anthem entitled "when you ain't got no money, why you needn't come around," i was thinking what a grand idea it was for you magnates to get together once a year to exchange ideas and settle among yourselves what shall be done, and who shall be done, and how you will do them. personally, i'd prefer to exchange cheques rather than ideas with many here present; not but what the ideas are all right, but somehow, when money talks i am always a fascinated listener. i did not come here voluntarily, but at the pressing invitation of some of my most pressing creditors on your committee. they said secretary gage would be here, and mr. j. p. morgan, and that without my presence the affair would seem incomplete, but that if we three got together we could settle various perplexing financial problems right on the spot. the committee told me to choose my own subject and they would endorse anything i would say--without recourse. they delicately intimated, however, that any playful allusions to the city bank better be left unsaid; and so i can only remark:-- "and i would that my tongue could utter, the thoughts that arise in me!" and let it go at that. i must say, however, that secretary gage made one serious mistake. if he had consulted me (which he never did, although he had abundant opportunity) i would have advised him to put his money in an institution i know about where it would have received a rousing welcome and where i could have taken a fall out of it myself. if the price of the custom-house had gotten into my hands, and i'd been given twenty-four hours' start, i believe i could have given the secretary a run for his money. but, instead, he placed it in a rich, smooth-running, well-oiled institution where it was used in averting a panic and straightening out financial tangles, and greasing the wheels of commerce, and similar foolishness. this is the first opportunity i have had of meeting you bank presidents collectively, and when you are thawed out. i have met most of you, individually, when you were frozen stiff. i never supposed you could warm up, as you seem to have done, my previous impressions having been of the "how'd you like to be the iceman" order. sometimes i have thought i'd almost rather go without the money than get a congestive chill in a bank president's office, and have him gaze into my eyes, and read the inmost secrets of my soul, and ask unfeeling questions, and pry rudely into my past, and throw out wild suggestions about getting mr. astor to endorse for me, and other similar atrocities. and even if i succeed in deceiving him he leads me, crushed, humiliated and feeling like thirty cents, to a fly cashier, who, taking advantage of my dazed condition, includes in my three-months' note, not only christmas and the fourth of july, but st. patrick's day, ash wednesday and sixteen sundays, so that, by the time he has deducted the interest, what's coming to me looks like a jaeger undershirt after its first interview with an african _blanchisseuse_. that's the kind of thing the poet had in mind when he wrote--"i know a bank whereon the wild thyme grows." i have observed that one's reception at a bank varies somewhat with the condition of the money market. go in when money is easy and the president falls on your neck, calls you by your first name, and cheerfully loans you large sums on your "balloon common" and your "smoke preferred," and you go on your way rejoicing. the next day, news having arrived that a gordon highlander has strained a tendon in his leg while sprinting away from a dutchman near ladysmith, or an irish lady _chef_ has sent home two pounds sterling to her family, money goes up to one hundred and eighty per cent. a minute, and you get a note requesting you to remove your "balloon common" and your "smoke preferred" and substitute government bonds therefor. and still you wonder at crime. but if you really want to know the meaning of the terms "marble heart" and "icy eye" go into one of these refrigerating plants for a loan when money is tight. it is prudent at such times to wear ear-muffs and red mittens fastened together by tape so they can't be lost, for you will need 'em. as soon as you reach the outer air--which will be in about a second--run home and plunge the extremities in hot water, and place a porous plaster on what remains of your self-esteem. bankers are too prone to judge a man by his appearance, so that the very men who need the money most have the hardest work to get it. they are apt, especially at the city bank, to discriminate against the "feller" who looks rocky, in favor of the rockafeller. clothes do not make the man! if they did, hetty green wouldn't be where she is and russell sage would be in the old ladies' home. if uncle russell had to travel on his shape, he never would see much of the world. yet, beneath that ragged coat there beats a heart which as a beater can't be beat--a heart as true (so the standard gas people say)--as true as "steal." but after all, banks and trust companies do a lot of good in a quiet way, especially to their directors--in a quiet way. see what a convenience some of our trust companies have been to their directors of late. it would sometimes be mortifying for these directors to have to attempt to borrow money on certain securities, in institutions with which they were not connected, because, instead of getting the money, they might get six months. i had intended to touch upon a few vital questions concerning finance this evening, but the night is waning and i guess you've all been "touched" sufficiently of late, so i will restrain myself, and give some other orator a chance to get himself disliked. james anthony froude men of letters [speech of james a. froude at the banquet of the royal academy, london, april , . the president, sir francis grant, in introducing mr. froude, said: "the next toast is 'the interests of literature and science.' this toast is always so welcome and so highly appreciated that it needs no exordium from the chair. i cannot associate with the interests of literature a name more worthy than that of mr. froude, the scholar and distinguished historian."] sir francis grant, your royal highnesses, my lords, and gentlemen:--while i feel most keenly the honor which you confer upon me in connecting my name with the interests of literature, i am embarrassed, in responding, by the nature of my subject. what is literature, and who are men of letters? from one point of view we are the most unprofitable of mankind--engaged mostly in blowing soap-bubbles. [laughter.] from another point of view we are the most practical and energetic portion of the community. [cheers.] if literature be the art of employing words skillfully in representing facts, or thoughts, or emotions, you may see excellent specimens of it every day in the advertisements in our newspapers. every man who uses a pen to convey his meaning to others--the man of science, the man of business, the member of a learned profession--belongs to the community of letters. nay, he need not use his pen at all. the speeches of great orators are among the most treasured features of any national literature. the orations of mr. grattan are the text-books in the schools of rhetoric in the united states. mr. bright, under this aspect of him, holds a foremost place among the men of letters of england. [cheers.] again, sir, every eminent man, be he what he will, be he as unbookish as he pleases, so he is only eminent enough, so he holds a conspicuous place in the eyes of his countrymen, potentially belongs to us, and if not in life, then after he is gone, will be enrolled among us. the public insist on being admitted to his history, and their curiosity will not go unsatisfied. [cheers.] his letters are hunted up, his journals are sifted; his sayings in conversation, the doggerel which he writes to his brothers and sisters are collected, and stereotyped in print. [laughter.] his fate overtakes him. he cannot escape from it. we cry out, but it does not appear that men sincerely resist the liberty which is taken with them. we never hear of them instructing their executors to burn their papers. [laughter.] they have enjoyed so much the exhibition that has been made of their contemporaries that they consent to be sacrificed themselves. again, sir, when we look for those who have been most distinguished as men of letters, in the usual sense of the word; where do we find them? the famous lawyer is found in his chambers, the famous artist is found in his studio. our foremost representatives we do not find always in their libraries; we find them, in the first place, in the service of their country. ["hear! hear!"] owen meredith is viceroy of india, and all england has applauded the judgment that selected and sent him there. [cheers.] the right honorable gentleman [mr. gladstone] who three years ago was conducting the administration of this country with such brilliant success was first generally known to his countrymen as a remarkable writer. during forty years of arduous service he never wholly deserted his original calling. ["hear! hear!"] he is employing an interval of temporary retirement to become the interpreter of homer to the english race [cheers], or to break a lance with the most renowned theologians in defence of spiritual liberty. [cheers.] a great author, whose life we have been all lately reading with delight, contemplates the year as a period at which his works may still be studied. if any man might be led reasonably to form such an anticipation for himself by the admiration of his contemporaries, lord macaulay may be acquitted of vanity. the year is far away, much will happen between now and then; all that we can say with certainty of the year is that it will be something extremely different from what any one expects. i will not predict that men will then be reading lord macaulay's "history of england." i will not predict that they will then be reading "lothair." [laughter.] but this i will say, that if any statesman of the age of augustus or the antonines had left us a picture of patrician society at rome, drawn with the same skill, and with the same delicate irony with which mr. disraeli has described a part of english society in "lothair," no relic of antiquity would now be devoured with more avidity and interest. [loud cheers.] thus, sir, we are an anomalous body, with very ill-defined limits. but, such as we are, we are heartily obliged to you for wishing us well, and i give you our most sincere thanks. [cheers.] melville weston fuller the supreme court [speech of melville w. fuller at the fifth annual dinner of the new england society of pennsylvania, philadelphia, december , . the president, heman l. wayland, d.d., said in introducing justice fuller:--"the reverence of new england for law and her readiness to make law (a readiness, perhaps our enemies will say, to make them for other people) naturally suggests the topic which is first on the programme--'new england in the supreme court.' i shall not enlarge upon the sentiment, lest i should only mar the canvas which will shortly be illumined by the hand of a master. the case of new england versus the world has long been in court; the evidence is in; the learned counsel have been heard; and now, before the case is finally given to the intelligent jury of the human race, it remains only that we hear a charge from his honor, the chief justice of the united states."] mr. president and gentlemen of the new england society:--i thank you sincerely for the courtesy which has afforded me the opportunity of being with you this evening, and am deeply sensible of the compliment paid in the request to respond to the sentiment just given. we all know--we have heard over and over again--that the "day we celebrate" commemorates an emigration peculiar in its causes. it was not the desire to acquire wealth or power, nor even the spirit of adventure, that sent these colonists forth. they did not go to return, but to abide; and while they sought to make another country theirs, primarily to enjoy religious independence, they were much too sagacious not to know that emancipation from the ecclesiastical thraldom, of which they complained, involved the attainment of political rights and immunities as well. and so this day commemorates not simply the heroism of struggle and endurance in silence and apart, for a great cause, not simply the unfeigned faith which rendered such heroism possible, but the planting of that germ of local self-government which has borne glorious fruit in the reconcilement of individual freedom with a national sway of imperial proportions. it commemorates the advent of that first written constitution of civil government, that first attempt of a people in that form, by self-imposed fundamental law, to put it out of their own power to work injustice; that agreement, signed upon the sea, "to enact, constitute and frame such just and equal laws and ordinances, acts, constitutions and offices," as should be "thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony," to which all "due submission and obedience" was promised. and this was followed a few years later in the sister colony of massachusetts bay by that "body of liberties" which, it is well said, may challenge comparison with magna charta itself or the latest bill of rights. instinct with the spirit of common law, though somewhat ameliorating its rigor, these "rites, privileges and liberties," to be "impartially and inviolably enjoyed and observed throughout our jurisdiction forever," commence with the preamble that "the free fruition of such liberties, immunities and privileges humanitie, civilitie and christianitie call for as due to every man in his place and proportion without impeachment and infringement, hath ever been and ever will be the tranquillitie and stabilitie of churches and commonwealths. and the deniall and deprivall thereof, the disturbance. if not the ruine of both. we hould it therefore our dutie and saftie, whilst we are about the further establishment of this government, to collect and expresse all such freedomes as for present we foresee may concern us, and our posteritie after us." and so they ordain that no man's life or liberty or property can be taken away, or his honor or good name stained, or his goods or estate in any way damaged under color of law or countenance of authority, unless by due process; that every person, inhabitant or foreign, shall enjoy the same justice and law general to the plantation; that there shall be no monopolies, except for new inventions profitable to the country, and for a short time; no imprisonment without bail except for crimes capital and contempts in open court; freedom of alienation and power to devise; no primogeniture, no escheats on attainder and execution for felony; succor to those fleeing from tyranny; full freedom to advise, vote, give verdict or sentence according to true judgment and conscience; in short, the expression or the indication of those safeguards to liberty, the possession of which enables a people to become and to remain free. well may we claim for these documents large influence in forerunning the organic laws of the several states, and that matchless instrument which a century ago was framed in this fortunate city, which had been blessed before as the place where the declaration put on immortality. and now in the latter half of the third century, since the bearers of the underlying principles of republican rule placed their feet upon that rock, whose shadow was to become a solace to the weariness of the perpetual toils and encounters of the land, we may well hope that what they sought has been achieved, an enduring government of laws and not of men; security to freedom and to justice, "justice, that venerable virtue, without which," as exclaimed new england's eloquent orator, "freedom, valor and power are but vulgar things." it is delightful to keep these remembrances alive, and while duly recognizing the rightful claims of all our brothers to their share in the foundation of the institutions of a common country, to dwell upon what the forefathers were, what they accomplished and what they still accomplish through the works that follow them. and as it is not unnatural that at the same time we should felicitate ourselves upon whatever of eminence or good fortune has attended the efforts of their descendants, the reference, mr. president, you have made in connection with this toast to the court over which i have the honor to preside enables me with propriety to indulge in an allusion to those from new england who have labored in that field. on the seventh of april, , a committee was appointed by the senate "to bring in a bill for organizing the judiciary of the united states." able as were his colleagues, it has been generally conceded that "that great act was penned" by the chairman of that committee, oliver ellsworth, of connecticut. on the twenty-fourth of september--the day upon which the judiciary act became a law--president washington nominated for the supreme court of the united states a chief justice and five associates, among the latter william cushing, of massachusetts, who, after holding high judicial office under the crown, but supporting the cause of his country in the revolution, becoming the first chief justice of the state of massachusetts, passed from that distinguished station to the federal bench, as one of his eminent successors has done in our day, and who was commissioned to, but compelled to decline, the headship of the court. then came ellsworth, whose great services in framing the federal constitution in the connecticut convention, in the united states senate, in high diplomatic position, were complemented by those he performed in the discharge of the duties of this exalted office. and so, following the careers of marshall and taney, chase (fresh from magnificent conduct of the national finances under circumstances of tremendous difficulty), and waite, from long and successful practice at the bar, won enduring fame by deserving and obtaining the commendation that a place rendered so illustrious by their predecessors had lost nothing in their hands; men of new england birth, thus dividing in number the incumbency in succession to ellsworth, while he who has but just entered upon that service, proud of the prairie state from whence he comes, has never ceased to regard with affection that particular portion of the fatherland in which he first saw the light. ellsworth and waite, baldwin and field, and strong, of connecticut; chase and woodbury, and clifford, of new hampshire; cushing and storey, and curtis, and gray, of massachusetts--these are names written imperishably upon the records of the court. but of the five from connecticut, pennsylvania and california and ohio claim four, and of the three from new hampshire, ohio and maine two; while the old bay state preserved her hold on hers. surely it is not too much for me to say, that up to the present time new england has in this sphere of public usefulness vindicated her title to regard by the exhibition on the part of her sons of that devotion to duty and that adherence to principle which characterized the men to whose memory the celebration of this day is dedicated. may that memory ever be precious, and reliance upon that providence which sustained them under the tribulations of their time, and has conducted their children in triumphant progress through succeeding years, never be less. [applause.] hamlin garland realism versus romanticism [speech of hamlin garland at the eighty-second dinner of the sunset club, chicago, ill., january , . the chairman of the evening, arthur w. underwood, introduced mr. garland to speak in relation to the general subject of the evening's discussion, "the tendency and influence of modern fiction." mr. underwood said: "to some of us the field of modern fiction may have seemed before this evening a wilderness without a chart. we are fortunate in having with us a man who has left the 'main travelled roads' of fiction and, to mix metaphors a little, a man who can tell us whether the 'idols' that are 'crumbling' are those of the realist or those of the idealist,--mr. hamlin garland."] gentlemen:--it is very interesting and pleasant to have the critic come at the problem in his mathematical fashion, but that will not settle it. i will tell you what will settle it--the human soul of the creative man; because if he has the creative power and impulse in him it will make no difference to him whether or not a single person in the world reads or understands his book, or appreciates and understands his painting. what could the critic do with claude monet thirty-five years ago? what could the critic do with robert browning when he appeared? what has the critic done thus far with walt whitman, the greatest spiritual democrat this nation has ever produced? this question is not settled by the schools; it is not settled by critics; it is not to be settled by a group of realists or a group of veritists, or the latest group of impressionists. it is to be settled by the creative impulse of the man, first; and second, and always subordinate to the real artist, the public. now, i am perfectly willing to admit that there has been for the past year or two a revival of what might be called the "shilling shocker" in literature, but it seems to me professor mcclintock entirely overestimates and exaggerates the influence of the "yore and gore" fictionists; and even if it were true that they filled the magazines to the exclusion of mr. read [opie p. read] and myself-- [mr. read: which they don't:] which they don't--and if it were true that the pendulum is swinging toward the "shilling shocker," it does not follow that it will be a century before there is a return to the thoughtful study of social life. this romance can die, and these books be as dead as hugh conway's "called back" in less than ten years. i am perfectly willing to admit all these mutations of taste, but there is something deeper than that. do you know, i have a notion that the reign of cheap melodrama and farce-comedy on our stage and of the "shilling shocker" during the last two years is due largely to our financial condition. many of you are business men, and i know how you talk. i ask you to go to see a serious play, and you say: "well, i will tell you; i am pretty well worn out when business is done, and things are not going just as they should, and i would rather go to the theatre to laugh these days. i don't care to go to the theatre to think." in precisely the same way, when you are called upon, after a hard day of business care and worry, to read a book, and i say to you: "read israel zangwill's 'children of the ghetto'; it is one of the greatest studies of our day," you say: "the fact is, i should go to sleep over it. i must have something that has fighting in it. i want 'yore and gore' fiction this year. later on, when i get over my business difficulties and get where things are easy with me, i'll try zangwill's 'children of the ghetto.' i will sit down with my wife and have her read it aloud." there is great significance in this confession as it appears to me. and what is this "yore and gore" fiction when you analyze it? it is simply a sublimated "dime novel" which, by reason of increased demand for easy reading, on the part of the tired brain, has been put into a little better cover, and published by harpers. hitherto it was published by beadle or some other fellow of that sort. it is current now. the people are reading it. they will continue to do so for a year or two, and then it will disappear. i like what zangwill said of it a while ago. i cannot quote it exactly, but it was like this: "i had a dream the other night, wherein i scrambled over the roofs of buildings pursued by detectives. i lowered myself by drain pipes. i did business in dark corridors. i retreated up narrow passages with my good broadsword flaming, and laid scores of men at my feet. i was sealed up in dungeons. i was snatched out of the deep by the hair of my head. i slew men in hecatombs; and then, when the morning came and i awoke, there was not a shred of intellectual wrack left behind on which my mind could take hold. i had dreamed it all with the cerebellum. it was all organic. why didn't i dream a novel by turgenef, or bjornsen? it takes brains to write "fathers and sons" or the "bankrupt," and it takes brains to read such masterpieces." with all due respect to the very calm and fine position taken by professor mcclintock [prof. w. d. mcclintock had asserted his belief that the twentieth century would stand for a great revival of romantic literature], this novel of lust and war does not strike me as being very high-class art. it may seem good and fine and fresh and inspiring, this fiction which slays its millions, but i am a good deal of a quaker. i would not slay anybody for anything. therefore, such art does not appear beautiful to me. i do not believe it is good for our youth to read "yore and gore" fiction. there _are_ romancers--prof. mcclintock named one--who have personal quality. i don't care what school of fiction a man belongs to if he has something to say to me which has not been said a thousand times by somebody else. such a man is robert louis stevenson. he slew men also, but he uttered something beside war cries. but this "shilling shocker," this searching after the dreadful and the unknown which is red with blood, does not strike me as literature at all. it is all the work of the cerebellum. it is not the work of the cerebrum. i should put it like this--if a man can tell us something that has not been told before; if he can add something to the literature of the world--a real creation--if he can, like the coral insect, build his own little cell upon the great underlying mass of english literature, i do not care what you call him, nor what he calls himself, he is worthy my support. it is not safe to always reckon a man's merit by the sale of his books. the author of "old sleuth" measured in that way would be the greatest american writer, in fact, the greatest writer of any time. you can't reckon the sale of such books by numbers; you reckon them by tons. it is easy to make a book sell, but the thing is to produce an original work of art, to put something forth with the imprint of your own personality as a creative artist. i believe old walt whitman stated the whole problem when he said: "all that the past was not, the future will be." i do not believe that the future of the world is to be a future of war. i believe it is to be a future of industrial peace as professor pearson [charles w. pearson] has indicated. and i believe that the literature and the art of that future will not be based upon war; it will be humanitarian, and at its best always an individual statement of life. in other words, the whole tendency of modern art is towards the celebration of the individual by the individual, and you cannot class writers in any hard and fast division. there is not an artist living who delineates "things as they are." there is not a writer living holding that for a theory, or who has that desire for a fundamental impulse. art is selection, and upon the individual soul of the creative artist is laid the burden of choice. it is in the way he chooses his material and in the way he works it out that he is to be judged. he may be a story-teller like stevenson, or he may be a novelist like zangwill. all i ask of him is just simply this--he must be an individual creative artist; he must not repeat, must not imitate for the sake of gain. john gilbert playing "old men" parts [speech of john gilbert at a banquet given by the lotos club in recognition of the fiftieth anniversary of his first appearance on the stage, new york city, november , . the chairman of the dinner was whitelaw reid, president of the lotos.] "cÆsar, we who are about to die salute you." such the gladiator's cry in the arena standing face to face with death. there is a certain appositeness in the words i have just uttered that probably may correspond to my position. understand me, i do not mean to die theatrically at present. [laughter.] but when a man has arrived at my age, he can scarcely look forward to very many years of professional exertion. when my old friend, john brougham [mr. brougham:--"i am not going to die just yet."] [laughter], announced to me the honor that the lotos club proffered me, i was flattered and complimented. but i said: "john, you know i am no speechmaker." he replied, "say anything." "anything," i said, "anything won't do." "then," said he, "repeat the first speech of sir peter teazle, 'when an old bachelor marries a young wife, what is he to expect?'" [laughter.] well, i think i can paraphrase that and say, "when a young man enters the theatrical profession, what is he to expect?" well, he may expect a good many things that are never realized. however, suffice it to say that fifty years ago i made my debut as an actor in my native city of boston. i commenced in the first-class character of jaffier in otway's charming tragedy of "venice preserved." the public said it was a success, and i thought it was. [laughter.] the manager evidently thought it was, too, for he let me repeat the character. well, i suppose it was a success for a young man with such aspirations as i had. there might have been some inspiration about it--at least there ought to have been--for the lady who personated belvidera was mrs. duff, a lovely woman and the most exquisite tragic actress that i ever saw from that period to the present. after this, i acted two or three parts, mortimer, shylock, and some of those little, trifling characters [laughter], with comparative success. but shortly after, and wisely, i went into the ranks to study my profession--not to commence at the top and go to the bottom [laughter]--but to begin at the bottom and go to the top, if possible. as a young man, i sought for pastures fresh and new. i went to the south and west, my ambition still being, as is that of all youthful aspirants for dramatic honors, for tragedy. at last i went to a theatre, and to my great disgust and indignation i was cast for an old man--at the age of nineteen. [laughter.] however, i must do it. there was no alternative and i did it. i received applause. i played a few more old men [laughter]; i found at last that it was my point, my forte, and i followed it up and after this long lapse of years, i still continue in that department. i went to england and was received with kindness and cordiality and, returning to my own country in , i was invited to join wallack's theatre by the father of my dear friend here [alluding to mr. lester wallack], his father whom i am proud to acknowledge as a friend of mine nearly fifty years ago, and i am also proud to say my dramatic master. [applause.] i need not tell you that since that time i have been under the direction of his son. what my career has been up to the present time you all know. it requires no comment from me. i am no longer a young man, but i do not think i am an old man. [applause and laughter.] i owe this to a good constitution and moderately prudent life. [shouts of laughter.] i may say with shakespeare's adam, that "in my youth i never did apply hot and rebellious liquors in my blood, therefore my age is as a lusty winter, frosty, but kindly." will you permit me, gentlemen, to thank you for the very high honor you have conferred upon me this evening and allow me to drink the health and prosperity and happiness of the lotos club? [cheers.] william schwenk gilbert pinafore [speech of william s. gilbert at a dinner given to him and to sir arthur sullivan by the lotos club, new york city, november , . whitelaw reid, the president, in introducing mr. gilbert and mr. sullivan, said: "we do not welcome them as men of genius. it sometimes happens that men of genius do not deserve welcome. but we do greet them as men who have used their undoubted genius to increase the happiness of their kind [applause]; men whose success has extended throughout the nations and has added bright hours to the life of every man and woman it has touched. [applause.] that success has depended on no unworthy means. respecting themselves and their art, they have always respected their audiences. they have so married wit and humor, and a most delicate fancy, and the best light music of the time, to the public temper, that we have seen here in new york, for example, their piece so popular that we hadn't theatres enough in town to hold the people who simultaneously and unanimously wanted to hear it. i propose first the health of a gentleman who, not merely in the piece that has so long been the rage of the town, but in a brilliant series of previous successes, has always given us wit without dirt [applause]--a drama in which the hero is not a rake, and the heroine is not perpetually posing and poising between innocence and adultery."] mr. chairman and gentlemen:--as my friend sullivan and i were driving to this club this evening, both of us being very nervous and very sensitive, and both of us men who are highly conscious of our oratorical defects and deficiencies, and having before us vividly the ordeal awaiting us, we cast about for a comparison of our then condition. we likened ourselves to two authors driving down to a theatre at which a play of theirs was to be played for the first time. the thought was somewhat harassing, but we dismissed it, because we remembered that there was always an even chance of success [laughter], whereas in the performance in which we were about to take part there was no prospect of aught but humiliating failure. we were rather in the position of prisoners surrendering to their bail, and we beg of you to extend to us your most merciful consideration. but it is expected of me, perhaps, that in replying to this toast with which your chairman has so kindly coupled my name, i shall do so in a tone of the lightest possible comedy. [laughter.] i had almost said that i am sorry to say that i cannot do so; but in truth i am not sorry. a man who has been welcomed as we have been here by the leaders in literature and art in this city, a man who could look upon that welcome as a string on which to hang a series of small jokes would show that he was responding to an honor to which he was not entitled. for it is no light thing to come to a country which you have been taught to regard as a foreign country, and to find ourselves in the best sense of the word "at home" [applause] among a people whom we are taught to regard as strangers, but whom we are astonished to find are our intimate friends [applause]; and that proffered friendship is so dear to us that i am disposed, in behalf of my collaborateur and myself, to stray somewhat from the beaten paths of after-dinner oratory, and to endeavor to justify ourselves in respect to a matter in which we have some reason to feel that we have been misrepresented. i have seen in several london journals well-meant but injudicious paragraphs saying that we have a grievance against the new york managers because they have played our pieces and have offered us no share of the profits. [laughter.] we have no grievance whatever. our only complaint is that there is no international copyright act. [applause.] the author of a play in which there is no copyright is very much in the position of an author or the descendants of an author whose copyright has expired. i am not aware that our london publishers are in the habit of seeking the descendants of sir walter scott or lord byron, or captain marryat, and offering them a share of the profits on their publications. [laughter.] i have yet to learn that our london managers seek out the living representatives of oliver goldsmith, or richard brinsley sheridan or william shakespeare, in order to pay them any share of the profits from the production of "she stoops to conquer," or "the good-natured man," or "the merchant of venice." [laughter.] if they do so, they do it on the principle that the right hand knows not what the left hand doeth [laughter], and as we have not heard of it, we presume, therefore, that they have not done so. and we believe that if those eminent men were to request a share of the profits, they would be met with the reply that the copyright on those works had expired. and so if we should suggest it to the managers of this country, they would perhaps reply with at least equal justice: "gentlemen, your copyright never existed." that it has never existed is due entirely to our own fault. we consulted a new york lawyer, and were informed that, although an alien author has no right in his works, yet so long as they remain unpublished, we held the real title in them, and there was no process necessary to make them our own. we, therefore, thought we would keep it in unpublished form, and make more profit from the sale of the pianoforte score and the words of the songs at the theatres and at the music publishers. we imagined that the allusions in the piece were so purely british in their character, so insular in fact, that they would be of no interest on this side; but events have shown that in that conclusion we were mistaken. at all events, we have also arrived at the conclusion that we have nobody to blame but ourselves. as it is, we have realized by the sale of the book and the piano score in london about $ , apiece, and under those circumstances i do not think we need to be pitied. [laughter.] for myself, i certainly do not pose as an object of compassion. [laughter.] we propose to open here on the first of december at the fifth avenue theatre with a performance of "pinafore." i will not add the prefixing initials, because i have no desire to offend your republican sympathies. [laughter.] i may say, however, that i have read in some journals that we have come over here to show you how that piece should be played, but that i disclaim, both for myself and my collaborateur. we came here to teach nothing--we have nothing to teach--and perhaps we should have no pupils if we did. [laughter.] but apart from the fact that we have no copyright, and are not yet managers in the united states, we see no reason why we should be the only ones who are not to be permitted to play this piece here. [laughter and applause.] i think you will admit that we have a legitimate object in opening with it. we have no means of knowing how it has been played in this country, but we are informed that it has been played more broadly than in the old country--and you know that may be better or worse. [laughter.] afterward we propose to produce another piece, and in the fulness of time the longer it is delayed perhaps the better for us [laughter], and we propose to present it to an audience [laughter] in the same spirit in which we presented "pinafore"--in a most serious spirit--not to permit the audience to see by anything that occurs on the stage that the actors are conscious of the really absurd things they are doing. whether right or not, that is the way in which it was presented in london. we open with "pinafore," not to show how that ought to be played, but to show how the piece that succeeds is about to be played, and to prepare the audiences for the reception of our new and highly preposterous story. [applause.] the kindness with which we have been received this evening emboldens me to believe that perhaps you will not consider this explanation altogether indecent or ill-timed. i have nothing more, gentlemen, to say, except to thank you most heartily for the complimentary manner in which you proposed our health, and to assure you that it is a compliment which is to me personally as delightful as it is undeserved. [applause.] daniel coit gilman the era of universities [speech of daniel c. gilman, president of johns hopkins university at the harvard alumni dinner, at cambridge, mass., june , .] mr. president and gentlemen:--there are so many in this room to whom this scene is familiar and so many whose voices have been heard within these walls, that you can hardly understand how one feels who for the first time stands and endeavors to make his voice reach over this large assembly. it is not merely the sea of upturned faces, this noble company of noblemen, this regiment of brigadiers, as it might be called, it is not alone these pictures and busts, the devices and mottoes which adorn this edifice, nor is it alone the recollection of all the illustrious teachers who have been here brought together or the consciousness that we stand among museums and cabinets and laboratories unrivalled on this continent,--all this is noble and worthy of noble men. but there is one thing that seems to me more impressive than all this. it is the power which harvard college has had throughout all the land and throughout all its history. [applause.] i have had the opportunity of seeing on the shores of the pacific how every act of the corporation of harvard college, every new measure adopted by the faculty, every additional gift to its treasury, was watched as men look toward the east and watch the rising sun, rejoicing in its boundless store and radiant energy. [applause.] and i have stood on the shores of a southern river and have seen the development of a young college on the banks of the patapsco, and i can truly say that if there had not been a john harvard, there never would have been a johns hopkins [applause]; if there had never been a university in cambridge, there never would have been a university in baltimore; and if there is any merit in the plans adopted in that distant city, if there is any hope to be derived from the experiment which is there in vogue, it is largely due--and i rejoice in an opportunity of saying so in this public way--it is largely due to the kindly sympathy, the wise counsel, the generous help and the noble example of harvard college. [applause.] to the president of this university, to his associates in the corporation and in the faculty, to many of its alumni the plans adopted in baltimore owe a most generous and hearty acknowledgment. the speaker who preceded me characterized harvard college as the alma mater of colleges, and well he did so. but, gentlemen, you can hardly fail to observe that in the progress of education in this country we are getting beyond the college period and we are entering the period of universities. what they are to be, none of us are wise enough to tell, but whatever they are will largely depend upon what you make of harvard university. [applause.] many years ago i received a lesson from one whose name i can never mention without respect and honor, the late benjamin pierce. he said, in speaking of the formation of a university, "it will never succeed without eminent professors. they will tell you that great professors make poor teachers, but i will tell you it is only the eagle that is fit to teach the eaglets. let the barn-door fowl take care of themselves." and so i say here, let there be a staff of professors the most eminent, the most earnest, the most free in their work that harvard can bring together, and all the rest goes with it. [applause.] i trust, then, that as the years roll on, as the era of universities in this country is developed from the period of college instruction, we shall find that the same wisdom that has governed the councils of our learned bodies, the same adherence to right principles, the same love of truth, will ever be present, and that harvard college and all its younger sisters as they go on will repeat the lesson which they have taught from the beginning, and which they still teach, whether we turn our eyes to the depths of the sea or the boundless regions of space, that beyond the things which are seen and temporal are the things which are unseen and eternal. [applause.] william ewart gladstone the age of research [speech of william b. gladstone at the annual banquet of the royal academy, may , . sir francis grant, the president of the academy, being indisposed, sir gilbert scott, the eminent architect, took the chair at the special request of the president. in introducing mr. gladstone, he said: "the next toast is, 'the interests of literature.' i have been somewhat perplexed myself to think why the custom of the academy places science before literature. i see, however, that it is quite right, for literature is a member of our own family--our sister. [cheers.] i am old enough to recollect that when sir morton archer shee, who united art with poetry, was elected president of the academy, this epigram appeared in the 'times': "'so painting crowns her sister poesie, the world is all astonished, so is she (e).' many present will remember in more recent times how charles dickens, when returning thanks for this toast, expressed the same sentiment of relationship by altering some words of rob roy's and saying that when at our academy he felt so much at home, as to be inclined to exclaim: 'my foot is on my native heath, although my name is not macgregor.' next to religion, literature in very many of its phases supplies the noblest subjects for art. history, biography, and works of fiction all contribute their share; while poetry enjoys the cumulative privilege of uniting in itself the incentives to art which are commanded by all other branches of literature as well as the ennobling sentiments inspired by religion, patriotism and other affections of the human heart. an elevating mission, indeed, be it only directed in a worthy course. frivolity and license are alike the bane of literature and art. earnestness of purpose and severity of moral tone are the stamina of both. shorn of these, both alike find their strength is gone from them. it is consoling to reflect that notwithstanding the laborious turmoil of politics we have had three, and i think successive, prime ministers who have made literature the solace of their scanty leisure and delighted the world by their writings on subjects extraneous to state politics. i give you the 'interests of literature,' and i have the honor to connect the toast with the name of one of that distinguished trio, the right honorable william ewart gladstone."] mr. chairman, your royal highness, my lords and gentlemen:--i think no question can be raised as to the just claims of literature to stand upon the list of toasts at the royal academy, and the sentiment is one to which, upon any one of the numerous occasions of my attendance at your hospitable board, i have always listened with the greatest satisfaction until the present day arrived, when i am bound to say that that satisfaction is extremely qualified by the arrangement less felicitous, i think, than any which preceded it that refers to me the duty of returning thanks for literature. [cheers and laughter.] however, obedience is the principle upon which we must proceed, and i have at least the qualification for discharging the duty you have been pleased to place in my hands--that no one has a deeper or more profound sense of the vital importance of the active and constant cultivation of letters as an essential condition of real progress and of the happiness of mankind [cheers], and here every one at once perceives that that sisterhood of which the poet spoke, whom you have quoted, is a real sisterhood, for literature and art are alike the votaries of beauty. of these votaries i may thankfully say that as regards art i trace around me no signs of decay, and none in that estimation in which the academy is held, unless to be sure, in the circumstance of your poverty of choice of one to reply to this toast. [cheers.] during the present century the artists of this country have gallantly and nobly endeavored to maintain and to elevate their standard [cheers], and have not perhaps in that great task always received that assistance which could be desired from the public taste which prevails around them. but no one can examine even superficially the works which adorn these walls without perceiving that british art retains all its fertility of invention [cheers], and this year as much as in any year that i can remember, exhibits in the department of landscape, that fundamental condition of all excellence, intimate and profound sympathy with nature. [cheers.] as regards literature one who is now beginning at any rate to descend the hill of life naturally looks backwards as well as forwards, and we must be becoming conscious that the early part of this century has witnessed in this and other countries what will be remembered in future times as a splendid literary age. [cheers.] the elder among us have lived in the lifetime of many great men who have passed to their rest--the younger have heard them familiarly spoken of and still have their works in their hands as i trust they will continue to be in the hands of all generations. [cheers.] i am afraid we cannot hope for literature--it would be contrary to all the experience of former times were we to hope that it should be equally sustained at that extraordinarily high level which belongs, speaking roughly, to the first fifty years after the peace of . that was a great period--a great period in england, a great period in germany, a great period in france, and a great period, too, in italy. [cheers.] as i have said, i think we can hardly hope that it should continue on a perfect level at so high an elevation. undoubtedly the cultivation of literature will ever be dear to the people of this country; but we must remember what is literature, and what is not. in the first place, we should be all agreed that bookmaking is not literature. ["hear!"] the business of bookmaking i have no doubt may thrive and will be continued upon a constantly extending scale from year to year. but that we may put aside. for my own part if i am to look a little forward, what i anticipate for the remainder of the century is an age not so much of literature proper--not so much of great, permanent and splendid additions to those works in which beauty is embodied as an essential condition of production, but i rather look forward to an age of research. [cheers.] this is an age of great research--of great research in science, great research in history--an age of research in all the branches of inquiry that throw light upon the former condition whether of our race, or of the world which it inhabits [cheers]; and it may be hoped that, even if the remaining years of the century be not so brilliant as some of its former periods, in the production of works great in themselves, and immortal,--still they may add largely to the knowledge of mankind; and if they make such additions to the knowledge of mankind, they will be preparing the materials of a new tone and of new splendors in the realm of literature. there is a sunrise and sunset. there is a transition from the light of the sun to the gentler light of the moon. there is a rest in nature which seems necessary in all her great operations. and so with all the great operations of the human mind. but do not let us despond if we seem to see a diminished efficacy in the production of what is essentially and immortally great. our sun if hidden is hidden only for a moment. he is like the day star of milton:-- "which anon repairs his drooping head and tricks his beams, and with new spangled ore, flames in the forehead of the morning sky." [cheers.] i rejoice in an occasion like this which draws the attention of the world to topics which illustrate the union of art with literature and of literature with science, because you have a hard race to run, you have a severe competition against the attraction of external pursuits, whether those pursuits take the form of business or pleasure. it is given to you to teach lessons of the utmost importance to mankind, in maintaining the principle that no progress can be real which is not equable, which is not proportionate, which does not develop all the faculties belonging to our nature. [cheers.] if a great increase of wealth in a country takes place, and with that increase of wealth a powerful stimulus to the invention of mere luxury, that, if it stands alone, is not, never can be, progress. it is only that one-sided development which is but one side of deformity. i hope we shall have no one-sided development. one mode of avoiding it is to teach the doctrine of that sisterhood you have asserted to-day, and confident i am that the good wishes you have expressed on behalf of literature will be re-echoed in behalf of art wherever men of letters are found. [loud cheers.] henry w. grady the race problem [speech of henry w. grady at the annual banquet of the boston merchants' association, at boston, mass., december , . mr. grady was introduced by the president of the association, jonathan a. lane, as the spokesman for the south on the subject he was to treat. his speech electrified his hearers, and was the feature of the occasion.] mr. president:--bidden by your invitation to a discussion of the race problem--forbidden by occasion to make a political speech--i appreciate, in trying to reconcile orders with propriety, the perplexity of the little maid, who, bidden to learn to swim, was yet adjured, "now go, my darling, hang your clothes on a hickory limb and don't go near the water." the stoutest apostle of the church, they say, is the missionary, and the missionary wherever he unfurls his flag, will never find himself in deeper need of unction and address than i, bidden to-night to plant the standard of a southern democrat in boston's banquet hall, and to discuss the problem of the races in the home of phillips and of sumner. but, mr. president, if a purpose to speak in perfect frankness and sincerity; if earnest understanding of the vast interests involved; if a consecrating sense of what disaster may follow further misunderstanding and estrangement; if these may be counted to steady undisciplined speech and to strengthen an untried arm--then, sir, i shall find the courage to proceed. happy am i that this mission has brought my feet at last to press new england's historic soil and my eyes to the knowledge of her beauty and her thrift. here within touch of plymouth rock and bunker hill--where webster thundered and longfellow sang, emerson thought and channing preached--here in the cradle of american letters and almost of american liberty, i hasten to make the obeisance that every american owes new england when first he stands uncovered in her mighty presence. strange apparition! this stern and unique figure--carved from the ocean and the wilderness--its majesty kindling and growing amid the storms of winter and of wars--until at last the gloom was broken, its beauty disclosed in the sunshine, and the heroic workers rested at its base--while startled kings and emperors gazed and marvelled that from the rude touch of this handful cast on a bleak and unknown shore, should have come the embodied genius of human government and the perfected model of human liberty! god bless the memory of those immortal workers, and prosper the fortunes of their living sons--and perpetuate the inspiration of their handiwork. [illustration: _henry woodfin grady photogravure after a photograph from life_ ] two years ago, sir, i spoke some words in new york that caught the attention of the north. as i stand here to reiterate, as i have done everywhere, every word i then uttered--to declare that the sentiments i then avowed were universally approved in the south--i realize that the confidence begotten by that speech is largely responsible for my presence here to-night. i should dishonor myself if i betrayed that confidence by uttering one insincere word, or by withholding one essential element of the truth. apropos of this last, let me confess, mr. president, before the praise of new england has died on my lips, that i believe the best product of her present life is the procession of , vermont democrats that for twenty-two years, undiminished by death, unrecruited by birth or conversion, have marched over their rugged hills, cast their democratic ballots and gone back home to pray for their unregenerate neighbors, and awake to read the record of , republican majority. may the god of the helpless and the heroic help them, and may their sturdy tribe increase. far to the south, mr. president, separated from this section by a line--once defined in irrepressible difference, once traced in fratricidal blood, and now, thank god, but a vanishing shadow--lies the fairest and richest domain of this earth. it is the home of a brave and hospitable people. there is centred all that can please or prosper humankind. a perfect climate above a fertile soil yields to the husbandman every product of the temperate zone. there, by night the cotton whitens beneath the stars, and by day the wheat locks the sunshine in its bearded sheaf. in the same field the clover steals the fragrance of the wind, and the tobacco catches the quick aroma of the rains. there are mountains stored with exhaustless treasures; forests--vast and primeval; and rivers that, tumbling or loitering, run wanton to the sea. of the three essential items of all industries--cotton, iron and wood--that region has easy control. in cotton, a fixed monopoly--in iron, proven supremacy--in timber, the reserve supply of the republic. from this assured and permanent advantage, against which artificial conditions cannot much longer prevail, has grown an amazing system of industries. not maintained by human contrivance of tariff or capital, afar off from the fullest and cheapest source of supply, but resting in divine assurance, within touch of field and mine and forest--not set amid costly farms from which competition has driven the farmer in despair, but amid cheap and sunny lands, rich with agriculture, to which neither season nor soil has set a limit--this system of industries is mounting to a splendor that shall dazzle and illumine the world. that, sir, is the picture and the promise of my home--a land better and fairer than i have told you, and yet but fit setting in its material excellence for the loyal and gentle quality of its citizenship. against that, sir, we have new england, recruiting the republic from its sturdy loins, shaking from its overcrowded hives new swarms of workers, and touching this land all over with its energy and its courage. and yet--while in the eldorado of which i have told you but fifteen per cent. of its lands are cultivated, its mines scarcely touched, and its population so scant that, were it set equidistant, the sound of the human voice could not be heard from virginia to texas--while on the threshold of nearly every house in new england stands a son, seeking, with troubled eyes, some new land in which to carry his modest patrimony, the strange fact remains that in the south had fewer northern-born citizens than she had in --fewer in ' than in ' . why is this? why is it, sir, though the sectional line be now but a mist that the breath may dispel, fewer men of the north have crossed it over to the south, than when it was crimson with the best blood of the republic, or even when the slaveholder stood guard every inch of its way? there can be but one answer. it is the very problem we are now to consider. the key that opens that problem will unlock to the world the fairest half of this republic, and free the halted feet of thousands whose eyes are already kindling with its beauty. better than this, it will open the hearts of brothers for thirty years estranged, and clasp in lasting comradeship a million hands now withheld in doubt. nothing, sir, but this problem and the suspicions it breeds, hinders a clear understanding and a perfect union. nothing else stands between us and such love as bound georgia and massachusetts at valley forge and yorktown, chastened by the sacrifices of manassas and gettysburg, and illumined with the coming of better work and a nobler destiny than was ever wrought with the sword or sought at the cannon's mouth. if this does not invite your patient hearing to-night--hear one thing more. my people, your brothers in the south--brothers in blood, in destiny, in all that is best in our past and future--are so beset with this problem that their very existence depends on its right solution. nor are they wholly to blame for its presence. the slave-ships of the republic sailed from your ports, the slaves worked in our fields. you will not defend the traffic, nor i the institution. but i do here declare that in its wise and humane administration in lifting the slave to heights of which he had not dreamed in his savage home, and giving him a happiness he has not yet found in freedom, our fathers left their sons a saving and excellent heritage. in the storm of war this institution was lost. i thank god as heartily as you do that human slavery is gone forever from american soil. but the free man remains. with him a problem without precedent or parallel. note its appalling conditions. two utterly dissimilar races on the same soil--with equal political and civil rights--almost equal in numbers, but terribly unequal in intelligence and responsibility--each pledged against fusion--one for a century in servitude to the other, and freed at last by a desolating war, the experiment sought by neither but approached by both with doubt--these are the conditions. under these, adverse at every point, we are required to carry these two races in peace and honor to the end. never, sir, has such a task been given to mortal stewardship. never before in this republic has the white race divided on the rights of an alien race. the red man was cut down as a weed, because he hindered the way of the american citizen. the yellow man was shut out of this republic because he is an alien, and inferior. the red man was owner of the land--the yellow man highly civilized and assimilable--but they hindered both sections, and are gone! but the black man, affecting but one section, is clothed with every privilege of government and pinned to the soil, and my people commanded to make good at any hazard, and at any cost, his full and equal heirship of american privilege and prosperity. it matters not that every other race has been routed or excluded without rhyme or reason. it matters not that wherever the whites and the blacks have touched, in any era or in any clime, there has been an irreconcilable violence. it matters not that no two races, however similar, have lived anywhere, at any time, on the same soil with equal rights in peace! in spite of these things we are commanded to make good this change of american policy which has not perhaps changed american prejudice--to make certain here what has elsewhere been impossible between whites and blacks--and to reverse, under the very worst conditions, the universal verdict of racial history. and driven, sir, to this superhuman task with an impatience that brooks no delay--a rigor that accepts no excuse--and a suspicion that discourages frankness and sincerity. we do not shrink from this trial. it is so interwoven with our industrial fabric that we cannot disentangle it if we would--so bound up in our honorable obligation to the world, that we would not if we could. can we solve it? the god who gave it into our hands, he alone can know. but this the weakest and wisest of us do know; we cannot solve it with less than your tolerant and patient sympathy--with less than the knowledge that the blood that runs in your veins is our blood--and that, when we have done our best, whether the issue be lost or won, we shall feel your strong arms about us and hear the beating of your approving hearts! the resolute, clear-headed, broad-minded men of the south--the men whose genius made glorious every page of the first seventy years of american history--whose courage and fortitude you tested in five years of the fiercest war--whose energy has made bricks without straw and spread splendor amid the ashes of their war-wasted homes--these men wear this problem in their hearts and brains, by day and by night. they realize, as you cannot, what this problem means--what they owe to this kindly and dependent race--the measure of their debt to the world in whose despite they defended and maintained slavery. and though their feet are hindered in its undergrowth, and their march cumbered with its burdens, they have lost neither the patience from which comes clearness, nor the faith from which comes courage. nor, sir, when in passionate moments is disclosed to them that vague and awful shadow, with its lurid abysses and its crimson stains, into which i pray god they may never go, are they struck with more of apprehension than is needed to complete their consecration! such is the temper of my people. but what of the problem itself? mr. president, we need not go one step further unless you concede right here that the people i speak for are as honest, as sensible and as just as your people, seeking as earnestly as you would in their place to rightly solve the problem that touches them at every vital point. if you insist that they are ruffians, blindly striving with bludgeon and shotgun to plunder and oppress a race, then i shall sacrifice my self-respect and tax your patience in vain. but admit that they are men of common sense and common honesty, wisely modifying an environment they cannot wholly disregard--guiding and controlling as best they can the vicious and irresponsible of either race--compensating error with frankness, and retrieving in patience what they lose in passion--and conscious all the time that wrong means ruin--admit this, and we may reach an understanding to-night. the president of the united states, in his late message to congress, discussing the plea that the south should be left to solve this problem, asks: "are they at work upon it? what solution do they offer? when will the black man cast a free ballot? when will he have the civil rights that are his?" i shall not here protest against a partisanry that, for the first time in our history, in time of peace, has stamped with the great seal of our government a stigma upon the people of a great and loyal section; though i gratefully remember that the great dead soldier, who held the helm of state for the eight stormiest years of reconstruction, never found need for such a step; and though there is no personal sacrifice i would not make to remove this cruel and unjust imputation on my people from the archives of my country! but, sir, backed by a record, on every page of which is progress, i venture to make earnest and respectful answer to the questions that are asked. we give to the world this year a crop of , , bales of cotton, worth, $ , , , and its cash equivalent in grain, grasses, and fruit. this enormous crop could not have come from the hands of sullen and discontented labor. it comes from peaceful fields, in which laughter and gossip rise above the hum of industry, and contentment runs with the singing plough. it is claimed that this ignorant labor is defrauded of its just hire. i present the tax books of georgia which show that the negro, twenty-five years ago a slave, has in georgia alone $ , , of assessed property, worth twice that much. does not that record honor him, and vindicate his neighbors? what people, penniless, illiterate, has done so well? for every afro-american agitator, stirring the strife in which alone he prospers, i can show you a thousand negroes, happy in their cabin homes, tilling their own land by day, and at night taking from the lips of their children the helpful message their state sends them from the schoolhouse door. and the schoolhouse itself bears testimony. in georgia we added last year $ , to the school fund, making a total of more than $ , , ,--and this in the face of prejudice not yet conquered--of the fact that the whites are assessed for $ , , , the blacks for $ , , , and yet forty-nine per cent. of the beneficiaries are black children; and in the doubt of many wise men if education helps, or can help, our problem. charleston, with her taxable values cut half in two since , pays more in proportion for public schools than boston. although it is easier to give much out of much than little out of little the south, with one-seventh of the taxable property of the country, with relatively larger debt, having received only one-twelfth as much of public lands, and having back of its tax books none of the $ , , of bonds that enrich the north--and though it pays annually $ , , to your section as pensions--yet gives nearly one-sixth to the public school fund. the south, since , has spent $ , , in education, and this year is pledged to $ , , more for state and city schools, although the blacks, paying one-thirtieth of the taxes, get nearly one-half of the fund. go into our fields and see whites and blacks working side by side. on our buildings in the same squad. in our shops at the same forge. often the blacks crowd the whites from work, or lower wages by their greater need and simpler habits, and yet are permitted, because we want to bar them from no avenue in which their feet are fitted to tread. they could not there be elected orators of white universities, as they have been here, but they do enter there a hundred useful trades that are closed against them here. we hold it better and wiser to tend the weeds in the garden than to water the exotic in the window. in the south there are negro lawyers, teachers, editors, dentists, doctors, preachers, multiplying with the increasing ability of their race to support them. in villages and towns they have their military companies equipped from the armories of the state, their churches and societies built and supported largely by their neighbors. what is the testimony of the courts? in penal legislation we have steadily reduced felonies to misdemeanors, and have led the world in mitigating punishment for crime, that we might save, as far as possible, this dependent race from its own weakness. in our penitentiary record sixty per cent. of the prosecutors are negroes, and in every court the negro criminal strikes the colored juror, that white men may judge his case. in the north, one negro in every is in jail--in the south only one in . in the north the percentage of negro prisoners is six times as great as that of native whites, in the south, only four times as great. if prejudice wrongs him in southern courts, the record shows it to be deeper in northern courts. i assert here, and a bar as intelligent and upright as the bar of massachusetts will solemnly indorse my assertion, that in the southern courts, from highest to lowest, pleading for life, liberty or property, the negro has distinct advantage because he is a negro, apt to be over-reached, oppressed--and that this advantage reaches from the juror in making his verdict to the judge in measuring his sentence. now, mr. president, can it be seriously maintained that we are terrorizing the people from whose willing hands comes every year $ , , , of farm crops? or have robbed a people who, twenty-five years from unrewarded slavery, have amassed in one state $ , , of property? or that we intend to oppress the people we are arming every day? or deceive them, when we are educating them to the utmost limit of our ability? or outlaw them when we work side by side with them? or re-enslave them under legal forms, when for their benefit we have even imprudently narrowed the limit of felonies and mitigated the severity of law? my fellow-countrymen, as you yourselves may sometimes have to appeal at the bar of human judgment for justice and for right, give to my people to-night the fair and unanswerable conclusion of these incontestable facts. but it is claimed that under this fair seeming there is disorder and violence. this, i admit. and there will be until there is one ideal community on earth after which we may pattern. but how widely is it misjudged. it is hard to measure with exactness whatever touches the negro. his helplessness, his isolation, his century of servitude, these dispose us to emphasize and magnify his wrongs. this disposition inflamed by prejudice and partisanry has led to injustice and delusion. lawless men may ravage a county in iowa and it is accepted as an incident--in the south a drunken row is declared to be the fixed habit of the community. regulators may whip vagabonds in indiana by platoons and it scarcely arrests attention--a chance collision in the south among relatively the same classes is gravely accepted as evidence that one race is destroying the other. we might as well claim that the union was ungrateful to the colored soldiers who followed its flag because a grand army post in connecticut closed its doors to a negro veteran as for you to give racial significance to every incident in the south, or to accept exceptional grounds as the rule of our society. i am not one of those who becloud american honor with the parade of the outrages of either sections, and belie american character by declaring them to be significant and representative. i prefer to maintain that they are neither, and stand for nothing but the passion and sin of our poor fallen humanity. if society, like a machine, were no stronger than its weakest part, i should despair of both sections. but, knowing that society, sentient and responsible in every fibre, can mend and repair until the whole has the strength of the best, i despair of neither. these gentlemen who come with me here, knit into georgia's busy life as they are, never saw, i dare assert, an outrage committed on a negro! and if they did, no one of you would be swifter to prevent or punish. it is through them, and the men who think with them--making nine-tenths of every southern community--that these two races have been carried thus far with less of violence than would have been possible anywhere else on earth. and in their fairness and courage and steadfastness--more than in all the laws that can be passed, or all the bayonets that can be mustered--is the hope of our future. when will the blacks cast a free ballot? when ignorance anywhere is not dominated by the will of the intelligent. when the laborer anywhere casts a vote unhindered by his boss. when the vote of the poor anywhere is not influenced by the power of the rich. when the strong and the steadfast do not everywhere control the suffrage of the weak and shiftless--then, and not till then, will the ballot of the negro be free. the white people of the south are banded, mr. president, not in prejudice against the blacks--not in sectional estrangement--not in the hope of political dominion--but in a deep and abiding necessity. here is this vast ignorant and purchasable vote--clannish, credulous, impulsive and passionate--tempting every art of the demagogue, but insensible to the appeal of the statesman. wrongly started, in that it was led into alienation from its neighbor and taught to rely on the protection of an outside force, it cannot be merged and lost in the two great parties through logical currents, for it lacks political conviction and even that information on which conviction must be based. it must remain a faction--strong enough in every community to control on the slightest division of the whites. under that division it becomes the prey of the cunning and unscrupulous of both parties. its credulity is imposed upon, its patience inflamed, its cupidity tempted, its impulses misdirected--and even its superstition made to play its part in a campaign in which every interest of society is jeopardized and every approach to the ballot-box debauched. it is against such campaigns as this--the folly and the bitterness and the danger of which every southern community has drunk deeply--that the white people of the south are banded together. just as you in massachusetts would be banded if , men, not one in a hundred able to read his ballot--banded in race instinct holding against you the memory of a century of slavery, taught by your late conquerors to distrust and oppose you, had already travestied legislation from your state house, and in every species of folly or villainy had wasted your substance and exhausted your credit. but admitting the right of the whites to unite against this tremendous menace, we are challenged with the smallness of our vote. this has long been flippantly charged to be evidence and has now been solemnly and officially declared to be proof of political turpitude and baseness on our part. let us see. virginia--a state now under fierce assault for this alleged crime--cast in seventy-five per cent. of her vote, massachusetts, the state in which i speak, sixty per cent. of her vote. was it suppression in virginia and natural causes in massachusetts? last month virginia cast sixty-nine per cent. of her vote, and massachusetts, fighting in every district, cast only forty-nine per cent. of hers. if virginia is condemned because thirty-one per cent. of her vote was silent, how shall this state escape in which fifty-one per cent. was dumb? let us enlarge this comparison. the sixteen southern states in ' cast sixty-seven per cent. of their total vote--the six new england states but sixty-three per cent. of theirs. by what fair rule shall the stigma be put upon one section, while the other escapes? a congressional election in new york last week, with the polling place in touch of every voter, brought out only , votes of , --and the lack of opposition is assigned as the natural cause. in a district in my state, in which an opposition speech has not been heard in ten years and the polling places are miles apart--under the unfair reasoning of which my section has been a constant victim--the small vote is charged to be proof of forcible suppression. in virginia an average majority of , , under hopeless division of the minority, was raised to , ; in iowa, in the same election, a majority of , was wiped out and an opposition majority of , was established. the change of , votes in iowa is accepted as political revolution--in virginia an increase of , on a safe majority is declared to be proof of political fraud. it is deplorable, sir, that in both sections a larger percentage of the vote is not regularly cast. but more inexplicable that this should be so in new england, than in the south. what invites the negro to the ballot-box? he knows that of all men it has promised him most and yielded him least. his first appeal to suffrage was the promise of "forty acres and a mule." his second, the threat that democratic success meant his re-enslavement. both have been proved false in his experience. he looked for a home, and he got the freedman's bank. he fought under promise of the loaf, and in victory was denied the crumbs. discouraged and deceived, he has realized at last that his best friends are his neighbors with whom his lot is cast, and whose prosperity is bound up in his--and that he has gained nothing in politics to compensate the loss of their confidence and sympathy, that is at last his best and enduring hope. and so, without leaders or organization--and lacking the resolute heroism of my party friends in vermont that make their hopeless march over the hills a high and inspiring pilgrimage--he shrewdly measures the occasional agitator, balances his little account with politics, touches up his mule, and jogs down the furrow letting the mad world wag as it will! the negro vote can never control in the south, and it would be well if partisans at the north would understand this. i have seen the white people of a state set about by black hosts until their fate seemed sealed. but, sir, some brave man, banding them together, would rise, as elisha rose in beleaguered samaria, and, touching their eyes with faith, bid them look abroad to see the very air "filled with the chariots of israel and the horsemen thereof." if there is any human force that cannot be withstood, it is the power of the banded intelligence and responsibility of a free community. against it, numbers and corruption cannot prevail. it cannot be forbidden in the law, or divorced in force. it is the inalienable right of every free community--the just and righteous safeguard against an ignorant or corrupt suffrage. it is on this, sir, that we rely in the south. not the cowardly menace of mask or shotgun, but the peaceful majesty of intelligence and responsibility, massed and unified for the protection of its homes and the preservation of its liberty. that, sir, is our reliance and our hope, and against it all the powers of earth shall not prevail. it was just as certain that virginia would come back to the unchallenged control of her white race--that before the moral and material power of her people once more unified, opposition would crumble until its last desperate leader was left alone, vainly striving to rally his disordered hosts--as that night should fade in the kindling glory of the sun. you may pass force bills, but they will not avail. you may surrender your own liberties to federal election law, you may submit, in fear of a necessity that does not exist, that the very form of this government may be changed, you may invite federal interference with the new england town meeting, that has been for a hundred years the guarantee of local government in america--this old state which holds in its charter the boast that it "is a free and independent commonwealth"--it may deliver its election machinery into the hands of the government it helped to create--but never, sir, will a single state of this union, north or south, be delivered again to the control of an ignorant and inferior race. we wrested our state governments from negro supremacy when the federal drum-beat rolled closer to the ballot-box, and federal bayonets hedged it deeper about than will ever again be permitted in this free government. but, sir, though the cannon of this republic thundered in every voting district of the south, we still should find in the mercy of god the means and the courage to prevent its re-establishment. i regret, sir, that my section, hindered with this problem, stands in seeming estrangement to the north. if, sir, any man will point out to me a path down which the white people of the south, divided, may walk in peace and honor, i will take that path though i take it alone--for at its end, and nowhere else, i fear, is to be found the full prosperity of my section and the full restoration of this union. but, sir, if the negro had not been enfranchised, the south would have been divided and the republic united. his enfranchisement--against which i enter no protest--holds the south united and compact. what solution, then, can we offer for the problem? time alone can disclose it to us. we simply report progress, and ask your patience. if the problem be solved at all--and i firmly believe it will, though nowhere else has it been--it will be solved by the people most deeply bound in interest, most deeply pledged in honor to its solution. i had rather see my people render back this question rightly solved than to see them gather all the spoils over which faction has contended since catiline conspired and cæsar fought. meantime we treat the negro fairly, measuring to him justice in the fulness the strong should give to the weak, and leading him in the steadfast ways of citizenship that he may no longer be the prey of the unscrupulous and the sport of the thoughtless. we open to him every pursuit in which he can prosper, and seek to broaden his training and capacity. we seek to hold his confidence and friendship--and to pin him to the soil with ownership, that he may catch in the fire of his own hearthstone that sense of responsibility the shiftless can never know. and we gather him into that alliance of intelligence and responsibility, that, though it now runs close to racial lines, welcomes the responsible and intelligent of any race. by this course, confirmed in our judgment, and justified in the progress already made, we hope to progress slowly but surely to the end. the love we feel for that race, you cannot measure nor comprehend. as i attest it here, the spirit of my old black mammy, from her home up there, looks down to bless, and through the tumult of this night steals the sweet music of her croonings as thirty years ago she held me in her black arms and led me smiling to sleep. this scene vanishes as i speak, and i catch a vision of an old southern home with its lofty pillars and its white pigeons fluttering down through the golden air. i see women with strained and anxious faces, and children alert yet helpless. i see night come down with its dangers and its apprehensions, and in a big homely room i feel on my tired head the touch of loving hands--now worn and wrinkled, but fairer to me yet than the hands of mortal woman, and stronger yet to lead me than the hands of mortal man--as they lay a mother's blessing there, while at her knees--the truest altar i yet have found--i thank god that she is safe in her sanctuary, because her slaves, sentinel in the silent cabin, or guard at her chamber door, puts a black man's loyalty between her and danger. i catch another vision. the crisis of battle--a soldier struck, staggering, fallen. i see a slave, scuffling through the smoke, winding his black arms about the fallen form, reckless of hurtling death--bending his trusty face to catch the words that tremble on the stricken lips, so wrestling meantime with agony that he would lay down his life in his master's stead. i see him by the weary bedside, ministering with uncomplaining patience, praying with all his humble heart that god will lift his master up, until death comes in mercy and in honor to still the soldier's agony and seal the soldier's life. i see him by the open grave, mute, motionless, uncovered, suffering for the death of him who in life fought against his freedom. i see him, when the mould is heaped and the great drama of his life is closed, turn away and with downcast eyes and uncertain step start out into new and strange fields, faltering, struggling, but moving on, until his shambling figure is lost in the light of this better and brighter day. and from the grave comes a voice saying, "follow him! put your arms about him in his need, even as he put his about me. be his friend as he was mine." and out into this new world--strange to me as to him, dazzling, bewildering both--i follow! and may god forget my people--when they forget these! whatever the future may hold for them, whether they plod along in the servitude from which they have never been lifted since the cyrenian was laid hold upon by the roman soldiers, and made to bear the cross of the fainting christ--whether they find homes again in africa, and thus hasten the prophecy of the psalmist, who said: "and suddenly ethiopia shall hold out her hands unto god"--whether for ever dislocated and separate, they remain a weak people, beset by stronger, and exist, as the turk, who lives in the jealousy rather than in the conscience of europe--or whether in this miraculous republic they break through the caste of twenty centuries, and, belying universal history, reach the full stature of citizenship, and in peace maintain it--we shall give them uttermost justice and abiding friendship. and whatever we do, into whatever seeming estrangement we may be driven, nothing shall disturb the love we bear this republic, or mitigate our consecration to its service. i stand here, mr. president, to profess no new loyalty. when general lee, whose heart was the temple of our hopes, and whose arm was clothed with our strength, renewed his allegiance to this government at appomattox, he spoke from a heart too great to be false, and he spoke for every honest man from maryland to texas. from that day to this hamilcar has nowhere in the south sworn young hannibal to hatred and vengeance, but everywhere to loyalty and to love. witness the veteran standing at the base of a confederate monument, above the graves of his comrades, his empty sleeve tossing in the april wind, adjuring the young men about him to serve as earnest and loyal citizens the government against which their fathers fought. this message, delivered from that sacred presence, has gone home to the hearts of my fellows! and, sir, i declare here, if physical courage be always equal to human aspiration, that they would die, sir, if need be, to restore this republic their fathers fought to dissolve! such, mr. president, is this problem as we see it, such is the temper in which we approach it, such the progress made. what do we ask of you? first, patience; out of this alone can come perfect work. second, confidence; in this alone can you judge fairly. third, sympathy; in this you can help us best. fourth, give us your sons as hostages. when you plant your capital in millions, send your sons that they may know how true are our hearts and may help to swell the caucasian current until it can carry without danger this black infusion. fifth, loyalty to the republic--for there is sectionalism in loyalty as in estrangement. this hour little needs the loyalty that is loyal to one section and yet holds the other in enduring suspicion and estrangement. give us the broad and perfect loyalty that loves and trusts georgia alike with massachusetts--that knows no south, no north, no east, no west, but endears with equal and patriotic love every foot of our soil, every state of our union. a mighty duty, sir, and a mighty inspiration impels every one of us to-night to lose in patriotic consecration whatever estranges, whatever divides. we, sir, are americans--and we stand for human liberty! the uplifting force of the american idea is under every throne on earth. france, brazil--these are our victories. to redeem the earth from kingcraft and oppression--this is our mission! and we shall not fail. god has sown in our soil the seed of his millennial harvest, and he will not lay the sickle to the ripening crop until his full and perfect day has come. our history, sir, has been a constant and expanding miracle from plymouth rock and jamestown all the way--aye, even from the hour when, from the voiceless and traceless ocean, a new world rose to the sight of the inspired sailor. as we approach the fourth centennial of that stupendous day--when the old world will come to marvel and to learn amid our gathered treasures--let us resolve to crown the miracles of our past with the spectacle of a republic, compact, united, indissoluble in the bonds of love--loving from the lakes to the gulf--the wounds of war healed in every heart as on every hill, serene and resplendent at the summit of human achievement and earthly glory, blazing out the path and making clear the way up which all the nations of the earth must come in god's appointed time! [great applause.] sarah grand mere man [speech of sarah grand [mrs. m'fall] at the annual ladies' banquet of the whitefriars club, london, may , . max o'rell [paul blouet] acted as chairman. l. f. austin, who spoke earlier than madame grand, said, turning to max o'rell: "it used to be said of certain politicians by way of odium that they mumbled the dry bones of political economy; but you, sir, who sit trembling in that chair [laughter]--you are trying not to look it, but you are trembling with apprehension of the delicately anointed barb with which madame sarah. grand will presently transfix you [laughter]; you must feel that we shall not very long be permitted even to mumble the barren epigrams of a vanished ascendancy."] mr. chairman:--i have the honor to propose the toast of "mere man" [laughter], but why "mere man," i want to know? after all that has been said this evening so truthfully on the subject of "sovran woman," it is impossible for me to use such an epithet without feeling myself in an invidious position, in the position of the dog that bites the hand which has just caressed it--or rather i should feel myself in that position if i were in any way responsible for the use of the ungracious word. i beg most emphatically to state that i am not in any way responsible for it. i decline to be identified with such an expression: i decline to be accused of calling man any names [laughter], any names that i have not already called him. [laughter.] i do not decline out of consideration for mere man altogether, but in self-defence. to use such an expression deprives me of any dignity which i might myself derive from the dignity of my subject. besides, the words in my mouth, were i to be identified with them, would be used against me as a bomb by a whole section of the press, to blow me up. [laughter.] i object to be blown up for nothing by a whole section of the press. [laughter.] that is the sort of thing which almost ruffles my equanimity. my comfort is, that no one can accuse me of having originated such an expression, because it is well known no woman ever originated anything. [laughter.] i assure you i have seen it so stated in print; and in one article i read on the subject the perturbation of the writer, lest there should be any mistake about it, so agitated his grammar that it was impossible to parse it. i should like to know who was responsible in the first place for the expression which has been imposed upon me. it seems to me there is strong presumptive evidence that it was by man himself that man was dubbed mere man. if the lords of creation choose to masquerade sometimes as mere man by all means let them. the saying is, "in small things, liberty; in great things, unity; in all things, charity," but when you meet a man who describes himself as a mere man, you would always do well to ask what he wants, because, since man first swung himself from his bough in the forest primeval and stood upright on two legs, he has never assumed that position for nothing. [laughter.] my own private opinion, which i confide to you, knowing it will go no further, is that he assumes that tone, as a rule, to draw sovran woman. [laughter.] mere man is a paradoxical creature--it is not always possible to distinguish between his sober earnest and his leg-pulling exercises. [laughter.] one has to be on one's guard, and woe be to the woman who in these days displays that absence of the sense of humor which is such a prominent characteristic of our comic papers. [laughter.] i do not mean to say for a moment that man assumes his "mere man" tone for unpleasant purposes. on the contrary, he assumes it for party purposes as a rule--for dinner party purposes. [laughter.] when man is in his mere man mood sovran woman would do well to ask for anything that she wants--for it is then that he holds the sceptre out to her. [laughter.] unfortunately, the mood does not last; if it did he would have given us the suffrage ages ago. sovran woman is the uitlander of civilization--and man is her boer. [laughter.] it seems to me that sovran woman is very much in the position of queen esther; she has her crown, and her kingdom, and her royal robes, but she is liable to have her head snapped off at any moment. [laughter.] on the other hand, there are hundreds of men who have their heads snapped off every day. [laughter.] mere man has his faults, no doubt, but sovran woman also can be a rasping sort of creature, especially if she does not cultivate sympathy with cigarettes as she gets older. [laughter.] let us be fair to mere man. mere man has always treated me with exemplary fairness, and i certainly have never maintained that the blockhead majority is entirely composed of men; neither have i ever insinuated that it is man that makes all the misery. personally, and speaking as a woman whose guiding principle through life has been never to do anything for herself that she can get a nice man to do for her [laughter], a principle which i have found entirely successful, and which i strongly recommend to every other woman--personally i have always found mere man an excellent comrade. [applause.] he has stood by me loyally, and held out an honest hand to me, and lent me his strength when mine was failing, and helped me gallantly over many an awkward bit of the way, and that, too, at times when sovran woman, whom i had so respected and admired and championed, had nothing for me but bonnet-pins. [laughter.] it does upset one's ideas and unsettle one's principles when sovran woman has nothing for one but bonnet-pins. [laughter.] the sharp points of those pins have made me a little doubtful about sovran woman at times--a little apt to suspect that in private life her name is mrs. harris [laughter], but i must be careful about what i say in this connection lest it should be supposed that i have been perverted. in the great republic of letters to which i have the honor to belong--in the distinguished position of the letter "z"--my experience is that woman suffers no indignity at the hands of man on account of her sex. that is the sort of experience which creates a prejudice. it is apt to color the whole of one's subsequent opinions. it gives one a sort of idea that there are men in the world who would stand by a woman on occasion; and i must confess that i began life with a very strong prejudice of that kind. for a woman to have had a good father is to have been born an heiress. if you had asked me as a child who ran to help me when i fell, i should have answered, "my daddy." when a woman begins life with a prejudice of this kind she never gets over it. the prejudice of a man for his mother is feeble in comparison with the prejudice of a woman for her father, when she has had a man for her father and not one of what shelley called, those-- "things whose trade is over ladies to lean and flirt and stare and simper, till all that is divine in woman grows cruel, courteous, smooth, inhuman, crucified 'twixt a smile and whimper."' whatever that woman has to suffer she never loses her faith in man. remembering what her father was, she always believes there are good men and true in the world somewhere. the recollection of her father becomes a buffer between that woman and the shocks and jars of her after life; because of him, there is nothing distorted in her point of view, and she remains sane. it rather spoils a woman in some ways to have a good husband as well as a good father, because then she is so sure that "god's in his heaven, all's well with the world," that she becomes utterly selfish, and cares for nothing that is outside her own little circle. but the thing to guard against is loss of faith. men and women who have lost faith in each other never rise above the world again--one wing is broken, and they cannot soar. it has been said that the best way to manage man is to feed the brute [laughter], but sovran woman never made that discovery for herself--i believe it was a man in his mere man mood who first confided the secret to some young wife in distress--somebody else's young wife. [laughter.] feed him and flatter him. why not? is there anything more delightful in this world than to be flattered and fed? let us do as we would be done by. it seems to me sometimes that it is impossible in reviewing our social relations ever to be wholly in earnest. one's opinions do wobble so. [laughter.] if one would earn a reputation for consistency one must be like that great judge who declined to hear more than one side of the case because he found that hearing the other side only confused him. [laughter.] the thing about mere man which impresses me most, which fills me with the greatest respect, is not his courage in the face of death, but the courage with which he faces life. the way in which we face death is not necessarily more heroic than the way in which we face life. the probability is that you never think less about yourself than you do at the moment when you and eternity are face to face. when you are sick unto death you are too sick to care whether you live or die. in some great convulsion of nature, a great typhoon, for instance, when the wind in its fury lashes the walls of the house till they writhe, and there are the shrieks of people in dire distress, and fire, and the crash of giant waves, and all that makes for horror, the shock of these brute irresponsible forces of nature is too tremendous for fear to obtrude. thought is suspended--you are in an ecstasy of awful emotion, emotion made perfect by the very strength of it. but when it comes to facing life day after day, and day after day, as so many men have to face it, the workingmen, in all classes of society, upon whom the home depends, men whose days are only too often a weary effort, and whose nights are an ache of anxiety, lest the strength should give out which means bread, when one thinks of the lives these men live, and the way in which they live them, the brave, uncomplaining way in which they fight to the death for those dear to them, when one considers mere man from this point of view, one is moved to enthusiasm, and one is fain to confess that "sovran woman" on a pedestal is a poor sort of creature compared with this kind of mere man in that so often she not only fails to help and cheer him in his heroic efforts, but to appreciate that he is making any effort at all. i positively refuse to subscribe to the assertion, "how poor a thing is man!" [laughter.] it takes more genius to be a man than manhood to be a genius. [applause.] as to the differences between men and women, i believe that when finally their accounts have been properly balanced it will be found that it has been a case of six of one and half-a-dozen of the other, both in the matter of sovereignty and of mereness [laughter], and, therefore, without prejudice, i propose that the sixes to which i belong shall rise and cordially drink to the health of the other half dozens, our kind and generous hosts of to-night. [applause.] ulysses simpson grant a remarkable climate [speech of gen. ulysses s. grant at the seventy-fifth annual dinner of the new england society in the city of new york, december , . the president, james c. carter, in introducing general grant, said: "gentlemen, it is our good fortune to have with us to-night as a guest an illustrious fellow citizen, who in a great and fortunate career has been enabled to render signal service to his country and to achieve a just renown for himself. [applause.] long may he live! but however long, he cannot outlive the regard or the affection of the sons of new england. i give you, gentlemen, 'the health of general grant.'" the announcement of the toast was greeted with loud and prolonged cheers, the company standing.] mr. president and gentlemen of the new england society of the city of new york:--i suppose on an occasion of this sort that you will expect me to say something about this society and the people of new england and the pilgrims who first landed on plymouth rock. it was my fortune last night to attend a banquet of this sort in the principal city on new york harbor. [applause and laughter.] i did not know until i went there [brooklyn] that it was the principal city [laughter]--the principal city of the harbor of new york, a city whose overflow has settled up manhattan island, which has built up fine houses, business streets, and shown many evidences of prosperity for a suburb, with a waste of people flowing across the north river that forms a third if not one-half the population of a neighboring state. [applause.] as i say, it was my good fortune to attend a banquet of this sort of the parent society [laughter], and to which all the societies known, even including the one which is now celebrating its first anniversary in las vegas, new mexico, owe their origin. [laughter.] i made a few remarks there, in which i tried to say what i thought were the characteristics of the people who have descended from the pilgrims. i thought they were a people of great frugality, great personal courage, great industry, and possessed within themselves of qualities which built up this new england population which has spread out over so much of this land and given so much character, prosperity, and success to us as a people and a nation. [applause.] i retain yet some of the views i then expressed [peals of laughter], and should have remained convinced that my judgment was entirely right if it were not that some speakers came after me who have a better title to speak for the people of new england than myself, and who dispelled some of those views. [renewed laughter.] it is too many generations back for me to claim to be a new englander. those gentlemen who spoke are themselves new englanders who have, since their manhood, emigrated to this great city that i speak of. they informed me that there was nothing at all in the pilgrim fathers to give them the distinguishing characteristics which we attribute to them [laughter], and that it was all entirely dependent upon the poverty of the soil and the inclemency of the climate where they landed. [shouts of laughter.] they fell upon an ungenial climate, where there were nine months of winter and three months of cold weather [laughter], and that had called out the best energies of the men and of the women, too, to get a mere subsistence out of the soil, with such a climate. in their efforts to do that they cultivated industry and frugality at the same time, which is the real foundation of the greatness of the pilgrims. [laughter.] it was even suggested by some that if they had fallen upon a more genial climate and more fertile soil, they would have been there yet, in poverty and without industry. [laughter.] i shall continue to believe better of them myself, and i believe the rev. dr. storrs, who spoke here, will agree with me that my first judgment of them was probably nearly correct. however, all jesting aside, we are proud in my section of the country of the new englanders and of their descendants. we hope to see them spread over all this land, and carry with them the principles inculcated in their own sterile soil from which they sprang. [applause.] we want to see them take their independence of character, their self-reliance, their free schools, their learning, and their industry, and we want to see them prosper and teach others among whom they settle how to be prosperous. [applause.] i am very much obliged to the gentlemen of the infant new england society [laughter] for the reception which they have accorded to me and the other guests of this evening. i shall remember it with great pleasure, and hope that some day you will invite me again. [long-continued applause.] * * * * * characteristics of newspaper men [speech of gen. ulysses s. grant at the eighth annual dinner of the new york press club, january , . john c. hennessy, president of the press club, was in the chair, and read the third toast: "the republic's honored ex-president." general grant, on being introduced to respond to this toast, was received with a tumult of applause.] mr. president, gentlemen of the new york press club:--i confess to a little embarrassment this evening in being called upon unexpectedly to say a word to a set of such different men as compose not only the press club, but those associated with the press of the country. i thought this was an evening that i was going to spend where all would be quiet and good order [laughter]; where nobody would have anything to say. we all know the characteristic modesty of the people associated with the press [laughter], they never want to inquire into anybody's affairs, [laughter], to know where they are going, what they are going to do, what they are going to say when they get there. [uproarious laughter.] i really thought that you would excuse me this evening, but i suppose you will expect me to say something about the press--the press of new york, the press of the united states, the press of the world. it would take a good deal to tell what is possible for the press to do. i confess that, at some periods of my life when i have read what they had to say about me, i have lost all faith and all hope. [great laughter.] but since a young editor has spoken of the press, and has fixed the lifetime, the generation of newspaper men at about twelve years [laughter], i have a growing hope within me that in the future the press may be able to do some of the great good which we all admit is possible for it to do. [laughter.] i have been somewhat of a reader of the newspapers for forty years--i could read very well when i was eight years of age. [laughter.] it has given me forty years of observation of the press; and there is one peculiarity that i have observed from reading it, and that is, in all of the walks of life outside of the press, people have entirely mistaken their profession, their occupation. [laughter.] i never knew the mayor of a city, or even a councilman in any city, any public officer, any government official--i never knew a member of congress, a senator or a president of the united states, who could not be enlightened in his duties by the youngest member of the profession. [great laughter and applause.] i never knew a general of the army to command a brigade, a division, a corps of the army who could begin to do it as well as men far away in their sanctums. [renewed laughter.] i was very glad to see that the newspaper fraternity were ready to take with perfect confidence any office that might be tendered to them, from president to mayor [laughter], and i have often been astonished that the citizens have not done so, because then all these offices would have been well and properly filled. [laughter and applause.] well, gentlemen, i am very happy to have been here with you, and i hope when a new generation, about twelve years hence, comes on, that i shall again dine with the press club of new york city, and that i shall see that those of this generation who were so well fitted to fill all of the civil offices have all been chosen, and that there will be nothing left for them to criticise. [peals of laughter.] thank you, gentlemen. [great applause, with "three cheers" for general grant.] * * * * * the adopted citizen [speech of gen. ulysses s. grant at the th annual banquet of the chamber of commerce of the state of new york, may , . george w. lane, president of the chamber of commerce, presided, and announced as the first regular toast: "the united states--the great modern republic--the home of a new cosmopolitan race; may those who seek the blessings of its free institutions and the protection of its flag remember the obligations they impose." the orchestra played "the star-spangled banner," and general grant, who was called upon to respond to this toast, was received with great enthusiasm.] mr. president and gentlemen of the chamber of commerce and guests:--i am very much obliged to your president for calling upon me first, because the agony will soon be over and i shall enjoy the misery of the rest of you. [laughter.] the first part of this toast--the united states--would be a voluminous one to respond to on a single occasion. bancroft commenced to publish his notes on the history of the united states, starting even before president lane established this chamber, which i think was something over one hundred years ago. [laughter.] bancroft, i say, commenced earlier, and i am not prepared to dispute his word if he should say that he had kept an accurate journal from the time he commenced to write about the country to the present, because there has been no period of time when i have been alive that i have not heard of bancroft, and i should be equally credulous if president lane should tell me that he was here at the founding of this institution. [laughter.] but instead of bringing those volumes of bancroft's here, and reading them to you on this occasion, i will let the reporters publish them as the prelude to what i am going to say. [laughter.] i think bancroft has finished up to a little after the time that president lane established this chamber of commerce, and i will let you take the records of what he [lane] has written and what he has said in their monthly meetings and publish them as the second chapter of my speech. and, gentlemen, those two chapters you will find the longest; they will not amount to much more than what i have to say taking up the subject at the present time. [laughter.] but in speaking of the united states, we who are native-born have a country of which we may well be proud. those of us who have been abroad are better able, perhaps, to make the comparison of our enjoyments and our comforts than those who have always stayed at home. [applause.] it has been the fortune, i presume, of the majority here to compare the life and the circumstances of the average people abroad with ours here. we have here a country that affords room for all and room for every enterprise. we have institutions which encourage every man who has industry and ability to rise from the position in which he may find himself to any position in the land. [applause.] it is hardly worth my while to dwell upon the subject, but there is one point which i notice in the toast, that i would like to say a word about--"may those who seek the blessings of its free institutions and the protection of its flag remember the obligations they impose." i think there is a text that my friend mr. beecher,[ ] on the left, or my friend dr. newman,[ ] on the right, might well preach a long sermon upon. i shall say only a few words. we offer an asylum to every man of foreign birth who chooses to come here and settle upon our soil; we make of him, after a few years' residence only, a citizen endowed with all the rights that any of us have, except perhaps the single one of being elected to the presidency of the united states. there is no other privilege that a native, no matter what he has done for the country, has that the adopted citizen of five years' standing has not got. [applause.] i contend that that places upon him an obligation which, i am sorry to say, many of them do not seem to feel. [applause,] we have witnessed on many occasions here the foreign, the adopted, citizen claiming many rights and privileges because he was an adopted citizen. that is all wrong. let him come here and enjoy all the privileges that we enjoy, but let him fulfil all the obligations that we are expected to fulfil. [loud applause.] after he has adopted it, let this be his country--a country that he will fight for, and die for, if necessary. i am glad to say that the great majority of them do it, but some of them who mingle in politics seem to bank largely on the fact that they are adopted citizens; and that class i am opposed to as much as i am opposed to many other things that i see are popular now. [applause.] i know that other speakers will come forward, and when mr. beecher and dr. newman speak, i hope they will say a few words on the text which i read. [applause.] john william griggs social discontent [speech of john william griggs, ex-governor of new jersey, at the th annual banquet of the chamber of commerce of the state of new york, november , . alexander e. orr, president of the chamber, presided. in ex-governor griggs succeeded joseph mckenna as attorney-general in the cabinet of president mckinley.] mr. chairman and gentlemen:--i did not know this was thanksgiving day. [laughter.] i did not know that there were any discontents till i got over here to-night. when i arrive at this period on an occasion like this, and see you sitting in comfortable expectation, with your cigars lighted, and your intellects also lighted by the contact of such a flame as we have received from the distinguished postmaster-general [william l. wilson], i always think that the composition of the boy on sir walter raleigh is applicable. he wrote a composition, and it was like this: "sir walter raleigh was a very great man; he took a voyage and discovered america, and then he took another voyage and discovered virginia, and when he had discovered virginia he discovered the potato; and when he had discovered the potato, he discovered tobacco. and when he had done so, he called his associates about him, and said: 'my friends, be of good cheer; for we have this day lighted in england a flame which, by god's grace, shall never be quenched.'" [laughter.] new jersey greets to-night the chamber of commerce of the state of new york. [applause.] we are your friends and your neighbors. we have furnished you a candidate in this election, who represents in the person of garret a. hobart [applause] the sympathies and the sentiments of such men as i see gathered here. we take much of our inspiration from new york; not all of it. [laughter.] we have some kinds of inspiration peculiar to ourselves, of which we are always glad to invite our new york friends to partake in moderation and properly diluted. [laughter.] our citizens mingle with yours in all the daily walks of life. we read the same newspapers. we dress as you do, only not so well; and we vote the same ticket, by a large majority. [applause.] this similarity is not always apparent. the impressions of the traveller through new jersey are generally of salt marsh and sand banks and long monotonous stretches of landscape, and, where the railroad pierces some shabby neighborhood, the weather-boards bear shining invitations to take various brands of liver pills [laughter], to chew "virgin leaf," or to "give the baby castoria;" but we have green meadows bright with shining brooks; we have high mountains and pleasant valleys as well as marsh and sand dunes; and, instead of liver-pills and castoria, by a large majority, we are for the gold cure. [great applause.] i cannot let this opportunity pass without referring to the great work which this chamber has wrought for the state and city whose name it bears and for the country at large. it is a long interval since these dinners were held at fraunce's tavern, but during all that period, this institution has stood as the pilot, the guide, the director, and pioneer in all wise policies of commerce and trade and patriotism. [applause.] you have bestowed not only wisdom and enlightenment and courage on the world of commerce, but millions of dollars upon the unfortunate victims of fire and flood and fever. you have been the promoters of good fortune and the comforters of misfortune. i wish that the people of this land could understand how much true and loyal patriotism, how much disinterested devotion to the highest interests of the country are found among just such men as compose the chamber of commerce of the state of new york. [applause.] during your corporate life you have seen a great country grow into independence; you have seen it advance and extend along all the lines of progress and prosperity until the seven wonders of the world, of which we learned in our youth, have been lost sight of and forgotten in the thousand greater wonders of this industrial age. you have seen education become the common provision of every state for every child of the republic. you have seen intelligence increase; you have seen reason and reasonableness, the ability to take right views of things, become more universal among this people than among the people of any other land. [applause.] you have seen the average of comfort and prosperity higher among all classes in this country than could be found at any other age of the world and any other land upon the surface of the earth. [applause.] and yet there are complainings, there are discontents, and there are dissatisfactions, and gloomy minds think they see, in these, evidences and signs that there is coming a social revolution, an overturning of our system of popular government, and the substitution for it of some plan whereby, by legal enactments, all the citizens of the republic can be made comfortable and rich without regard to fortune or ability or frugality or merit. in one sense discontent is a good thing. it is the opposite of self-satisfaction. [laughter.] it is a good thing to appreciate that we have not done our best, and then try to do it. it is a good thing to understand that we have not made the most of our opportunities. in this sense, discontent is the spur of ambition, the incentive to better work, the mountain of progress up which, from height to height, civilization has climbed to where now with shining face she stands still pointing upward to heights unknown. [applause.] but there is another kind of discontent, born of ignorant and jealous envy, that seeks not to repair its mistakes nor to profit by its failures, not to build up, but to tear down. there is in many a sense of hopelessness over hopeless misfortune; and with these it is more to pity than to blame. but, withal, in these discontents there is a menace to the republic. they afford the opportunity for the demagogue and the cheap candidate for public office. [laughter and applause.] glory to the american people! they cannot be fooled all the time, nor some of the time. they are too level-headed, too intelligent, too patriotic to be caught by appeals of the demagogue and the social revolutionist, to the dictates and sentiments of envy, hatred and malice. may i venture to suggest that there are some ways by which it is possible for us to minimize the danger we find in these discontents? the american people, as i have said, have not up to date been fooled. they are the nation's court; they deserve a better certificate of character than a certain colored man who, when he was about to leave his master's employ because of the mysterious disappearance of certain small articles about the house, asked for a certificate of character to take to his next employer, and his employer said: "well, 'rastus, i can give you a good certificate for energy and ability, but i cannot say much about your honesty." "tell you what, boss," says 'rastus, after a moment's reflection: "can't you put it in that i am just as honest as my instincts will let me be?" [laughter.] the first remedy i would suggest, and it is one that is to be ever applied, is education. reduce the percentage of illiteracy. let the public schools teach not only reading and writing, but let public schools teach all the principles of american popular government. [applause.] let us go back to the days in which i was taught to write, when the copybook bore a text taken from poor richard--"industry and frugality lead to wealth," or "who by the plough would thrive, himself must either hold or drive,"--there was not anything said in those days about legislating a boy into wealth or comfort or ease, especially at the expense of anybody else. [applause.] the next remedy i would speak of is to cast out the demagogue. they are the fellows that are the curse of both and of all political parties. we have had them from the days of julius cæsar and marc antony down to date. [laughter.] these smooth, sleek, mellifluous-tongued fellows that always have the same blood-stained garment to hold up before the populace, and some forged will to read, whereby the people were to get great legacies which they never could collect, let us cast them out. let us frown upon them in both parties, so that they never have a standing on any political platform. [applause.] why, it makes the blood of an honest, straightforward, intelligent, american citizen boil to see the impudence, the hypocrisy, of men of this kind,--and they belong to both parties. i heard a story of one who used, when long branch was more popular than it is now, to go down there for a summer outing. one day he went out in the surf to bathe. he was strong and vigorous and bold, and he swam out beyond the breakers; he was heading strongly and fearlessly for the european shore. all at once, a shark, a man-eater, was coming the other way, and swam up squarely in front of him. they eyed each other for a moment, and then the shark blushed and swam out. [laughter and applause.] then, let us have more mutual sympathy and confidence between all classes and conditions of men. the man who works for wages, day by day, is our equal in right and our equal at the ballot-box. very often he has, generally he has, as high instincts, as loyal and true a heart, as his employer. [applause.] there is no reason why his employer or the candidate for office or anybody else should make friends with him only about election-time. be his friend all the year round. show him that you sympathize with him as a fellow-citizen. this is not condescension. it is his right. it is not altruism. you understand what that is. the teacher told her class in sunday-school: "now, my children, you know an altruist is one who sacrifices his own interests to the interests of his fellows." "oh! yes," says one boy, "i know; a fellow who makes his sacrifice hit." [laughter.] but let there be confidence between the men that earn wages and the men that pay wages. let them meet together on a plane of political equality, and they will learn to respect the employer, and the employer, take my word for it, will learn to respect them. [applause.] and then, let us stop making citizens out of unworthy material. [applause.] we welcome all those that come from over the sea, men of merit and worth and proper instincts who want to build and work among us. we do not want those who only come here to tear down and destroy. we have had the gates wide open. they have been coming--all sorts and all conditions and all beliefs. let us shut those gates, and open them hereafter only to men of merit with right instincts. [applause.] the law of the land declares that no subject of any foreign government shall be naturalized unless he can prove to the satisfaction of the court that he has been well attached to the principles of the constitution of the united states. how that provision has been mocked! why, we have taken into citizenship with us thousands of men who not only were not attached to the principles of the constitution of the united states, who not only did not know what those principles are, but who held principles diametrically opposed to it. now, let us see that america suffers no longer from indigestion [laughter], from a surfeited feast of foreign anarchists and socialists and revolutionists; give us good men and true, who will not impede our digestion, and keep out those that tend to indigestion. [applause.] and then, let every citizen go into politics. [laughter.] oh, not for what is in it, but for the good of his country, to speak, write, organize, lead processions and keep it up. rally round the flag, and keep on rallying! [applause.] do not let your enthusiasm and your patriotism evaporate and die away in the shouts that follow one triumphant campaign. keep them up the whole year round--the four years round. you have heard from two sources, to-night, how important it is that we should always be vigilant and alert to defend, to educate and scatter knowledge and the spirit of intelligence among all the people. it is a very old saying but can never be too often repeated, that "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." "o freedom! thou art not, as poets dream, a fair young girl with light and delicate limbs, and wavy tresses gushing from the cap with which the roman master crowned his slave, when he took off the gyves. a bearded man, arm'd to the teeth, art thou; one mailed hand grasps the broad shield, and one the sword; thy brow, glorious in beauty though it be, is scarr'd with tokens of old wars; thy massive limbs are strong with struggling.... oh! not yet, mayst thou unbrace thy corselet nor lay by thy sword; nor yet, o freedom! close thy lids in slumber; for thine enemy never sleeps, and thou must watch and combat till the day of the new earth and heaven." [great applause.] edward everett hale the mission of culture [speech of edward everett hale, d.d., at the seventy-first annual dinner of the new england society in the city of new york, december , . the president, william borden, gave the fifth regular toast, to which dr. hale responded, as follows: "new england culture--the open secret of her greatness." "yet on her rocks, and on her sands, and wintry hills the school-house stands, and what her rugged soil denies, the harvest of the mind supplies. the riches of the commonwealth are free strong minds and hearts of health and, more to her than gold or grain the cunning hand and cultured brain."] mr. president and gentlemen:--you seem to have a very frank way of talking about each other among yourselves here. i observe that i am the first stranger who has crossed the river which, i recollect edward winslow says, divides the continent of new england from the continent of america [laughter], and, as a stranger, it is my pleasure and duty at once to express the thanks and congratulations of the invited guest here for the distinguished care which has been taken on this occasion outdoors to make us feel entirely at home. [laughter.] as i came down in the snow-storm, i could not help feeling that elder brewster, and william bradford, and carver, and winslow could not have done better than this in plymouth; and indeed, as i ate my pork and beans just now, i felt that the gospel of new england is extending beyond the connecticut to other nations, and that what is good to eat and drink in boston is good to eat and drink even here on this benighted point at delmonico's. [laughter.] when you talk to us about "culture," that is rather a dangerous word. i am always a little afraid of the word "culture." i recollect the very brightest squib that i read in the late election campaign--and as the president says, gentlemen, i am going to respect the proprieties of the occasion. it was sent to one of the journals from the western reserve; and the writer, who, if i have rightly guessed his name, is one of the most brilliant of our younger poets, was descanting on the chinook vocabulary, in which a chinook calls an englishman a chinchog to this day, in memory of king george. and this writer says that when they have a young chief whose war-paint is very perfect, whose blanket is thoroughly embroidered, whose leggins are tied up with exactly the right colors, and who has the right kind of star upon his forehead and cheeks, but who never took a scalp, never fired an arrow, and never smelled powder, but was always found at home in the lodges whenever there was anything that scented of war--he says the chinooks called that man by the name of "boston cultus." [applause and laughter.] well, now, gentlemen, what are you laughing at? why do you laugh? some of you had boston fathers, and more of you had boston mothers. why do you laugh? ah! you have seen these people, as i have seen them, as everybody has seen them--people who sat in parker's and discussed every movement of the campaign in the late war, and told us that it was all wrong, that we were going to the bad, but who never shouldered a musket. they are people who tell us that the emigration, that the pope of rome, or the german element, or the irish element, is going to play the dogs with our social system, and yet they never met an emigrant on the wharf or had a word of comfort to say to a foreigner. we have those people in boston. you may not have them in new york, and i am very glad if you have not; but if you are so fortunate, it is the only place on god's earth where i have not found such people. [laughter and applause.] but there is another kind of culture which began even before there was any boston--for there was such a day as that. [laughter.] there were ten years in the history of this worlds ten long years, too, before boston existed, and those are the years between plymouth rock and the day when some unfortunate men, not able to get to plymouth rock, stopped and founded that city. [laughter.] this earlier culture is a culture not of the schoolhouse, or of the tract, but a culture as well of the church, of history, of the town-meeting, as john adams says; that nobler culture to which my friend on the right has alluded when he says that it is born of the spirit of god--the culture which has made new england, which is born of god, and which it is our mission to carry over the world. [applause.] in the very heart of that culture--representing it, as i think, in a very striking way, half-way back to the day we celebrate--ezra styles, one of the old connecticut men, published a semi-centennial address. it seems strange that they should have centennials then, but they had. he published a semi-centennial address in the middle of the last century, on the condition of new england, and the prospects before her. he prophesied what new england was to be in the year . he calculated the population descending from the twenty thousand men who emigrated in the beginning, and he calculated it with great accuracy. he said, "there will be seven million men, women, and children, descended from the men who came over with winslow and with winthrop," and it proved that he was perfectly right. he went on to sketch the future of new england when these seven million should crowd her hillsides, her valleys, her farms, and her shops all over the four states of new england. for it didn't occur to him, as he looked forward, that one man of them all would ever go west of connecticut, or west of massachusetts. [applause.] he cast his horoscope for a population of seven million people living in the old new england states, in the midst of this century. he did not read, as my friend here does, the missionary spirit of new england. he did not know that they would be willing to go across the arm of the ocean which separated the continent of new england from the continent of america. [laughter.] all the same, gentlemen, seven million people are somewhere, and they have not forgotten the true lessons which make new england what she is. they tell me there are more men of new england descent in san francisco than in boston to-day. all those carried with them their mothers' lessons, and they mean their mothers' lessons shall bear fruit away out in oregon, in california, in south carolina, in louisiana. [applause.] they have those mothers' lessons to teach them to do something of what we are trying to do at home in this matter. [applause.] we have been so fortunate in new england in this centennial year that we are able to dedicate a noble monument of the past to the eternal memory of the pilgrim principle. we have been so fortunate that we are able to consecrate the old south meeting-house in boston to the cause of fostering this pilgrim principle [applause], that it may be from this time forward a monument, not of one branch of the christian religion, not of one sect or another, but of that universal religion, that universal patriotism, which has made america, and which shall maintain america. [applause.] for myself, i count it providential that in this centennial year of years this venerable monument, that monument whose bricks and rafters are all eloquent of religion and liberty, that that monument has passed from the possession of one sect and one state to belong to the whole nation, to be consecrated to american liberty, and to nothing but american liberty. [applause.] i need not say--for it is taken for granted when such things are spoken of--that when it was necessary for new england to act at once for the security of this great monument, we had the active aid and hearty assistance of the people of new york, who came to us and helped us and carried that thing right through. [applause.] i am surrounded here with the people who had to do with the preservation of that great monument for the benefit of the history of this country for ever. let me say, in one word, what purposes it is proposed this great monument shall serve, for i think they are entirely in line with what we are to consider to-night. we propose to establish here what i might fairly call a university for the study of the true history of this country. and we propose, in the first place, to make that monument of the past a great santa croce, containing the statues and portraits of the men who have made this country what it is. then we propose to establish an institute for the people of america from maine to san francisco, the people of every nationality and every name; and we hope that such societies as this, and all others interested in the progress and preservation of the interest of our country, will aid us in the work. [applause.] for we believe that the great necessity of this hour is that higher education in which this people shall know god's work with man. we hope that the forefathers' societies, the sam adams clubs, the centennial clubs over the land, shall make the state more proud of its fathers, and more sure of the lessons which they lived. we mean by the spoken voice and by the most popular printed word, circulated everywhere, to instil into this land that old lesson of new england culture. we stand by the side of those of you who believe in compulsory education. we desire, in looking to the future, that the determination shall be made here by us, as it has been in england, that every child born on american soil shall learn to read and write. [applause.] but there is a great deal more to be taught than that. there is a great deal which the common school does not teach and cannot teach, when it teaches men to read. we not only want to teach them to read, but we want to teach them what is worth reading. and we want to instil the principles by which the nation lives. we have got to create in those who came from the other side of the water the same loyalty to the whole of american principles that each man feels to his native country. what is this constitution for which we have been fighting, and which must be preserved? it is a most delicate mutual adjustment of the powers and rights of a nation, among and because of the powers and rights of thirty or forty states. it exists because they exist. that it may stand, you need all their mutual rivalries, you need every sentiment of local pride, you need every symbol and laurel of their old victories and honors. you need just this homestead feeling which to-night we are cherishing. but that balance is lost, that whole system is thrown out of gear, if the seven million people of foreign parentage here are indifferent to the record of new york as they are to that of illinois, to that of illinois as to that of louisiana, to that of louisiana as to that of maine; if they have no local pride; if to them the names of montgomery, of john hancock, of samuel adams, have no meaning, no association with the past. [applause.] unless they also acquire this local feeling, unless they share the pride and reverence of the native american for the state in which he is born, for the history which is his glory, all these delicate balances and combinations are worthless, all your revolving planets fall into your sun! it is the national education in the patriotism of the fathers, an education addressing itself to every man, woman, and child from katahdin to the golden gate--it is this, and only this, which will insure the perpetuity of your republic. [applause.] now, gentlemen, if you would like to try an experiment in this matter, go into one of your public schools, next week, and ask what saratoga was, and you will be told it is a great watering-place where people go to spend money. you will find there is not one in ten who will be able to tell you that there the hessian was crushed, and foreign bayonets forever driven from the soil of new york. [applause.] ask about brandywine, the place where lafayette shed his young blood, where a little handful of american troops were defeated, yet, although they were defeated, broke the force of the english army for one critical year. put the word brandywine in one of your public schools, and you will see that the pupils laugh at the funny conjunction of the words "brandy" and "wine," but they can tell you nothing about the history which made the name famous. it seems to me it is dangerous to have your children growing up in such ignorance of the past. [applause.] how much did they know here about the day when, a short time since, you celebrated the battle of haarlem heights, where the british were shown that to land on american soil was not everything? is it quite safe for your children to grow up in ignorance of your past, while you are looking down upon the century of the future? the great institution we are hoping for in the future is to carry this new england culture above the mere mathematics of life, and to incorporate into all education that nobler culture which made the men who made the revolution, which made the men who have sustained this country. [applause.] we shall ask for the solid assistance of all the forefathers' stock in the country to carry out this great work of national education, and i am quite sure, from what i have seen here to-night, that we shall not ask in vain. [applause.] i ought to apologize for speaking so long. i am conscious of the fact that i am a fraud, and i am nothing but a fraud. [laughter.] the truth is, gentlemen (i say this as i am sitting down), i have no business to be here at all. i am not a pilgrim, nor the son of a pilgrim, nor the grandson of a pilgrim; there is not one drop of pilgrim blood in my veins. i am a "forefather" myself (for i have six children), but i am not the son of a forefather. i had one father; most men have [laughter]; i have two grandfathers, i have four great-grandfathers, but i have not four-fathers. [laughter.] i want to explain, now, how all this happened, because something is due to me before you put me out of the room. like most men, i had eight great-great-grandfathers--so have you; so have you. if you run it up, i have got sixty-four great-grandfathers of the grandfathers of my grandfathers, and i have sixty-four great-grandmothers of the grandmothers of my grandmothers. there were one hundred and twenty-eight of these people the day the "mayflower" sailed. there were one hundred and twenty-eight of them in england eager to come over here, looking forward to this moment, gentlemen, when we meet here at delmonico's, and they were hoping and praying, every man of them and every woman of them, that i might be here at this table to-night [laughter], and they meant me to be; and every one of them would have come here in the "mayflower" but for miles standish, as i will explain. the "mayflower," you know, started from holland. they had to go to holland first to learn the dutch language. [laughter.] they started from holland, and they came along the english channel and stopped at plymouth in england. they stopped there to get the last edition of the london "times" for that day, in order that they might bring over early copies to the new york "tribune" and new york "world". these ancestors of mine, the legend says, were all on the dock at plymouth waiting for them. it was a bad night, a very bad night. it fogged as it can only fog in england. [laughter.] they waited on the wharf there two hours, as you wait at the brooklyn and jersey ferries, for the "mayflower" to come along. methinks i see her now, the "mayflower" of a forlorn hope, freighted with the prospect of a fertile state and bound across an unknown sea. her dark and weather-beaten form looms wearily from the deep, when the pilot brings her up at the plymouth dock, and a hundred and twenty-eight of my ancestors press forward. they were handsome men and fair women. when they all pressed forward, miles standish was on hand and met them. he was on board and looked at them. he went back to the governor, and said, "here are one hundred and twenty-eight of as fine emigrants as i ever saw." "well," governor carver said, "the capacity of the vessel, as prescribed in the emigrant act, is already exceeded." miles standish said, "i think we could let them in." the governor said, "no, they cannot come in." miles standish went back to the gangway, and said, "you are handsome men, but you can't come in;" and they had to stand there, every man and every woman of them. [laughter.] that is the unfortunate reason why i had no ancestors at the landing of the pilgrims. [laughter.] but my ancestors looked westward still. they stayed in england, praying that they might come, and when winthrop, ten years afterwards, sailed, he took them all on board, and if the little state of massachusetts has done anything to carry out the principles of the men who landed on plymouth rock in , why, some little part of the credit is due to my humble ancestry. [laughter and applause.] * * * * * boston [speech of edward everett hale, d.d., at the first annual dinner of the new england society in the city of brooklyn, december , . the president, benjamin d. silliman, in proposing the toast, "boston," said: "we are favored with the company of a typical and eloquent bostonian, identified with all that is learned and benevolent in that ancient home of the puritans, and familiar with all its notions. in response to the toast, we call on the rev. edward everett hale."] mr. chairman and gentlemen:--i am sure that there is not a boston boy who hears me to-night who does not recollect that when he went out to his first pilgrim dinner, or to see fanny kemble or to any other evening dissipation of fifty years ago, the last admonition of his mother was, "we will leave the candle burning for you, john, but you must be sure and be home before twelve o'clock!" i am sure that the memory of this admonition is lingering among our friends now, that we are entering on the small hours, and that i must only acknowledge your courtesy and sit down. i feel, indeed, all along in your talk of hoar antiquity, that i owe my place here only to your extreme hospitality. in these aged cities you may well say to me, "you bostonians are children. you are of yesterday," as the egyptians said to the greek traveller. for we are still stumbling along like little children, in the anniversaries of our quarter-millennium; but we understand perfectly well that the foundations of this city were laid in dim antiquity. i know that nobody knows when brooklyn was founded. your commerce began so long ago that nobody can remember it, but i know that there was a beaver trap on every brook in kings county, while boston was still a howling wilderness. these noble ancestors of yours had made themselves at home on plymouth rock before we had built a flat-boat on any river in massachusetts bay. [applause.] it is only as the youngest daughter, quite as a cinderella, that we of boston have any claim on your matchless hospitality. but, as cinderella should, we have done our best at home to make ready our sisters when they should go to the ball. when my brother beecher, just now, closed his speech with a latin quotation, i took some satisfaction in remembering that we taught him his latin at the boston latin school. and i could not but remember when i listened with such delight to the address of mr. secretary evarts, which you have just now been cheering, that the first time i heard this persuasive and convincing orator, was when he took the prize for elocution, a boy of thirteen, on the platform in the great hall in our old schoolhouse in school street. nay, i confess also, to a little feeling of local as well as national pride, when the president of the united states [rutherford b. hayes] was speaking. just as he closes this remarkable administration, which is going to stand out in history, distinguished indeed among all administrations from the beginning, so pure has it been, so honorable and so successful--just as he closes this administration he makes here this statement of the principles on which are based the success of an american statesman, in a few fit words so epigrammatic that they will be cited as proverbs by our children and our children's children. i heard that masterly definition of the laws which have governed the new englander, i took pride in remembering that the president also was a graduate of our law school. these three are the little contributions which cinderella has been preparing in the last half-century, for the first dinner-party of the brooklyn pilgrim society. [applause.] i read in a new york newspaper in washington the other day that something done in boston lately was done with the "usual boston intensity." i believe the remark was not intended to be a compliment, but we shall take it as one, and are quite willing to accept the phrase. i think it is true in the past, i hope it will be true in the future, that we go at the things which we have to do with a certain intensity, which i suppose we owe to these puritan fathers whom to-night we are celebrating. certainly we have gone at this business of emigration with that intensity. it is perfectly true that there are in brooklyn to-day more people than there are in boston, who were born in boston from the old new england blood. not that brooklyn has been any special favorite. when i met last year in kansas, a mass meeting of twenty-five thousand of the old settlers and their children, my daughter said to me: "papa, i am glad to see so many of our own countrymen." she certainly had never seen so many before, without intermixture of people of foreign races. now it is certainly our wish to carry that intensity into everything. if the thing is worth doing at all it is worth doing thoroughly. what we do we mean to do it for everybody. you have seen the result. we try, for instance, if we open a latin school at all, to have it the best latin school in the world. and then we throw it open to everybody, to native and heathen, to jew and to greek, to white and black and red, and we advise you to go and do likewise. [applause.] you recollect the old joke, i think it began with preston of south carolina, that boston exported no articles of native growth but granite and ice. that was true then, but we have improved since, and to these exports we have added roses and cabbages. mr. president, they are good roses, and good cabbages, and i assure you that the granite is excellent hard granite, and the ice is very cold ice. [laughter and applause.] william f. hall yarn of the manager bold [speech of william p. hall (popularly known by his pen name, "biff" hall) at the fortieth dinner of the sunset club, chicago, ill., january , . the secretary, joseph b. mann, acted as chairman. the general subject of the evening's discussion was, "the modern stage; its mission and influence."] gentlemen.:--i must confess that i have never regarded the drama in a very serious light. as to its purpose and mission, if i was trying to find out, i should consult the pleasant-faced young man who sits in the box-office. he knows how these things stand with the public. perhaps the reason i do so regard the matter may be found in my early experiences. the first theatrical performance i ever saw was in this city twenty-five years ago, and one of the prominent features was our old friend, billy rice.[ ] billy rice never gives rise to a serious thought on any occasion. why, the other night i went to hear billy rice, and i heard him tell that same old story that he told in the same old way twenty-five years ago. it really gave me the idea that the drama is not progressive. [laughter.] i consider that the theatre and the newspaper are brother and sister; they are always together. wherever two or three are gathered together in the wilderness some venturesome individual starts a newspaper, and then immediately through its columns induces some other equally venturesome individual to build an opera-house. the people who act there are called turkey actors, for the reason that they hibernate during most of the year and only appear when the turkey is ripe for plucking in holiday time. they then go out and depredate the country. they have a wonderful repertoire, from howard's "shenandoah" to hood's "sarsaparilla." they play everywhere; it is called the kerosene circuit. if there is nothing else available they let the water out of the water-tank at the station and play in that. [laughter.] gentlemen, these are the pioneers of the drama. they convey to the rural mind what knowledge it has of real fire-engines and the triumphs of the scenic artist, and i think we should give to them the credit of spreading through this land those beautiful dramas, "jim the westerner," and "the scout of the rockies." i do not know what their influence may be; i don't care to touch upon that part of the subject; but i think i cannot better illustrate the straits they are in sometimes than by reciting a little parody on w. s. gilbert's bab ballad, the "yarn of the nancy bell." it is entitled:-- the yarn of the manager bold it was near the town they call detroit, in the state of mich-i-gan, that i met on the rocks, with a property-box, a gloomy theatrical man. his o. p. heel was quite worn off, and weary and sad was he, and i saw this "fake" give himself a shake, as he croaked in a guttural key: "oh, i am the star and the manager bold, and the leading and juvenile man, and the comedy pet, and the pert soubrette, and the boss of the box-sheet plan." he wiped his eye on a three-sheet bill, 'twas lettered in blue and red, he cursed the fates and the open dates, and i spoke to him, and said: "'tis little i know of the mimic show, but if you will explain to me-- i'll eat my vest if i can digest how you can possibly be, at once a star, and a manager bold, and a leading and juvenile man, and a comedy pet, and a pert soubrette, and a boss of a box-sheet plan." he ran his hand through his dusty hair, and pulled down a brunette cuff, and on the rocks, with his property-box, he told me his story tough: "it was in the year of eighty-three, when a party of six and me went on the road with a show that's knowed as a 'musical com-i-dee.' i writ it myself--it knocked 'em cold-- it made 'em shriek and roar; but we struck a reef and came to grief, on the west of the michigan shore. each night it rained, or snowed or blowed, and when the weather was clear they'd say: 'it's sad your house is bad. but wait till you come next year.' we travelled along from town to town a-tryin' to change our luck-- with nothin' to taste but bill-board paste an' the 'property' canvas duck. at last we got to kankakee, all travel-stained and sore, when the star got mad and shook us bad for a job in a dry-goods store-- and then the leading heavy man informed me with a frown he was going away the very next day with a circus then in town; and the comedy pet and the pert soubrette engaged as cook and waiter-- they are still doing well in a small hotel near the kankakee the-ay-ter. then only the 'comic' and me remained, for to leave he hadn't the heart; each laugh was a drop of blood to him, and he loved that comedy part. we played one night to a right good house, eight dollars and a half; but to my ill-luck in my lines i stuck and i queered the comedian's laugh. he fell down dead of a broken heart-- the coroner, old and sage, said his brain was cracked with a bad attackt of the centre of the stage. i played that part all by myself for a week in kankakee; o'er rails and rocks with this property-box i've walked to where i be. i never say an actor's good, i always damn a play; i always croak, and a single joke i have, which is to say: that i am the star, and the manager bold, and the leading and juvenile man and the comedy pet, and the pert soubrette, and the boss of the box-sheet plan." [laughter and applause.] murat halstead our new country [speech of murat halstead at the th annual banquet of the chamber of commerce of the state of new york, november , . alexander b. orr, president of the chamber, in proposing this toast, said: "i now have the honor of introducing to you that eminent journalist, the hon. murat halstead, who will respond to the toast, 'our new country.'"] mr. president:--in the orkney islands there is a cathedral described by the guide as of two parts--the old and the new. the story is glibly told that when it had stood for five hundred years a storm beat down the tower and did other damage, making reconstruction necessary; and that tempest was six hundred years ago. on the road from geneva to chamouni there is a point of which bædeker says: "the rocks on the left are seven thousand feet high." in the orkneys a tower six hundred years old is new, and in the alps a precipice seven thousand feet high is a moderate bit of scenery. the standards of the measurement of time and space may be exact, and yet are comparative, affected by the atmosphere of history and the scale of landscapes. in that portion of this country which was the west a generation ago, a farm was old when the stumps had rotted in the fields, and the land was improved when the trees were cut. new ground was that which had not been ploughed. once a man of varied experiences accounted to a pious woman for an unhappy bit of profanity by saying that when a boy he had ploughed new ground, and the plough caught in the roots, and the horses balked, and his feet were torn with splinters and thorns, and the handles of the plough kicked and hurt him, until depravity was developed. the lady said she would pray for his forgiveness, if he never would do so any more, and he promised, and i am told he did not keep that promise. daniel boone's new country, when he lived on the yadkin, in north carolina, was kentucky, and afterward it was missouri. washington's new country was first ohio, and then indiana. lincoln's new country, when he was a child, was indiana, and then illinois. beyond the alleghany mountains was the land of promise of the original states; beyond the mississippi was the new world of those who moved west in wagons, before the mexican war and the railroads broadened our dominions, and we were bounded east and west by the oceans. it was for the new country of their ages that columbus and the puritans and captain john smith set sail. in the new country there is always, at least, the dream of liberty and the hope that the earth we inherit may be generous in the bounties it yields to toil. the march of manhood westward has reached the shores of the seas that look out on ancient asia. we have realized the vision of the genoese--finding in the sunset the footsteps of marco polo. we have crossed the mountain ranges and followed the majestic rivers, have traced the borders of the great lakes, whitened by the sails and darkened by the smoke of a commerce that competes in magnitude with that of the salted sea; and texas, our france, confronts the mediterranean of our hemisphere. we have crushed the rocks and sifted the sand that yielded silver and gold, and the soil is ours that is richer than gold mines, whether we offer in evidence south carolina, whose sea-island cotton surpasses the long staple of egypt; or the dakotas, matchless for wheat; or the lands of the cornstalk in the mississippi valley, that could feed all the tribes of asia; or nebraska, whose beets are sweeter with sugar than those that were the gift of napoleon to germany. we have found the springs that yield immortal youth, not in bubbling waters in a flowery wilderness, but in the harvests of the fields and the stored energies of inexhaustible mines, not for the passing person who perishes when his work is done, but for the imperishable race. all this in our country, "rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun," but with the clothing of life on the ribs, and new in the evolution of conditions by the works of man that make the nations of the earth a family--achievements wonderful in scope, splendid in promise, marvellous in the renown that is of peace; in the fame of the genius that is labor, the spell-binder that gathers and builds, creates and glorifies. within the historic record of this chamber of commerce of new york, the waters of lake erie have been carried through our canals and rivers to the atlantic, making the hudson river what henry hudson thought it was when he sailed through the beautiful gate of the incomparable continent--the road from the east to the west around the world; and the statue of thomas benton points westward from the great cross of the rivers in the heart of the continent--the ohio, missouri and mississippi--and the inscription reads: "there is the road to india." how familiar is the construction of the pacific railroad; of the telegraph lines across the continent and through the oceans; the record of steamers of ten thousand tons, five hundred knots a day; the miraculous telephone; the trolley, that is with us to stay and to conquer, introducing all the villages to the magic of rapid transit, promoting, with the incessant application of a new force, the american homogeneity of our vast and various population--blending them for one destiny. one is not venturing upon disputed ground--there is no prohibited politics in it to say that slavery is gone--for all classes and sections of our common country will agree it is well. the earth has grown both small and great for us. its gigantic mysteries are no more. its circumnavigation is commonplace. the kinetoscope comes to aid the phonograph to make pictures of action and lasting records of music and of speech. the people of coming generations are to hear the voices that have charmed or awed, persuaded, bewitched or commanded, in departed centuries. there will be libraries of rolls, storing for all time these treasures; rolls not unlike those cylinders preserved in the babylonish deserts. photography is bringing to us, as on parchment leaves painted with sunlight, the secrets of the depths of the seas and the skies; it is finding new stars, and with the telescopic camera likenesses may be snatched across spaces impenetrable by the naked eye. the aristocracy of intelligence becomes a democracy for the diffusion of the knowledge of the history of the day, which is the most important chapter that has been written, impartial, instantaneous, and is becoming universal. this is more than a new country; it is a new world. our own farmers are in competition with those of egypt, india, russia and argentina. australia with her wool and beef and mutton, egypt and india with cotton and wheat, south america, africa and asia, made fruitful with resources, seek the same markets with our producers; and the mills of old england are within a few cents and hours, in cost of transportation and time, as cheap and nigh as those of new england to new york. once, a war between japan and china would have been so remote that, as they say in the newspapers, there could have been no news in it; but it means matter of business for us now. with the novel conditions, there come upon us new and enormous problems for solution, and responsibilities that cannot be evaded. once, we were an isolated nation. there was no trouble about becoming involved in the "entangling alliances" that were the cause of alarm to the father of his country. now, the ends of the earth are in our neighborhood, and we touch elbows with all the races of mankind, and all the continents and the islands are a federation. the newspapers are, to continue the poetic prophecy, "the parliament of man." the drift of human experience is to increased aggregations, to concentration and to centralization. this mighty city, in her material grandeur, and, we may trust, her moral redemption, stands for forty-six indestructible states and one indivisible nation. her lofty structures far surpass already the palaces of the merchant princes of tyre and venice and liverpool, and we behold, in these imperial towers, the types of the magnificence of the coming time. there never was so fair and superb, ample and opulent a bride as she, in the wholesome arms of the ocean that embrace these islands, adorned with the trophies of the wealth of the world, and whose rulers, the slavery of crime abolished, are the sovereign millions. these are new developments of authority, new growths of responsibility. the congress, forty years ago, was a body insignificant in its relations with the masses of the people, in comparison with what it is to-day. it grapples, of necessity, with the new conditions, and the character of the public service is of enlarged consequence, for it is to all the communities and commonwealths far more comprehensive and penetrating in its influence than in other days; and it is well the citizens of the republic are aroused to appreciation of their added requirements in the care that public life must give the general welfare. during the recent popular experience of christian science applied to practical politics, that resulted, among other things, in the intimacy of representative men of the bowery and the fifth avenue, that allows the citizens of each locality to walk into the other locality at bedtime and select their sleeping-rooms, without asking whether the folks are at home, and to depart with or without leaving their p. p. c. cards, one of the speakers, noting in his audience evidences of dissent, said: "if i am speaking in a way that is prerogatory, while i want to go on, i am willing to quit." he honored his nativity by his modesty, and was allowed to go on; but he preferred to sit down, though his theme seemed to him to expand under treatment, and with his new word he retired. i quote him as a precedent and example for immediate imitation. it is more than a joke, though, that fifth avenue and the bowery have got together, and we may hope they will work well for the good of this new country. [prolonged applause.] benjamin harrison the union of states [speech of benjamin harrison at the thirteenth annual dinner of the new england society of pennsylvania, philadelphia, december , . in proposing the first toast, "the president of the united states," the chairman, charles emory smith, said: "gentlemen, my first duty is to give a welcome to our honored guests and a greeting to our worthy members. my second duty is to make an immediate change of the programme. among the distinguished guests who honor us by their presence to-night is the illustrious patriot and statesman who has filled--yes, filled, not rattled around in--the great dignity of the presidency of the united states. [applause.] in his career he has won the admiration of the country not merely by his transcendent abilities as a statesman, but by his noble qualities as a man. among other characteristics, his love of children has touched the heart of the country. he has promised the little children who are gathered in his distant home that he will join them in preparing and sharing the joys of christmas. it is imperative not that he shall leave us at this moment but that he shall terminate the three days of cordial and perhaps somewhat burdensome hospitality which he has enjoyed in philadelphia, at a later stage of this evening. in order that he may be entirely free, and because the first word should be spoken by the first man at the table, i ask you to join me, at this time, in drinking a toast to the health of the illustrious patriot, who is as greatly respected and honored in private life as he was in the presidency--general benjamin harrison, whom i now have the pleasure of presenting to you."] mr. president and gentlemen of the new england society of pennsylvania:--when my good friend and your good neighbor and president, mr. charles emory smith, invited me to be present to-night, i felt a special demand upon me to yield to his request. i thought i owed him some reparation for appointing him to an office the emoluments of which did not pay his expenses. [merriment.] your cordial welcome to-night crowns three days of most pleasurable stay in this good city of philadelphia. the days have been a little crowded; i think there have been what our friends of the four hundred would probably call "eight distinct functions;" but your cordiality and the kind words of your presiding officer quite relieve my fatigue and suggest to me that i shall rightly repay your kindness by making a very short speech. ["no, no!"] it is my opinion that these members of the new england society are very creditable descendants of the forefathers. i'm not quite sure that the forefathers would share this opinion if they were here; but that would be by reason of the fact that, notwithstanding the load of substantial virtues, which they carried through life, their taste had not been highly cultivated. [laughter.] i dread this function which i am now attempting to discharge more than any other that confronts me in life. the after-dinner speaker, unlike the poet, is not born,--he is made. i am frequently compelled to meet in disastrous competition about some dinner-table gentlemen who have already had their speeches set up in the newspaper offices. they are given to you as if they were fresh from the lip; you are served with what they would have you believe to be "impromptu boned turkey;" and yet, if you could see into the recesses of their intellectual kitchen, you would see the days of careful preparation which have been given to these spontaneous utterances. the after-dinner speaker needs to find somewhere some unworked joker's quarry, where some jokes have been left without a label on them; he needs to acquire the art of seeming to pluck, as he goes along in the progress of his speech, as by the wayside, some flower of rhetoric. he seems to have passed it and to have plucked it casually,--but it is a boutonniere with tin foil round it. [laughter.] you can see, upon close inspection, the mark of the planer on his well-turned sentences. now, the competition with gentlemen who are so cultivated is severe upon one who must speak absolutely upon the impulse of the occasion. it is either incapacity or downright laziness that has kept me from competing in the field i have described. it occurred to me to-day to inquire why you had to associate six states in order to get up a respectable society. my friend halstead [murat halstead] and i have no such trouble. we are ohio-born, and we do not need to associate any other state in order to get up a good society, wherever there is a civil list of the government. if you would adopt the liberal charter method of the ohio society, i have no doubt you could subdivide yourselves into six good societies. the ohio society admits to membership everybody who has lived voluntarily six months in ohio. no involuntary resident is permitted to come in. [laughter.] but the association of these states and the name "new england" is a part of an old classification of the states which we used to find in the geography, and all of that classification has gone except new england and the south. "the west" has disappeared and "the middle states" cannot be identified. where is "the west"? why, just now it is at the point of that long chain of islands that puts off from the alaska coast; and, if i am to credit what i read (for i have no sources of information now except the not absolutely reliable newspaper press), there are some who believe there are wicked men who want to hitch the end of that chain into an island farther out in the sea. [applause.] if that is to be done, the west would become the east, for i think the orient has generally been counted to be the east. i would not, however, suggest a division of the new england society. it is well enough to keep up an association that is one, not only of neighborhood and of historical association, but of sentiment. let the new england society live, and i fancy it will not be long until you enjoy the distinction of being the only great subdivision of the states; for, my fellow-citizens, whatever barriers prejudice may raise, whatever obstruction the interests of men may interpose, whatever may be the outrages of cruelty to stay the march of men, that which made the subdivision called "the southern states," and all that separated them from the states of the west and of the north, will be obliterated. [cheering.] i am not sure, though the story runs so, that i have a new england strain. the fact is that i have recently come to the conclusion that my family was a little overweighted with ancestry, and i have been looking after posterity. [merriment.] one serious word, gentlemen. the new england character and the influence of new england men and women have made their impress upon the whole country; for, even in the south, during the time of slavery, educated men and women from new england were the tutors and instructors of the youth of the south in the plantation home. the love of education, the resolve that it should be general, the love of home with all the pure and sacred influences that cluster about it, are elements in the new england character that have a saving force which is incalculable in this great nation in which we live. your civil institutions have been free, high and clean. from the old town-meeting days till now, new england has believed in and practised the free election and the fair count. but, gentlemen, i cannot enumerate all of your virtues--time is brief, the catalogue long. will you permit me to thank you and your honored president for your gracious reception of me to-night? [long-continued cheering.] joseph roswell hawley the press [speech of gen. joseph r. hawley at the seventieth annual dinner of the new england society in the city of new york, december , . the president, isaac h. bailey, said by way of introduction: "gentlemen, i will now give you the tenth regular toast: 'the press.' this toast, gentlemen, will be responded to by a member of the press who has always adorned his profession--general hawley, of connecticut."] gentlemen:--our distinguished president paid the very highest compliment to the press to-night; for, while he has given at least a fortnight's notice to every other gentleman, he only told me to-night that i had to respond to the toast of "the press." but as i have attended a good many dinners of the new england society, and never knew "the press" to be called upon before midnight, i felt entirely safe. [laughter.] now, sir, i have spent an evening--some six hours--here, enjoying all the festivities and hospitalities of this occasion to the utmost, and at last i am called upon, at an hour when we are all full of jollity and mirth, to respond to a toast that in reality calls upon me for my most serious effort. [applause.] i assure you that, had i known that i was to speak upon this subject to-night, i would, contrary to my usual custom, have been deliberately prepared [laughter]; for i, in reality, have a great deal to say upon that matter; and permit me to add that i have a somewhat peculiar qualification, for i have been a man within the press, "a chiel amang ye takin' notes, an' prentin' them;" and i have been again a man altogether outside of the press, not writing for months to his own people, and subject to receive all the gibes and criticisms and attacks of the press. [applause.] "i know how it is myself." [laughter.] "the press of the republic" is a text worthy of the noblest oration. it has a great, a high, and a holy duty. it is at once the leader and educator, and, on the other hand, the representative of the people. i can only touch on some points that i have in my mind, upon this occasion. it seems to me that we are passing through a period of peculiar importance regarding the value and influence of the press of the american republic. there are times when i join with them in the most indignant denunciation, in the warmest appeal. there are times when i feel the cutting, cruel, stinging injustice of the american press. [applause.] it is the duty of an editor, sitting, as he does, as a judge--and i mean all that the word implies--upon all that goes on about him in public life--it is his duty to hear both sides, and all sides, as deliberately and calmly as he may, and to pronounce a judgment that, so far as he knows, may be the judgment of posterity. [applause.] it is true that he has two duties. we know that it is his duty to condemn the bad. when it is made perfectly clear that the bad man is really a bad man, a corrupter of youth, make him drink the hemlock, expel him, punish him, crush him. [applause.] but there is another duty imposed upon the american press, quite as great. if there be a man who loves the republic, who would work for it, who would talk for it, who would fight for it, who would die for it--there are millions of them, thank god!--it is the duty of the american press to uphold him, and to praise him when the time comes, in the proper place, on the proper occasion. [applause.] the press is to deal not alone in censure of the bad, but in praise of the good. i like the phrase, "the independent press." [applause.] i am an editor myself. i love my calling. i think it is growing to be one of the great professions of the day. i claim, as an editor (and that is my chief pursuit in life), to be a gentleman also. [applause, and cries of "good! good!"] if i see or know anything to be wrong in the land, high or low, i will say so. if it be in my own party, i will take special pains to say so [applause]; for i suppose it to be true of both parties that we have a very high, a very glorious, a very beautiful, a very lovable idea of the future american republic. [applause.] so i will condemn, i say, whatever may be wrong. i hold myself to be an independent journalist. [cries of "good!"] but, my friends, i hope you will excuse the phrase--i am going to follow it by another--at the same time i do freely avow that i am a _partisan_; for i never knew anything good, from moses down to john brown, that was not carried through by partisanship. [applause.] if you believe in anything, say so; work for it, fight for it. there are always two sides in the world. the good fight is always going on. the bad men are always working; the devil is always busy. and again, on the other side you have your high idea of whatever is beautiful and good and true in the world; and god is always working also. the man who stands between them--who says: "this is somewhat good, and that is somewhat good; i stand between them"--permit me to say, is a man for whom i have very little respect. [applause.] some men say there is a god; some men say there is no god. some of the independents say that the truth lies between them. [laughter.] i cannot find it between them. every man has a god. if you believe in your god,--he may be another god from mine--if you are a man, i want you to fight for him, and i may have to fight against you, but do you fight for the god that you believe in. [applause.] i do sincerely think (and i wish that this was a congregation of my fellow-editors of the whole land, for my heart is in reality full of this thing)--i do sincerely think that there is something of a danger that our eloquent, ready, powerful, versatile, indefatigable, vigorous, omnipresent, omniscient men of the press may drive out of public life--and they will ridicule that phrase--may drive out of public life, not all, but a very considerable class of sensitive, high-minded, honorable, ambitious gentlemen. [applause.] now, i do not say anything about the future for myself. i have got a "free lance," i have got a newspaper, and i can fight with the rest of them; but i will give you a bit of my experience in public life. i tell you, my friends of the new england society, that one of the sorest things that a man in public life has to bear is the reckless, unreasonable censure of members of the press whom individually he respects. [applause.] that large-hearted man, whom personally i love, with whom i could shake hands, with whom i did shake hands, with whom i sat at the social board time and again, grossly misinterprets my public actions; intimates all manner of dishonorable things, which i would fight at two paces rather than be guilty of; and it would be useless for me to write a public letter to explain or contradict. [applause.] now, i am only one of hundreds. i can stand still and wait the result, in the confidence that, if not all, yet some, men believe me to be honorable and true; if they do not, god and i know it, and i would "fight it out on that line." [applause.] gentlemen, it is rather my habit to talk in earnest. next to the evil of having all public men in this land corrupt; next to the evil of having all our governmental affairs in the hands of men venal and weak and narrow, debauching public life and carrying it down to destruction, is the calamity of having all the young men believe it is so, whether it be so or not. [applause.] teach all the boys to believe that every man who goes into public life has his price; teach all the boys to believe that there is no man who enters public life anywhere that does not look out for his own, and is not always scheming to do something for himself or his friends, and seeking to prolong his power; teach every young man who has a desire to go into political life, to think--because you have told him so--that the way to succeed is to follow such arts, and by that kind of talk you may ruin your country. [applause.] now, gentlemen, as i have said, this is a matter for an evening oration. i have barely touched some of the points. i have said the press has a twofold duty and fortune: it is the leader, the educator, the director of the people. it is, at the same time, the reflector of the people. i could spend an hour upon the theme. i cannot cease, however, without thanking the president of the st. patrick's society [denis macmahon], the only gentleman who has mentioned the word "centennial." when i was leaving philadelphia, my wife warned me not to use that word, knowing to what it might lead me [laughter]; and so i shall simply ask you all to come to philadelphia next year, and join in the great national exhibition, where you will have an opportunity of seeing the progress which this nation has made under the ideas of liberty, government, industry, and thrift which were instilled by the pilgrim fathers. [applause.] john hay omar khayyam [speech of john hay, american ambassador to great britain, at a dinner of the omar khayyam club, london, december , . henry norman, president of the club, took the chair and in introducing colonel hay, as the guest of the evening, spoke of him as soldier, diplomatist, scholar, poet and omarian.] gentlemen:--i cannot sufficiently thank you for the high and unmerited honor you have done me to-night. i feel keenly that on such an occasion, with such company, my place is below the salt, but as you kindly invited me it was not in human nature for me to refuse. although in knowledge and comprehension of the two great poets whom you are met to commemorate i am the least among them, there is no one who regards them with greater admiration, or reads them with more enjoyment than myself. i can never forget my emotions when i first saw fitzgerald's translation of the quatrains. keats, in his sublime ode on chapman's homer, has described the sensation once for all:-- "then felt i like some watcher of the skies, when a new planet swims into his ken." the exquisite beauty, the faultless form, the singular grace of those amazing stanzas, were not more wonderful than the depth and breadth of their profound philosophy, their knowledge of life, their dauntless courage, their serene facing of the ultimate problems of life and of death. of course the doubt did not spare me, which has assailed many as ignorant as i was of the literature of the east, whether it was the poet or his translator to whom was due this splendid result. was it, in fact, a reproduction of a new song, or a mystification of a great modern, careless of fame and scornful of his time? could it be possible that in the eleventh century, so far away as khorassan, so accomplished a man of letters lived, with such distinction, such breadth, such insight, such calm disillusion, such cheerful and jocund despair? was this weltschmerz, which we thought a malady of our day, endemic in persia in ? my doubt lasted only till i came upon a literal translation of the rubaiyat, and i saw that not the least remarkable quality of fitzgerald's was its fidelity to the original. in short, omar was a fitzgerald before the latter, or fitzgerald was a reincarnation of omar. it is not to the disadvantage of the later poet that he followed so closely in the footsteps of the earlier. a man of extraordinary genius had appeared in the world; had sung a song of incomparable beauty and power in an environment no longer worthy of him, in a language of narrow range; for many generations the song was virtually lost; then by a miracle of creation, a poet, a twin-brother in the spirit to the first, was born, who took up the forgotten poem and sung it anew with all its original melody and force, and all the accumulated refinement of ages of art. [cheers.] it seems to me idle to ask which was the greater master; each seems greater than his work. the song is like an instrument of precious workmanship and marvellous tone, which is worthless in common hands, but when it falls, at long intervals, into the hands of the supreme master, it yields a melody of transcendent enchantment to all that have ears to hear. if we look at the sphere of influence of the two poets there is no longer any comparison. omar sang to a half barbarous province; fitzgerald to the world. wherever the english speech is spoken or read, the rubaiyat have taken their place as a classic. there is not a hill-post in india, nor a village in england, where there is not a coterie to whom omar khayyam is a familiar friend and a bond of union. in america he has an equal following, in many regions and conditions. in the eastern states his adepts form an esoteric sect; the beautiful volume of drawings by mr. vedder is a centre of delight and suggestion wherever it exists. in the cities of the west you will find the quatrains one of the most thoroughly read books in every club library. i heard omar quoted once in one of the most lovely and desolate spots of the high rockies. we had been camping on the great divide, our "roof of the world," where in the space of a few feet you may see two springs, one sending its water to the polar solitudes, the other to the eternal carib summer. one morning at sunrise as we were breaking camp, i was startled to hear one of our party, a frontiersman born, intoning these words of sombre majesty:-- "'tis but a tent where takes his one day's rest a sultan to the realm of death addressed. the sultan rises and the dark ferrash strikes, and prepares it for another guest." i thought that sublime setting of primeval forest and pouring cañon was worthy of the lines; i am sure the dewless, crystalline air never vibrated to strains of more solemn music. certainly our poet can never be numbered among the great popular writers of all times. he has told no story; he has never unpacked his heart in public; he has never thrown the reins on the neck of the winged horse, and let his imagination carry him where it listed. "ah! the crowd must have emphatic warrant." its suffrages are not for the cool, collected observer, whose eye no glitter can ever dazzle, no mist suffuse. the many cannot but resent that air of lofty intelligence, that pale and subtle smile. but he will hold a place forever among that limited number who, like lucretius and epicurus--without rage or defiance, even without unbecoming mirth--look deep into the tangled mysteries of things; refuse credence to the absurd, and allegiance to the arrogant authority, sufficiently conscious of fallibility to be tolerant of all opinions; with a faith too wide for doctrine and a benevolence untrammelled by creed, too wise to be wholly poets, and yet too surely poets to be implacably wise. [loud cheers.] rutherford b. hayes national sentiments [speech of rutherford b. hayes, president of the united states, at the first annual banquet of the new england society in the city of brooklyn, december , . the president of the society, benjamin d. silliman, in introducing him, said: "gentlemen, we are honored this evening by the presence of an illustrious descendant of new england, the chief magistrate of the nation. [cheers.] he is about retiring from his high position, with the respect, admiration and the gratitude of the people for the great wisdom, the pure purpose, the steady will and the unwavering firmness with which he has administered the government, preserved its honor and secured its property. [loud cheers.] i propose to you, as our first toast, 'the president of the united states.'"] mr. chairman and gentlemen:--we have often heard, we often hear, the phrase "new england ideas." it is said, and i think said truly, that these ideas have a large and growing influence in shaping the affairs of the people of the united states. it is not meant, i suppose, that the principles referred to in this phrase, are peculiar to new england, but merely that in new england they are generally accepted, and that perhaps there they had their first practical illustration. these ideas, these principles generally termed new england ideas, and new england principles, it seems to me, have had much to do with that prosperity which we are now enjoying, and about which we are perhaps apt to be too boastful, but for which it is certain we cannot be too grateful. [applause.] the subject, new england ideas, is altogether too large a one for me, or anybody, to discuss this evening. if it were to be done at length, in protracted speaking, we have our friends here, able and with a reputation for capacity in that way. our friend, mr. evarts, for example [applause], mr. beecher [applause], and i am confident that i shall be excused for naming in this connection, above all, our friend general grant. [loud applause.] leaving then to them the discussion of the larger topic, i must content myself with the humbler duty of merely naming the new england ideas to which i refer. new england believes that every man and woman, under the law ought to have an equal chance and an equal hope with every other man and woman [applause], and believes that in a country where that is secured individuals and society will have their highest development and the largest allotment of human happiness. [applause.] new england believes that equal rights can be best secured in a country where every child is provided freely with the means of education. [applause.] new england believes that the road--the only road, the sure road--to unquestioned credit and a sound financial condition is the exact and punctual fulfilment of every pecuniary obligation, public and private [applause], according to its letter and spirit. [applause.] new england believes in the home, and in the virtues that make home happy [cries of "good!"], and new england will tolerate, so far as depends on her, no institutions and no practices in any state or territory which are inconsistent with the sacredness of the family relation. [cries of "good!"] new england cherishes the sentiment of nationality and believes in a general government strong enough to maintain its authority, to enforce the laws and to preserve and to perpetuate the union. [applause.] now, with these new england ideas everywhere accepted and prevailing--to repeat, with just and equal laws, administered under the watchful eyes of educated voters; with honesty in all moneyed transactions; with the new england home and the new england family as the foundation of society; with national sentiments prevailing everywhere in the country; we shall not lack that remaining crowning merit of new england life which lends to every peopled landscape its chief interest and glory, the spires pointing heavenward that tell to every man who sees them that the descendants of the pilgrims still hold to and cherish, and love that which brought their fathers to this continent, which they here sought and here found--freedom to worship god. [long-continued applause.] joseph c. hendrix the wampum of the indians [speech of joseph c. hendrix at the fifteenth annual dinner of the new england society in the city of brooklyn, december , . the president, robert d. benedict, introducing the speaker, said: "i do not remember ever to have heard at any of the new england festivals which i have attended any discussion of the currency questions which plagued the pilgrims. we cannot doubt that they had such questions for such questions must arise where there are different currencies. but the attention of our committee this year has naturally been drawn in that direction, and they have selected as the next subject one of the currencies with which the pilgrims had to deal: 'the wampum of the indians.' upon this subject they have invited the hon. joseph c. hendrix to speak. doubtless he may draw from that subject lessons that will be of interest and of use for the present day."] mr. president and gentlemen of the new england society:--while your poetic souls are attuned to the sweet music of the last speech, i must chide the fates which compel me to so suddenly precipitate upon you a discussion of a practical nature, especially when at the very outset i must begin to talk about clams. [laughter.] for when we begin to consider wampum we have to begin to consider the familiar hard-shell clam of daily use, which was the basis of wampum. at this stage of the feast, after the confections contained in that eulogium passed upon you by the governor of massachusetts [frederick t. greenhalge], and after that private parlor-car, canvas-back-duck, cold-champagne view of consolidation taken by the great trunk-line president [chauncey m. depew] [laughter], can you endure anything savoring of the clam? would you not prefer to go home and sleep upon what you already have? yet every loyal son of long island ought to be partial to clams. the mayor [charles a. schieren], who typifies what a german head can do in a contest with an irish appetite, should love them because they reside within the city limits, and have ceased to vote in gravesend. you, mr. chairman, as a lawyer, ought to tolerate the clam, for there are two sides to the case, and there's meat inside. our friend the preacher [rev. samuel a. eliot] knows that they are as good every day in the week as they are on sunday. dr. johnson [dr. j. g. johnson] there favors them as part of his internal revenue system. the mugwumps cannot object to them, because they change from side to side so easily. the democrats ought to like anything that is always digging a hole for itself, and the republicans cannot but be patient with what comes on top at the change of the tide. [laughter.] so, gentlemen, i present to you the clam. professor hooper [franklin w. hooper] tells me to call it the _venus mercenaria_, but we shall have to wait for our free public library before venturing so far. you remember, when you were children, looking over the old story-book handed down to you by the puritan fathers, that one of the conundrums with which the gayety of their times was illustrated was, "who was the shortest man in the bible?" the answer was, "bildad, the shuhite;" but now, in the revised text it is peter, because peter said: "silver and gold have i none," and no one could be shorter than that. the north american indian was no better off than peter in his gold reserve or silver supply; but he managed to get along with the quahog clam. that was the money substance out of which he made the wampum, and the shell-heaps scattered over the island are mute monuments to an industry which was blasted by the demonetization of the hard-shell clam. wampum was a good money in the indian civilization. it was the product of human labor as difficult and tedious as the labor of the gold-miner of to-day. it had intrinsic value, for it was redeemable in anything the indian had to give, from his skill in the chase to his squaw. it took time, patience, endurance and skill to make a thing of beauty out of a clam, even in the eyes of an indian, but when the squaws and the old men had ground down the tough end of the shell to the size of a wheat straw, and had bored it with a sliver of flint, and strung it upon a thew of deerskin, and tested its smoothness on the noses, they had an article which had as much power over an indian mind as a grain of gold to-day has over us. there were two kinds of wampum, the blue and the white. the montauks to this day know that there is a difference between the two. the blue came from our clam. the white, which was the product of the periwinkle, did not need so much labor to fit it for use as wampum, and it was cheaper. the blue was the gold; the white was the silver. one blue bead was worth two white ones. the indians did not try to keep up any parity of the beads. they let each kind go for just what it was worth. the puritans used to restring the beads and keep the blue ones. then the indians strung their scalps. why was wampum good money in its time? the supply was limited. it took a day to make four or five beads. it was in itself a thing of value to the indian for ornament. it was easily carried about from place to place. it was practically indestructible. it was always alike. it was divisible. the value attached to it did not vary. it was not easily counterfeited. so it was that it became the money of the colonists; a legal tender in massachusetts and the tool of the primitive commerce of this continent. the puritan took it for firewater and gave it back for furs. long island was the great mint for this pastoral coinage. it was called the "mine of the new netherlands." the indian walked the beach at rockaway, dug his toes in the sand, turned up a clam, and after swallowing the contents carried the shells to the mint. gold and silver at the mouth of a mine obtain their chief value from the labor it takes to get the metals; wampum was the refinement by labor of a money substance free to all. the redemption of wampum was perfect. to the indians it was a seal to treaties, an amulet in danger, an affidavit, small change, a savings' bank, a wedding ring and a dress suit. to this day the belt of wampum is the storehouse of indian treasure. in the six nations, when a big chief made an assertion in council, he laid down a belt of wampum, as though to say, "money talks." the iroquois sent a belt of it to the king of england when they asked his protection. william penn got a strip when he made his treaty. the indians braided rude pictures into it, which recorded great events. they talked their ideas into it, as we do into a phonograph. they sent messages in it. white beads between a row of dark ones represented a path of peace, as though to say: "big chief no longer got congress on his hands." a string of dark beads was a message of war or of the death of a chief, and a string of white beads rolled in mud was equivalent to saying that there was crape on the door of tammany hall. so you see that it was a combined post-office, telegraph, telephone, phonograph and newspaper. the iroquois had a keeper of wampum--a sort of secretary of the treasury without the task of keeping nine different kinds of money on a parity. this old indian financier had simple and correct principles. no one could persuade him to issue birch-bark promises to pay and delude himself with the belief that he could thus create money. he certainly would have called them a debt, and would have paid them off as fast as he could. nor can we imagine him trying to sustain the value of the white wampum after the puritans started in to make it out of oyster shells by machinery. nor would he have bought it, not needing it, and have issued against it his promises to pay in good wampum as fast and as often as they were presented. it was said that wampum was so cunningly made that neither jew nor devil could counterfeit it. nevertheless a connecticut yankee rigged up a machine that so disturbed the market value of the beads that in a short time the long island mints were closed to the free coinage of clams. wampum was demonetized through counterfeit, overproduction and imitation; but when this occurred the gentle puritan didn't have enough of it left to supply the museums. the indian had parted with his lands and his furs, had redeemed all the outstanding wampum with his labor, and when he went to market to get firewater, he was taught that he must have gold and silver to get it. then he wanted to ride in blood up to his horse's bridles. commerce had found a better tool than wampum had become. the buccaneers and the pirates had brought in silver and that defied the connecticut man's machinery or the dutchman's imitations. the years pass by and commerce finds that silver, because of overproduction, becomes uncertain and erratic in value, and with the same instinct it chooses gold as a standard of value. a coin of unsteady value is like a knife of uncertain sharpness. it is thrown aside for one that can do all that is expected of it. gold is such a tool. it is the standard of all first-class nations. it is to-day, and it will remain, the standard of this republic. the value of the gold dollar is not in the pictures on it. it is in the grains of gold in it. smash it and melt it, and it buys one hundred cents' worth the world over. deface a silver dollar and fifty cents of its value goes off yonder among the silent stars. free coinage means that the silver miner may make fifty cents' worth of silver cancel a dollar's worth of debts. this is a greenback doctrine in a silver capsule. bimetallism is a diplomatic term for international use. monometallism with silver as the metal is the dream of the populist and of the poor deluded democratic grasshoppers who dance by the moonshine until they get frost-bitten. the free-silver heresy is about dead. it has cost this country, at to-day's price for silver, $ , , . the few saddened priests of this unhappy fetich who remain active find their disciples all rallying round the standard of currency reform. the report of the secretary of the treasury is a confession of national financial sins, and a profession of faith in sound money doctrines. every business man will watch with keen interest the progress of a plan for the reform in our currency. you all know that the straight road is the retirement of the greenback and the treasury note, and the withdrawal of the government from the banking business, and you will naturally distrust any makeshift measures. the greenback is a war debt, and a debt that is now troublesome. we are funding and refunding it in gold daily, and are still paying it out as currency to come back after gold. any scheme to sequestrate, to hide it under a bushel, or to put it under lock and key, is a shallow device. the way to retire it is to retire it. it has served its full purpose, and there never was a better time than now to call it in. in twelve years all our government debt matures. the national banking system based upon it must expire with it, unless existing laws are changed. this system has served the nation well. no one has ever lost a dollar by a national bank note. the system is worth preserving, and with a little more liberal treatment it can be made to serve until a currency based upon commercial credits and linked to a safety fund, a system which works so admirably in canada, can be engrafted upon it. there is a great hurry to create such a system now on a basis of the partial sequestration of the greenback and the treasury note, but the bottom principle is wrong. the government should discourage a commercial credit currency based upon a public credit currency, which, in turn, rests upon a slender gold deposit, exposed to every holder of a government demand note. a credit currency is a double-edged tool, and needs to be handled with great care. we have had so much crazy-quilt finance that i am sure that we want no more of it. we have been sorely punished for our financial sins in the past, and now that we are repentant, we want to get everything right before we go ahead with our full native energy. we have suffered from the distrust of the world, and then from our own distrust. in retracing our steps let us be sure that we are on solid ground, and make our "wampum" as good as the best there is in the world. [applause.] lord herschell great britain and the united states [speech of lord farrer herschell at the th annual banquet of the chamber of commerce of the state of new york, november , . lord herschell was present in this country as president of the joint high commission appointed to arbitrate the dispute between canada and the united states relative to the bering sea seal fisheries. alexander e. orr, president of the chamber, proposed the toast to which lord herschell spoke: "the future relations between great britain and the united states--a determined union of heart and purpose will carry the forces of justice and humanity the world over."] mr. president and gentlemen of the chamber of commerce:--i assure you that i am most deeply sensible of the warm welcome that you have extended to me, and grateful for the manner in which you have received the words which were uttered introducing me to you. but i can assure you that i rejoiced to hear the cheers with which this toast was greeted, not merely because they were a compliment to myself, but because i was satisfied that you were regarding me rather in the character of a representative of my country, and that there rang in those cheers sentiments of good will to the country that i have the honor to represent to-night. [applause.] and i heard in them something more than that--they indicated to me a conviction that in the continuance of good relations between your country and mine, there were involved blessings, priceless blessings, to the countries we love so well. [applause.] i can assure you that all my countrymen reciprocate the feeling which has been expressed; that they desire, as you do, that the cordial relationship should continue, and that they have toward the united states of america nothing but feelings of good will and a desire for its welfare and progress. [applause.] i have said--all my countrymen. i ought, perhaps, not to have been so bold. there are some fools in all lands. [laughter.] they are the product of every soil. no nation has a monopoly of them. [laughter.] but with these exceptions, i can speak, i think, for all my countrymen. the echoes of those now distant events of a century and a quarter ago, which left much soreness behind them, have died away in england. [applause.] we can rejoice as much as you rejoice to-day, in the fact that you are one of the leading nations of the world. [applause.] and there is to me a peculiar interest in the fact that i, who have had the honor to fill the office of lord chancellor, should be here as the representative of my country engaged in negotiations between great britain and the united states. a century and a quarter ago or more, a predecessor of mine in that high office made a most unfortunately foolish prediction. he said, with reference to these (at that time) colonies: "if they withdraw their allegiance, we shall withdraw our protection; and then they will soon be overrun by the little states of genoa and san marino." [laughter.] i am happy to say--i must say it for the credit of the office--that there was even then a distinguished lawyer who was to succeed the lord chancellor to whom i have referred, who made a speech at which to-day neither i nor any one else need blush. but i could not help thinking of those words when i reflected that i was here negotiating with the representatives of a mighty nation of seventy millions of people, who have not been overrun by the little republics of genoa and san marino [laughter], although undoubtedly, in a sense very different from that which the speaker intended, you may have been overrun by the natives of some of the italian towns. [laughter.] gentlemen, there is to-day in my country, as in yours, a pride in the united states. we cannot forget that if you won your independence, if you achieved your liberties, if you laid the foundations of your constitution, if you prepared for such a nation as exists here to-day, you were at that time colonists of great britain. the men who laid the foundation stones of the united states, in which you to-day glory, were those who had gone out from amongst us, who had in the country of my birth imbibed for the most part their traditions of liberty, and their desire and determination to achieve it; and, therefore, with no misgiving, with nothing but a feeling of pride, we may rejoice in your success and in your progress. we long ago admitted the follies and the wrong-doings of those times, as freely as you could insist upon them yourselves. [applause.] i am not going to dwell upon that aspect of the case to-night, because i am quite aware that sometimes the ready admission of wrong-doing is rather irritating than soothing. [laughter.] i remember once hearing a learned counsel, who was conducting the trial of a case before a judge of great ability but not of the best of tempers, put a question of a character such as to shock any one accustomed to be guided by the rigid rules of evidence. strictly in confidence, i don't think he had the least idea that it was a wrong question, but the learned judge interposed and said: "that was an improper question, mr. so and so." "yes, my lord, it was very improper." "yes," said the judge, "you ought not to have put the question,--a most improper question." "yes, sir; i ought not to have put it, a more improper question never was." and the more the judge reproached him the more submissive he became, until he drove the judge nearly mad. [laughter.] gentlemen, there has been a great deal of discussion lately as to the exact nature of the bond which united great britain and the united states. some one says blood is thicker than water, whereupon another with perverse ingenuity begins at once to analyze the blood and discovers that the elements are not, when resolved, precisely the same. that, it is said, is the bond of the anglo-saxon race; whereupon a scotchman insists, or a welshman insists, that it is not all anglo-saxon, that there is something celtic in its constitution, and that to speak of it as the anglo-saxon race, either in my country or in yours, is not in strictness historically accurate. another finds that they are the great english-speaking peoples, whereupon an ingenious man points out that there are people in great britain and its dependencies to whom the english language is not the most natural means of communication, and that not every inhabitant of the united states is a perfect master of the english tongue. [laughter.] well, then, i saw an ingenious argument the other day to prove that it is a gross impropriety to speak of england as the mother country; that the two countries were really in the relation of sisters, and that we ought to call them sister countries, and not speak of them as mother and daughter. i am not going to enter into any of this controversy to-night. the probability is that none of these suggested explanations is a completely adequate explanation of the bond that binds the two nations together, but that in each of them is to be found some element of truth. i am not going to dwell on them to-night; i prefer a practical rather than a theoretical view of any subject, and they all agree in this: a tacit assertion of the fact that there is a bond which unites great britain and the united states such as unites no two other nations [applause and cheers]; and they express a realization of the fact that there is a very close relationship between the two countries. now, undoubtedly we have at times said nasty things of one another [laughter]; but then that is not proof that we are not near relations. [laughter.] indeed, it might, perhaps, be cited by some as evidence the other way. we have sometimes seemed to be very near serious--what shall i say?--attacks upon one another. but, again, that is no proof that a close relationship does not exist between us. it is not impossible that at some future time, when we are either of us menaced by the intervention of some third party which seriously threatens our existence or our prosperity, we may find that, whatever differences arise amongst ourselves from time to time, we shall be ready to unite in defence of each other against a stranger. [applause and cheers.] a friend of mine who is a great champion of woman's rights, and a man of the most chivalrous disposition, when walking home one night, found a man and a woman, husband and wife, in serious controversy, and the man was just about to strike his wife. with his usual chivalry he intervened between them. in a moment they were both upon him [laughter], and he had much ado to withdraw himself from their clutches. may not that, perhaps, be an indication of the kind of action which relations may show who are not always perfectly peaceably disposed toward one another? gentlemen, i rejoice to think that i am here to take part in an endeavor to compose such differences as exist at present between the two nations. there is another bond of union beyond the natural one to which i have alluded, and that is the commercial interests of the two countries. i know there are some who think that no country can gain in commercial prosperity or make real progress in commerce except at the expense of some other. i believe that to be a profound mistake. i do not, of course, deny that a particular interest here or there--perhaps many interests--may suffer from the stress of international competition, but i think we take too narrow a view when in gazing on the industrial world we fix our eyes upon this local spot or that, and consider how this or that particular place may be affected. our interests are more widespread, strike deeper roots, roots in more different directions than we are at all times ready to admit or to conceive. and of this i am perfectly certain, that where two nations are so closely bound up in commercial intercourse as we are, neither of those nations can possibly progress in commercial prosperity, without a reflection of that commercial prosperity upon the other nation with which it deals. [applause.] gentlemen, many of the events which to-day bulk largely in our eyes will look strangely insignificant when seen through the vista of time; but of this i feel satisfied, that if the men of to-day by their actions can do anything to put upon a permanent basis cordial, friendly relations and co-operation between your republic and the british empire, these actions will grow in men's estimation larger rather than smaller, and generations to come will rise to call those blessed who put the relations of the two countries upon a sound and satisfactory footing. [applause.] gentlemen, however successful we may be, as i trust we shall be successful, in composing such differences as now exist--in the nature of things it is impossible but that difficulties from time to time will arise--in the future, how are we going to treat them? in what spirit shall we meet them as they arise? it sometimes seems to me strange that nations which, after all, are but collections of individuals should deal with their differences in a manner in which sensible men as individuals never would dream of treating them. [applause.] we seem, somehow, when once we have taken up a position, to feel as if it were impossible to withdraw from it. we must adhere to it, whether originally we took it up wisely or unwisely, whether it was sound or unsound. we lash ourselves into a white heat over the differences that arise, although the relations that they bear to our national life and our national interests may be of comparative insignificance. if an individual were to deal in that way, always to stand out in every case for his strict rights, always to be prepared to contest everything, to adhere always to what he claims as his right, to get into a rage with his neighbor because he would not see as he saw himself--well, we should call that man an intolerably quarrelsome fellow who was not fit for civilized human society [cheers]; and yet, as nations, apparently there seems nothing strange in our doing that which, as individuals, we should be the last to dream of doing. a friend, a former colleague of mine--now, alas! no more,--told me that he was, many years ago, travelling up to london with an owner of race horses who was accompanied by his trainer. when they arrived at the station near the metropolis where the tickets are collected, the ticket-collector came, and my friend said, "my servant has my ticket in the next carriage." the ticket-collector retired and presently came back rather angry and said, "i cannot find him." my friend said, "he is in the next carriage--or the next carriage but one; he is there." as soon as the ticket-collector retired for the second time the trainer leaned forward and said, "stick to it, my lord, you will tire him out." [laughter and cheers.] is not that sometimes a little indicative of the spirit in which we are inclined to act nationally when we have taken up any position, even though it be a false one? gentlemen, it seems to me that these questions of our future relations with one another are questions of special moment just now. you are at a parting of the ways. it would be presumptuous, as it would be unwise, in me to forecast or to attempt to forecast the decision at which you will arrive on questions that have yet to be solved. but, putting these questions that remain for solution aside, and dealing only with the events as they are now known and fixed, it is impossible not to feel that this year marks an epoch in the history of the united states, and the relation which the united states is to bear to great britain, and the relation which great britain is to bear to the united states; and the spirit which is to animate those two peoples becomes of more importance than it ever has been before. i rejoice to see those flags joined as they are around this room to-night. [applause.] god grant that they may never be flaunted in defiance of one another. [applause.] i rejoice to see them united in concord, not in any spirit of arrogance toward other peoples, not as desiring to infringe the rights of any other power, but because i see in that union a real safeguard for the maintenance of peace in the world [applause], and because i see more than that--i see the surest guaranty of an extended reign of liberty and justice. [prolonged applause.] george stillman hillard the influence of men of genius [speech of george s. hillard at the banquet given to charles dickens by the "young men of boston," february , . the company consisted of about two hundred, among whom were george bancroft, washington allston and oliver wendell holmes.] mr. president:--our meeting together this evening is one of the agreeable results of the sympathy established between two great and distant nations by a common language and a common literature. we are paying our cheerful tribute of gratitude and admiration to one who, though heretofore a stranger to us in person, has made his image a familiar presence in innumerable hearts, who has brightened the sunshine of many a happy, and cheered the gloom of many a desponding breast, whose works have been companions to the solitary and a cordial in the sick man's chamber, and whose natural pathos and thoughtful humor, flowing from a genius as healthy as it is inventive, have drawn more closely the ties which bind man to his brother man, and have given us a new sense of the wickedness of injustice, the deformity of selfishness, the beauty of self-sacrifice, the dignity of humble virtue, and the strength of that love which is found in "huts where poor men lie." the new harvest of applause which is gathered by the gifted minds of england, in a country separated from their own by three thousand miles of ocean, is a privilege peculiar to them, and one to which no author, however rich in golden opinion won at home, can feel himself indifferent. no brow can be so thickly shaded with indigenous laurels, as not to wear, with emotion, those which are the growth of a foreign soil. there is no homage so true and unquestionable as that which the stranger offers. at home the popularity of an author may, during his own life at least, be greatly increased by circumstances not at all affecting the intrinsic value of his writings. the caprice of fashion, the accident of high rank or distinguished social position, the zeal of a literary faction or a political party, may invest some "cynthia of the minute" with a brief notoriety, which resembles true fame only as the meteor resembles the star. but popularity of this kind is of too flimsy and delicate a texture to bear transportation. it is only merit of a solid and durable fabric which can survive a voyage across the atlantic. it has been said, with as much truth as point, that a foreign nation is a sort of contemporaneous posterity. its judgment resembles the calm, unbiased voice of future ages. it has no infusion of personal feeling; it is a serene and unimpassioned verdict, neither won by favor, nor withheld from prejudice. the admiration which comes from afar off is valuable in the direct ratio of its distance, as there is the same degree of assurance that it springs from no secondary cause, but is a spontaneous and unbought tribute. an english author might see with comparative unconcern his book upon a drawing-room table in london, but should he chance to meet a well-thumbed copy of it in a log-house beyond our western mountains, would not his heart swell with just pride at the thought of the wide space through which his name was diffused and his influence felt, and would not his lips almost unconsciously utter the expression of the wandering trojan:-- "_quæ regio in terris nostri non plena laboris?_" it is also probably true that, in our country, english authors find their warmest and most impassioned admirers. it is as true of the mind as of the eye, that distance lends enchantment to the view. there are no hues so soft and delicate as those with which the imagination invests that which is unseen or faintly discerned. remoteness in space has the same idealizing effect as remoteness of time. the voice that comes to us from the dim distance is like that which comes to us from the dim past. we know, but we do not feel, the interval which separates shakespeare from scott, milton from wordsworth, hume from hallam. we know them only by those airy creations of the brain which speak to us through the printed page. solitude, and silence too, are the nurses of deep and strong feeling. that imaginative element which exalts the love of dante for beatrice, and of burns for his "mary in heaven," deepens the fervor of admiration with which the pale, enthusiastic scholar, in some lonely farmhouse in new england, hangs over a favorite author, who, though perhaps a living contemporary, is recognized only as an absolute essence of genius, wisdom or truth. the minds of men whom we see face to face appear to shine upon us darkly through the infirmities of a mortal frame. their faculties are touched by weariness or pain, or some humiliating weakness or unhandsome passion thrusts its eclipsing shadow between us and the light of their genius. not so with those to whom they speak only through the medium of books. in these we see the products of those golden hours, when all that was low is elevated, when all that was dark is illumined, and all that was earthly is transfigured. books have no touch of personal infirmity--theirs is undying bloom, immortal youth, perennial fragrance. age cannot wrinkle, disease cannot blight, death cannot pierce them. the personal image of the author is quite as likely to be a hindrance as a help to his book. the actor who played with shakespeare in his own "hamlet" probably did but imperfect justice to that wonderful play, and the next-door neighbor of a popular author will be very likely to read his books with a carping, censorious spirit, unknown to him who has seen his vision only in his mind. mr. president, i dwell with pleasure on the considerations to which an occasion like this gives birth. it is good for us to be here. whatever has a tendency to make two great nations forget those things in which they differ, and remember those only in which they have a common interest, is a benefit to them both. whatever makes the hearts of two countries beat in unison, makes them more enamored of harmony, more sensitive to discord. honor to the men of genius who made two hemispheres thrill to the same electric touch, who at the same time, and with the same potent spell, are ruling the hearts of men in the mountains of scotland, the forests of canada, the hillsides of new england, the prairies of illinois, and the burning plains of india. their influence, so far as it extends, is a peaceful and a humanizing one. when you have instructed two men with the same wisdom, and charmed them with the same wit, you have established between them a bond of sympathy, however slight, and made it so much the more difficult to set them at variance. when i remember the history of england, how much she has done for law, liberty, virtue and religion--for all that beautifies and dignifies life--when i realize how much that is most valuable and characteristic in our own institutions is borrowed from her--when i recall our obligations to her matchless literature, i feel a throb of gratitude that "chatham's language is my mother-tongue," and my heart warms to the land of my fathers. i embrace with peculiar satisfaction every consideration that tends to give us an unity of spirit in the bond of peace--to make us blind to each other's faults, and kind to each other's virtues. i feel all the force of the fine lines of one whom we have the honor to receive as a guest this evening:-- "though ages long have passed since our fathers left their home, their pilot in the blast, o'er untravelled seas to roam, yet lives the blood of england in our veins. and shall we not proclaim that blood of honest fame, which no tyranny can tame by its chains? "while the manners, while the arts that mould a nation's soul, still cling around our hearts,-- between, let ocean roll, our joint communion breaking with the sun. yet still from either beach the voice of blood shall reach, more audible than speech-- we are one." it is now more than sixty-seven years since the rapid growth of our country was sketched by mr. burke, in the course of his speech on conciliation with america, in a passage whose picturesque beauty has made it one of the commonplaces of literature, in which he represents the angel of lord bathurst drawing up the curtain of futurity, unfolding the rising glories of england, and pointing out to him america, a little speck scarce visible in the mass of the national interest, yet which was destined before he tasted of death to show itself equal to the whole of that commerce which then attracted the admiration of the world. there are many now living whose lives extend over the whole of this period--and during that space, what memorable changes have taken place in the relations of the two countries! let us imagine the angel of that illustrious author and statesman, when the last words of that profound and beautiful speech were dying upon the air, withdrawing him from the congratulations of his friends, and unfolding to him the future progress of that country, whose growth up to that period he had so felicitously sketched:--"there is that america, whose interests you have so well understood and so eloquently maintained, which, at this moment, is taking measures to withdraw from the protection and defy the power of the mother country. but mourn not that this bright jewel is destined to fall from your country's crown. it is an obedience to the same law of providence which sends the full-fledged bird from the nest, and the man from his father's house. man shall not be able to sever what the immutable laws of providence have joined together. the chafing chains of colonial dependence shall be exchanged for ties light as air, yet strong as steel. the peaceful and profitable interchange of commerce--the same language--a common literature--similar laws, and kindred institutions shall bind you together with cords which neither cold-blooded policy, nor grasping selfishness, nor fratricidal war, shall be able to snap. discoveries in science and improvements in art shall be constantly contracting the ocean which separates you, and the genius of steam shall link your shores together with a chain of iron and flame. a new heritage of glory shall await your men of genius in those now unpeopled solitudes. the grand and lovely creations of your myriad-minded shakespeare--the majestic line of milton--the stately energy of dryden, and the compact elegance of pope, shall form and train the minds of uncounted multitudes yet slumbering in the womb of the future. her gifted and educated sons shall come over to your shores with a feeling akin to that which sends the mussulman to mecca. your st. paul's shall kindle their devotion; your westminster abbey shall warm their patriotism; your stratford-on-avon and abbotsford shall awaken in their bosoms a depth of emotion in which your own countrymen shall hardly be able to sympathize. extraordinary physical advantages and the influence of genial institutions shall there give to the human race a rate of increase hitherto unparalleled; but the stream, however much it be widened and prolonged, shall retain the character of the fountain from which it first flowed. every wave of population that gains upon that vast green wilderness shall bear with it the blood, the speech, and the books of england, and aid in transmitting to the generations that come after it, her arts, her literature, and her laws." if this had been revealed to him, would it not have required all the glow of his imagination and all the strength of his judgment to believe it? let us who are seeing the fulfilment of this vision, utter the fervent prayer that no sullen clouds of coldness or estrangement may ever obscure these fair relations, and that the madness of man may never mar the benevolent purposes of god. samuel reynolds hole with brains, sir! [speech of samuel reynolds hole, dean of rochester cathedral, at a banquet given in his honor by the lotos club, new york city, october , . frank r. lawrence, the president of the club, in introducing dean hole recalled the fact that the club had had the honor of receiving dean stanley and charles kingsley.] gentlemen:--i can assure you that when i received your invitation, having heard so much of the literary, artistic and social amenities of your famous club, i resembled in feelings, not in feature, the beautiful bride of burleigh, when-- "a trouble weighed upon her, and perplexed her, night and morn, with the burthen of an honor unto which she was not born." i could have quoted the words of the mate in hood's "up the rhine," when during a storm at sea a titled lady sent for him, and asked him if he could swim. "yes, my lady," says he, "like a duck." "that being the case," says she, "i shall condescend to lay hold of your arm all night." "too great an honor for the likes of me," says the mate. [laughter.] even when i came into this building--though i am not a shy man, having been educated at brazenose college, and preposterously flattered throughout my life, most probably on account of my size,--i had not lost this sense of unworthiness; but your gracious reception has not only reassured me, but has induced the delicious hallucination that, at some period forgotten, in some unconscious condition, i have said something or done something, or written something, which really deserved your approbation. [applause.] to be serious, i am, of course, aware why this great privilege has been conferred upon me. it is because you have associated me with those great men with whom i was in happy intercourse, that you have made my heart glad to-night. it has ever been my ambition to blend my life, as the great painter does his colors, "with brains, sir;" and i venture to think that such a yearning is a magnificent proof that we are not wholly destitute of this article, as when the poor wounded soldier exclaimed, on hearing the doctor say that he could see his brains: "oh, please write home and tell father, for he has always said i never had any." [laughter.] be that as it may, my appreciation of my superiors has evoked from them a marvellous sympathy, has led to the formation of very precious friendships, and has been my elevator unto the higher abodes of brightness and freshness, as it is to-night. yes, my brothers, it is delightful to dwell "with brains, sir," condensed in books in that glorious world, a library--a world which we can traverse without being sick at sea or footsore on land; in which we can reach heights of science without leaving our easy-chair, hear the nightingales, the poets, with no risk of catarrh, survey the great battle-fields of the world unscathed; a world in which we are surrounded by those who, whatever their temporal rank may have been, are its true kings and real nobility, and which places within our reach a wealth more precious than rubies, "for all things thou canst desire are not to be compared with it." in this happy world i met washington irving, fenimore cooper, hawthorne, willis, longfellow, whittier and all your great american authors, historical, poetical, pathetic, humorous; and ever since i have rejoiced to hold converse with them. nevertheless, it is with our living companions, with our fellow-men who love books as we do, that this fruition is complete, and so it comes to pass in the words of one whose name i speak with a full heart, oliver wendell holmes, that "a dinner-table made up of such material as this is the last triumph of civilization over barbarism." [applause.] we feel as our witty bishop (afterward archbishop) magee described himself, when he said: "i am just now in such a sweet, genial disposition, that even a curate might play with me." [great laughter.] we are bold to state with artemus ward, of his regiment composed exclusively of major-generals, that "we will rest muskets with anybody." "linger, i cried, o radiant time, thy pow'r hath nothing else to give; life is complete, let but the happy present, hour by hour. itself remember and itself repeat." and yet one more quotation we are glad to make, wherewith to make some amends for the stupidity of him who quotes lines most appropriate, by tennyson, from the "lotos-eaters," and repeated by one who has just crossed the atlantic:-- "we have had enough of action, and of motion we, rolled to starboard, rolled to larboard, when the surge was seething free where the wallowing monster spouted his foam-fountains in the sea. let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind, in the hollow lotos-land to live and lie reclined on the hills, like gods together, careless of mankind." now, gentlemen, let me give, "evermore thanks, the exchequer of the poor." [long applause.] [illustration] _oliver wendell holmes photogravure after a photograph from life_ oliver wendell holmes welcome to the alumni [speech of oliver wendell holmes as president of the day, at the annual dinner of the harvard alumni association, in cambridge, july , , inaugurating the practice of public speaking at the "harvard dinners." that year also took place the inauguration of president c. felton, an event to which the speaker alludes in his graceful reference to the "goodly armful of scholarship, experience and fidelity" once more filling the "old chair of office."] brothers, by the side of her who is mother of us all, and friends, whom she welcomes as her own children:--the older sons of our common parent who should have greeted you from this chair of office, being for different reasons absent, it has become my duty to half fill the place of these honored, but truant, children to the best of my ability--a most grateful office, so far as the expression of kind feeling is concerned; an undesired duty, if i look to the comparisons you must draw between the government of the association existing _de jure_, and its government _de facto_. your president [robert c. winthrop] so graces every assembly which he visits, by his presence, his dignity, his suavity, his art of ruling, whether it be the council of a nation, the legislature of a state, or the lively democracy of a dinner-table, that when he enters a meeting like this, it seems as if the chairs stood back of their own will to let him pass to the head of the board, and the table itself, that most intelligent of quadrupeds, the half reasoning mahogany, tipped him a spontaneous welcome to its highest seat, and of itself rapped the assembly to order. [applause.] your first vice-president [charles francis adams], whose name and growing fame you know so much better than his bodily presentment, has not been able to gratify your eyes and ears by showing you the lineaments and stirring you with the tones inherited from men who made their country or shaped its destinies. [applause.] you and i have no choice therefore, and i must submit to stand in this place of eminence as a speaker, instead of sitting a happy listener with my friends and classmates on the broader platform beneath. through my lips must flow the gracious welcome of this auspicious day, which brings us all together in this family temple under the benignant smile of our household divinities, around the ancient altar fragrant with the incense of our grateful memories. this festival is always a joyous occasion. it resembles a scattered family without making any distinction except that which age establishes, an aristocracy of silver hairs which all inherit in their turn, and none is too eager to anticipate. in the great world outside there are and must be differences of lot and position; one has been fortunate, another, toiling as nobly perhaps, has fallen in with adverse currents; one has become famous, his name stares in great letters from the hand-bills of the drama of his generation; another lurks in small type among the supernumeraries. but here we stand in one unbroken row of brotherhood. no symbol establishes a hierarchy that divides one from another; every name which has passed into our golden book, the triennial catalogue, is illuminated and emblazoned in our remembrance and affection with the purple and sunshine of our common mother's hallowed past and hopeful future. we have at this time a twofold reason for welcoming the return of our day of festive meeting. the old chair of office, against whose uneasy knobs have rested so many well-compacted spines, whose uncushioned arms have embraced so many stately forms, over whose inheritance of cares and toils have ached so many ample brows, is filled once more with a goodly armful of scholarship, experience and fidelity. the president never dies. our precious mother must not be left too long a widow, for the most urgent of reasons. we talk so much about her maternity that we are apt to overlook the fact that a responsible _father_ is as necessary to the good name of a well-ordered college as to that of a well-regulated household. as children of the college, our thoughts naturally centre on the fact that she has this day put off the weeds of her nominal widowhood, and stands before us radiant in the adornment of her new espousals. you will not murmur, that, without debating questions of precedence, we turn our eyes upon the new head of the family, to whom our younger brothers are to look as their guide and counsellor as we hope and trust through many long and prosperous years. brothers of the association of the alumini! our own existence as a society is so bound up with that of the college whose seal is upon our foreheads, that every blessing we invoke on our parent's head returns like the dew from heaven upon our own. so closely is the welfare of our beloved mother knitted to that of her chief counsellor and official consort, that in honoring him we honor her under whose roof we are gathered, at whose breast we have been nurtured, whose fair fame is our glory, whose prosperity is our success, whose lease of long life is the charter of our own perpetuity. i propose the health of the president of harvard university: we greet our brother as the happy father of a long line of future alumni. * * * * * dorothy q. [speech of oliver wendell holmes at the banquet of the boston merchants' association at boston, mass., may , , in honor of the hon. john lowell.] mr. chairman and gentlemen:--it was my intention, when i accepted the public invitation to be with you this evening, to excuse myself from saying a word. i am a professor emeritus, which means pretty nearly the same thing as a tired-out or a worn-out instructor. and i do seriously desire that, having during the last fifty years done my share of work at public entertainments, i may hereafter be permitted, as a post-prandial emeritus, to look on and listen in silence at the festivals to which i may have the honor of being invited--unless, indeed, i may happen to wish to be heard. [applause.] in that case i trust i may be indulged, as an unspoken speech and an unread poem are apt to "strike in," as some complaints are said to, and cause inward commotions. [applause.] judge lowell's eulogy will be on every one's lips this evening. his soundness, his fairness, his learning, his devotion to duty, his urbanity,--these are the qualities which have commended him to universal esteem and honor. [applause.] i will not say more of the living; i wish to speak of the dead. in respectfully proposing the memory of his great-great-grandmother [laughter], i am speaking of one whom few if any of you can remember. [laughter.] yet her face is as familiar to me as that of any member of my household. she looks upon me as i sit at my writing-table; she does not smile, she does not speak; even the green parrot on her hand has never opened his beak; but there she is, calm, unchanging, in her immortal youth, as when the untutored artist fixed her features on the canvas. to think that one little word from the lips of dorothy quincy, your great-great-grandmother, my great-grandmother, decided the question whether you and i should be here to-night [laughter], in fact whether we should be anywhere [laughter] at all, or remain two bodiless dreams of nature! but it was dorothy quincy's "yes" or "no" to edward jackson which was to settle that important matter--important to both of us, certainly--yes, your honor; and i can say truly, as i look at you and remember your career, important to this and the whole american community. [applause.] the picture i referred to is but a rude one, and yet i was not ashamed of it when i wrote a copy of verses about it, three or four of which this audience will listen to for the sake of dorothy's great-grandson. i must alter the pronouns a little, for this occasion only:-- look not on her with eyes of scorn-- dorothy q. was a lady born; ay! since the galloping normans came england's annals have known her name; and still to the three-hilled rebel town dear is that ancient name's renown, for many a civic wreath they won, the youthful sire and the gray-haired son. o damsel dorothy! dorothy q.! strange is the gift (we) owe to you! such a gift as never a king save to daughter or son might bring-- all (our) tenure of heart and hand, all (our) title to house and land; mother and sister and child and wife and joy and sorrow and death and life! what if a hundred years ago those close-shut lips had answered "no!" when forth the tremulous question came that cost the maiden her norman name, and under the folds that look so still the bodice swelled with the bosom's thrill-- should (we) be (we), or could it be one-tenth (two others) and nine-tenths (we)? soft is the breath of a maiden's yes: not the light gossamer stirs with less; but never a cable that holds so fast through all the battles of wave and blast, and never an echo of speech or song that lives in the babbling air so long! there were tones in the voice that whispered then you may hear to-day in a hundred men. o lady and lover, now faint and far your images hover--and here we are, solid and stirring in flesh and bone-- edwards and dorothys--all their own-- a goodly record for time to show of a syllable whispered so long ago. [applause prolonged.] i give you: "the memory of dorothy jackson, born dorothy quincy, to whose choice of the right monosyllable we owe the presence of our honored guest and all that his life has achieved for the welfare of the community." [great applause and cheers.] oliver wendell holmes, jr. sons of harvard who fell in battle [speech of justice oliver wendell holmes, son of the "autocrat," at the harvard alumni dinner, at cambridge, june , .] mr. president and gentlemen of the alumni:--another day than this has been consecrated to the memories of the war. on that day we think not of the children of the university or the city, hardly, even, of the children whom the state has lost, but of a mighty brotherhood whose parent was our common country. to-day the college is the centre of all our feeling, and if we refer to the war it is in connection with the college, and not for its own sake that we do so. what then did the college do to justify our speaking of the war now? she sent a few gentlemen into the field, who died there becomingly. i know of nothing more. the great forces which ensured the north success would have been at work even if those men had been absent. our means of raising money and troops would not have been less, i dare say. the great qualities of the race, too, would still have been there. the greatest qualities, after all, are those of a man, not those of a gentleman, and neither north nor south needed colleges to learn them. and yet--and yet i think we all feel that, to us, at least, the war would seem less beautiful and inspiring, if those few gentlemen had not died as they did. look at yonder portrait[ ] and yonder bust[ ] and tell me if stories such as they commemorate do not add a glory to the bare fact that the strongest legions prevailed. so it has been since wars began. after history has done its best to fix men's thoughts upon strategy and finance, their eyes have turned and rested on some single romantic figure--some sidney, some falkland, some wolfe, some montcalm, some shaw. this is that little touch of the superfluous which is necessary. necessary as art is necessary, and knowledge which serves no mechanical end. superfluous only as glory is superfluous, or a bit of red ribbon that a man would die to win. it has been one merit of harvard college that it has never quite sunk to believing that its only function was to carry a body of specialists through the first stage of their preparation. about these halls there has always been an aroma of high feeling not to be found or lost in science or greek--not to be fixed, yet all-pervading. and the warrant of harvard college for writing the names of its dead graduates upon its tablets is not in the mathematics, the chemistry, the political economy which it taught them, but that, in ways not to be discovered, by traditions not to be written down, it helped men of lofty natures to make good their faculties. i hope and i believe that it will long give such help to its children. i hope and i believe that long after our tears for the dead have been forgotten, this monument to their memory will still give such help to generations to whom it is only a symbol--a symbol of man's destiny and power for duty, but a symbol also of that something more by which duty is swallowed up in generosity, that something more which led men like shaw to toss life and hope like a flower before the feet of their country and their cause. [cheers.] * * * * * the joy of life [speech of justice oliver wendell holmes, at a banquet in his honor given by the suffolk bar association, boston, march , , upon his elevation to the chief justiceship of the supreme judicial court of massachusetts. justice holmes, upon rising to the toast of the presiding officer, was received with cheers, the entire company rising.] gentlemen of the suffolk bar:--the kindness of this reception almost unmans me, and it shakes me the more when taken with a kind of seriousness which the moment has for me. as with a drowning man, the past is telescoped into a minute, and the stages are all here at once in my mind. the day before yesterday i was at the law school, fresh from the army, arguing cases in a little club with goulding and beaman and peter olney, and laying the dust of pleading by certain sprinklings which huntington jackson, another ex-soldier, and i managed to contrive together. a little later in the day, in bob morse's, i saw a real writ, acquired a practical conviction of the difference between assumpsit and trover, and marvelled open-mouthed at the swift certainty with which a master of his business turned it off. yesterday i was at the law school again, in the chair instead of on the benches, when my dear partner, shattuck, came out and told me that in one hour the governor would submit my name to the council for a judgeship, if notified of my assent. it was a stroke of lightning which changed the whole course of my life. and the day before yesterday, gentlemen, was thirty-five years, and yesterday was more than eighteen years, ago. i have gone on feeling young, but i have noticed that i have met fewer of the old to whom to show my deference, and recently i was startled by being told that ours is an old bench. well, i accept the fact, although i find it hard to realize, and i ask myself, what is there to show for this half lifetime that has passed? i look into my book in which i keep a docket of the decisions of the full court which fall to me to write, and find about a thousand cases. a thousand cases, many of them upon trifling or transitory matters, to represent nearly half a lifetime! a thousand cases, when one would have liked to study to the bottom and to say his say on every question which the law ever has presented, and then to go on and invent new problems which should be the test of doctrine, and then to generalize it all and write it in continuous, logical, philosophic exposition, setting forth the whole corpus with its roots in history and its justifications of expedience, real or supposed! alas, gentlemen, that is life. i often imagine shakespeare or napoleon summing himself up and thinking: "yes, i have written five thousand lines of solid gold, and a good deal of padding--i, who have covered the milky way with words which outshine the stars!" "yes, i beat the austrians in italy and elsewhere; i made a few brilliant campaigns, and i ended in middle life in a _cul-de-sac_--i who had dreamed of a world monarchy and of asiatic power!" we cannot live in our dreams. we are lucky enough if we can give a sample of our best, and if in our hearts we can feel that it has been nobly done. some changes come about in the process: changes not necessarily so much in the nature as in the emphasis of our interest. i do not mean in our wish to make a living and to succeed--of course, we all want those things--but i mean in our ulterior intellectual or spiritual interests, in the ideal part, without which we are but snails or tigers. one begins with a search for a general point of view. after a time he finds one, and then for a while he is absorbed in testing it, in trying to satisfy himself whether it is true. but after many experiments or investigations, all have come out one way, and his theory is confirmed and settled in his mind; he knows in advance that the next case will be but another verification, and the stimulus of anxious curiosity is gone. he realizes that his branch of knowledge only presents more illustrations of the universal principle; he sees it all as another case of the same old ennui, or the same sublime mystery--for it does not matter what epithets you apply to the whole of things, they are merely judgments of yourself. at this stage the pleasure is no less, perhaps, but it is the pure pleasure of doing the work, irrespective of further aims, and when you reach that stage you reach, as it seems to me, the triune formula of the joy, the duty and the end of life. it was of this that malebranche was thinking when he said that, if god held in one hand truth and in the other the pursuit of truth, he would say: "lord, the truth is for thee alone; give me the pursuit." the joy of life is to put out one's power in some natural and useful or harmless way. there is no other. and the real misery is not to do this. the hell of the old world's literature is to be taxed beyond one's powers. this country has expressed in story--i suppose because it has experienced it in life--a deeper abyss of intellectual asphyxia or vital ennui, when powers conscious of themselves are denied their chance. the rule of joy and the law of duty seem to me all one. i confess that altruistic and cynically selfish talk seem to me about equally unreal. with all humility, i think "whatever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might," infinitely more important than the vain attempt to love one's neighbor as one's self. if you want to hit a bird on the wing, you must have all your will in a focus, you must not be thinking about yourself, and, equally, you must not be thinking about your neighbor; you must be living in your eye on that bird. every achievement is a bird on the wing. the joy, the duty, and, i venture to add, the end of life. i speak only of this world, of course, and of the teachings of this world. i do not seek to trench upon the province of spiritual guides. but from the point of view of the world the end of life is life. life is action, the use of one's powers. as to use them to their height is our joy and duty, so it is the one end that justifies itself. until lately the best thing that i was able to think of in favor of civilization, apart from blind acceptance of the order of the universe, was that it made possible the artist, the poet, the philosopher, and the man of science. but i think that is not the greatest thing. now i believe that the greatest thing is a matter that comes directly home to us all. when it is said that we are too much occupied with the means of living to live, i answer that the chief work of civilization is just that it makes the means of living more complex; that it calls for great and combined intellectual efforts, instead of simple, uncoordinated ones, in order that the crowd may be fed and clothed and housed and moved from place to place. because more complex and intense intellectual efforts mean a fuller and richer life. they mean more life. life is an end in itself, and the only question as to whether it is worth living is whether you have enough of it. i will add but a word. we are all very near despair. the sheathing that floats us over its waves is compounded of hope, faith in the unexplainable worth and sure issue of effort, and the deep, sub-conscious content which comes from the exercise of our powers. in the words of a touching negro song: "sometimes i's up, sometimes i's down, sometimes i's almost to the groun'," but these thoughts have carried me, as i hope they will carry the young men who hear me, through long years of doubt, self-distrust and solitude. they do now, for, although it might seem that the day of trial was over, in fact it is renewed each day. the kindness which you have shown me makes me bold in happy moments to believe that the long and passionate struggle has not been quite in vain. [applause.] lord houghton (richard monckton milnes) your speech and ours [speech of lord houghton, in response to william cullen bryant, at a breakfast given in his honor at the century club, new york, october , . william cullen bryant, president of the club, presided, and said in part: "our guest, lord houghton, was not born a lord, but he was born a poet, which i take to be something better. some forty years ago, i think it was, he wandered in switzerland, italy and greece, and the impressions made upon his mind are woven into his beautiful series of poems published under the title of 'memorials of many scenes.' at a later period, perhaps ten years afterward, he traveled in egypt and the western coast of asia, and returned, bringing with him a sheaf of 'palm-leaves,' a series of charming poems, inspired by the remarkable places which he visited, and by the incidents of his journey. these 'palm-leaves,' let me say, have a perennial verdure, they are yet as green as when they were gathered and still breathe sabæan odors--the spicy perfume of the orient--what the old poet donne calls 'the almighty balm of the early east.' he is now a traveler in our territory, a region almost without antiquities, but of sufficient interest to attract his steps hither. he will doubtless see faults in our social and political condition--the eyes of a stranger are quicker to discern them than our own can be--but let us hope that he will carry back to his native land the recollections of a cordial reception among our people, such as i hope we are ever ready to accord to personal worth, to genius, and to services rendered to the human race. the only time i ever saw dr. bowring, which was some thirty years since, when he was a member of parliament, of the party called radical, is memorable with me on account of the eulogy of our guest, which he uttered with much warmth and enthusiasm. he praised the generosity of his sentiments and the largeness of his sympathies. 'at his table,' he added, 'you meet with men of various differing opinions; the only title to his hospitality and esteem is personal merit.' the same rule of preference which he applied to the individuals whom he admitted to his friendship, had governed him throughout a long public life in the measures which he had supported. his co-operation and efficient aid have been given to proceedings and measures which contemplate the well-being of the people--to useful and beneficial reforms. in their favor he steadily gave his vote and raised his voice. in honoring him we, therefore, honor not only the poet, but the philanthropist and the statesman. i propose, therefore, the health of lord houghton."] mr. bryant and gentlemen:--in finding myself here now for the first time, i am agitated by conflicting emotions, by my pleasure in being among you, and by my regret at not having been here before. in alluding to my poetic experience, mr. bryant mentioned that i had passed many years of my early life in italy, and while he was so doing there arose in my memory a little incident not inapplicable to my present position. i passed some time at venice; and one summer evening, on the piazza di san marco, my attention was attracted by an old man, who walked up and down with a mingled air of wonder and delight, and who, after i had observed him for some moments, came and asked me in the venetian dialect what streets he was to take toward a certain remote portion of the city. i said i was a foreigner, and that he, being a native of the place, must know its geography better than i could. he then told me that he was there for the first time. he had passed all his life in his own distinct world, there earning his daily bread, and occupied by its little local interests. at last a friend had told him that he must see the place and church of san marco before he died, and put him in a boat and landed him there, and now he wanted to find his way home, charmed and contented. gentlemen, i am in the position of that venetian veteran, and shall return to my country, happy that i have at last found my way to this great place and habitation--the civitas of english-speaking people. not that i have ever failed to regard this country in many senses as my own, from the time when i took moral comfort from the flight of mr. bryant's "wild fowl" across the ocean, and took the best lesson of life from the psalm of longfellow. since then i have ever been with you in all your intellectual progress, and in the necessarily checkered course of your constitutional history, and never more than in the late solemn years, in all the national difficulties which you have so energetically, so persistently, and so humanely surmounted. in looking back to my impressions of those times, i sometimes think that my sympathy with you was not wholly unselfish, but that i felt that, if i had ever written anything which has a chance of a prolonged existence, i should wish it to be read, not by any distracted and impotent communities of british race, but by america, one and indivisible. and, gentlemen, this is not unnatural, for amid all the divisions or distractions of your history, your literature has ever been patriotic and national. literature, in truth, has been to you a good and faithful emigrant, reproductive not only of all intellectual growth, but of the sympathies--the largest sympathies--which bind together man to man. it has settled among you every classic writer of british origin, and from the continent it has brought to you goethe, schiller, and heinrich heine. it is also noticeable that by the side of these great colonizations of thought you have not refused to receive and to pass to your furthest territories the humblest addition, the single volume of verse, the chance felicitous expression of combined thought and feeling, even some accidental refrain of song that had pleasantly caught the ear and gone to the heart of man. and this brings me to say to you one professional word respecting that art and the nature of poetry that you have been kind enough to connect with my name. the greater part of the verses i have written were that product of the lyrical period of youth which is by no means uncommon in modern civilization. it exhibits itself sometimes in the strangest manner, without connection with other culture, or even the most common intellectual opportunities. of this i happen to have given to the world a signal instance in the volume i published of the poems of david gray, a scotch weaver-boy, who, without one advantage beyond the common education of his class, described all the nature within his ken in the highest poetic perfection, and passed away, leaving a most pathetic record of a short life of imaginative sensibility. you can contrast this simple and wayside flower of a faculty with such rich and complete cultivation as it can assume in the efflorescence of tennyson or swinburne; but in whatever form you find it, do not the less value the faculty itself. permit me to say that in no condition of society can it be encouraged and fertilized more usefully than among yourselves. for not only will it bring with it calm and comfort amid all the superabundant activities, ambitions, and confusions of daily life, but it has also the regulative powers teaching men to divide the sphere of the imagination from that of practical life, and thus obviating the dangers that so often arise from the want of this distinction. there is no better preservative than the exercise of the poetic faculty from religious hallucinations, from political delusions, and i would say even from financial extravagances. therefore, through the whole vast range of this new world, be on the watch to look out for and to encourage this great gift to man. do not be too hard with any imperfections or absence of refinement which may accompany its exhibition. do not treat it too critically or with too much scholastic censure. recognize also its value on another ground--the extension and the perpetuation of our great common language--an interest not less dear to every one of us here present than to the future welfare of mankind:-- "beyond the vague atlantic deep, far as the farthest prairies sweep, where mountain wastes the sense appall where burns the radiant western fall, one duty lies on old and young-- with filial piety to guard, as on its greenest native sward, the glory of the english tongue! "that ample speech, that subtle speech, apt for the needs of all in each, strong to endure, yet prompt to bend wherever human feelings tend, preserve its force, expand its powers, and through the maze of civil life, in letters, commerce, e'en in strife, remember, it is yours and ours!" * * * * * bonds of national sympathy [response of lord houghton to the address of joseph h. choate at the farewell reception given in honor of lord houghton by the union league club, new york city, november , .] mr. choate and gentlemen:--before you spoke i had much difficulty to interpret to myself the meaning of my reception here. so unimportant as i know myself to have been before, in political and social life, i have been surprised at the manner in which i have been received in the united states of america. you, sir, have given an explanation of that problem which i am very thankful to receive. the habit of americans to welcome englishmen, whatever may be their position, in itself proves to me that you regard us as something above individuals, and that, somehow or other, you connect us in every way by imagination, if no other, as present with that great country over the atlantic which was your mother, and which it has been the habit of many of your ancestors to call their home. [applause.] mr. choate has alluded to certain events in my political life, which he says fully justify your kindness and remarkable sympathy of to-day, and on that matter, if there are to be any relations between myself and the americans, upon that point i can say that i deserve credit. i do not say this with any affectation, because i understand fully your feelings upon that matter. i fully recognize, i completely comprehend, as man to man, that in that day of your greatest trouble, even the small voice that came over the great atlantic was listened to with extreme pleasure and unexaggerated sympathy. but when i look to myself, i am bound to say i find extremely little merit in the matter. there was one ground of sympathy between you and the english people, which you had the holiest right to believe would have been absolute and overpowering. the english nation had put itself forward as the great opponent of slavery in the world. [applause.] it had stated at the congress of vienna that the one point which england required as the _sine qua non_ was the abolition of the slave trade. for that purpose england not only asserted itself, but interfered up to the utmost limit, perhaps beyond the limits of the law of nations, with all the powers of the world. therefore, you had a perfect right to believe, to suppose, that in a question, in a matter in which we were not only internationally but morally interested, the questions would be fully considered. well, gentlemen, i cannot say that it was so. as an individual i have not the right to reproach my country upon that point. that was not my first feeling in the matter. i felt, i knew, slavery was doomed from the civilized world. my heart, my instincts, my sense of the well-being of every civilized state was against the continuance of that institution. [applause.] i knew, though it was possible--aye, i would fain say probable--that the condition of the slave, under many conditions, under many circumstances, might be better than that of the free laborer of the world, that the condition of the slave owner was incompatible with the highest form of moral culture and highest ambition. i always think that question had political as well as moral and religious considerations, and that, through the unhappy condition of this continent, the question of slavery got so intermixed with the question of property that, however humane, however wise men were, yet nevertheless it would bring with it an incidental condition of cruelty abhorrent to mankind, and that, therefore, that institution could not continue to the end. [applause.] but, making a clean breast of it, that was not the bottom of my sympathy. my sympathy with you comes, as mr. choate has said, by "an instinct unawares," and this was confirmed by any reasoning and any deductions i might have had. from the imagination of my earliest youth, from the sympathy of the most vivid time, and from the most logical look at the situation in my mature life, i came to the conclusion that the destiny of the present and the future world rests with great and undivided empires. [applause.] i had lived to see italy, out of its confusion of states, growing up into a great integrity, renewing the promises of the wonderful classic times and the glory of rome renovated into a new and prosperous nation. i have lived to see, we have all lived to see, the same process taking place in germany. in germany, notwithstanding the greatest division, the most peculiar separation of religion and even of races, yet nevertheless that great german empire is coming forward as a monument of the civilization of the future world, and as the centre of all europe against any form of oriental barbarism. and i knew from the history of my own country that that was no new principle, but one we had always maintained. england never at any moment thought of giving up the principle of the integrity of its empire. you yourselves are the evidences of the energy with which we sustained it. [prolonged applause.] and we had at our doors, we had within us, another nation, in many points alien to ourselves; of a different race largely, of a different religion almost generally; a nation which we had treated sometimes with kindness, sometimes with harshness, sometimes with justice, and many other times with injustice; but always on the principle of the integrity of the empire. [applause.] and i could not see how an intelligent man could see what italy was growing to, prophesy what germany would become, and, knowing the difficulties of the present ireland, how that man could wish to destroy the integrity of the united states. fact and history were against him, and in addition to that i felt that--in favoring or in sustaining your separation, in allowing special and local sympathy to act upon me, instead of the great logic of historical truths--if i could have allowed myself to act in that line of sympathy which would have bound me to my countrymen, i should have felt i had belied the truth of history as well as, i believe, the foundation of general morality. [great applause.] therefore, gentlemen, i have little individual merit for whatever i may have said upon that matter. i tell you that that was the calculation, the best calculation of my own mind, that it was the simple result of the deduction of my own reasoning [applause], and if you have shown me gratitude on this matter i will not say that i have not felt in a certain sense it was not deserved, from the motives i have alluded to. and if, as some cynic has said, gratitude is nothing whatever but the means of securing favors to come, i can assure you that you have accomplished your object [laughter and applause], and if you have desired that, in any means which providence has placed in my power, in any influence direct or indirect which i may exert, i shall speak as i have spoken and think as i have thought of the united states of america, you may be well sure that i will do so. [applause.] on another occasion when i have been kindly received, i have spoken of my literary sympathy with this country. every englishman rightly looks to this country as he would with a sense of appeal to posterity. he feels that if he has said anything, if he has written anything, if he has touched any chord, if he has struck even any verbal assurance that pleases mankind, if you take it up you pass it on; it does not go from tongue to tongue in the little distant anglia of europe. i recognize that i have met in this country men whom i shall be glad to meet anywhere and with whose familiarity i have been honored. and i might say this, that if i were to compare the best men that i have met here with the best men that i have known in europe, i should say simply this, that the men that i have found here seem to me as equal to the circumstances in which they have been placed, as intelligent in all their relations of life, as noble in their innermost impulses, as just in their expressions, as any i have ever met with in my intercourse with people in europe. [applause.] i have been honored with the familiarity of many distinguished men, i have been received with great kindness by your intelligent and able president. i had the fortune, the other day, to sit by the deathbed of that amiable, honest man, your vice-president [henry wilson], in the capitol at washington, dying under the portrait of jefferson. i have seen some of your able men with whom i have been intimate in europe, and one whom you will allow me to mention above all others, a man whose career i witnessed during the great and stormy times of your troubles in england--charles francis adams [long applause]--whose maintenance of your dignity was concurrent with a sense of the importance of good relations between england and america. gentlemen, next year you will celebrate your centennial, and i have been kindly asked by every person who wished me good-bye to come back to this centennial. [laughter.] as for the centennial itself, i have no particular inclination to come back. i think it is quite right you should have your centennial, but i do not quite see what an englishman has to do with it. [long laughter and applause.] it is a thing which a philosopher might almost make the foundation of a theory, that you who are going to have this magnificent celebration of the one hundredth year of your liberation from the horrible rule of england, at the same time accompany it with the warmest feelings toward the british nation. [laughter and applause.] now, if you will clearly understand that this centennial is to be your last celebration of this kind, and that from that moment you become part of the great community of europe, then i say it will be a very useful celebration and one which all the world will be ready to honor. celebrating your independence, you call it. a very noble act at a very noble time! your repulsion was fully justified by the folly and the stupidity and the ignorance of england. the causes of england and america are not different, but common to both. you have your own local difficulties, just as we have. you have your own religious difficulties, just as we have. take a single instance. the question of local taxation--a very serious question with you, a question agitated in the great states. that question is one of the greatest importance that we are at this moment discussing in politics. it is a matter of great interest to us whether local taxation should be entrusted and commissioned to a body of persons specially appointed for that purpose by the crown, or whether it should be entrusted to certain persons selected by the people. that will be one of the most important questions we shall have to consider in the next session or two of parliament. it is said that there is great profusion, great waste, in our present arrangement of those matters, and that if our local expenditure were conducted by persons specially appointed for that purpose, it would be cheaper. i don't say more honestly, but more economically managed. this is a question that you are agitating at the present moment, and one that affects the politics of your great cities. take again railroads. it is a question whether the railroad should be in the hands of the state or of private companies. we are talking about it every day. our interest in rapid transit has been very much the same as yours. our rapid transit has not only gone over certain unfortunate persons who stood in the way, but it has gone over ruined hopes and prostrated energies. there is hardly a question that i see agitated in american newspapers that, in one form or another, is not agitated with us. the act of parliament which restored to england specie payments was met with exactly the same argument, exactly the same controversy, exactly the same speciousness as meet you in this country. we have followed you on the matter of popular education. you have been our teachers in that branch. we are at present following in your footsteps. [applause.] julia ward howe tribute to oliver wendell holmes [speech of julia ward howe at the breakfast in celebration of the seventieth birthday of oliver wendell holmes, given by the publishers of the "atlantic monthly," boston, mass., december , . mrs. howe sat at the right of mr. howells, then the editor of the "atlantic," who presided at one end of the tables, with mr. emerson on his left. dr. holmes sat on the right of mr. houghton, who presided at the other end of the table, with mrs. stowe on his left. mrs. howe was called up by the toast, "the girls we have not left behind us."] ladies and gentlemen:--one word in courtesy i must say in replying to so kind a mention as that which is made, not only of me, but of those of my sex who are so happy as to be present here to-day. i think, in looking on this scene, of a certain congress which took place in paris more than a year ago, and it was called a congress of literary people, _gens de lettres_. when i heard that this was to take place i immediately bestirred myself to attend its sittings and went at once to the headquarters to find how i might do so. i then learned to my great astonishment that no women were to be included among these _gens de lettres_, that is, literary people. [laughter.] now, we have thought it a very modest phrase sometimes to plead that, whatever women may not be, they are people. [laughter and applause.] and it would seem to-day that they are recognized as literary people, and i am very glad that you gentlemen have found room for the sisterhood to-day, and have found room to place them so numerously here, and i must say that to my eyes the banquet looks very much more cheerful than it would without them. [applause.] it looks to me as though it had all blossomed out under a new social influence, and beside each dark stem i see a rose. [laughter and applause.] but i must say at once that i came here entirely unprovided with a speech, and, not dreaming of one, yet i came provided with something. i considered myself invited as a sort of grandmother--indeed, i am, and i know a grandmother is usually expected to have something in her pocket. [laughter and applause.] and i have a very modest tribute to the illustrious person whom we are met to-day to honor. with your leave i will read it. [applause.] thou metamorphic god! who mak'st the straight olympus thy abode, hermes to subtle laughter moving, apollo with serener loving, thou demi-god also! who dost all the powers of healing know; thou hero who dost wield the golden sword and shield,-- shield of a comprehensive mind, and sword to wound the foes of human kind; thou man of noble mould! whose metal grows not cold beneath the hammer of the hurrying years; a fiery breath doth blow across its fervid glow, and still its resonance delights our ears; loved of thy brilliant mates, relinquished to the fates, whose spirit music used to chime with thine, transfigured in our sight, not quenched in death's dark night, they hold thee in companionship divine. o autocratic muse! soul-rainbow of all hues, packed full of service are thy bygone years; thy winged steed doth fly across the starry sky, bearing the lowly burthens of thy tears. i try this little leap, wishing that from the deep, i might some pearl of song adventurous bring. despairing, here i stop, and my poor offering drop,-- why stammer i when thou art here to sing? clark howell our reunited country [speech of clark howell at the peace jubilee banquet in chicago, october , , in response to the toast, "our reunited country: north and south."] mr. toastmaster, and my fellow countrymen:--in the mountains of my state, in a county remote from the quickening touch of commerce, and railroads and telegraphs--so far removed that the sincerity of its rugged people flows unpolluted from the spring of nature--two vine-covered mounds, nestling in the solemn silence of a country churchyard, suggest the text of my response to the sentiment to which i am to speak to-night. a serious text, mr. toastmaster, for an occasion like this, and yet out of it there is life and peace and hope and prosperity, for in the solemn sacrifice of the voiceless grave can the chiefest lesson of the republic be learned, and the destiny of its real mission be unfolded. so bear with me while i lead you to the rust-stained slab, which for a third of a century--since chickamauga--has been kissed by the sun as it peeped over the blue ridge, melting the tears with which the mourning night had bedewed the inscription:-- "here lies a confederate soldier. he died for his country." the september day which brought the body of this mountain hero to that home among the hills which had smiled upon his infancy, been gladdened by his youth, and strengthened by his manhood, was an ever memorable one with the sorrowing concourse of friends and neighbors who followed his shot-riddled body to the grave. and of that number no man gainsaid the honor of his death, lacked full loyalty to the flag for which he fought, or doubted the justice of the cause for which he gave his life. thirty-five years have passed; another war has called its roll of martyrs; again the old bell tolls from the crude latticed tower of the settlement church; another great pouring of sympathetic humanity, and this time the body of a son, wrapped in the stars and stripes, is lowered to its everlasting rest beside that of the father who sleeps in the stars and bars. there were those there who stood by the grave of the confederate hero years before, and the children of those were there, and of those present no one gainsaid the honor of the death of this hero of el caney, and none were there but loved, as patriots alone can love, the glorious flag that enshrines the people of a common country as it enshrouds the form that will sleep forever in its blessed folds. and on this tomb will be written:-- "here lies the son of a confederate soldier. he died for his country." and so it is that between the making of these two graves human hands and human hearts have reached a solution of the vexed problem that has baffled human will and human thought for three decades. sturdy sons of the south have said to their brothers of the north that the people of the south had long since accepted the arbitrament of the sword to which they had appealed. and likewise the oft-repeated message has come back from the north that peace and good will reigned, and that the wounds of civil dissension were but as sacred memories. good fellowship was wafted on the wings of commerce and development from those who had worn the blue to those who had worn the gray. nor were these messages delivered in vain, for they served to pave the way for the complete and absolute elimination of the line of sectional differences by the only process by which such a result was possible. the sentiment of the great majority of the people of the south was rightly spoken in the message of the immortal hill, and in the burning eloquence of henry grady--both georgians--the record of whose blessed work for the restoration of peace between the sections becomes a national heritage, and whose names are stamped in enduring impress upon the affection of the people of the republic. and yet there were still those among us who believed your course was polite, but insincere, and those among you who assumed that our professed attitude was sentimental and unreal. bitterness had departed, and sectional hate was no more, but there were those who feared, even if they did not believe, that between the great sections of our greater government there was not the perfect faith and trust and love that both professed; that there was want of the faith that made the american revolution a successful possibility; that there was want of the trust that crystallized our states into the original union; that there was lack of the love that bound in unassailable strength the united sisterhood of states that withstood the shock of civil war. it is true this doubt existed to a greater degree abroad than at home. but to-day the mist of uncertainty has been swept away by the sunlight of events, and there, where doubt obscured before stands in bold relief, commanding the admiration of the whole world, the most glorious type of united strength and sentiment and loyalty known to the history of nations. out of the chaos of that civil war had risen a new nation, mighty in the vastness of its limitless resources, the realities within its reach surpassing the dreams of fiction, and eclipsing the fancy of fable--a new nation, yet rosy in the flesh, with the bloom of youth upon its cheeks and the gleam of morning in its eyes. no one questioned that commercial and geographic union had been effected. so had rome re-united its faltering provinces, maintaining the limit of its imperial jurisdiction by the power of commercial bonds and the majesty of the sword, until in its very vastness it collapsed. the heart of its people did not beat in unison. nations may be made by the joining of hands, but the measure of their real strength and vitality, like that of the human body, is in the heart. show me the country whose people are not at heart in sympathy with its institutions, and the fervor of whose patriotism is not bespoken in its flag, and i will show you a ship of state which is sailing in shallow waters, toward unseen eddies of uncertainty, if not to the open rocks of dismemberment. whence was the proof to come, to ourselves as well as to the world, that we were being moved once again by a common impulse, and by the same heart that inspired and gave strength to the hands that smote the british in the days of the revolution, and again at new orleans; that made our ships the masters of the seas; that placed our flag on chapultepec, and widened our domain from ocean to ocean? how was the world to know that the burning fires of patriotism, so essential to national glory and achievement, had not been quenched by the blood spilled by the heroes of both sides of the most desperate struggle known in the history of civil wars? how was the doubt that stood, all unwilling, between outstretched hands and sympathetic hearts, to be, in fact, dispelled? if from out the caldron of conflict there arose this doubt, only from the crucible of war could come the answer. and, thank god, that answer has been made in the record of the war, the peaceful termination of which we celebrate to-night. read it in every page of its history; read it in the obliteration of party and sectional lines in the congressional action which called the nation to arms in the defence of prostrate liberty, and for the extension of the sphere of human freedom; read it in the conduct of the distinguished federal soldier who, as the chief executive of this great republic,[ ] honors this occasion by his presence to-night, and whose appointments in the first commissions issued after war had been declared made manifest the sincerity of his often repeated utterances of complete sectional reconciliation and the elimination of sectional lines in the affairs of government. differing with him, as i do, on party issues, utterly at variance with the views of his party on economic problems, i sanction with all my heart the obligation that rests on every patriotic citizen to make party second to country, and in the measure that he has been actuated by this broad and patriotic policy he will receive the plaudits of the whole people: "well done, good and faithful servant." portentous indeed have been the developments of the past six months; the national domain has been extended far into the caribbean sea on the south, and to the west it is so near the mainland of asia that we can hear grating of the process which is grinding the ancient celestial empire into pulp for the machinery of civilization and of progress. in a very short while the last page of this war will have been written, except for the effect it will have on the future. our flag now floats over porto rico, a part of cuba, and manila. it must soon bespeak our sovereignty over the island of luzon, or possibly over the whole philippine group. it will, ere long, from the staff on havana's morro, cast its shadow on the sunken and twisted frame of the maine--a grim reminder of the vengeance that awaits any nation that lays unholy hands on an american citizen or violates any sacred american right. it has drawn from an admiring world unstinted applause for the invincible army, that under tropic suns, despite privations and disease, untrained but undismayed, has swept out of their own trenches and routed from their own battlements, like chaff before the wind, the trained forces of a formidable power. it has bodily stripped the past of lustre and defiantly challenged the possibilities of the future in the accomplishment of a matchless navy, whose deeds have struck the universe with consternation and with wonder. but speaking as a southerner and an american, i say that this has been as naught compared to the greatest good this war has accomplished. drawing alike from all sections of the union for her heroes and her martyrs, depending alike upon north, south, east and west for her glorious victories, and weeping with sympathy with the widows and the stricken mothers wherever they may be, america, incarnated spirit of liberty, stands again to-day the holy emblem of a household in which the children abide in unity, equality, love and peace. the iron sledge of war that rent asunder the links of loyalty and love has welded them together again. ears that were deaf to loving appeals for the burial of sectional strife have listened and believed when the muster guns have spoken. hearts that were cold to calls for trust and sympathy have awakened to loving confidence in the baptism of their blood. drawing inspiration from the flag of our country, the south has shared not only the dangers, but the glories of the war. in the death of brave young bagley at cardenas, north carolina furnished the first blood in the tragedy. it was victor blue of south carolina, who, like the swamp fox of the revolution, crossed the fiery path of the enemy at his pleasure, and brought the first official tidings of the situation as it existed in cuba. it was brumby, a georgia boy, the flag lieutenant of dewey, who first raised the stars and stripes over manila. it was alabama that furnished hobson--glorious hobson--who accomplished two things the spanish navy never yet has done--sunk an american ship, and made a spanish man-of-war securely float. the south answered the call to arms with its heart, and its heart goes out with that of the north in rejoicing at the result. the demonstration lacking to give the touch of life to the picture has been made. the open sesame that was needed to give insight into the true and loyal hearts both north and south has been spoken. divided by war, we are united as never before by the same agency, and the union is of hearts as well as hands. the doubter may scoff, and the pessimist may croak, but even they must take hope at the picture presented in the simple and touching incident of eight grand army veterans, with their silvery heads bowed in sympathy, escorting the lifeless body of the daughter of the confederacy from narragansett to its last, long rest at richmond. when that great and generous soldier, u. s. grant, gave back to lee, crushed, but ever glorious, the sword he had surrendered at appomattox, that magnanimous deed said to the people of the south: "you are our brothers." but when the present ruler of our grand republic on awakening to the condition of war that confronted him, with his first commission placed the leader's sword in the hands of those gallant confederate commanders, joe wheeler and fitzhugh lee, he wrote between the lines in living letters of everlasting light the words: "there is but one people of this union, one flag alone for all." the south, mr. toastmaster, will feel that her sons have been well given, that her blood has been well spilled, if that sentiment is to be indeed the true inspiration of our nation's future. god grant it may be as i believe it will. william dean howells the "atlantic" and its contributors [speech of william dean howells, as editor of the "atlantic monthly," at the dinner given to john greenleaf whittier, at boston, mass., december , , in celebration of the poet's seventieth birthday, and in celebration also of the twentieth year of the magazine.] gentlemen, contributors and friends of the "atlantic monthly":--the serious moment has approached which sooner or later arrives at most banquets of the dinner-giving anglo-saxon race--a moment when each commensal, like the pampered sacrifice of the aztecs, suddenly feels that the joys which have flattered him into forgetfulness of his fate are at an end, and that he must now gird himself for expiation. it is ordinarily a moment when the unprepared guest abandons himself to despair, and when even the more prophetic spirit finds memory forsaking it, or the treacherous ideas committed to paper withering away till the manuscript in the breast-pocket rustles sere and sad as the leaves of autumn. but let no one at this table be under a fearful apprehension. this were to little purpose an image of the great republic of letters, if the mind of any citizen might be invaded, and his right to hold his peace denied. any gentleman being called upon and having nothing to say, can make his silent bow and sit down again without disfavor; he may even do so with a reasonable hope of applause. reluctant orators, therefore, who are chafing under the dread of being summoned to stand and deliver an extorted eloquence, and who have already begun to meditate reprisals upon the person or the literature of the present speaker, may safely suspend their preparations; it shall not be his odious duty to molest them. we are met, gentlemen, upon the seventieth birthday of a man and poet whose fame is dear to us all, but whose modesty at first feared too much the ordeal by praise, to consent to his meeting with us. but he must soon have felt the futility of trying to stay away, of endeavoring to class himself with the absent, who are always wrong. there are renowns to which absence is impossible, and whether he would or no, whittier must still have been in every heart. therefore he is here in person, to the unbounded pleasure of those assembled to celebrate this day. i will leave him to the greetings of others, and for my own part will invite the goldenest silence of his sect to muse a fitting tribute to the verse in which a brave and beautiful and lofty life is enshrined. as to the periodical which unites us all, without rivalry, without jealousy, the publisher has already spoken, and where there is so much for the editor to say he cannot, perhaps, say too little. for twenty years it has represented, and may almost be said to have embodied, american letters. with scarcely an exception, every name known in our literature has won fame from its pages, or has added lustre to them; and an intellectual movement, full of a generous life and of a high ideal, finds its record there in vastly greater measure than in any or all other places. its career is not only distinguished among american periodicals, but upon the whole is unique. it would not be possible, i think, to point to any other publication of its sort, which so long retained the allegiance of its great founders, and has added so constantly so many names of growing repute to its list of writers. those who made its renown, as well as those whose renown it has made or is making, are still its frequent contributors, and even in its latest years have done some of their best work in it. if from time to time a valued "atlantic" writer ceases to appear, he is sure, finally, to reappear; he cannot even die without leaving it a rich legacy of manuscript. all young writers are eager to ally their names with the great memories and presences on its roll of fame; its stamp gives a new contributor immediate currency; it introduces him immediately into the best public, the best company, the company of those boston authors who first inspired it with the life so vigorous yet. it was not given us all to be born in boston, but when we find ourselves in the "atlantic" we all seem to suffer a sea-change, an æsthetic renaissance; a livelier literary conscience stirs in us; we have its fame at heart; we must do our best for maga's name as well as for our own hope; we are naturalized bostonians in the finest and highest sense. with greater reverence and affection than we can express, we younger and youngest writers for the atlantic regard the early contributors whom we are so proud and glad to meet here, and it is with a peculiar sense of my own unworthiness that i salute them, and join the publishers in welcoming them to this board. i know very well the difference between an author whom the "atlantic" has floated and an author who has floated the "atlantic," and confronted with this disparity i have only an official courage in turning to invoke the poet, the wit, the savant whose invention gave the "atlantic" its name, and whose genius has prospered an adventurous enterprise. if i did not name him i am sure the common consciousness would summon dr. holmes to his feet. i have felt authorized to hail the perpetual autocrat of all the "breakfast tables" as the chief author of the "atlantic's" success, by often hearing the first editor of the magazine assert the fact. this generous praise of his friend--when in a good cause was his praise ever stinted?--might be spoken without fear that his own part would be forgotten. his catholic taste, his subtle sense of beauty, his hearty sympathy and sterling weight of character gave the magazine an impress which it has been the highest care to his successors to keep clear and bright. he imparted to it above all that purpose which i hope is forever inseparable from it, when in his cordial love of good literature he stretched a welcoming grasp of recognition to every young writer, east, west, north, or south, who gave promise of good work. remembering his kindness in those days to one young writer, very obscure, very remote (whose promise still waits fulfilment), i must not attempt to praise him, lest grateful memories lead me into forbidden paths of autobiography; but when i name mr. lowell i am sure you will all look for some response to mr. charles eliot norton, a contributor whose work gave peculiar quality and worth to the numbers of the magazine, and whose presence here is a grateful reminder of one with whom he has been so long bound in close ties of amity. henry elias howland russia [speech of henry e. howland at a banquet given by the chamber of commerce of the state of new york, april , , to the officers of foreign and united states vessels escorting the spanish caravels to the harbor of new york city. the president of the chamber of commerce, alexander e. orr, in introducing judge howland, said: "gentlemen, our next toast is 'russia' and will be responded to by the hon. henry e. howland."] mr. president and gentlemen:--the pleasing duty is assigned me of recognizing the largest and one of the famous powers of europe, accompanied by the suggestion that my time is limited. the situation is like that of the clergyman who was sent for in great haste by a man who was very ill, and thought the end was approaching. he said to the minister, when he arrived: "i have been a great sinner, i am pretty sick, and i am afraid my time is short, and i want you to pray with me. you must be brief but fervent." [laughter.] most of us who sit at this table, judging from the opportunities i have had of hearing them discourse, fulfil the requirement of mr. disraeli's great traveller in that they have seen more than they have remembered and remembered more than they have seen. [laughter.] but i doubt if in all their experiences they ever sat in a more genial and attractive company than this. we have here in this year of peace the chosen representatives of ten nations, with all the romance of the sea, the splendid histories and traditions of their countries, and their own personal distinction and fame to make them welcome and interesting. already have you conquered the land, and from the time you effected a lodgment at fortress monroe until you are hull down on the horizon, on your homeward voyages, your progress will prove to have been a triumphant march into the hearts and homes of the people. [applause.] you have stores of wisdom and most agreeable experiences to accumulate. judging from press reports you may have thought you met a fair type of the girls of america at hampton roads. [laughter.] wait till the wonderful resources of this country in this its richest and unparalleled product are spread before you. [laughter.] then you will not wonder at the mysterious power of helen of troy, who set nations by the ears, or the fascination of the queen of the nile, who made heroes forget their duty and their homes. if you should take any for themselves, alone, we should commend your choice, and though parting with them reluctantly, should wish you god-speed. but if their money should be your object we are just now objecting to the exportation of gold and trying to maintain our reserves. [laughter.] whatever your nationality, you will find a large and prosperous contingent of it in this city, the majority of whose municipal officers, however, belong to that race which looks to mr. gladstone as its saviour, and believes that when an irishman dies it's because there is an angel short. [great laughter.] you will find here a wonderful power of brag which develops as you seek the setting sun. some inquiring spirits will be moved to ask you what you think of this country, and, if you visit the world's fair some adventurous person may ask your opinion of chicago. it is needless to say that a favorable opinion cannot be too highly colored, and if tinted with vermilion, will conduce to the pleasure of your stay. [laughter.] you will have little opportunity to admire the wonders of our natural scenery save at niagara. you will be able to appreciate the reply of an american naval officer to an english friend in italy when each had been maintaining the superiority of his own country. finally the grand spectacle of mount vesuvius in eruption, throwing its brilliant rays across the bay of naples, burst upon their astonished gaze. "now, look at that," said the englishman. "you haven't got anything in america that comes anywhere near that." "no," replied the yankee, "we haven't got vesuvius, but we have got a waterfall that could put that thing out in less than five minutes." [laughter.] at chicago your professional instinct will lead you to admire the magnificent turreted battleship which, in consequence of a convention with england that neither shall maintain a fleet upon the great lakes, is built upon piles, and of such substantial material that there are fears it cannot withstand the atmospheric concussion from the fire of the big krupp gun. but i need not rehearse the experiences to come. you would weary in their telling. we shall keep you as long as possible and be loath to part with you. and if we have our way, your experience will be like that of the old lady, who was travelling on the underground railroad in london. just as they were approaching a station, she said to a gentleman, in the compartment with her: "will you assist me to alight at this station, sir? i am, as you see, rather stout, and i have a physical infirmity which makes it necessary for me to step out backwards, and every time i try to get out the guard bundles me back into the car, shouts 'all aboard,' shuts the door, and i have gone around this line three times already." [great laughter.] at this gate of the continent we begin the pageant of the columbian exposition. by the cruel irony of fate the promoters and sponsor of this great display cannot have any hand in the fair. the spaniards have a proverb that you can't at the same time ring the bell and be in the procession [laughter]; and although you can make chicago a seaport by act of congress, you cannot get a fleet of six thousand ton ironclads over , miles of land, even on the chicago limited, or the empire express. [laughter.] and so we new yorkers appropriate this as our private, peculiar, particular exhibition; as touchstone says, "a poor thing, sir, but our own." it is not given to many men in their experience to see such a sight as is now spread before us on the waters of the harbor of new york. the might and majesty of the great nations of the earth are here represented in their fleets which typify the country afloat, as the valor, the ability and the distinction of their officers represent that of their peoples. former antagonists here float side by side; peace broods over the armored sides of battleships and the feverish lips of their guns speak only salutes of friendship and courtesy. it is a pity that it is not always so. among the flags that float from the mastheads of the fleet in yonder harbor there is one--the blue st. andrew's cross--that represents an empire of over , , square miles, of more diversified races than any other in europe; that reaches from the baltic to the pacific--from the arctic to the black sea; that receives the allegiance of , , of people, and from its great white throne on the shores of the gulf of finland directs the destinies of its subjects and shapes the policy of europe. [applause.] that flag is not unfamiliar in these waters. in the battle summer of --thirty years ago--while we were engaged in a life-and-death struggle for national existence and the preservation of the union, it floated over the fleet of admiral lissoffski in this harbor--a signal of friendship, encouragement and protection against foreign interference, pending the settlement of the issues of our civil war. no diplomatic declaration was made, no threat was uttered, no sign was given; we only knew the flag was there, and if it meant anything, that the power of one of the mightiest nations of europe was behind it. we now know from what it saved us:-- "when darkness hid the starry skies, in war's long winter night, one ray still cheered our straining eyes, the far-off northern light." no american who loves his country can forget that incident in our hour of agony, nor the friendly significance of that flag. it was an american captain who used the expression which has become historic, when he went to the relief of his english brother-in-arms at the storming of the pei-ho forts, that "blood is thicker than water," and while it courses in the veins of a loyal american, he will remember with grateful appreciation the sympathy and the moral support, more powerful than armed battalions or cruisers, of alexander ii, who, like our lincoln, freed his serfs, and like him, while serving his people, fell by the hand of an assassin. gentlemen, who serve his imperial majesty the czar, we salute you and your flag under whatever skies or on whatever sea it floats. we remind you that we are not ungrateful. the best we have is yours; the nation presents arms as you pass in review, and as our borders approach each other in the frozen zone so when we meet you here:-- "though our hearts were dry as the shell on the sand, they would fill like the goblet i hold in my hand." "bleak are our shores in the blast of december, fettered and chill is the rivulet's flow, throbbing and warm are the hearts that remember who was our friend when the world was our foe. "fires of the north, in eternal communion blend your broad flashes with evening's bright star, god bless the empire that loves our great union! strength to her people! long life to the czar!" * * * * * our ancestors and ourselves [speech of henry e. howland, president of the new england society in the city of new york, at their ninety-fourth annual dinner, new york, december , .] fellow-members of the new england society:--it is my agreeable duty to receive this weary, way-worn band of pilgrims upon the occasion of their th landing upon these bleak and arid shores, and, like samoset on the occasion of your first arrival, to welcome you to the scanty fare and the privations and sufferings that are incident to this ledge of the old plymouth rock. [applause.] the traditions of the early entertainment of massasoit and his warriors at plymouth, lasting several days, to cement a friendship which was never broken, when heavy drafts were made upon the little stock of new england rum, imported hollands, bear's meat and indian corn, have here been renewed to such an extent that, like them, we doubtless feel that the "earth is ours and the fulness thereof." [laughter.] though, if plymouth rock and the waldorf-astoria are synonymous terms for fulness, we should think that the latter was the more synonymous of the two. [laughter.] the surroundings of the two occasions may differ--velvet carpets, groaning tables, genial temperature and electric lights are an excellent substitute for log floors, a restricted larder, the icy chill and the winter stars. the grim, stern pilgrim with the austere face and peaked hat, and the lean, wild, loping indian are here supplanted by a company whose well-rounded figures and genial faces reflect the assurance of the possession of sky-scraping buildings, pipe lines, through lines, warehouses, well-stuffed deposit vaults and comfortable bank accounts [laughter], upon whom smile from the boxes the blessings which, like those of providence, come from above [applause] and cause us to echo the sentiment unconsciously expressed by the lady who was distributing tracts in the streets of london. she handed one to a cabman; he glanced at it, handed it back, touched his hat and politely said: "thank you, lady, i am a married man." [laughter.] she looked nervously at the title, which was, "abide with me" [laughter], and hurriedly departed. under this inspiration we agree with the proverb of the eastern sage: "to be constant in love to one is good; to be constant to many is great." [laughter.] but we must remember, while the critical eyes of our households are upon us, that our halos will never be too small for our heads. [laughter.] under these favoring conditions we celebrate the glories of our ancestors, the unparalleled results of their achievements, and ourselves. i hope you will find that the only defect in my perfunctory remarks as the presiding officer will be their brevity. remembering some past occurrences on occasions like this, we agree with the pupil who was asked by his teacher, "what is the meaning of elocution?" and he answered: "it is the way people are put to death in some states." [laughter.] but with this array of speakers before you, full of unwonted possibilities, you will not wonder if i feel like the undertaker in sixth avenue who displayed a sign in his window: "it is a pleasure to show goods." [laughter.] the society has shared in the all-pervading prosperity which illumines the land with a prospect of its indefinite continuance. it numbers , members, and its invested funds aggregate the sum of $ , . it has been liberal in its charitable contributions; it has resisted all attempts like those made against some of our large life insurance companies to compel it to distribute its surplus [laughter], and, refuting the statement of lord chief justice coleridge, who said that the "chief duty of trustees was to commit judicious breaches of trust," it has imitated the stern integrity of that bank cashier who upon a warm day sat down on the neighborly side of a sheet of postage stamps, and had to go home and make a change of clothing before he could get his books to balance. [laughter.] and, taking warning from the slogan of the bryanized democracy, which caused a quotation from a message of one of our modern statesmen that "a public office is a public trust," to be met with the cry "down with the trusts," our treasurer carefully avoids handling united states nickels, for they bear the motto "in god we trust," and the society might be met with the same attack and come into disrepute on that account. [laughter.] in these days, when the populist, fusionist, and demagogue is endeavoring, like mrs. partington, to sweep back the ocean tide of prosperity with a broom, clogging the wheels of industry and seeking by legislative enactment to reverse the laws of nature and of political economy, which are immutable by divine decree, we can commend to them the answer of an examiner of a young man who applied for admission to the bar. he failed utterly in questions upon contracts, partnership, corporation law, commercial paper and real estate, and was told so. "well," he said, "won't you try me on the statutes? i am pretty strong on them." "well, what's the use," the examiner replied, "when some d--n fool legislature may repeal all you know." [laughter and applause.] forty-seven members have died during the year. the list is entirely made up of men distinguished in all the pursuits of life--who wrote their names in bright characters upon the history of the city and state, and whose memory will always remain as a precious legacy and an example to those who succeed them. fourteen had passed the psalmist's limit of life, and nine had passed their eightieth year. in it are enrolled the names of william h. appleton, the honored head of the great publishing firm known wherever the english language is spoken, to whose reputation he contributed so much by his clear intelligence, breadth of views and spotless character. isaac h. bailey, for several years the president of this society, an honorable merchant and a trusted public officer. william dowd, the treasurer of the society for fifteen years; distinguished in finance and the management of large corporate interests, and endeared to a host of friends by the charm of his genial nature. gen. george s. greene, the oldest living graduate of the west point military academy, who rendered valiant and distinguished service on many battle-fields of the civil war, who was the faithful and efficient head of the croton aqueduct board for many years; was represented in the military service of his country by several distinguished sons and, until his death, in his ninety-eighth year, retained all his faculties undimmed--a soldier and a citizen of whom his country was justly proud. [applause.] roswell p. flower, an honored governor of this state, eminent as a philanthropist and financier, a leader among strong men. william h. webb, a pioneer shipbuilder, with a name famous wherever american commerce extended, a rugged, iron man who stood four square to all the winds of heaven, generous and tender-hearted as a child, who for forty-five years never failed in his attendance at the dinners of this society, and who left a reputation for philanthropy and public spirit unsurpassed in this city of generous giving. john g. moore, john brooks, edward h. r. lyman, edward a. quintard, dr. charles inslee pardee, and all the others to whom the limit of time will not allow a tribute worthy of their honorable lives and work. we do well to recall upon such occasions as this, as an inspiration, the story of the emigration of our pilgrim ancestors to america, involving, as it does, the whole modern development, diffusion and organization of english liberty, which lives and breathes and burns in legend and in song. it is unparalleled in the annals of the world, in the majesty of its purpose and the poverty of its means, the weakness of the beginning and the grandeur of the result. it is unparalleled in classic or modern history, in its exhibition of courage, patience, persistence, steadfastness in devotion to principle. beginning with the hasty flight from lincolnshire to holland, the peaceful life in exile, the perilous ocean voyage in a crazy craft in mid-winter, the frail settlement at plymouth--a shred of the most tenacious life in europe--floating over the waste of waters and clinging on the bleakest edge of america, beset by indians, wild beasts and disease, starving, frozen and dying, remote from succor and beyond the knowledge of their kin, like a seed from the old world floated to the new by ocean currents, containing the elements which, like the mustard seed, should yield a hundred fold and overspread and dominate a continent, until the prophecy familiar to the pilgrims should be fulfilled: "the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose, a little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a great nation." [applause.] the archbishop and ministers of king james, who drove these men and the , who followed them, the flower of the english puritans, from england, like louis xiv, when he sent the huguenots into exile by the revocation of the edict of nantes, furnished an example to that master of the school where the eton system of flogging prevailed. on a saturday morning the delinquents were called up to be flogged. one of the boys inquired, "what am i to be punished for, sir?" "i don't know, but your name is down on the list, and i shall have to go through with it," and the flogging was administered. the boy made such a fuss that the master looked over the list on his return to his rooms, to see whether he had made a mistake, and found that he had whipped the confirmation class. [laughter.] they brought the foundation of a free people, they converted the wilderness of a continent, they established the new england home, rich only in piety, education, liberty, industry and character, from which has gone out the best inspiration of the republic they forecast. there have been times in the later history of the country when the puritan was not altogether popular, and the feeling entertained toward him and his descendants was expressed like that at a liberal meeting in scotland, where the proceedings were being opened by prayer, and the reverend gentleman prayed fervently that "the liberals might hang a' thegither." he was interrupted by a loud and irreverent "amen" from the back of the hall. "not, o lord," went on the clergyman, "in the sense which that profane scoffer would have ye to understand, but that they may hang thegither in accord and concord." "i dinna care so much what kind of a cord it is," struck in the voice, "sae lang as it is a strong cord." [laughter.] fortunately for them, and perhaps for the world, opinions differed enough to give them a chance. "you can't always tell," said a man, at the end of a discussion, "what one's neighbors think of him." "i came mighty near knowing once," said a citizen, with a reminiscent look, "but the jury disagreed." [laughter.] but with the puritans, when discussion ceased and other arguments began, the result was like that when the lady said to her clergyman, who was paying her an afternoon call, of her little boy, who bore the marks of a struggle: "johnny has been a bad little boy to-day; he has been fighting and has got a black eye." "so i see," said the clergyman. "come into the next room with me, johnny, and i will pray with you." "you had better go home and pray with your own little boy, he has got two black eyes." [laughter.] the forty-one families who came in the "mayflower," and the thousand of english puritans who came in the next decade, are not entitled to all the credit for the development of the country, for there were others of their kind in virginia, and, unlike the boers of the transvaal, they gave later comers a show. [laughter and applause.] the process of appropriation by one people of a country, even if they are the first settlers, can be carried too far even for advantage to them or to inspire credulity in its possibility. a returned traveller, relating his adventures, said: "the most remarkable experience i ever had occurred a short time ago in russia. i was sleighing on the steppes, miles from my destination, when, to my horror, i found i was pursued by a pack of wolves; i fired blindly into the pack, killing one of them, and, to my relief, saw the others stop to devour him; after doing this, however, they still came on. i repeated the shot, with the same result, and each shot gave me an opportunity to whip up my horses. finally there was only one wolf left, yet on it came with its fierce eyes glaring in anticipation of a good hot supper." "hold on, there," said a man who had been listening, "by your way of reckoning, that last wolf must have had the rest of the pack inside of him." [laughter.] "well," said the traveller, "now i remember it, he did wobble a bit." [laughter.] it was wise in our forefathers to welcome those who, like them, were pioneers in the wilderness, to give them equal rights and to assimilate them into american citizenship. the qualities of which we boast in our pilgrim ancestors still linger with their descendants, though among , , of people there may not be enough to go around. the expectation of it would be what dr. johnson said of a man who had married his third wife, as the "triumph of hope over experience." [laughter.] but we must, on occasions like this, make some assumptions, like the lady of whom a friend said: "she puts on a good deal of style now she has a box at the opera." "good gracious," said the other lady, "the woman must put on something when she goes to the opera." [laughter.] too many, it is true, deserve to be under the suspicion expressed by the market-man who was exhibiting his _array_ of "newly-laid eggs, fresh eggs, and plain eggs," to a young housekeeper, who finally asked, as to the latter: "are these eggs really fresh?" "well, madam," he replied, "we call them saturday night eggs; they've tried all the week to be good." [laughter.] and we are so compromising and tender in dealing with doubtful subjects that we follow the advice given to a man who asked how to tell a bad egg: well, if you have anything to tell to a bad egg you had better break it gently. [laughter.] some have that kind of a conscience which was described by a small boy as the thing that makes you feel sorry when you get found out, and their idea of commercial integrity was expressed by the man who said, proudly, "at last i can look the world in the face as an honest man. i owe no one anything; the last claim against me is outlawed." some aim high, but from the result they must have shut their eyes when they fired, and although as a nation we pride ourselves upon our common sense, so that we can truly say not every man is made a fool of, the observer of men and things might say every man has the raw material in him. [laughter.] but seriously speaking, we abate in no degree the claim that the best traditions of our forefathers have not degenerated in these modern days. our hearts beat with a quicker throb at the recollection of the achievements of these last pregnant years; the eye lights with enthusiasm at the sight of the flag whose fluttering folds have witnessed such scenes of danger and inspired such daring deeds, and our voices shout in unison of acclaim the achievements of what a wondering african called "the angry saxon race." [applause.] the people have stood for humanity, honesty, order and progress. its representatives in civil life have obeyed their behests. the american regular has shown in his stern resolve, his self-control, his obedience to orders, his contempt of danger, that while he leads a forlorn hope in war, he is the advance guard of liberty and justice, law and order, peace and happiness. [applause.] "no state'll call him noble son, he ain't no lady's pet; but let a row start anyhow, they'll send for him, you bet. he packs his little knapsack up and starts off in the van, to start the fight, and start it right, the regular army man." [applause.] the gallant officers who, true to the spirit of the service, stood up on the firing line in cuba and the philippines, charging heights, wading rivers and storming the trenches at the head of their men, have shed new glory upon the american army, and none more illustriously than that splendid soldier, major-general henry w. lawton [prolonged applause], who, after a distinguished and brilliant service of nearly forty years in two wars, and continuous indian fighting, has received the soldier's summons on the field of battle, and given with his life his last pledge of devotion to his country. the flag that covers him never shrouded a finer soldier or a more typical american. [applause.] "close his eyes; his work is done! what to him is friend or foeman, rise of moon or set of sun, hand of man or kiss of woman? "as man may he fought his fight, proved his truth by his endeavor-- let him sleep in solemn night, sleep forever and forever." such men have their counterparts in the very pink and flower of the chivalry of england, who face their foe standing, and are now charging full front and fearlessly into the storm of shot and shell that awaits them, deeming it, in the language of young hubert hervey, "a grand thing to die for the expansion of the empire." [applause.] the pride of england in its navy, is justly matched by that of every american in his own. [applause.] its record, from the days of john paul jones to those of dewey and sampson [applause and cheers], is unsurpassed in the history of the world. during these hundred glorious years, its whole personnel, from admiral to blue-jacket, has left upon the pages of history a shining story, stainless, brilliant and undying, of honor, skill, devotion and daring that stirs the heart because inspiring and ennobling. the english poet might justly say:-- "the spirit of our fathers shall start from every wave; for the deck it was their field of fame, and ocean was their grave." and the american can as justly reply:-- "know that thy highest dwells at home, there art and loyal inspiration spring; if thou would'st touch the universal heart, of thine own country sing." remembering its glorious past, its happy, peaceful, prosperous present--for it is the happiest land the sun shines upon--and the auspicious omens for the bright opening future, i ask you to pledge with me its representative head, the commander-in-chief of its army and navy, the president of the united states. [toast drunk standing.] thomas henry huxley science and art [speech of thomas h. huxley at the annual banquet of the royal academy, london, may , . sir frederic leighton, president of the academy, said in introducing him: "with science i couple the name under which we know one of the most fearless, keen and lucid intellects which have ever in this country grappled with the problems of natural science and set them solved before us, the name of professor huxley [cheers], a name known far and wide wherever the pregnant science of biology is studied, and through the vehicle of other tongues besides that strong and trenchant english with which he is wont to strike his thoughts so vigorously home."] sir frederic leighton, your royal highnesses, my lords and gentlemen:--i beg leave to thank you for the extremely kind and appreciative manner in which you have received the toast of science. it is the more grateful to me to hear that toast proposed in an assembly of this kind, because i have noticed of late years a great and growing tendency among those who were once jestingly said to have been born in a pre-scientific age to look upon science as an invading and aggressive force, which if it had its own way would oust from the universe all other pursuits. i think there are many persons who look upon this new birth of our times as a sort of monster rising out of the sea of modern thought with the purpose of devouring the andromeda of art. and now and then a perseus, equipped with the shoes of swiftness of the ready writer, with the cap of invisibility of the editorial article, and it may be with the medusa-head of vituperation, shows himself ready to try conclusions with the scientific dragon. sir, i hope that perseus will think better of it [laughter]; first, for his own sake, because the creature is hard of head, strong of jaw, and for some time past has shown a great capacity for going over and through whatever comes in his way; and secondly, for the sake of justice, for i assure you, of my own personal knowledge that if left alone, the creature is a very debonair and gentle monster. [laughter.] as for the andromeda of art, he has the tenderest respect for that lady, and desires nothing more than to see her happily settled and annually producing a flock of such charming children as those we see about us. [cheers.] but putting parables aside, i am unable to understand how anyone with a knowledge of mankind can imagine that the growth of science can threaten the development of art in any of its forms. if i understand the matter at all, science and art are the obverse and reverse of nature's medal, the one expressing the eternal order of things, in terms of feeling, the other in terms of thought. when men no longer love nor hate; when suffering causes no pity, and the tale of great deeds ceases to thrill, when the lily of the field shall seem no longer more beautifully arrayed than solomon in all his glory, and the awe has vanished from the snow-capped peak and deep ravine, then indeed science may have the world to itself, but it will not be because the monster has devoured art, but because one side of human nature is dead, and because men have lost the half of their ancient and present attributes. [cheers.] robert green ingersoll the music of wagner [speech of robert g. ingersoll at the banquet given in new york city, april , , by the liederkranz society to edmund c. stanton, director of german opera in new york, and anton seidl, orchestral conductor. william steinway presided, and called upon robert ingersoll to speak to the toast, "music, noblest of the arts."] mr. toast-master:--it is probable that i was selected to speak about music, because, not knowing one note from another, i have no prejudice on the subject. all i can say is, that i know what i like, and, to tell the truth, i like every kind, enjoy it all, from the hand-organ to the orchestra. knowing nothing of the science of music, i am not always looking for defects, or listening for discords. as the young robin cheerfully swallows whatever comes, i hear with gladness all that is played. music has been, i suppose, a gradual growth, subject to the law of evolution; as nearly everything, with the possible exception of theology, has been and is under this law. music may be divided into three kinds: first, the music of simple time, without any particular emphasis--and this may be called the music of the heels; second, music in which time is varied, in which there is the eager haste and the delicious delay, that is, the fast and slow, in accordance with our feelings, with our emotions--and this may be called the music of the heart; third, the music that includes time and emphasis, the hastening and the delay, and something in addition, that produces not only states of feeling, but states of thought. this may be called the music of the head,--the music of the brain. music expresses feeling and thought, without language. it was below and before speech, and it is above and beyond all words. beneath the waves is the sea--above the clouds is the sky. _robert green ingersoll photogravure after a photograph from life_ [illustration] before man found a name for any thought, or thing, he had hopes and fears and passions, and these were rudely expressed in tones. of one thing, however, i am certain, and that is, that music was born of love. had there never been any human affection, there never could have been uttered a strain of music. possibly some mother, looking in the eyes of her babe, gave the first melody to the enraptured air. language is not subtle enough, tender enough, to express all that we feel; and when language fails, the highest and deepest longings are translated into music. music is the sunshine--the climate--of the soul, and it floods the heart with a perfect june. i am also satisfied that the greatest music is the most marvellous mingling of love and death. love is the greatest of all passions, and death is its shadow. death gets all its terror from love, and love gets its intensity, its radiance, its glory and its rapture from the darkness of death. love is a flower that grows on the edge of the grave. the old music, for the most part, expresses emotion, or feeling, through time and emphasis, and what is known as melody. most of the old operas consist of a few melodies connected by unmeaning recitative. there should be no unmeaning music. it is as though a writer should suddenly leave his subject and write a paragraph consisting of nothing but a repetition of one word like "the," "the," "the," or "if," "if," "if," varying the repetition of these words, but without meaning,--and then resume the subject of his article. i am not saying that great music was not produced before wagner but i am simply endeavoring to show the steps that have been taken. it was necessary that all the music should have been written, in order that the greatest might be produced. the same is true of the drama. thousands and thousands prepared the way for the supreme dramatist, as millions prepared the way for the supreme composer. when i read shakespeare, i am astonished that he has expressed so much with common words, to which he gives new meaning; and so when i hear wagner, i exclaim: is it possible that all this is done with common air? in wagner's music there is a touch of chaos that suggests the infinite. the melodies seem strange and changing forms, like summer clouds, and weird harmonies come like sounds from the sea brought by fitful winds, and others moan like waves on desolate shores, and mingled with these, are shouts of joy, with sighs and sobs and ripples of laughter, and the wondrous voices of eternal love. wagner is the shakespeare of music. the funeral march for siegfried is the funeral music for all the dead. should all the gods die, this music would be perfectly appropriate. it is elemental, universal, eternal. the love-music in tristan and isolde is, like romeo and juliet an expression of the human heart for all time. so the love-duet in "the flying dutchman" has in it the consecration, the infinite self-denial, of love. the whole heart is given; every note has wings, and rises and poises like an eagle in the heaven of sound. when i listen to the music of wagner, i see pictures, forms, glimpses of the perfect, the swell of a hip, the wave of a breast, the glance of an eye. i am in the midst of great galleries. before me are passing the endless panoramas. i see vast landscapes with valleys of verdure and vine with soaring crags, snow-crowned. i am on the wide seas, where countless billows burst into the whitecaps of joy. i am in the depths of caverns roofed with mighty crags, while through some rent i see the eternal stars. in a moment the music becomes a river of melody, flowing through some wondrous land; suddenly it falls in strange chasms, and the mighty cataract is changed to seven-hued foam. great music is always sad, because it tells us of the perfect; and such is the difference between what we are and that which music suggests, that even in the vase of joy we find some tears. the music of wagner has color, and when i hear the violins, the morning seems to slowly come. a horn puts a star above the horizon. the night, in the purple hum of the bass, wanders away like some enormous bee across wide fields of dead clover. the light grows whiter as the violins increase. colors come from other instruments, and then the full orchestra floods the world with day. wagner seems not only to have given us new tones, new combinations, but the moment the orchestra begins to play his music, all the instruments are transfigured. they seem to utter the sounds that they have been longing to utter. the horns run riot; the drums and cymbals join in the general joy; the old bass viols are alive with passion; the 'cellos throb with love; the violins are seized with a divine fury, and the notes rush out as eager for the air as pardoned prisoners for the roads and fields. the music of wagner is filled with landscapes. there are some strains, like midnight, thick with constellations, and there are harmonies like islands in the far seas, and others like palms on the desert's edge. his music satisfies the heart and brain. it is not only for memory; not only for the present, but for prophecy. wagner was a sculptor, a painter in sound. when he died, the greatest fountain of melody that ever enchanted the world, ceased. his music will instruct and refine forever. all that i know about the operas of wagner i have learned from anton seidl. i believe that he is the noblest, tenderest and most artistic interpreter of the great composer that has ever lived. sir henry irving looking forward [speech of henry irving[ ] at a banquet given in his honor, london, july , , in view of his impending departure for a professional tour of america. the lord chief justice of england, john duke coleridge, occupied the chair.] [illustration: _menu card photogravure after a design by thompson willing_ through the courtesy of the lotus club, we are enabled to reproduce this typical dinner card, especially drawn and engraved for a complimentary banquet to sir henry irving. the original card is about three times the size of this reproduction. dinner to sir henry irving given by the lotos club saturday oct mdcccxcix] my lord chief justice, my lords and gentlemen:--i cannot conceive a greater honor entering into the life of any man than the honor you have paid me by assembling here to-night. to look around this room and scan the faces of my distinguished hosts, would stir to its depths a colder nature than mine. it is not in my power, my lords and gentlemen, to thank you for the compliment you have to-night paid me. "the friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel." never before have i so strongly felt the magic of those words; but you will remember it is also said in the same sentence, "give thy thoughts no tongue." [laughter.] and gladly, had it been possible, would i have obeyed that wise injunction to-night. [renewed laughter.] the actor is profoundly influenced by precedent, and i cannot forget that many of my predecessors have been nerved by farewell banquets for the honor which awaited them on the other side of the atlantic; but this occasion i regard as much more than a compliment to myself: i regard it as a tribute to the art which i am proud to serve and i believe that feeling will be shared by the profession to which you have assembled to do honor. [cheers.] the time has long gone by when there was any need to apologize for the actor's calling. ["hear! hear!"] the world can no more exist without the drama than it can without its sister art, music. the stage gives the readiest response to the demand of human nature to be transported out of itself into the realms of the ideal--not that all our ideals on the stage are realized--none but the artist knows how immeasurably he may fall short of his aim or his conception,--but to have an ideal in art and to strive through one's life to embody it, may be a passion to the actor as it may be to the poet. your lordship has spoken most eloquently of my career. possessed of a generous mind and a high judicial faculty, your lordship has been to-night, i fear, more generous than judicial. but if i have in any way deserved commendation, i am proud that it was as an actor that i won it. as the director of a theatre my experience has been short, but as an actor i have been before the london public for seventeen years; and on one thing i am sure you will all agree--that no actor or manager has ever received from that public more generous and ungrudging encouragement and support. [cheers.] concerning our visit to america, i need hardly say that i am looking forward to it with no common pleasure. it has often been an ambition with english actors to gain the good-will of the english-speaking race, a good-will which is right heartily reciprocated towards our american fellow-workers, when they gratify us by sojourning here. your god-speed would alone assure me a hearty welcome in any land. but i am not going amongst strangers; i am going amongst friends, and when i, for the first time, touch american ground, i shall receive many a grip of the hand from men whose friendship i am proud to possess. [cheers.] concerning our expedition the american people will no doubt exercise an independent judgment--a prejudice of theirs and a habit of long standing [laughter], as your lordship has reminded us, by the fact that to-day is the fourth of july, an anniversary rapidly becoming an english institution. your lordship is doubtless aware, as to-night has so happily proved, that the stage has reckoned amongst its staunchest supporters many great and distinguished lawyers. there are many lawyers, i am told, in america, and as i am sure that they all deserve to be judges, i am in hopes that they will materially help me to gain a favorable verdict from the american people. [cheers and laughter.] i have given but poor expression to my sense of the honor you have conferred upon me, and upon the comrades associated with me in this our enterprise--an enterprise which, i hope, will favorably show the method and discipline of a company of english actors. on their behalf i thank you, and i also thank you on behalf of the lady who has so adorned the lyceum stage, and to whose rare gifts your lordship has paid so just and gracious a tribute. the climax of the favor extended to me by my countrymen has been reached to-night. you have set upon me a burden of responsibility, a burden which i gladly and proudly bear. the memory of to-night will be to me a sacred thing, a memory which will, throughout my life, be ever treasured, a memory which will stimulate me to further endeavor, and encourage me to loftier aim. [loud and continued cheers.] * * * * * the drama [speech of sir henry irving at the fourteenth annual dinner of the playgoer's club, london, february , . the toast of "the drama" was proposed by b. w. findon, and sir henry irving was called upon to respond.] mr. chairman and gentlemen:--it is five years since i had the pleasure of sitting at your hospitable board and listening to that delightfully soothing and digestive eloquence with which we medicine one another after dinner. [laughter.] in the course of those five years i daresay we have had many differences of opinion. the playgoer does not always agree with the player, still less with that unfortunate object, the poor actor-manager. but whatever you may have said of me in this interval, and in terms less dulcet, perhaps, than those which your chairman has so generously employed, it is a great satisfaction to me to feel that i still retain your esteem and good-will. in a certain sense you are the manager's constituents. you cannot eject him from the office, perhaps, with that directness which distinguishes the parliamentary operations. but you can stay away from the theatre, and so eject his play. [laughter.] on the whole that is a more disconcerting process than the fiercest criticism. one can always argue with the critics, though on the actor's part i know that is gross presumption. [laughter.] but you cannot argue with the playgoer who stays away. i am not making any specific accusations--only remarking that it is staying-power which impresses the importance of the playgoer's club upon the managerial mind. moreover, to meet you like this has the effect of a useful tonic. i can strongly recommend it to some gentlemen who write to the newspapers. [laughter.] in one journal there was a long correspondence--the sort of thing we generally get at one season of the year--about the condition of the stage, and a well-known writer who, i believe, combines the function of a dramatic critic with the responsibility of a watch-dog to the navy, informed his readers that the sad decadence of the british drama was due to the evils of party government. that is certainly an original idea; but i fancy that if the author were to unfold it to this company, he would be told that he had mistaken the playgoer's club for the war office or the admiralty. still we ought to be grateful to the man who reveals a perfectly fresh reason for the eternal decline of the drama, though we may not, perhaps, anticipate any revolution in theatrical amusements even from the most thorough-going reform of the british constitution. in the public correspondence to which i have referred, a good deal was said about the need for a dramatic conservatoire. if such an institution could be rooted in this country, i have no doubt that it might yield many advantages. years ago i ventured to suggest that the municipal system might be applied to the theatre, as it is on the continent, though i do not observe that this is yet a burning question in the county council politics, or that any reforming administrator has discovered that the drama ought to be laid on, like gas or water. [laughter.] with all our genius for local government we have not yet found, like some continental peoples, that the municipal theatre is as much a part of the healthy life of the community as the municipal library or museum. ["hear! hear!"] whether that development is in store for us i do not know, but i can imagine certain social benefits that would accrue from the municipal incorporation of a dramatic conservatoire. it might check the rush of incompetent persons into the theatrical profession. some persons who were intended by nature to adorn an inviolable privacy are thrust upon us by paragraphers and interviewers, whose existence is a dubious blessing--[laughter]--until it is assumed by censors of the stage that this business is part and parcel of theatrical advertisement. columns of this rubbish are printed every week, and many an actor is pestered to death for tit-bits about his ox and his ass and everything that is his. [laughter.] occasionally you may read solemn articles about the insatiable vanity of the actor, which must be gratified at any cost, as if vanity were peculiar to any section of humanity. but what this organized gossip really advertises is the industry of the gentlemen who collect it, and the smartness of the papers in which it is circulated. "we learn this," "we have reason to believe"--such forms of intolerable assurance give currency too often to scandalous and lying rumors which i am sure responsible journalism would wish to discourage. but this, i fear, is difficult, for contradiction makes another desirable paragraph, and it is all looked upon as desirable copy. [laughter.] of course, gentlemen, the drama is declining--it always has been declining since the time of roscius and beyond the palmy days when the famous elephant raja was "starred" over the head of w. c. macready, and the real water tank in the cataract of the ganges helped to increase the attractions of john kemble and mrs. siddons. but we ourselves are evidently in a parlous state at the present day, when actors vainly endeavor to struggle through twenty lines of blank verse--when we are told mechanical effects and vast armies of supers make up the production of historical plays--when pathological details, we are told, are always well received--when the "psychonosological" (whatever that may be)--[laughter], is invariably successful--and when pinero and grundy's plays do not appeal to men of advanced thought, as i read the other day. in all the lament about the decline of the drama there is one recurring note: the disastrous influence of long runs. if the manager were not a grossly material person, incapable of ideals, he would take off a successful piece at the height of its popularity and start a fresh experiment. [laughter.] but he is sunk in the base commercialism of the age, and, sad to relate, he has the sympathies of the dramatic author, who wants to see his piece run say a hundred nights, instead of twenty. i don't know how this spirit of greed is to be subdued, though with the multiplication of play-houses, long runs may tend to become rare. a municipal subsidy or an obliging millionaire might enable a manager to vary his bill with comparative frequency, when he has persuaded the dramatic author that the run of a play till the crack of doom is incompatible with the interest of art. [laughter.] i cannot help suspecting that the chief difficulty of a manager, under even the most artistic and least commercial conditions, will always be, not to check the inordinate proportions of success, but to secure plays which may succeed at all. i hope you will not accuse me of taking a too despondent view of the drama, for believe me, i do not. to be sure, we sometimes hear that shakespeare is to be annihilated, and that the poet's intellect has been overrated. and lately a reverend gentleman at hampstead announced his intention of putting down the stage altogether. [laughter.] the atmosphere of hampstead seems to be intellectually intoxicating; at any rate it has a rather stimulating effect on a certain kind of dogmatic mind. this intolerance has been very eloquently rebuked by a distinguished man who is an ornament of the church of england. it is dean farrar who says that these pharisaical attacks on the stage are inspired only by "concentrated malice." well, the periodical misunderstanding to which the stage is exposed need cause but little disquiet. i have no doubt it will survive its many adventures, and that it will owe not a little of its tenacious vitality to your unflagging sympathy and hearty and generous encouragement. [cheers.] * * * * * the function of the newspaper [speech of sir henry irving, as chairman, at the thirty-fifth anniversary dinner of the newspaper press fund, london, may , .] gentlemen:--when i received the great compliment of an invitation to occupy this chair, i was conscious of a certain ironical fitness in my position. the politician and the actor divide between them the distinction of supplying the most constant material for the most intimate and searching vigilance of the newspaper press. [laughter.] so when this great corporation of the newspaper press fund gives its annual dinner, what more natural and fitting than a politician or an actor in the chair, who illustrates in his person and in his own fortunes both the appreciation and the discipline which it is the function of the press so liberally to bestow? i can imagine that when such a chairman happens to be a pretty old stager like myself, there may be journalists in such a distinguished company as this who will look at him with the moistened eye of emotional reminiscence and murmur: "ah, it was upon that man i fleshed my maiden pen!" [laughter.] thoughts like these shed the mellowing influence of time over the volumes of press cuttings which no actor's library is without. i have heard of public men who say they never read the newspapers. that remark has been attributed to a bishop, and perhaps there are kinds of abstinence quite easy to bishops but difficult to other mortals. [laughter.] if it were possible for a man whose doings are considered worthy of public notice to avoid the newspaper, he could scarcely hope to make his friends practice the same denial. even a bishop who is not inquisitive must occasionally meet deans and chapters who are. [laughter.] there's the rub. you may not read the newspapers, but as soon as you scent the morning air you know whether those proverbial little birds who spread the news with such alacrity, are chirping about yourself, and the first feathered acquaintance that you hit upon is generously eager to share with you the crumb picked from a newspaper with a special flavor for your own palate. gentlemen, i mention this, not by way of complaint, but simply to illustrate the futility of that philosophy which fondly imagines that the newspaper can be ignored. but i am chiefly conscious to-night of the debt of gratitude we all owe to the press. the newspaper--say what you will of it--is the immediate recorder and interpreter of life. morning and evening it offers us that perpetual stimulus which makes the zest of living. be your interests what they may, though you abstract your mind from the tumult of affairs and devote it to art or science, you cannot open a newspaper without the sensation of laying your hand upon the throbbing pulse of the world. and it has throbbed within but a few days, throbbed with a widespread grief at the passing of a great man [mr. gladstone], a great statesman, a great and noble figure in productive and national life, who for more than half a century has helped largely to mould the destinies of the nation and the world. [loud cheers.] gentlemen, in a newspaper, at a glance, you are in touch with the elemental forces of nature--war, pestilence and famine; you are transported by this printed sheet, as it were the fairy carpet of the arabian, from capital to capital, from the exultation of one people to the bitter resentment and chagrin of another. you behold on every scale every quality of humanity, everything that piques the sense of mystery, everything that inspires pity, dread, or anger. it is a vast and ever-changing panorama of the raw material of art and literature. [cheers.] well, there are some complaints, gentlemen, that the raw material is more generally interesting than the artistic product. the newspaper is a dangerous competitor of books, and those of us who write plays and produce them may wish that the circulation of a great daily journal would repeat itself at the box-office. [laughter.] but it is no use protesting against rivalry, if it be the rivalry of life, and the gentlemen of the press who are engaged in stage-managing and drama which, after all, is the real article, must always command more spectators than the humble artists who seek truth in the garb of illusion. i cannot sufficiently admire the enterprise of these great newspapers which keep the diary of mankind. in time of war their representatives are in the thick of danger; and though he may subscribe to the _dictum_, so familiar to playgoers, that the pen is mightier than the sword, the war correspondent is always ready to give lessons to the enemy with the less majestic weapon. ["hear! hear!"] in our own military annals no little glory shines on the names of civilians who, in the faithful discharge of duty to a multitude of readers, gave their lives as truly for their country as if they had died in the queen's uniform. there are veteran campaigners of the press still amongst us, one of the most distinguished of whom is my old and valued friend, sir william russell [cheers], the vice-president of this fund, by whom i have the pleasure of being seated to-night. i say there are many veterans of the press whose services to the british army will not be forgotten, though they never set a squadron in the field. i have heard it said that in diplomacy the press is sometimes indiscreetly ahead of events [laughter], but you must remember that nothing is so characteristic of the modern spirit as the art of publishing things before they happen. nowadays all the world is on tiptoe, and the soul of journalism must be prophetic, because it has to do for a curious and wide-eyed public what was done for a much simpler generation by the alchemists and the astrologer. we ought to be thankful that this somewhat perilous business is conducted, on the whole, with so much discretion and breadth of mind. we have no less admiration, gentlemen, for the judgment of our press than for the enterprise which is born of competition, and, although that judgment has often to be framed under conditions which demand almost breathless rapidity, it does not always bear unfavorable comparison with the protracted meditation of the philosophic recluse. [cheers.] but there is one thing which the ubiquitous energies of the press cannot command, and that is immunity for its members from the chances of evil fortune, from sickness and decay. ["hear! hear!"] i suppose there is no profession which makes such heavy calls upon the bodily and mental vigor of its servants as the profession of the journalist. whoever nods, he must be always fresh and alert. whoever is content with the ideas of yesterday, the journalist must be equipped with the ideas of to-morrow. in the course of my life it has been my privilege to number many brilliant journalists amongst my dearest friends, and i sorrowfully call to mind now more than one undaunted spirit who has suffered the penalties of overtaxed strength. it is in these cases that this fund should be of special benefit. it is in your power to give that timely help which saves the exhausted brain and restores the broken nerve. i stand to-night in a place which has been occupied by many distinguished advocates of this fund--advocates who have spoken with eloquence to which i can make no pretension. but i would earnestly impress upon you this thought, than which no plea can be more eloquent--remember that whatever you may give out of goodness of heart, from the memories of old comradeship, from the thousand and one associations which bind together fellow-workers in various arts and callings, remember that it may be the means some day of snatching from the last despond some one whose hand you have pressed in friendship, and whose voice has an echo in your hearts. i ask you to drink "prosperity to the newspaper press fund." [loud cheers.] richard claverhouse jebb literature and art [speech of richard claverhouse jebb, professor in the university of cambridge, in responding to the toast, "the interests of literature," coupled, according to custom, with "the interests of science," at the banquet of the royal academy, london, may , . sir frederic leighton, president of the academy, said in introducing him: "i invite you to join me in a tribute, never wanting at this table, to science and to letters. with literature i connect the name of a guest whom his grateful country has brought from the far banks of the clyde to our table to-night--one among the very foremost and most elegant of our scholars; and a speaker on whose lips we trace, though latin has been the chief vehicle of his oratory, a savor of those attic orators with whom his name is associated in our minds--professor jebb."] mr. president, your royal highnesses, my lords, and gentlemen:--in responding for the second part of the toast, which has been so eloquently proposed and so graciously received, i trust that i shall have the indulgence of this distinguished company if the words in which the response is tendered are simple and few. it is now just a hundred years since the earliest occupant of the presidential chair which sir frederic leighton so brilliantly adorns, in addressing the students of the royal academy, counseled them to practice "the comparison of art with art, and of all arts with the nature of man." among the various fields in which literature works, there is none, perhaps, in which the reciprocal influence of art and literature can be more vividly apprehended than in the province of classical study, and especially in the domain of those pursuits which are conversant with the life and thought of ancient greece. the inheritor of a shapeless mythology and a rude tradition, homer emerges as the first artist in european poetry, giving clear outline and beautiful form to types of godhead and heroism. the successor to schools which had rather combated than conquered their material, phidias, is recalled as the first poet in european art, creating a visible embodiment for the homeric vision of those imperial brows which made olympus to tremble at their nod. england has no academy of letters. all the more, perhaps, is it desirable that our literature should be penetrated by those regulative lessons of form, those suggestions of a spiritual harmony, which emanate from an academy such as this ["hear! hear!"]--from a true and noble academy of arts. it has never been better with art, it has never been better with literature than when each has been most willing to receive the highest teachings of the other, acknowledging the bond of an eternal sisterhood in that hellenic message for which keats has found an english voice,--"beauty is truth, truth beauty." [cheers.] joseph jefferson my farm in jersey [speech of joseph jefferson at a dinner given by the authors' club, in honor of the tenth anniversary of its founding, new york, february , . edward eggleston acted as chairman. on rising to speak, mr. jefferson received an enthusiastic greeting.] gentlemen:--i need not say how i thank you for this generous greeting. i am very glad that your worthy chairman has defined my position. i knew i was a guest, but i did not know i was an author--however, i will begin my remarks here because i think it is appropriate at an authors' club to quote from so able and so lovely a man as charles lamb. charles lamb has said that the world is divided into two classes, those who are born to borrow and those who are born to lend, and if you happen to be of the latter class, why, do it cheerfully. now the world seems to be divided into two other classes, those who are always anxious to make speeches and those who are not. if of the latter one, you are rather uncertain of yourself, as i am now, and you have to make a speech, why, do it cheerfully. [applause.] making a speech cheerfully and making a cheerful speech are two very different matters. [laughter and applause.] you know how dangerous it is for any man to wander away from the legitimate paths of his profession. i fear i have been over-impertinent; i have even been rude enough to exhibit my pictures, impertinent enough to write a book. i have become an author of one book and the authors have kindly admitted me and invited me to their board. to-morrow night, or after to-morrow night, i presume that the orators will invite me to their board. [applause.] i am almost ashamed of my presumption, and it would serve me very right if i failed to-morrow night. that will teach me better and i shall extend the field of my operation no further, i assure you. but it is curious that there is one path in which the actor always wanders--he always likes to be a land-owner. it is a curious thing that the actors of england and--of course in the olden times you must remember that we had none but english actors in this country,--and as soon as they came here, they wanted to own land. they could not do it in england. the elder booth owned a farm at bellaire. thomas cooper, the celebrated english tragedian, bought a farm near philadelphia, and it is a positive fact that he is the first man who ever owned a fast trotting horse in america. he used to drive from the farm to rehearsal at the theatre, and i believe has been known on some occasions, when in convivial company, even to drive out at night afterwards. [laughter.] following and emulating the example of my illustrious predecessors i became a farmer. i will not allude to my plantation in louisiana; my overseer takes care of that. i have not heard from him lately but i am told he takes very good care of it. [laughter.] i trust there was no expression of distrust on my part. but i allude to my farm in new jersey. i have not been so successful as mr. burroughs, but i was attracted by a townsman and i bought a farm in new jersey. i went out first to examine the soil. i told the honest farmer who was about to sell me this place that i thought the soil looked rather thin; there was a good deal of gravel. he told me that the gravel was the finest thing for drainage in the world. i told him i had heard that, but i had always presumed that if the gravel was underneath it would answer the purpose better. he said: "not at all; this soil is of that character that it will drain both ways," by what he termed i think catepillary attraction. [laughter.] i bought the farm and set myself to work to increase the breadth of my shoulders, to help my appetite, and so forth, about work of a farm. i even went so far as to emulate the example set by mr. burroughs, and split the wood. i did not succeed at that. of course, as mr. burroughs wisely remarks, the heat comes at both ends; it comes when you split the wood and again when you burn it. but as i only lived at my farm during the summer time, it became quite unnecessary in new jersey to split wood in july, and my farming operations were not successful. we bought an immense quantity of chickens and they all turned out to be roosters [laughter]; but i resolved--i presume as william nye says about the farm--to carry it on; i would _carry_ on that farm as long as my wife's money lasted. [laughter.] a great mishap was when my alderney bull got into the greenhouse. there was nothing to stop him but the cactus. he tossed the flower-pots right and left. talk about the flowers that bloom in the spring,--why, i never saw such a wreck, and i am fully convinced that there is nothing that will stop a thoroughly well-bred bull but a full-bred south american cactus. [laughter.] i went down to look at the ruins and the devastation that this animal had made, and i found him quietly eating black hamburg grapes. i don't know anything finer than black hamburg grapes for alderney bulls. a friend of mine, who was chaffing me for my farming proclivities, said: "i see you have got in some confusion here. it looks to me from seeing that gentleman there--that stranger in the greenhouse--that you are trying to raise early bulls under glass." [laughter.] well, i will not tire you with these experiences. i can only congratulate mr. burroughs upon his success, and i beg that you will sympathize with me upon my failure; and now then allow me to conclude my crude remarks by thanking you for the very kind manner in which you have listened to my remarks and my experiences. i assure you--they are all of them true. and i thank you, sir, for your kind introduction, which i am afraid i do not deserve. and so, gentlemen, i wish you success and happiness, and long life to your honorable club. [long-continued applause.] * * * * * in memory of edwin booth [speech of joseph jefferson at the annual banquet held on founders' night at the players' club, new york city, december , . this was the first time that mr. jefferson, the newly-elected president, spoke to his fellow-players in his official capacity.] fellow-players:--founders' night should be of joy, unshaded by the slightest tinge of gloom. i know this, but how can i speak to-night without a loving reference to the one whose gift we now hold--a gift in which our children and theirs for many generations will take pride, delight and comfort. it would be a twice-told tale to rehearse the career of edwin booth. you are as familiar with it as i am. but there are incidents in his early life that may interest you, and possibly that no one but myself could tell you. an early remembrance of the stage brings before me the figure of the elder booth. when i was but five years of age i acted the duke of york to his richard iii. you may think it strange that i remember this circumstance; but even a child as young as i was could not have stood in the presence of this superb and magnetic actor without being indelibly impressed with the scene. his son, edwin, was then just born. we first met when he was a handsome youth of sixteen. a lithe and graceful figure, buoyant in spirits, and with the loveliest eyes i ever looked upon. we were friends from the first, and it is a comfort to me to know that our friendship lasted nearly half a century, unbroken by a single act or word. his early performances upon the stage did not give much promise, and there were grave fears that he had not inherited the genius of his father. but after the death of that father young booth's friends and the public were suddenly startled by the news from across the continent that a new star had arisen, not in the east, but in the west, and was wending its way homeward. in i became the stage manager for henry c. jarrett in baltimore. that gentleman is a member of our club and now stands before me. he one day brought a young girl who had been given to his care and placed her in mine--a beautiful child, but fifteen years of age. her family, a most estimable one, had met with some reverse, and she had decided to go upon the stage to relieve them from the burden of her support, and possibly to contribute to the comfort of her father. this loving duty she faithfully performed. she lived in my family as the companion of my wife for three years, and during that time became one of the leading actresses of the stage. one morning i said to her: "to-morrow you are to rehearse juliet to the romeo of our new and rising young tragedian." at this distance i can scarcely say whether i had or had not a premonition of the future, but i knew at the conclusion of that rehearsal that edwin booth and mary devlin would soon be man and wife; and so it came about, for at the end of the week he came to me in the green-room, with his affianced bride by the hand, and with a quaint smile they fell upon their knees in a mock-heroic manner, as though acting a scene in the play, and said: "father, your blessing," to which i replied in the same mock-heroic vein, extending my hands like the old friar: "bless you, my children!" shortly they were married. we know that his life was filled with histrionic triumphs and domestic bereavements. may i not speak here of this gift of the players? it is comparatively easy for those who are rocked in a golden cradle, and who at their birth are endowed with great wealth, to dispense their bounty. i do not desire to disparage the generosity of the rich. those of our land have done much good, are now freely dispensing their wealth, and will continue to do so; but we must remember that the fortune of edwin was not inherited. the walls within which we stand, the art, the library, and the comforts that surround us, represent a life of toil and travel, sleepless nights, tedious journeys and weary work; so that when he bestowed upon us this club it was not his wealth only, but it was himself that he gave. but a few years ago he was (though rich in genius) poor in pocket. he had been wealthy, and had seen the grand dramatic structure he had reared taken from him and devastated. his reverse of fortune was from no fault of his own, but from a confiding nature. when he again, by arduous toil, accumulated wealth, one would have supposed that the thoughts of his former reverses would have startled him and that he would have clutched his newly-acquired gold and garnered it to himself, fearful lest another stroke of ill-fortune should fall upon him. but instead of making him a coward it gave him courage. it did not warp his mind or steel his heart against humanity. no sterility settled upon him. his wrongs seemed to have fertilized his generosity, and here we behold the fruit. when the stranger comes here and asks us for the monument of edwin booth we can say: "look around you." for some time past he had looked forward calmly to his dissolution. one year ago to-night in this room, and at this very hour, he said to me the memorable words: "they drink to my health to-night, joe. when they meet again, it will be to my memory." two years ago last autumn, we walked on the sea beach together, and with a strange and prophetic kind of poetry, he likened the scene to his own failing health, the falling leaves, the withered sea-weed, the dying grass upon the shore, and the ebbing tide that was fast receding from us. he told me that he felt prepared to go, for he had forgiven his enemies, and could even rejoice in their happiness. surely this was a grand condition in which to step from this world across the threshold to the next! lord kitchener the relief of khartum [speech of horatio herbert, lord kitchener, at a banquet given by the lord mayor of london, at the mansion house, london, november , , in celebration of the campaign in the sudan and the successful recovery of khartum from the dervishes, thereby avenging the death of general gordon. lord salisbury, in a brilliant speech, proposed the health of lord kitchener, to which the latter replied with the speech that follows.] my lord mayor, your royal highnesses, my lords and gentlemen:--it is not easy for me to find words to express the gratitude i feel for the manner in which the toast proposed by lord salisbury has been received by this magnificent audience, or for the too kind and too flattering words in which it has been recommended to your notice. such a recognition by such an audience is more than sufficient recompense for any services which it may have been my good fortune to render. but, my lords and gentlemen, i am fully aware that it is not in my individual capacity but as representing the anglo-egyptian army that this great honor has been done me. [cheers.] it is to the excellent and devoted services of the troops that the success of the campaign is due. a general would have been indeed incapable who failed to lead such men to victory; for it was not only, nor even principally, on the day of battle, that the great qualities of these troops were displayed. the cheerful endurance and soldier-like spirit with which they bore long delay during the sudan summer, between the battle of atbara and the advance on omdurman, was as high a test of discipline and efficiency as the endurance exhibited in the long marches, or the courage shown at the trenches at atbara or on the plains of omdurman. [cheers.] a man may be proud indeed whose good fortune has placed him in command of troops capable of deeds like these. and remember, my lords and gentlemen, i include in this not merely the british army but the egyptian army also. [loud cheers.] for, proud as i may well be of having commanded the british troops in the sudan, i am no less proud of having as sirdar led the egyptian and sudanese troops to victory, side by side with men of my own race and blood. it is on behalf of those and the combined forces that are absent as well as those that are present that i desire to tender you our sincere thanks for the great honor you have done us. it has been contended and in former days with some plausibility, that the material from which the egyptian army is recruited is not capable of being made into good soldiers, but we in the egyptian army never held that view; we felt confidence in our men, and that confidence has been justified. we tested them at gemeizeh, tokar, toski, ferkeh, and abu hamed, and were not disappointed; and under the circumstances, perhaps the most competent military critics, the dervishes [laughter] showed no disposition to underrate the fighting power of our men. and when the _rôle_ was changed and from the defensive we were able to take the offensive they soon acquired that respect for the egyptian soldiers that all good troops engender in the minds of their opponents. [cheers.] i had to give the egyptian army arduous work. they had to construct the railway; they had to build gunboats, and sailing craft through the dangerous cataracts, they had to be on incessant fatigues, moving stores and cutting wood for the steamers. it may be fairly said that had it not been for the work of the egyptian army the british troops could not have reached omdurman without far greater suffering and loss of life, and it was not only in these pioneer duties that the egyptian army distinguished themselves, for when they came in contact with the enemy their discipline, steadiness and courage were prominently displayed. at ferkeh, and at abu hamed, they, with the sudanese troops, turned the dervishes out of their positions. at atbara, they were not behind their british comrades, and at omdurman, when macdonald's brigade repulsed the fierce and determined attacks that were brought against them, i am sure that the thought occurred to the mind of every officer in the british brigades, who saw it: "we might have done it as well; we could not have done it better." ["hear! hear!"] and how was this obtained? by good training, good discipline and mutual confidence between officers and men. it was on these lines that the army was formed and organized under sir evelyn wood and sir francis grenfell, and i, with the assistance of the finest body of officers that the british army can produce, have merely followed in their footsteps, and developed the principles that they had already laid down. there is one other point to which i would like to refer before bringing a speech which may have already been too long ["no! no!"] to a conclusion. in this great commercial centre it may be of interest if i allude to the financial side of the campaign. although the accounts have not yet been absolutely closed, you may take it as very nearly accurate that during the two and a half years' campaign, extra military credits to the amount of two and a half millions have been expended. in this sum i have included the recent grant that has been made for the extension of the railway from atbara to khartum, the work on which is already on hand. well, against this large expenditure we have some assets to show. we have, or shall have, miles of railway, properly equipped with engines, rolling stock, and a track with bridges in good order. i must admit that the railway stations and waiting-rooms are somewhat primitive, but then we do not wait long in the sudan. [laughter.] well, for this running concern i do not think that £ , a mile will be considered too high a value. this represents two and a half millions out of the money granted, and for the other quarter of a million, we have , miles of telegraph lines, six new gunboats, besides barges and sailing craft, and--the sudan. [laughter and cheers.] of course the railway did not cost me £ , a mile to construct, and many other heavy charges for warlike stores, supplies and transport on our long line of communication, including sea transports of troops from england and elsewhere had to be made; but however it was done the result remains the same. we have freed the vast territories of the sudan from the most cruel tyranny the world has ever known, and we have hoisted the egyptian and british flags at khartum, never, i hope, to be hauled down. i have again to thank you, my lord mayor, for the great honor done us on this occasion. i have only one regret which, i feel sure, is shared by all present, and which has been given expression to by lord rosebery and lord salisbury, and that is, that lord cromer, who has supported me during the last two and a half years, is not here to support me to-night and to receive in person the thanks to which he is so justly entitled, and which, i am sure, you would willingly have given. [loud cheers.] andrew lang problem novels [speech of andrew lang at the annual banquet of the royal academy, london, may , . this speech on some of the aspects of modern fiction was delivered by mr. lang in response to the toast "the interests of literature," regularly proposed on these occasions. the president of the academy, sir frederic leighton, said in introducing mr. lang: "your royal highness, my lords and gentlemen: let us drink to the honor of science and of letters. if of the latter it may be affirmed without fear that few things are more often misapprehended than their true relation to art, it is not less certain that no body of men are more than artists responsive to their stimulating force. how closely science, which is knowledge, is interwoven on many sides with art, it is needless here to say. in the name of letters i have to call upon one of the most versatile of their votaries, a man whose nimble intellect plays with luminous ease round many and various subjects; delicate as a poet, acute and picturesque as a critic, a sparkling journalist, no one has pursued with more earnest and more fruitful zeal the graver study of the birth and evolution of natural myths than mr. andrew lang, to whom i turn for response."] your royal highness, mr. president, my lords and gentlemen:--he to whom it falls or rather on whom falls the task of replying for english literature may well feel ground to dust by the ponderous honor. who can be the representative of such a parnassian constituency of divine poets, philosophers, romancers, historians, from beowulf to the last new novel? the consciousness is crushing. the momentary representative feels himself to be like mr. chevy slyme "the most littery fellow in the world," who is over-borne like the bride of the lord of burleigh-- "by the burden of an honor unto which she was not born." naturally he flies to thoughts which whisper of humility. he finds them easily. in the first place literature is but a very insignificant flake on the foam of the wave of the world. as mr. pepys reminds us, most people please themselves "with easy delights of the world, eating, drinking, dancing, hunting, fencing," and not with book learning. easy he calls them! i wish they were:-- "i cannot eat but little meat, my stomach is not good." still less can i dance or hunt. yet to the general public these things come easier than reading; and their good-humored contempt keeps us poor "littery gents" in our proper place and frame of mind. i have lately read somewhere about a man of letters who conceived himself to be the idol of the great and good-natured american people. they sent him the kindest letters, they invited him to lecture, but ah! when his publishers' accounts came in, he found there "to american sales: six and twopence!" [laughter.] here is matter for mortification! again, one is not so much to speak for english literature as to speak about it; one is not a representative but a reporter; we critics are but the cagots or despised pariah class in the world of letters. if we ever give in to the belief that we might attempt something creative, we, like the insects celebrated by the poet, "have lesser" critics upon our backs to bite us [laughter] and to remind us of our limitations. our function in the game is like that of the scorers and umpires at lords or the oval; men of accurate intellectual habit, and incorruptible integrity from whom not much is to be expected with bat or ball. we are not to do anything "off our own bats." for these reasons i only talk humbly of literature as an interested professional observer. when the philosopher square spoke of religion, he meant the true religion, and when he said the true religion he indicated the protestant religion, and by the protestant religion he meant the religion of the church of england. in the same way if i venture a few remarks on english literature i mean modern english literature, and by modern english literature i mean modern english novels. we are indeed quite destitute of poets. as henry v is said by a french chronicler to have ennobled all his army on the eve of agincourt, so perhaps it might be well to make all our poets poets-laureate [laughter]--there must be a sip for each of them in the butt of malmsey or sack. but when the general public says "literature" the general public means fiction. now, though i have some optimistic remarks to end with, it does appear to myself that the british novel suffers from diverse banes or curses. the first is the spread of elementary education. too many naturally non-literary people of all ranks are now goaded into acquiring a knowledge of the invention of cadmus. when nobody could read, except people whose own literary nature impelled them to learn, better books were written, because the public, if relatively few, was absolutely fit. secondly, these new educated people insist on our national cursed "actuality." they live solely in the distracted moment, whereas true literature lives in the absolute; in the past that perhaps never was present, and that is eternal; "lives in fantasy." shakespeare did not write plays about contemporary problems. the greek dramatists deliberately chose their topics in the tales of troy and thebes and atreus's line. the very fijians, as mr. paisley thomson informs us, "will tell of gods and giants and canoes greater than mountains and of women fairer than the women of these days, and of doings so strange that the jaws of the listeners fall apart." they do not deal with "problems" about the propriety of cannibalism or the casuistry of polygamy [laughter.] the athenians fined for his _modernité_ the author of a play on the fall of miletus because he reminded them of their misfortunes. but many of our novelists do nothing but remind us of our misfortunes. novels are becoming tracts on parish councils, free love and other inflammatory topics [laughter], and the reason of this ruin is that the vast and the naturally non-literary majority can now read, and of course can only read about the actual, about the noisy wrangling moment. this is the bane of the actual. of course i do not maintain that contemporary life is tabooed against novelists, but if novels of contemporary life are to be literature, are to be permanent, that life must either be treated in the spirit of romance and fantasy as by balzac and the colossally fantastic zola; or in the spirit of humor as by charles de bernard, fielding, thackeray, dickens. the thrifty plan of giving us sermons, politics, fiction, all in one stodgy sandwich [laughter] produces no permanent literature, produces but temporary "tracts for the times." fortunately we have among us many novelists--young ones luckily--who are true to the primitive and eternal fijian canons of fiction. [laughter.] we have oriental romance from the author of "plain tales from the hills." we have the humor and tenderness--certainly not fijian i admit--which produced the masterpiece, "a window in thrums." we have the adventurous fancy that gives us "a gentleman of france," "the master of ballantrae," "micah clarke," "the raiders," "the prisoner of zenda," and the truly primeval or troglodyte imagination which, as we read of a fight between a knob-nosed kaffir dwarf and a sacred crocodile, brings us in touch with the first hearers of heracles's or beowulf's or grettir's deeds, "so strange that the jaws of the listeners fall apart." thus we possess outlets for escape from ourselves and from to-day. we can still dwell now and then in the same air of pleasure as our fathers have breathed since the days of homer. such are the rather intolerant ideas of a bookworm who by no means grudges the pleasure which other readers receive from what does not please him to enthusiasm. and pleasure, not edification, is the end of all art. we are all pleased when we write; the public of one enthusiast every author enjoys, and the literary men who depreciate the joys of their own art or profession may not be consciously uncandid, but they are decidedly perverse. [laughter and applause.] wilfrid laurier canada [speech of sir wilfrid laurier, premier of canada, at a banquet given by the imperial institute to the colonial premiers, london, june , , on the occasion of her majesty's diamond jubilee. the prince of wales presided. in introducing sir wilfrid laurier, he said: "gentlemen, this is not the time nor is it necessary to allude to the loyalty of our great colonies. we have heard what has been spoken here to-night, and we shall hear still more. we know that our colonies look toward the mother country with affection; and in the hour of need and danger i feel convinced that they will always come forward to our assistance. [cheers.] during the remarkable record reign of her majesty the queen great changes have occurred. when she came to the throne, there were only thirty-two colonies; now there are sixty-five. [cheers.] as lord lansdowne has said we have met here in times of peace. god grant that it may last, but should the occasion come when our national flag is endangered i have but little doubt, gentlemen, that the colonies will unite like one man to maintain what exists and what i hope will remain forever as integral parts of the british empire. it is now my pleasant duty to propose the toast of the evening: 'our guests the colonial premiers.' we welcome them as ourselves. we hope that their stay here may not be made in any way irksome to them. i feel sure that no one will be more grateful than the queen herself to see that these gentlemen have come here on the invitation of the colonial office to do honor to a great epoch in our history. this toast we connect with the health of the hon. wilfrid laurier. i now beg you with all the honors to drink this toast--'our guests, i may say, our friends, the colonial premiers.'"] your royal highness, my lords and gentlemen:--the toast which your royal highness has just proposed in such graceful terms is one which is important at all times and opens a subject which at the present time perhaps more than at any other engrosses and absorbs the minds of all thinking men. ["hear! hear!"] during the few days in which my colleagues and myself have had the privilege to be in england, we have had hourly evidences that the colonies at the present moment occupied no small part in the affections of the people of england. [cheers.] sir, colonies were born to become nations. in my own country, and perhaps also in england, it has been observed that canada has a population which in some instances exceeds, in many others, rivals the populations of independent nations, and it has been said that perhaps the time might come when canada might become a nation of itself. my answer is this simply: canada is a nation. [cheers.] canada is free, and freedom is its nationality. although canada acknowledges the suzerainty of a sovereign power, i am here to say that independence can give us no more rights than we have at present. ["hear! hear!"] lord lansdowne has spoken of a day when perhaps our empire might be in danger. england has proved at all times that she can fight her own battles, but if a day were ever to come when england was in danger, let the bugle sound, let the fires be lit, on the hills and in all parts of the colonies, though we might not be able to do much, whatever we can do shall be done by the colonies to help her. [cheers.] from all parts of this country since i have been here, both in conversation and in letters, i have been asked if the sentiments of the french population of canada were characterized by absolute loyalty towards the british empire. i have been reminded that feuds of race are long and hard to die, and that the feuds of france--the land of my ancestors--with england have lasted during many generations. let me say at once that though it be true that the wars of france and england have their place in history, it was the privilege of the men of our generation to see the banners of france and england entwined together victoriously on the banks of the alma, on the heights of inkerman, and on the walls of sebastopol. [cheers.] it is true that during the last century and the century before, a long war, a long duel, i might call it, was waged between england and france for the possession of north america, but in the last battle that took place on the plains of abraham, both generals, the one who won and the one who failed, fell. if you go to the city of quebec, you will see a monument erected in commemoration of that battle. what is the character of that monument? monuments to record victories are not scarce in england or in france; but such a monument as this which is in quebec, i do not think you will find in any other part of the world, for it is a monument not only to him who won but also to him who failed. [cheers.] it is a monument dedicated to the memory of wolfe and montcalm, and the dedication, which is one of the noblest and best of the kind, not only for the sentiments which it records but also as a literary expression, is as follows: "_mortem virtus communem famam historia monumentum posteritas dedit_." here is a monument to the two races equal in fame, courage, and glory, and that equality exists at the present time in canada. in this you have the sentiments of my countrymen--we are equal to-day with those who won on the battle-field on the plains of abraham. it is by such acts that england has won the hearts of my fellow-countrymen; it is by such acts that she can ever claim our loyalty. your royal highness, let me now thank you from the bottom of my heart for the kind words you have just spoken. your royal highness has been kind enough to remind us that at one time in its earlier day you visited canada. many changes have taken place since that time, but let me assure your royal highness there has been no change in the loyalty of the people of canada. [cheers.] frank r. lawrence the future of new york [speech of frank r. lawrence at the fourth annual dinner given by the poughkeepsie district members of the holland society of new york, october , . the banquet was held in commemoration of the relief of the siege of leyden, . j. william beekman, the president of the holland society, said: "gentlemen, we will now proceed to the next regular toast. it is of interest to all: 'new york, the child of new amsterdam--just as the twig is bent the tree's inclined.' i call upon mr. frank r. lawrence, president of the lotos club, to respond to that toast."] gentlemen of the holland society:--under any circumstances it would be difficult to follow the distinguished master of the art [horace porter] who has just taken his seat, but when to his glowing words is added the diffidence inspired by this illustrious company, the difficulty of the succeeding speaker is great indeed. mr. president, i am like the needy knife-grinder, when asked for his tale: "story--god bless you, i have none to tell, sir,"--and must beg you to accept from me a few disjointed sentences instead of a more formal speech. indeed, it is not entirely clear to me which side of the question suggested by the text i am to take; i do not entirely know whether i am expected to prove the truth or to expose the falsehood of the old proverb which adorns your menu, and it is commonly the case with sayings that are supposed to represent the wisdom of the ages, that the one may as readily be established as the other. it might be suggested by one of sceptical mind that the saying that "as the twig is bent the tree's inclined," may not be literally true as applied to this company and this occasion; on the contrary, might it not be true that if your early dutch ancestors could come back and gaze for a moment upon this sumptuous banquet and these gorgeous surroundings, their first impulse, in accordance with the frugal simplicity of their lives and their habits, would be to repudiate it, and repudiate their descendants, with reprehension and with horror? [laughter.] and would they not straightway proceed, had they the power, to enact such sumptuary laws as should confine you all henceforth and for evermore, to the same simple fare upon which they and their children throve a couple of centuries ago? yet, mr. president, by whatever strange process of evolution the simple festivities of the first settlers upon this island may have grown into an occasion so distinguished as this, i conceive that, after all, the adage which you quote is well applied and has a serious meaning; for despite the lapse of time and the introduction of new races of men, new york is the child of nieuw amsterdam--and how the child has outgrown the parent! i believe it to be true, sir, that new york to-day bears more traces of the less than fifty years of dutch government than of the more than one hundred years of british rule which followed. new york is, indeed, erected upon the foundation of nieuw amsterdam; yet how impossible to compare the new york of to-day with the original settlement established by your forefathers. as well might we compare the great gathering of the navies of the world which occurred in the hudson river a year ago with the first expedition sent hither by their high mightinesses the states-general two hundred and fifty years before. new york to-day, grown up from the nieuw amsterdam of a former generation, is a great emporium and a mighty city. to appreciate the greatness and the swiftness of its growth, we must recall that since this century began its population has increased more than twenty-fold. when this city and its vicinity shall once more have doubled their inhabitants, the result will be the formation of almost the largest mass of people congregated upon the globe. [applause.] contemplating these marvellous changes, past and to come, our reflections are not all pleasant. often do we regret with washington living the passing away of the arcadian simplicity which once prevailed upon this island. often do we recall his plaintive words, applied to this very community: "let no man congratulate himself when he beholds the child of his bosom or the city of his birth increasing in magnitude and importance." yet mournful reflections over the passing away of childhood's days have small place in the ceaseless activity of modern life. new york can no more again become the happy village whose departure irving laments, than the river which nears the ocean can turn back and again become a tiny stream. like a man approaching his prime, it must go forward to its destiny--and what a destiny seems to await our city! as the nineteenth century--greatest of periods known to man--draws to a close, and opens the way for its successor which we expect will be rich with broader and greater and higher achievements still than the century of our birth, what a future seems to await our city of new york! is it not manifest destiny that old nieuw amsterdam, the present new york, should become a greater city than any on the earth to-day? and it seems to me, sir, that it is in a very large measure, indeed, to the rugged industry--to the sturdy honesty--to the indomitable will of your dutch ancestors,--to the spirit which animated william the silent, to the spirit and the qualities which sustained the early dutch settlers upon this island, wouter van twiller and peter stuyvesant and the men of their generation, that we and our children must look, to maintain civic virtue, to foster commercial enterprise, and to make the city of new york in the twentieth century the metropolis of the civilized world. [applause.] william e. h. lecky the artistic side of literature [speech of william b. h. lecky at the annual banquet of the royal academy, london, may , . sir frederic leighton, the president of the academy, said in introducing him: "in connection with 'letters,' i turn to yet another son of that many-gifted sister island [this toast was coupled with that of "science," to which john tyndall was called upon to respond.] on which all englishmen must heartily invoke the blessings of prosperity and of peace restored [cheers], to a man whose subtle and well-balanced mind has delighted, now in tracing through the centuries the growth of the spirit of rationalism, now in following the history of morals in europe, through the first eight centuries of our era, and more lately in illuminating the great page of english history in the century which precedes our own, mr. william edward lecky."] your royal highnesses, my lords, and gentlemen: i cannot but remember that the last time i heard this toast proposed in this room the task which now devolves upon me was discharged by that true poet and great critic whose recent loss all england is deploring. in few respects did mr. arnold render a greater service to literature than by the stress he always placed upon the importance of its artistic side--upon that "grand style," as he loved to call it, which the very last words he uttered in public were employed in extolling. it was not without a sound, critical instinct that he dwelt on it, for it is, i think, on this side, that contemporary literature is apt to be weakest. a great wave of german influence has swept over english literature, and however admirable may be the german intellect in its industry and its thoroughness, in its many-sided sympathies, and in its noble love for truth, it will hardly be claimed for it, even by its greatest admirers, that it is equally distinguished for its sense of the beauty of form or for the great art of perspective or proportion. [cheers.] whether it be owing to this cause, or to the reaction from the brilliantly pictorial literature of macaulay and his contemporaries, or to the excessive predominance of the critical spirit, or to some other more subtle or far-reaching cause, i know not; but i cannot but think that we find in contemporary literature some want of the freshness, the simplicity, or the directness of the great literatures of the past. history is apt to resolve itself into archeology or politics. in poetry or fiction we find more traces of the mind that dissects and analyzes than of the mind that embodies and creates. passion itself assumes the aspects or affects the subtleties of metaphysics, and much of our modern literary art bears a strong resemblance to a school of painting which seems very popular beyond the channel, in which all definite forms and outlines seem lost under vague masses of luminous but almost unorganized color. and yet, though this be true of a large part of our literature, we have still great painters among us. it would be idle, it would be, perhaps, invidious, for me to mention names, many of which will rise unbidden to your minds; but it is not, i think, out of place to remind you that it is since the doors of the last academy exhibition closed that the illustrious historian [kinglake] of the crimean war has completed that noble historic gallery, hung with battlepieces as glowing and as animated, with portraits as vivid and as powerful, as any that have adorned these walls. and if it be said that this great master of picturesque english was reared in the traditions of a more artistic age, i would venture to point to a poem which has been but a few weeks in the world, but which is destined, if i am not much mistaken, to take a more prominent place in the literature of its time--poem which among many other beauties contains pictures of the old greek mythology that are worthy to compare even with those with which you, mr. president, have so often delighted us. i refer to "the city of dreams," by robert buchanan. ["hear! hear!"] while such works are produced in england, it cannot, i think, be said that the artistic spirit in english literature is very seriously decayed. [cheers.] fitzhugh lee the flag of the union forever [speech of general fitzhugh lee at a dinner given by the friendly sons of st. patrick and the hibernian society of philadelphia, at the city of philadelphia, september , . the occasion of the dinner was the one hundredth anniversary of the adoption of the constitution of the united states. general lee, then governor of virginia, was the guest of governor beaver at the dinner. the chairman, hon. andrew g. curtin [pennsylvania's war governor], in introducing general lee said: "we have here to-day a gentleman whom i am glad to call my friend, though during the war he was in dangerous and unpleasant proximity to me. he once threatened the capitol of this great state. i did not wish him to come in, and was very glad when he went away. he was then my enemy and i was his. but, thank god, that is past; and in the enjoyment of the rights and interests common to all as american citizens, i am his friend and he is my friend. i introduce to you, governor fitzhugh lee."] mr. chairman and gentlemen of the hibernian society:--i am very glad, indeed, to have the honor of being present in this society once more; as it was my good fortune to enjoy a most pleasant visit here and an acquaintance with the members of your society last year. my engagements were such to-day that i could not get here earlier; and just as i was coming in governor beaver was making his excuses because, as he said, he had to go to pick up a visitor whom he was to escort to the entertainment to be given this evening at the academy of music. i am the visitor whom governor beaver is looking for. he could not capture me during the war, but he has captured me now. i am a virginian and used to ride a pretty fast horse, and he could not get close enough to me. [laughter.] by the way, you have all heard of "george washington and his little hatchet." the other day i heard a story that was a little variation upon the original, and i am going to take up your time for a minute by repeating it to you. it was to this effect: old mr. washington and mrs. washington, the parents of george, found on one occasion that their supply of soap for the use of the family at westmoreland had been exhausted, and so they decided to make some family soap. they made the necessary arrangements and gave the requisite instructions to the family servant. after an hour or so the servant returned and reported to them that he could not make that soap. "why not," he was asked, "haven't you all the materials?" "yes," he replied, "but there is something wrong." the old folks proceeded to investigate, and they found they had actually got the ashes of the little cherry tree that george had cut down with his hatchet, and there was no lye in it. [laughter.] now, i assure you, there is no "lie" in what i say to you this afternoon, and that is, that i thank god for the sun of the union which, once obscured, is now again in the full stage of its glory; and that its light is shining over virginia as well as over the rest of this country. we have had our differences. i do not see, upon reading history, how they could well have been avoided, because they resulted from different constructions of the constitution, which was the helm of the ship of the republic. virginia construed it one way. pennsylvania construed it in another, and they could not settle their differences; so they went to war, and pennsylvania, i think, probably got a little the best of it. [general laughter.] the sword, at any rate, settled the controversy. but that is behind us. we have now a great and glorious future in front of us, and it is virginia's duty to do all that she can to promote the honor and glory of this country. we fought to the best of our ability for four years; and it would be a great mistake to assume that you could bring men from their cabins, from their ploughs, from their houses and from their families to make them fight as they fought in that contest unless they were fighting for a belief. those men believed that they had the right construction of the constitution, and that a state that voluntarily entered the union could voluntarily withdraw from it. they did not fight for confederate money. it was not worth ten cents a yard. they did not fight for confederate rations--you would have had to curtail the demands of your appetite to make it correspond with the size and quality of those rations. they fought for what they thought was a proper construction of the constitution. they were defeated. they acknowledged their defeat. they came back to their father's house, and there they are going to stay. but if we are to continue prosperous, if this country, stretching from the gulf to the lakes and from ocean to ocean, is to be mindful of its own best interests, in the future, we will have to make concessions and compliances, we will have to bear with each other and to respect each other's opinions. then we will find that that harmony will be secured which is as necessary for the welfare of states, as it is for the welfare of individuals. [applause.] i have become acquainted with governor beaver--i met him in richmond. you could not make me fight him now. if i had known him before the war, perhaps we would not have got at it. if all the governors had known each other, and if all the people of different sections had been known to each other, or had been thrown together in business or social communication, the fact would have been recognized at the outset, as it is to-day, that there are just as good men in maine as there are in texas, and just as good men in texas as there are in maine. human nature is everywhere the same; and when intestine strifes occur, we will doubtless always be able by a conservative, pacific course to pass smoothly over the rugged, rocky edges, and the old ship of state will be brought into a safe, commodious, constitutional harbor with the flag of the union flying over her, and there it will remain. [applause.] sir frederic leighton variety in british art [speech of sir frederic leighton, as president of the royal academy, at the banquet held by that society, may , . this speech followed upon that of dr. mandell creighton, bishop of peterborough, who had proposed the "prosperity of the royal academy," and the health of the president.] my lord bishop:--i thank you for the appreciative tone in which you have spoken of art in general and of english art in particular. the kind terms in which you have commended this institution and its work to this distinguished assembly must have gratified my colleagues as much as it has gratified me, and we thank you most warmly. i would also gratefully acknowledge the lenient words you have addressed to the occupant of this chair. more fortunate than last year at this season, i have to note to-day the loss of one only among the acting members of this body--that of a sculptor of much repute, whose first steps in art were taken under the stimulating guidance of a powerful artist, whose name is a just boast to the green island which gave him birth--john henry foley. less vigorous, no doubt, than his eminent master, charles bell birch, he yet imparted to his works great life and spirit, and the charm of a facile and picturesque execution, and, even in this day of renovation and growing strength in the practice of that stately art, sculpture in this country will miss him in its ranks. ["hear! hear!"] from amongst the honorary retired associates of this body another sculptor, w. f. woodington, has been removed by death--an artist whom, for many years, age and infirmity had withdrawn altogether from public ken. the work of his vigorous prime may still be appreciated on the base of the nelson column of trafalgar square. but whilst our active ranks have suffered diminution by one death only within the year, two justly conspicuous men have fallen in the wider field of english art, both of them men of marked and distinctive personality--both painters, both, to me, deeply interesting. one of them, albert moore, an unbending upholder of the sufficiency in art of whatever is nobly decorative, was a devoted student of the severer graces of hellenic art, and married in his works spontaneous and supple gesture with forms of chaste sobriety, clothing them in delicately harmonious tones, of which the studied arrangement announced to the first glance the refined idiosyncrasy of his artistic temper. ["hear! hear!"] how great a psychological contrast is offered to the placid charm of these works by the fervor of those of the artist whom i have next to name, an artist of strong intellectual bent and steeped in human sympathies, the originator of the movement which startled humdrum people forty or more years ago, and produced a most interesting phase of english art! i speak of ford madox brown, who recently passed away in the fulness of respected years and in the unabated intensity of his convictions. i am not here to defend in every point the nature of those convictions; i am not wholly at one with them. ardently admired by many, stimulating and highly interesting to a still larger circle of the intelligent, who did not, perhaps, wholly follow his doctrine, he was not altogether acceptable to the wider and less cultured public, which so largely influences the creation of that empty and fickle thing called popularity; for there was that in his work which was apt to rouse the uneasy dread of the not usual, which mostly marks the middling mind. but this, i fearlessly affirm, apart from his technical endowments and rare vividness of dramatic vision, in the work of no english hand burns a more ardent sympathy with human emotion or is revealed a more subtle observation of the outward signs and gestures by which these emotions are conveyed. [cheers.] the artistic memories which associate themselves in our mind with madox brown and his concentrated energies, bring vividly before us, as we look upon the walls of this exhibition, or glance in thought over the wide area of contemporary production in england, the changes which two-score years have wrought in the character and tendencies of art in this country. as we wander through these--i rejoice to say, more than ever catholic and hospitable--galleries, within which the still young unfold, this year, so much vitality and promise--and, gentlemen, to us, the old, there is, believe me, no gladder sight or one more full of comfort--we are struck, not with a concentration of aim or purpose in the school, but rather with a radiation and scattering of effort in innumerable directions. no one, i think, can fail to observe the extraordinary differences of mood and manner shown in the works which have found equal shelter on these walls, and the wide multiplicity of individual personalities which they proclaim. in the range of figure painting, for instance, what variety of subject as well as of temper meets us! we see, not historic or domestic scenes alone; not alone scenes in which the rhythmic dream of beauty and of style is aimed at; but works also, not a few, of purely imaginative character--fanciful, mythological, allegorical, symbolic--amongst which latter, one especially, i think, is dominant in its powerful originality and the weird charm of its decorative pomp. in the region of landscape, no less, every mood is touched, and every association evoked, from the infinite solemnity of the silent arctic solitudes to the infinite sweetness of a surrey homestead nestling within its sheltered nook, or the laughter of the flower-fields of the alps in june. what various temperament, too, we note in the expressional use of tone and color--here vivid and vibratory; there grave and soberly subdued. in sculpture, again, though the display is numerically small, there are amongst various good works some that are salient. i will name one by a late alumnus of these schools, which has passed into the hands of the nation, and, in another room, the dazzling sketch of a monument deeply pathetic in its occasion, and of which this country will, i believe, be justly and lastingly proud. on all hands then, in sum, we are conscious of life. with it, we are aware in much of the art of the day of a certain feverish tentativeness, groping, as it were, sometimes after a new spirit, sometimes after a repristination of the old in a modern form; but everywhere, i repeat, we see life. and, gentlemen, to those who, like myself, believe in the necessary triumph of the high over the less high, in the eventual sure survival of the wholesome and the strong, and in the falling away and withering of the vicious or the morbid, this sign is the most welcome, the most inspiriting, and the most hopeful sign of all. [loud cheers.] charles godfrey leland hans breitmann's return [speech of charles g. leland at a dinner given in his honor by the lotos club, new york, january , . mr. leland had just returned from a sojourn of eleven years abroad. whitelaw reid, the president of the club, introduced mr. leland, and said in part: "well, his long exile is over. with a true philadelphian's fear of envious and jealous new york, he stayed abroad till they started a pennsylvania line of steamers for him, and so smuggled him past manhattan island and into the quaker city direct. captured as he is to-night, i will not abuse his modesty by eulogy, yet this much i venture to say, and it is the eulogy the true humorist and the true man of letters will most highly prize. he deserves all the grateful honor we can pay him because he has made substantial additions to the sum of human enjoyment in the world. i give you the health of mr. leland, and with it our best wishes for his long life and prosperity to the end."] mr. president and gentlemen:--i have been asked several times since my return what struck me most, after an eleven years' absence, and i should say it is the fact that i am remembered. it has never struck me so forcibly as this evening. i have been for eleven years over the sea; i have returned like the proverbial story, somewhat worn, perhaps, but still accepted, and i am very much gratified that it is so. time passes so rapidly, and especially here in new york, that to be remembered after so long an absence is especially gratifying. i met in europe a mr. boyd, whose family two centuries before had resided in ireland. mr. boyd thought one day that he would go back and visit his relatives, and so he went back and met with an irish cousin. "ah, cousin boyd," said his relative, "i am glad to see you, and though you have not been here for more than two hundred years, still i can easily trace the illegant resemblance." [laughter.] gentlemen, you seem inclined to trace the resemblance. i am still known, and that has touched me more than anything. but i am not altogether so great a stranger to new york. to be sure, i was born in philadelphia; that cannot be denied; but i have also lived in new york. i was a long time in new york, and, indeed, was a freeholder of the city. i once owned a piece of property here, on which a dutchman planted his cabbages but never paid any rent--and i never asked him for any; finally i gave a man eighty dollars to take the property off my hands altogether. i also voted in new york; and in this i fared better than in freeholding, for i voted for abraham lincoln at his first election. [applause.] i have also been a business man in new york. i started "vanity fair," with charles browne [artemus ward] as an assistant, and i remember how i used to suggest the subjects to him, and how he used to write out the series of articles which have since become so widely known. the "revue des deux mondes" recently gave a detailed account of the manner in which i brought out artemus ward, in which by far too much credit was given to me and too little to him. but this was all done in new york, and you will give me some credit for having aided such a man as artemus ward. but i am growing gossipy. i say all this, however, just to show that i have some claim to call myself a new yorker. i was here for a long time, and here some of my best work was done. but what can i say to thank you for the kind manner in which you have received me? before i left london a gentleman said to me: "the two greatest honors of your country are to get a degree from harvard, and to be a guest of the lotos club;" for you must know that they talk a great deal about you. [laughter.] this was said to me by an english gentleman of letters, for, as i said, you are extremely well known over there, and your hospitality is so celebrated that to have received the stamp of it is to be distinguished. i said it was very strange, but the last thing that happened to me before leaving america was to receive the degree of a. m. from cambridge, but i did not venture to aspire to the other one. and now the first thing that happens to me on my return is to receive your invitation. gentlemen, ambition can no further go. [laughter.] as horace says, a man may change his skies, but not his disposition, and i wish to show you that i have not forgotten my manners while abroad; and, in this connection, that a good speech should have a short answer. a very excellent speech preceded mine. i have made my answer altogether too long. thanking you from my heart, for your courteous kindness, i now take my seat. [applause.] abraham lincoln central ideas of the republic [fragment of a speech of abraham lincoln at the republican banquet in chicago, december , . the rest of this speech, if it was ever reported, is presumably no longer extant, as it is not published in any collection of lincoln's speeches.] gentlemen:--we have another annual presidential message. like a rejected lover making merry at the wedding of his rival, the president felicitates himself hugely over the late presidential election. he considers the result a signal triumph of good principles and good men, and a very pointed rebuke of bad ones. he says the people did it. he forgets that the "people," as he complacently calls only those who voted for buchanan, are in a minority of the whole people by about four hundred thousand votes--one full tenth of all the votes. remembering this, he might perceive that the "rebuke" may not be quite as durable as he seems to think--that the majority may not choose to remain permanently rebuked by that minority. the president thinks the great body of us fremonters, being ardently attached to liberty, in the abstract, were duped by a few wicked and designing men. there is a slight difference of opinion on this. we think he, being ardently attached to the hope of a second term, in the concrete, was duped by men who hate liberty every way. he is the cat's-paw. by much dragging of chestnuts from the fire for others to eat, his claws are burnt off to the gristle, and he is thrown aside as unfit for further use. as the fool said of king lear, when his daughters had turned him out of doors, "he's a shelled peascod." so far as the president charges us with a desire to "change the domestic institutions of existing states," and of "doing everything in our power to deprive the constitution and the laws of moral authority," for the whole party on belief, and for myself on knowledge, i pronounce the charge an unmixed and unmitigated falsehood. our government rests in public opinion. whoever can change public opinion can change the government practically just so much. public opinion, on any subject, always has a central idea, from which all its minor thoughts radiate. that central idea in our political public opinion at the beginning was, and until recently has continued to be, the equality of men. and although it has always submitted patiently to whatever of inequality there seemed to be as matter of actual necessity, its constant working has been a steady progress toward the practical equality of all men. the late presidential election was a struggle by one party to discard that central idea and to substitute for it the opposite idea that slavery is right in the abstract, the workings of which as a central idea may be the perpetuity of human slavery and its extension to all countries and colors. less than a year ago the richmond "enquirer," an avowed advocate of slavery regardless of color, in order to favor his views, invented the phrase "state equality," and now the president, in his message, adopts the "enquirer's" catch-phrase, telling us the people "have asserted the constitutional equality of each and all the states of the union as states." the president flatters himself that the new central idea is completely inaugurated; and so indeed it is, so far as the mere fact of a presidential election can inaugurate it. to us it is left to know that the majority of the people have not yet declared for it, and to hope that they never will. all of us who did not vote for mr. buchanan, taken together, are a majority of four hundred thousand. but in the late contest we were divided between fremont and fillmore. can we not come together for the future? let every one who really believes, and is resolved, that free society is not and shall not be a failure, and who can conscientiously declare that in the past contest he has done only what he thought best--let every such one have charity to believe that every other one can say as much. thus let bygones be bygones; let past differences as nothing be; and with steady eye on the real issue, let us reinaugurate the good old central ideas of the republic. we can do it. the human heart is with us: god is with us. we shall again be able not to declare that "all states as states are equal," nor yet that "all citizens as citizens are equal," but to renew the broader, better declaration, including both these and much more, "that all men are created equal." [applause.] [illustration: _faneuil hall_ _photogravure after a photograph_ this historic "cradle of liberty" yields to no building in america, save perhaps independence hall, in interest. faneuil hall, in boston, was built in , by peter faneuil, a wealthy merchant, and presented to the town for a town-hall and market uses, to which it has been devoted ever since. in it was injured by fire, but was rebuilt by the town in the following year. in it was considerably enlarged and improved. during the troublous times which preceded the revolution, it was the scene of most exciting public meetings; and the great patriot orators of that day sounded from this platform the stirring notes that gave the chief impulse of patriotism to the whole country.] henry cabot lodge the blue and the gray [speech of henry cabot lodge, delivered at a banquet complimentary to the robert e. lee camp of confederate veterans, of richmond, va., given in faneuil hall, boston, june , . the southerners were visiting boston as the special guests of the john a. andrew post , department of massachusetts, grand army of the republic. at the banquet commander william b. daley, of post , presided. on either side of the presiding officer were seated, col. a. l. phillips, commander of the visiting camp, ex-solicitor gen. goode of virginia, the hon. george d. wise of virginia, governor ames of massachusetts. mr. lodge [now united states senator from massachusetts] responded to the toast, "the blue and the gray."] mr. chairman:--to such a toast, sir, it would seem perhaps most fitting that one of those should respond who was a part of the great event which it recalls. yet, after all, on an occasion like this, it may not be amiss to call upon one who belongs to a generation to whom the rebellion is little more than history, and who, however insufficiently, represents the feelings of that and the succeeding generations as to our great civil war. i was a boy ten years old when the troops marched away to defend washington, and my personal knowledge of that time is confined to a few broken but vivid memories. i saw the troops, month after month, pour through the streets of boston. i saw shaw go forth at the head of his black regiment, and bartlett, shattered in body but dauntless in soul, ride by to carry what was left of him once more to the battle-fields of the republic. i saw andrew, standing bareheaded on the steps of the state house, bid the men god-speed. i cannot remember the words he said, but i can never forget the fervid eloquence which brought tears to the eyes and fire to the hearts of all who listened. i understood but dimly the awful meaning of these events. to my boyish mind one thing alone was clear, that the soldiers as they marched past were all, in that supreme hour, heroes and patriots. amid many changes that simple belief of boyhood has never altered. the gratitude which i felt then i confess to to-day more strongly than ever. but other feelings have in the progress of time altered much. i have learned, and others of my generation as they came to man's estate have learned, what the war really meant, and they have also learned to know and to do justice to the men who fought the war upon the other side. i do not stand up in this presence to indulge in any mock sentimentality. you brave men who wore the gray would be the first to hold me or any other son of the north in just contempt if i should say that, now it was all over, i thought the north was wrong and the result of the war a mistake, and that i was prepared to suppress my political opinions. i believe most profoundly that the war on our side was eternally right, that our victory was the salvation of the country, and that the results of the war were of infinite benefit to both north and south. but however we differed, or still differ, as to the causes for which we fought then, we accept them as settled, commit them to history, and fight over them no more. to the men who fought the battles of the confederacy we hold out our hands freely, frankly, and gladly. to courage and faith wherever shown we bow in homage with uncovered heads. we respect and honor the gallantry and valor of the brave men who fought against us, and who gave their lives and shed their blood in defence of what they believed to be right. we rejoice that the famous general whose name is borne upon your banner was one of the greatest soldiers of modern times, because he, too, was an american. we have no bitter memories to revive, no reproaches to utter. reconciliation is not to be sought, because it exists already. differ in politics and in a thousand other ways we must and shall in all good-nature, but let us never differ with each other on sectional or state lines, by race or creed. we welcome you, soldiers of virginia, as others more eloquent than i have said, to new england. we welcome you to old massachusetts. we welcome you to boston and to faneuil hall. in your presence here, and at the sound of your voices beneath this historic roof, the years roll back and we see the figure and hear again the ringing tones of your great orator, patrick henry, declaring to the first continental congress, "the distinctions between virginians, pennsylvanians, new yorkers, and new englanders are no more. i am not a virginian, but an american." a distinguished frenchman, as he stood among the graves at arlington, said, "only a great people is capable of a great civil war." let us add with thankful hearts that only a great people is capable of a great reconciliation. side by side, virginia and massachusetts led the colonies into the war for independence. side by side they founded the government of the united states. morgan and greene, lee and knox, moultrie and prescott, men of the south and men of the north, fought shoulder to shoulder, and wore the same uniform of buff and blue--the uniform of washington. your presence here brings back their noble memories, it breathes the spirit of concord, and unites with so many other voices in the irrevocable message of union and good-will. mere sentiment all this, some may say. but it is sentiment, true sentiment, that has moved the world. sentiment fought the war, and sentiment has re-united us. when the war closed, it was proposed in the newspapers and elsewhere to give governor andrew, who had sacrificed health and strength and property in his public duties, some immediately lucrative office, like the collectorship of the port of boston. a friend asked him if he would take such a place. "no," said he; "i have stood as high priest between the horns of the altar, and i have poured out upon it the best blood of massachusetts, and i cannot take money for that." mere sentiment, truly, but the sentiment which ennobles and uplifts mankind. it is sentiment which so hallows a bit of torn, stained bunting, that men go gladly to their deaths to save it. so i say that the sentiment manifested by your presence here, brethren of virginia, sitting side by side with those who wore the blue, has a far-reaching and gracious influence, of more value than many practical things. it tells us that these two grand old commonwealths, parted in the shock of the civil war, are once more side by side as in the days of the revolution, never to part again. it tells us that the sons of virginia and massachusetts, if war should break again upon the country, will, as in the olden days, stand once more shoulder to shoulder, with no distinction in the colors that they wear. it is fraught with tidings of peace on earth and you may read its meaning in the words on yonder picture, "liberty and union, now and forever, one and inseparable." john davis long the navy [speech of john d. long, secretary of the navy, at the banquet of the fall festival celebration, chicago, october , . the secretary was introduced by the toast-master, hon. melville e. stone, to speak in response to the toast, "the navy."] mr. president and gentlemen:--your toast to the navy is all the more a compliment because you are a thousand miles from the sea. it signifies the place that the navy has in the hearts of all the people and how much they all alike share its glories. it has always been dear to the american heart, and has contributed some of the most brilliant pages in american history; but its exploits during the recent war have given it a stronger and broader hold than ever before. besides, it is not a department which pertains to any section of the country nor to any class among the people; it is one of the fundamental elements of american popular growth. it is as much the product of our schools, our homes, and common life, as is the shop of the mechanic, the warehouse of the merchant, the harvest of the farmer. jack hails from the inland hamlet as well as from the seaport town. the admiral commanding one of our great squadrons, winning a victory unprecedented in naval history, is the son of a prominent financial business man; another, the son of an irish laborer, working in a ditch by his father's side, went from it to the naval academy. every congressional district in the union is represented there by its cadet. the result is that the splendid body of naval officers who to-day so highly command the confidence and admiration of the people are themselves the immediate representatives of the people, and of their common intelligence, spirit and standards. our late antagonist had officers and men of undoubted bravery. but in education, versatility, ability to plan and do, and to meet emergencies: in short, in what mrs. stowe called "faculty," our superiority was such that the battle was won the moment it began. in this connection i remind myself that in congress the naval committees of the senate and house are made up also of men from all parts of our common country. that great branch of our government which nurses the navy and provides for it is also representative of all the people. indeed, your own great city, with all its tremendous commercial and industrial interests, has contributed a member of that committee, who has put his heart into our naval development, rendered signal service in that behalf, and by his recent voluntary study of naval affairs abroad has prepared himself for still more valuable work--your able representative in congress, and my good friend, george edmund foss. i can the more properly, gentlemen, join with you in your appreciation of the navy because, although its head, i am yet only temporarily connected with it and can look at it from the outside. i sometimes think, however, that the great public, applauding the salient merits, overlook others which are quite as deserving. you cheer for the men behind the guns; you give swords and banquets here and there to an admiral--and both most richly deserve the tribute--but remember that all up and down the line there are individuals whose names never got to your ears--or, if so, are already half forgotten--who have earned unfading laurels. no man in the navy has rendered such service, however great, that others were not ready to fill the place and do as well. the navy is full of heroes unknown to fame. its great merit is the professional spirit which runs through it; the high sense of duty, the lofty standards of service to which its hearts are loyal and which make them all equal to any duty. who sings the praises of the chiefs of the naval stations and bureaus of the navy department, who wept that there were no battles and glory for them; and who, remaining at their departmental posts, made such provision for the fitting out, the arming, the supplying, the feeding, the coaling, the equipping of your fleets that the commanding officer on the deck had only to direct and use the forces which these, his brothers, had put in his hands? who repeats the names of the young officers who pleaded for hobson's chance to risk his life in the hull and hell of the merrimac? who mentions the scores of seamen who begged to be of the immortal seven who were his companions in that forlorn hope? in the long watch before santiago the terror of our great battleships was the two spanish torpedo-boat destroyers, those swift, fiendish sharks of the sea, engines of death and destruction, and yet, when the great battle came, it was the unprotected gloucester, a converted yacht, the former plaything and pleasure-boat of a summer vacation, which, without hesitation or turning, attacked these demons of the sea and sunk them both. i have always thought it the most heroic and gallant individual instance of fighting daring in the war. it was as if some light-clad youth, with no defence but his sword, threw himself into the arena with armored gladiators and by his dash and spirit laid them low. and yet who has given a sword or spread a feast to that purest flame of chivalrous heroism, richard wainwright? who recalls all the still more varied services of our navy--its exploits and researches in the interest of science, its stimulus to international commerce, its surveys in foreign harbors, its charting of the sea and marking of the pathway of the merchant marine, its study of the stars, its contributions--in short, to all the interests of an enlightened and progressive country? may i suggest, therefore, that with this broader view of our navy, as not an outside conception of our institutions, but an integral part of them, it is a partial conception that criticises its recent development and its continued developments in the future? it has not only given dignity and variety of service and strength to your government, but think how it is linked in with all your industrial interests, with the employment of large bodies of labor, with the consumption of all sorts of material stimulating marine construction, building docks, and contributing to this business activity and prosperity which are the features of this thrifty town. it is not too much to predict that the development of our navy is the beginning also of a new era of our merchant marine, in maritime construction, and, hence, in maritime transportation, of the american bottom carrying the american flag again on all the oceans of the globe. in the war with spain our fleet was ordered to manila because there was a spanish fleet there, and every military interest demanded its capture or destruction. when that was done, every military interest required, not that our fleet be withdrawn, but that our hand on the enemy's throat should there remain until his surrender. when that surrender came, and with it the transfer of the sovereignty of those islands from spain to the united states, every consideration demanded that the president should hold them up, not toss them into the caldron of anarchy, and when violence began should restore order, yet stretching out always in his hands the tender and opportunity for peace and beneficent government until congress in its wisdom shall determine what their future status shall be. what more, or what less, should he do and do his duty? [applause.] seth low the chamber of commerce [speech of seth low at the th annual banquet of the chamber of commerce of the state of new york, may , . george w. lane, the second vice-president of the chamber, presided, and called upon mr. low to respond to the tenth regular toast: "the chamber of commerce of the state of new york--its past, present, and future."] mr. chairman and gentlemen of the chamber of commerce:--if the historian wished to convey to your minds some idea of the antiquity of this chamber, he would scarcely do it, i think, by saying it was founded in . so few besides the reporters would personally recollect those times. he would rather tell you that it dates back to an epoch when each absentee from the annual dinner was fined five shillings sterling for the offence. think of that! how eloquently it seems to tell us that there was no delmonico in those days. i can understand how a people that punished such a slight to commerce in such a way, would rebel at stamp acts and other burdens of the sort. the revolution itself seems to get a new interpretation from this early custom of the chamber. [laughter.] but, perhaps, a better way of making vivid to this generation the age of this body, would be to say that it dates back to a time when new york actually had a foreign commerce of its own, carried on chiefly under the american flag. it sounds like a fairy tale to one who counts the ensigns in our harbor now, to be told that tradition speaks of a day when the stars and stripes floated over a larger fleet of common carriers on the highways of the world--at least, so far as american business was concerned--than even that omnipresent banner of st. george. strange, is it not, that a nation which surpasses all others in its use of machinery on the land, should have been content to yield up the sea, almost without a struggle, to the steamships of the older world? events over which we have had no control have had much to do with it, i know; but is a single misused subsidy to keep us off the sea forever, or so long as the dominion of the steamship lasts? are we to wait until england can build our steamers for us, and hear her say, as we run up the stars and stripes to the mast-head of the ship which she has built: "see, brother jonathan, how cheap these subsidies which i have given all these years enable me now to build for you!" it may be we must wait for this, but let us hope for a happier consummation. nevertheless, mr. chairman, this chamber does date back to the time when we had a commerce of our own. [applause.] in glancing over our old records, it is interesting to see what a perennial source of discussion in this body have been the pilots of the port. they have been mentioned, i think, even the past year. the first formal reference to the pilots appears in , and the minutes ever since teem with memorials, protests, bills, measures, conferences and the like. a story is told of a chinese pilot, who boarded the vessel of a captain who had never been on the china coast before, and who asked the captain one hundred dollars for his fee. the captain demurred, and the discussion waxed warm, until the white head of an old china merchant appeared in the companion-way, and caught the pilot's eye, when he cut the dispute short by crying out: "hi-ya! g'long olo foxee! ten dollar can do!" [laughter and applause.] i apprehend there is much wisdom in this appeal. in the olden days, the complaint against our pilotage system was not only that it was costly, but that it was inefficient; and so even more costly in the losses of vessels and cargoes than in fees. but, after half a century of contest, the present system was reached in , and it is, beyond dispute, acknowledged by underwriters and by merchants that, as a system, it has worked well--uncommonly well. if, therefore, the present dispute between the merchants and the pilots be, as i understand that it is, in all its vital points a dispute as to fees, i recommend to the merchants and to the pilots the chinese method of adjustment--by compromise. do not let us expose to the hazard of legislative interference a system which is not likely to be bettered, and which gives us certainly efficient pilotage, because we cannot all at once get by compromise a reduction in our favor quite equal to what we think our due. [applause.] but what can i say, mr. chairman, of the chamber of to-day? the subject is full, very full, of interest and of other good things. "may good digestion wait on appetite, and health on both." it is curious to see, all along the history of the chamber, how coming events have cast their shadows before. in the chamber petitioned congress to improve the navigation at hell gate; in they approved a report suggesting as feasible a railroad across the continent to the pacific; and in they asked congress to remove the mint from philadelphia, intimating pretty plainly that philadelphia was too insignificant a place to enjoy so great a luxury. the first two achievements have been accomplished. the mint is almost due in wall street. let philadelphia hear and tremble. [applause.] when i think, mr. chairman, of the influence the chamber wields, and of the influence it ought to wield, it seems to me one thing of all others should be avoided. the chamber ought never to be put upon record in an important matter until full discussion upon fair notice has preceded action, whenever this is possible. sometimes i have thought the action of the chamber was somewhat the result of chance, even with reference to questions of great importance. if the chamber is to continue free, as in the main it has been free, from being used for personal ends, and at the same time is to exert an influence at all commensurate with its power as a representative of commercial new york, the action of the chamber ought to be the result of intelligent discussion. i would only suggest one definite thing. why might not the notice of each monthly meeting state the items of unfinished business that may come up, and also give notice, so far as possible, of the matters to be submitted by the executive committee? the attendance at our meetings would be better, i am sure, if men knew when matters of interest to them were to be discussed. glancing towards our future, i seem to see the day when judge fancher shall sit in a telephone exchange and receive his testimony in ghastly whispers from unseen mouths when the president of the chamber shall take the ayes and nays of a meeting whose component parts are sitting in a thousand counting rooms in this city. but i never can seem to see the day when the annual dinner can be conducted by the members except face-to-face. at all events, we can wait till edison perfects the electric light, before asking him to make a dinner available with delmonico fifteen miles away. [laughter and cheers.] in the pacific mail steamship line was petitioned for, or, at least, a mail line on the pacific, between the united states and the orient world, and that, while the nation was engaged in a mighty struggle for its life. the pacific mail line to the east, the pacific railroad across the continent, the superb government buildings at washington,--all constructed, in whole or in part, while the nation seemed to be strained to its utmost by the demands of a civil war,--these things are to me among the mightiest evidences of the faith of the men of those days who, while the present seemed to be surcharged with duties and burdens for their hands, still laid hold upon the future with such powerful grasp. are we, of the chamber of commerce, worthy of the blessings that have come down to us out of the glorious past? if we wish to be, we must live partly for the future as did they. we need a building of our own, commodious, and in some way proportioned to the great interests we represent. we need a fire-proof building for the safe-keeping of our records. once already in our history our seal has been returned to us from an obscure shop in london. our charter was rescued from an old trunk in the walton house on pearl street, and our historic paintings were only discovered after long loss, as the result of the fire of . the chamber of commerce is standing now at the door of congress, and asks them to sell at public auction the site of the old post office, for not less than three hundred thousand dollars and to pay to the chamber from the proceeds of the sale the sum of fifty thousand dollars, originally subscribed, in the main, by members of the chamber when that site was purchased from the general government a few years ago. it is the purpose of the chamber to buy this plot, and to build there a building worthy of itself and of this great city. [applause.] but so far we ask in vain. the house committee of ways and means has reported our bill favorably, but congress does nothing. the chamber wants this plot, not so much because of the fifty thousand dollars it has of _quasi_ interest in it, but because of its eligibility. the chamber believes it deserves well of this community and of the nation, and, so believing, it asks of congress the passage of this bill. i look back over the past twenty years, and i find the chamber of commerce has been always alive to encourage gallantry, to reward conspicuous service, and to relieve distress. eighteen hundred thousand dollars--almost two millions of dollars--has been given by this chamber in these twenty years. the money has not all come from members of the chamber, but the chamber has always been recognized as the fitting leader and minister in this city in deeds of public spirit. [cheers.] in it celebrated the completion of the first atlantic cable, by giving medals of gold, with generous impartiality, to the officers of the british ship "agamemnon" and the american ship "niagara" alike. and in it feasted the distinguished and persevering american citizen whose pluck and courage, with reference to this cable, no disaster and no faint-heartedness anywhere could dismay. in , in token of gratitude and of patriotic admiration, the chamber placed a medal of bronze upon the breast of every officer and private who sustained the national honor in the defense of fort sumter and fort pickens. in it sprang to the relief of famished lancashire; in our own sufferers in east tennessee and in savannah partook of its bounty; and in the bread cast upon the waters by rochambeau and lafayette, a hundred years before, returned through the ministry of the chamber in an abundant harvest to the war-stricken plains of unhappy france. in the chamber honored itself by giving testimonials to the officers and crew of the "kearsarge." in it presented to the widow of a southern officer in the united states navy several historic swords, sending with them a purse, "in recognition of the valuable services rendered to our country by the father and son, and as a token that gratitude for fidelity to the flag of the union is an abiding sentiment with the citizens of new york, descending from generation to generation." the cities of troy, portland, richmond, chicago, three of them when swept by fire, and richmond when cast into gloom by the fall of the state capitol, all in turn have realized, through the prompt action of the chamber, the large brotherliness of commercial new york. and, finally, in , at savannah, and in , through the whole southwestern district of the country, and again in at memphis, the contributions made through the chamber of commerce gave substantial relief to the distressed victims of yellow fever. thus has the chamber contributed to promote a union of hearts throughout the broad expanse of this great union of states. thus has the chamber done what it could to show that the spirit of commerce is a large and a liberal spirit, too large to be bounded by the lines that divide nations. thus has the chamber shown itself not unworthy of the empire state of the new world. may the future of the chamber be in every respect worthy of the past. [loud applause,] james russell lowell harvard alumni [speech of james russell lowell at the harvard alumni dinner at cambridge, mass., june , . mr. lowell was the presiding officer.] brethren of the alumni:--it is, i think, one of the greatest privileges conferred upon us by our degree that we can meet together once a year in this really majestic hall [memorial hall], commemorative of our proudest sorrows, suggestive only of our least sordid ambitions; that we can meet here to renew our pledge of fealty to the ancient mother who did so much for the generations that have gone before us, and who will be as benign to those who, by-and-by, shall look back and call us fathers. the tie that binds us to our college is one of the purest, since it is that which unites us also with our youth; it is one of the happiest, for it binds us to the days when we looked forward and not backward, for in hope there is nothing to regret, while in retrospect there is a touch of autumn and a premonition of winter. in this year of centennials, when none of us would be surprised if a century plant should blossom in our back yard [laughter], when i myself am matured, as i look to complete my second centennial on saturday afternoon [laughter and applause], there is a kind of repose, as it seems to me, in coming back here to sit in the lap of this dear old nurse who is well on toward her three hundred, and who will certainly never ask any of us to celebrate her centennial either in prose or verse. to this college our revolution which we are celebrating this year is modern. and i think also one of the great privileges which she confers upon us is that she gives us a claim of kindred still with the mother country--a claim purely intellectual and safe from the embitterment of war or the jealousies of trade. it was an offshoot of cambridge and oxford that was planted on the banks of the charles, and by men from cambridge and oxford; and when i visited those renowned nurseries of piety, scholarship, and manliness of thought, my keenest pleasure in the kindness i received was the feeling that i owed the greater part of it to my connection with harvard, whom they were pleased to acknowledge as a plant not unworthy of the parent stock. [applause.] in their halls i could not feel myself a stranger, and i resented the imputation of being a foreigner when i looked round upon the old portraits, all of whom were my countrymen as well as theirs, and some of whom had been among our founders and benefactors. in this year of reconciliations and atonements, too, the influence of college associations is of no secondary importance as a bond of union. on this day, in every state of our more than ever to be united country, there are men whose memories turn back tenderly and regretfully to those haunts of their early manhood. our college also, stretching back as it does toward the past, and forward to an ever-expanding future, gives a sense of continuity which is some atonement for the brevity of life. these portraits that hang about us seem to make us contemporaries with generations that are gone, and the services we render her will make us in turn familiar to those who shall succeed us here. there is no way so cheap of buying what i may call a kind of mitigated immortality,--mean by that an immortality without the pains and penalty attached commonly to it, of being dug up once in fifty years to have your claims reconsidered [laughter]--as in giving something to the college. [applause.] nay, i will say in parenthesis, that even an intention to give it secures that place of which i have spoken. [laughter.] i find in the records of the college an ancestor of my own recorded as having intended to give a piece of land. he remains there forever with his beneficent intention. it is not certain that he didn't carry it out. the land certainly never came to me, or i should make restitution. [laughter and applause.] consider, for example, william pennoyer; how long ago would he have sunk in the tenacious ooze of oblivion, not leaving rack nor even rumor of himself behind. no portrait of him exists, and no living descendant, so far as i know, and yet his name is familiar with all of us who are familiar with the records of the college, and he always presents himself to our imaginations in the gracious attitude of putting his hand into his pocket. [laughter.] and tell me, if you please, what widow of a london alderman ever insured her life with so sure return or perdurable interest as madame holden. even the bodiless society, _pro propaganda fide,_ is reincorporated forever in the perpetuity of our gratitude. it is the genteelest of immortalities, as the auctioneer would call it, the immortality of perfect seclusion. the value of such an association as this as a spur to honorable exertion is also, as it seems to me, no small part of its benefit. leigh hunt, says, somewhere, that when he was writing an essay he always thought of certain persons and said to himself, "a will like this, b will rub his hands at that"; and it is safe to say that any graduate of this college would prefer the suffrages of his brethren here to those of any other public. and when any of the sons of harvard who has done her honor and his country upright service, meets us here on this day, it is not only a fitting recognition, but a powerful incentive, that he receives in the "well done" of our plaudits. i had hoped that we should have heard to-day the voice of one graduate of harvard who sits almost immediately upon my right. [charles francis adams.] i will not press upon his modesty, but i will ask you to bear witness once more that peace hath her victories, and more renowned than war [long continued applause]; and honor with me those truly durable years of service and that of victory, which if it hath not so loud an echo as that of the battle-field, will be seen to have a longer one. [renewed and loud applause.] it appears to me that there is nothing more grateful to the human heart than this appreciation of cultivated men. if it be not the echo of posterity, it was something more solid and well-pleasing. but better and more wholesome than even this must it be, i should think, for men spending their lives in the dusty glare of public life, to come back once a year to our quiet shades and be, as dr. holmes has so delightfully sung, plain bill and joe again. it must renew and revive in them the early sweetness of their nature, the frank delight in simple things which makes so large a part of the better happiness of life. but, gentlemen, i will not longer detain you with the inevitable suggestions of the occasion. these sentimentalities are apt to slip from under him who would embark on them, like a birch canoe under the clumsy foot of a cockney, and leave him floundering in retributive commonplace. i had a kind of hope, indeed, from what i had heard, that i should be unable to fill this voice-devouring hall. i had hoped to sit serenely here with a tablet in the wall before me inscribed: _guilielmo roberto ware, henrico van brunt, optime de academia meritis, eo quod facundiam postprandialem irritam fecerunt._ i hope you understood my latin [laughter], and i hope you will forgive me the antiquity of my pronunciation [laughter]; but it is simply because i cannot help it. then on a blackboard behind me i could have written in large letters the names of our guests who should make some brief dumb show of acknowledgment. you, at least, with your united applause, could make yourselves heard. if brevity ever needed an excuse, i might claim one in the fact that i have consented at short notice to be one of the performers in our domestic centennial next saturday, and poetry is not a thing to be delivered on demand without an exhausting wear upon the nerves. when i wrote to dr. holmes and begged for a little poem, i got the following answer, which i shall take the liberty of reading. i don't see the doctor himself in the hall, which encourages me to go on:-- "my dear james:--somebody has written a note in your name requesting me to furnish a few verses for some occasion which he professed to be interested in. i am satisfied, of course, that it is a forgery. i know you would not do such a thing as to ask a brother rhymer, utterly exhausted by his centennial efforts, to endanger his health and compromise his reputation by any damnable iteration of spasmodic squeezing. [laughter.] so i give you warning that some dangerous person is using your name, and taking advantage of the great love i bear you, to play upon my feelings. don't think for a moment that i hold you in any way responsible for this note, looking so nearly like your own handwriting as for a single instant to deceive me, and suggest the idea that i would take a passage for europe in season to avoid all the college anniversaries." i readily excused him, and i am sure you will be kind enough to be charitable to me, gentlemen. i know that one of the things which the graduates of the college look forward to with the most confident expectation and pleasure is the report of the president of the university. [applause.] i remember that when i was in the habit of attending the meetings of the faculty, some fourteen or fifteen years ago, i was very much struck by the fact that almost every matter of business that required particular ability was sure to gravitate into the hands of a young professor of chemistry. the fact made so deep an impression upon me that i remember that i used to feel, when our war broke out, that this young professor might have to take the care of one of our regiments, and i know that he would have led it to victory. and when i heard that the same professor was nominated for president, i had no doubt of the result which all of us have seen to follow. i give you, gentlemen, the health of president eliot of harvard college. [applause.] * * * * * national growth of a century [speech of james russell lowell at the harvard alumni dinner at cambridge, mass., june , . mr. lowell, as president of the alumni association, occupied the chair.] brethren:--though perhaps there be nothing in a hundredth year to make it more emphatic than those years which precede it and which follow it, and though the celebration of centennials be a superstitious survival from the time when to count ten upon the fingers was a great achievement in arithmetic, and to find the square of that number carried with it something of the awe and solemnity which invests the higher mathematics to us of the laity, yet i think no wise man can be indifferent to any sentiment which so profoundly and powerfully affects the imagination of the mass of his fellows. the common consent of civilized mankind seems to have settled on the centennial commemoration of great events as leaving an interval spacious enough to be impressive, and having a roundness of completion in its period. we, the youngest of nations, the centuries to us are not yet grown so cheap and commonplace as to napoleon when he saw forty of them looking in undisguised admiration upon his army, bronzed from their triumphs in italy. for my own part i think the scrutiny of one age is quite enough to bear without calling in thirty-nine others to its assistance. [applause.] it is quite true that a hundred years are but as a day in the life of a nation, are but as a tick of the clock to the long-drawn æons in which this planet hardened itself for the habitation of man, and man accommodated himself to his habitation; but they are all we have, and we must make the best of them. perhaps, after all, it is no such great misfortune to be young, especially if we are conscious at the time that youth means opportunity, and not accomplishment. i think that, after all, when we look back upon a hundred years through which the country has passed, the vista is not so disheartening as to the indigestive fancy it might at first appear. if we have lost something of that arcadian simplicity which the french travellers of a hundred years ago found here,--perhaps because they looked for it, perhaps because of their impenetrability by the english tongue,--we have lost something also of that self-sufficiency which is the mark as well of provincials as of barbarians, and which is the great hindrance to all true advancement. it is a wholesome symptom, i think, if we are beginning to show some of that talent for grumbling which is the undoubted heirloom of the race to which most of us belong. [laughter and applause.] even the fourth-of-july oration is edging round into a lecture on our national shortcomings, and the proud eagle himself is beginning to have no little misgiving at the amplitude between the tips of his wings. [laughter.] but while it may be admitted that our government was more decorously administered one hundred years ago, if our national housekeeping of to-day is further removed from honest business principles, and therefore is more costly, both morally and financially, than that of any other christian nation, it is no less true that the hundredth year of our existence finds us in the mass very greatly advanced in the refinement and culture and comfort that are most operative in making a country civilized and in keeping it so. [applause.] when we talk of decline of public and private virtue i think that we forget that that better former day was a day of small communities and of uneasy locomotion, when public opinion acted more directly and more sharply, was brought to bear more convincingly upon the individual than is possible now. but grant that though the dread of what is said and thought be but a poor substitute and makeshift for conscience,--that austere and sleepless safeguard of character, which, if not an instinct, acquires all the attributes of an instinct, and whose repeated warnings make duty at least an unconscious habitude,--after all, this outside substitute is the strongest motive for well-doing in the majority of our race, and men of thought and culture should waste no opportunity to reinforce it by frankness in speaking out invidious truths, by reproof and by warning. i, for one, greatly doubt whether our national standard of right and wrong has been really so much debased as we are sometimes tempted to think [applause]; and whether the soft money of a sentimental sort of promises to pay has altogether driven out the sterling coin of upright purpose and self-denying fulfilment. [applause.] i could wish that this belief, almost, provided it did not mislead us into prophesying smooth things, were more general among our cultivated class; for the very acceptance of such a belief tends in large measure toward its accomplishment. no finer sentence has come down to us from antiquity, no higher witness was ever borne to the quality of a nation, than in that signal of nelson's: "england expects every man to do his duty." [applause.] brethren, i thought on this occasion of the centennial celebration of our independence it was fit that some expression should go forth from us that should in some measure give contradiction to the impression that the graduates of harvard college take a pessimistic view of their country and its institutions. [applause.] certainly i know that it is not true, and i wish to have that sentiment expressed here. our college takes no official part in celebrating the nation's first completed century; she who is already half-way through her third has become too grave for these youthful elations. [laughter.] but she does not forget that in samuel and john adams, otis, josiah quincy, jr., and john hancock, she did her full share toward making such a commemoration possible. [applause.] as in , so in , we have sent john adams to represent us at philadelphia, and, perhaps with some prescience of what the next century is to effect, we have sent with him madame boylston as his colleague [applause]; and it may be that alma mater in this has possibly shown a little feminine malice, for it is to a silent congress that she is made her deputy. [laughter and applause.] and in the hundred years since we asserted for ourselves a separate place and proper name among the nations, our college has been no palsied or atrophied limb in the national organization. to the jurisprudence, to the legislation, the diplomacy, the science, the literature, the art of the country, her contribution has certainly not fallen short of its due proportion. our triennial catalogue is hung thick with our trophies from many fields. i may say in parenthesis, gentlemen, brethren of the alumni, that i am glad the july number of the "north american review" is not yet published. in the january number there was so disheartening a report of everything--i am glad to say our religion is excepted, we have grown perhaps in grace--but we had no science, we had none of this and none of the other. brethren, we whom these dumb faces on the wall make in imagination the contemporaries of eight generations of men, let us remember, and let us inculcate on those who are to fill the places that so soon shall know us no more, let us remember, i say, that if man seem to survive himself and to be mutely perpetuated in these fragile semblances, it is only the stamp of the soul that is eternally operative; it is only the image of ourselves that we have left in some sphere of intellectual or moral achievement, that is indelible, that becomes a part of the memory of mankind, reproductive and beneficent, inspiring and admonitory. but, brethren, as charles lamb said of coleridge's motto, _sermoni propriori_, this is more proper for a sermon than for a dinner-table. but birthdays, after all, gentlemen, are serious things; and as the chance of many more of them becomes precarious, and the approaching birthday of the nation begets in all of us, i should hope, something of a grave and meditative mood, it would be an indecorum to break in upon it too suddenly with the licensed levity of festival. you are waiting to hear other voices, and i trust my example of gravity may act rather as a warning than as precedent to those who are to follow me. brethren, at our table there is always one toast, that by custom and propriety takes precedence of all others. it is, i admit, rather an arduous task to pay the most many-sided man a different compliment year after year, and the president of the university must pardon me for saying that he gives a good deal of trouble to the president of the alumni, as he is apt to do in the case of inefficient persons generally. [laughter and applause.] one eminent quality, however, i can illustrate in a familiar latin quotation, which, with your permission, i will put in two ways, thus securing, i should hope, the understanding of the older and younger among you: "_justum et tenacem propositi virum_." [mr. lowell evoked considerable laughter by pronouncing the latin according to the continental method.] i give you the health of president eliot. * * * * * the stage [speech of james russell lowell at a breakfast given to american actors at the savage club, london, august, . charles dickens [the son of the novelist] occupied the post of chairman and called upon mr. lowell to respond to the toast proposed in his honor: "the health of the american minister."] mr. chairman and gentlemen:--in listening to the kind words and still more in hearing the name of the gentleman who was kind enough to propose the toast to which i am replying, i cannot help recalling the words of one of your english poets:-- "oh, for the touch of a vanished hand, and the sound of a voice that is still!" i was honored with the acquaintance, in some sort, i may say, with the friendship of the father of the gentleman who proposed my name, and before saying anything further you will allow me to remark that my countrymen are always ready to recognize the hereditary claims when based upon hereditary merit. ["hear! hear!"] gentlemen, it is a great pleasure to me to be here, but in some sense i regard it also as a kind of duty to be present on any occasion when the star-spangled banner and the red cross of england hang opposite each other, in friendly converse. may they never hang opposite each other in any other spirit. [cheers.] i say so because i think it is the duty of any man who in any sense represents one of the english-speaking races, to be present on an occasion which indicates, as this does, that we are one in all those great principles which lie at the basis of civilized society--never mind what the form of government may be. as i sat here, gentlemen, endeavoring to collect my thoughts and finding it, i may say, as difficult as to make a collection for any other charitable occasion [laughter], i could not help thinking that the anglo-saxon race--if you will allow me to use an expression which is sometimes criticised--that the anglo-saxon race has misinterpreted a familiar text of scripture and reads it: "out of the fulness of the mouth the heart speaketh." i confess that if alexander, who once offered a reward for a new pleasure, were to come again upon earth, i should become one of the competitors for the prize, and i should offer for his consideration a festival at which there were no speeches. [laughter.] the gentlemen of your profession have in one sense a great advantage over the rest of us. your speeches are prepared for you by the cleverest men of your time or by the great geniuses for all time. you can be witty or wise at much less expense than those of us who are obliged to fall back upon our own resources. now i admit that there is a great deal in the spur of the moment, but that depends very much upon the flank of the animal into which you dig it. there is also a great deal in that self-possessed extemporaneousness which a man carries in his pocket on a sheet of paper. it reminds one of the compliment which the irishman paid to his own weapon, the shillalah, when he said: "it's a weapon which never misses fire." but then it may be said that it applies itself more directly to the head than to the heart. i think i have a very capital theory of what an after-dinner speech should be; we have had some examples this afternoon and i have made a great many excellent ones myself; but they were always on the way home, and after i had made a very poor one when i was on my legs. [laughter.] my cabman has been the confidant of an amount of humor and apt quotations and clever sayings which you will never know, and which you will never guess. but something in what has been said by one of my countrymen recalls to my mind a matter of graver character. as a man who has lived all his life in the country, to my shame be it said i have not been an habitual theatre-goer. i came too late for the elder kean. my theatrical experience began with fanny kemble--i forget how many years ago, but more than i care to remember--and i recollect the impression made upon me by her and by her father. i was too young to be critical; i was young enough to enjoy; but i remember that what remained with me and what remains with me still of what i heard and saw, and especially with regard to charles kemble, was the perfection of his art. it was not his individual characteristics--though of course i remember those--it was the perfection of his art. my countryman has alluded to the fact that at one time it was difficult for an actor to get a breakfast, much more to have one offered to him; and that recalls to my mind the touching words of the great master of your art, shakespeare, who in one of his sonnets said:-- "o for my sake do you with fortune chide, the guilty goddess of my harmful deeds, that did not better for my life provide than public means, which public manners breeds: thence comes it that my name receives a brand; and almost thence my nature is subdu'd to what it works in, like the dyer's hand." certainly the consideration in which the theatrical profession is held has risen greatly even within my own recollection. it has risen greatly since the time when adrienne lecouvreur was denied burial in that consecrated ground where rakes and demireps could complete the corruption they had begun on earth; and this is due to the fact that it is now looked upon not only by the public in general but by the members of your profession as a fine art. it is perfectly true that the stage has often lent itself, i will not say to the demoralization of the public, but to things which i think none of us would altogether approve. this, however, i think has been due, more to the fact that it not only holds up the mirror to nature, but that the stage is a mirror in which the public itself is reflected. and the public itself is to blame if the stage is ever degraded. [cheers.] it has been to men of my profession, perhaps, that the degradation has been due, more than to those who represent their plays. they have interpreted, perhaps in too literal a sense, the famous saying of dryden that "he who lives to write, must write to live." but i began with the irishman's weapon and i shall not forget that among its other virtues is its brevity, and as in the list of toasts which are to follow i caught the name of a son of him who was certainly the greatest poet, though he wrote in prose, and who perhaps possessed the most original mind that america has given to the world, i shall, i am sure, with your entire approbation make way for the next speaker. [applause.] * * * * * commerce [speech of james russell lowell at the second annual dinner of the london chamber of commerce, january , . h. c. e. childers, chancellor of the exchequer, was in the chair. the company included representatives of the english-speaking race in every part of the world. on the chairman's left sat james russell lowell, united states minister. in proposing "the chambers of commerce of the united kingdom and of the whole world," he delivered the following speech.] mr. chairman, my lords and gentlemen:--i was a few moments ago discussing with my excellent friend upon the left what a diplomatist might be permitted to say, and i think the result of the discussion was that he was left to his choice between saying nothing that had any meaning or saying something that had several [laughter]; and as one of those diplomatists to whom the under secretary for foreign affairs alluded a short time ago, i should rather choose the latter course, because it gives one afterwards a selection when the time for explanation comes round. [laughter.] i shall not detain you long, for i know that there are speakers both on the right and on the left of me who are impatient to burst the bud; and i know that i have not been selected for the pleasant duty that has been assigned to me for any merits of my own. [cries of dissent.] you will allow me to choose my own reason, gentlemen. i repeat, i have not been chosen so much for my own merits as for the opportunity afforded you of giving expression to your kindness and good feeling towards the country i represent--a country which exemplifies what the colonies of england may come to if they are not wisely treated. [laughter and cheers.] speaking for myself and for one or two of my compatriots whom i see here present, i should certainly say that that was no unpleasant destiny in itself. but i do not, nor do my countrymen, desire that those great commonwealths which are now joined to england by so many filial ties should ever be separated from her. i am asked to-night to propose the "chambers of commerce of the united kingdom and of the world," and i might, if the clock did not warn me against it--["go on!"] if my own temperament did not stand a little in the way--i might say to you something very solemn on the subject of commerce. i might say how commerce, if not a great civilizer in itself, had always been a great intermediary and vehicle of civilization. i might say that all the great commercial states have been centres of civilization, and centres of those forces which keep civilization from becoming stupid. i do not say which is the _post_ and which the _propter_ in this inference; but i do say that the two things have been almost invariably associated. one word as to commerce in another relation which touches me more nearly. commerce and the rights and advantages of commerce, ill understood and ignorantly interpreted, have often been the cause of animosities between nations. but commerce rightly understood is a great pacificator; it brings men face to face for barter. it is the great corrector of the eccentricities and enormities of nature and of the seasons, so that a bad harvest and a bad season in england is a good season for minnesota, kansas, and manitoba. but, gentlemen, i will not detain you longer. it gives me great pleasure to propose, as the representative of the united states, the toast of "the chambers of commerce of the united kingdom and of the whole world," with which i associate the names of mr. c. m. norwood, m. p., vice-president of the associated chambers of the united kingdom, and the hon. f. strutt, president of the derby chamber. [cheers.] * * * * * after-dinner speaking [speech of james russell lowell at a banquet given to sir henry irving, london, july , , in view of his impending departure for a professional tour of america. lord coleridge, lord chief justice of england, occupied the chair. the toast, "literature, science, and art," was proposed by viscount bury, and mr. lowell was called upon to respond for literature. professor tyndall replied on behalf of science, and alma tadema for art.] my lord coleridge, my lords, ladies and gentlemen:--i confess that my mind was a little relieved when i found that the toast to which i am to respond rolled three gentlemen, cerberus-like, into one [laughter], and when i saw science pulling impatiently at the leash on my left, and art on my right, and that therefore the responsibility of only a third part of the acknowledgment has fallen to me. you, my lord, have alluded to the difficulties of after-dinner oratory. i must say that i am one of those who feel them more keenly the more after-dinner speeches i make. [laughter.] there are a great many difficulties in the way, and there are three principal ones, i think. the first is the having too much to say, so that the words, hurrying to escape, bear down and trample out the life of each other. the second is when, having nothing to say, we are expected to fill a void in the minds of our hearers. and i think the third, and most formidable, is the necessity of following a speaker who is sure to say all the things you meant to say, and better than you, so that we are tempted to exclaim, with the old grammarian, "hang these fellows, who have said all our good things before us!" [laughter.] now the fourth of july has several times been alluded to, and i believe it is generally thought that on that anniversary the spirit of a certain bird known to heraldic ornithologists--and i believe to them alone--as the spread eagle, enters into every american's breast, and compels him, whether he will or no, to pour forth a flood of national self-laudation. [laughter and cheers.] this, i say, is the general superstition, and i hope that a few words of mine may serve in some sort to correct it. i ask you, if there is any other people who have confined their national self-laudation to one day in the year. [laughter.] i may be allowed to make one remark as to a personal experience. fortune has willed it that i should see as many--perhaps more--cities and manners of men as ulysses; and i have observed one general fact, and that is, that the adjectival epithet which is prefixed to all the virtues is invariably the epithet which geographically describes the country that i am in. for instance, not to take any real name, if i am in the kingdom of lilliput, i hear of the lilliputian virtues. i hear courage, i hear common sense, and i hear political wisdom called by that name. if i cross to the neighboring republic blefusca--for since swift's time it has become a republic--i hear all these virtues suddenly qualified as blefuscan. [laughter.] i am very glad to be able to thank lord coleridge for having, i believe for the first time, coupled the name of the president of the united states with that of her majesty on an occasion like this. i was struck, both in what he said, and in what our distinguished guest of this evening said, with the frequent recurrence of an adjective which is comparatively new--i mean the word "english-speaking." we continually hear nowadays of the "english-speaking race," of the "english-speaking population." i think this implies, not that we are to forget, not that it would be well for us to forget, that national emulation and that national pride which is implied in the words "englishman" and "american," but the word implies that there are certain perennial and abiding sympathies between all men of a common descent and a common language. [cheers.] i am sure, my lord, that all you said with regard to the welcome which our distinguished guest will receive in america is true. his eminent talents as an actor, the dignified--i may say the illustrious--manner in which he has sustained the traditions of that succession of great actors who, from the time of burbage to his own, have illustrated the english stage, will be as highly appreciated there as here. [cheers.] and i am sure that i may also say that the chief magistrate of england will be welcomed by the bar of the united states, of which i am an unworthy member, and perhaps will be all the more warmly welcomed that he does not come among them to practise. he will find american law administered--and i think he will agree with me in saying ably administered--by judges who, i am sorry to say, sit without the traditional wig of england. [laughter.] i have heard since i came here friends of mine gravely lament this as something prophetic of the decay which was sure to follow so serious an innovation. i answered with a little story which i remember hearing from my father. he remembered the last clergyman in new england who still continued to wear the wig. at first it became a singularity and at last a monstrosity; and the good doctor concluded to leave it off. but there was one poor woman among his parishioners who lamented this sadly, and waylaying the clergyman as he came out of church she said, "oh, dear doctor, i have always listened to your sermon with the greatest edification and comfort, but now that the wig is gone all is gone." [laughter.] i have thought i have seen some signs of encouragement in the faces of my english friends after i have consoled them with this little story. but i must not allow myself to indulge in any further remarks. there is one virtue, i am sure, in after-dinner oratory, and that is brevity; and as to that i am reminded of a story. [laughter.] the lord chief justice has told you what are the ingredients of after-dinner oratory. they are the joke, the quotation, and the platitude; and the successful platitude, in my judgment, requires a very high order of genius. i believe that i have not given you a quotation, but i am reminded of something which i heard when very young--the story of a methodist clergyman in america. he was preaching at a camp meeting, and he was preaching upon the miracle of joshua, and he began his sermon with this sentence: "my hearers, there are three motions of the sun. the first is the straightforward or direct motion of the sun; the second is the retrograde or backward motion of the sun; and the third is the motion mentioned in our text--'the sun stood still.'" [laughter.] now, gentlemen, i don't know whether you see the application of the story--i hope you do. the after-dinner orator at first begins and goes straight forward--that is the straightforward motion of the sun. next he goes back and begins to repeat himself--that is the backward motion of the sun. at last he has the good sense to bring himself to the end, and that is the motion mentioned in our text, as the sun stood still. [great laughter, in the midst of which mr. lowell resumed his seat.] * * * * * "the return of the native" [speech of james russell lowell at the annual ashfield dinner at ashfield, mass., august , ,--the harvest-time festival in behalf of sanderson academy, given for several years under the leadership of charles eliot norton and george william curtis, long summer residents in this country town. mr. lowell had recently returned from his post as minister to england; and he was presented to the literary gathering by professor norton, president of the day. professor norton closed his eloquent words of introduction as follows: "on our futile laurels he looks down, himself our highest crown.--ashfield speaks to you to-day, and the welcome is your own to new england."] mr. president, ladies and gentlemen:--i cannot easily escape from some strength of emotion in listening to the words of my friend who has just sat down, unless i receive it on the shield which has generally been my protection against many of the sorrows and some of the hardships of life. i mean the shield of humor, and i shall, therefore, take less seriously than playfully the portrait that he has been kind enough to draw of me. it reminds me of a story i once heard of a young poet, who published his volume of verses and prefixed to it his own portrait drawn by a friendly artist. the endeavor of his life from that time forward was to look like the portrait that his friend had drawn. [applause.] i shall make the same endeavor. it is a great pleasure to me to come here to-day, not only because i have met some of the oldest friends of my life, but also that after having looked in the eyes of so many old english audiences i see face to face a new english one, and when i looked at them i was reminded of a family likeness and of that kinship of blood which unites us. when i look at you i see many faces that remind me of faces i saw on the other side of the water, and i feel that whether i speak there or here i am essentially speaking to one people. i am not going to talk about myself, and i am not going to make a speech. i have spoken so often for you on the other side of the water that i feel as though i had a certain claim, at least, to be put on the retired list. but i could not fail to observe a certain distrust of america that has peeped out in remarks made, sometimes in the newspapers, sometimes to myself, as to whether a man could live eight years out of america, without really preferring europe. it seems to me to imply what i should call a very unworthy distrust in the powers of america to inspire affection. i feel to-day, in looking in your faces, somewhat as i did when i took my first walk over the hills after my return, and the tears came into my eyes as i was welcomed by the familiar wayside flowers, the trees, the birds that had been my earliest friends. it seems to me that those who take such a view quite miscalculate the force of the affection that a man feels for his country. it is something deeper than a sentiment. if there were anything deeper, i should say it was something deeper than an instinct. it is that feeling of self-renunciation and of identification with another which ruth expressed when she said: "entreat me not to leave thee nor to depart from following after thee, for whither thou goest i will go: where thou livest i will live, and where thou diest there will i die also." that, it seems to me, is the instinctive feeling that a man has. at the same time, this does not exclude the having clear eyes to see the faults of one's country. i think that, as an old president of harvard college said once to a person who was remonstrating with him: "but charity, doctor, charity." "yes, i know; but charity has eyes and ears and won't be made a fool of." [laughter.] i notice a good many changes in coming home, a few of which i may, perhaps, be allowed to touch upon. i notice a great growth in luxury, inevitable, i suppose, and which may have good in it--more good, perhaps, than i can see. i notice, also, one change that has impressed me profoundly, and when i hear that new england is drawing away, i cannot help thinking to myself how much more prosperous the farms look than they did when i was young; how much more neat is the farming, how much greater the attention to what will please the eye about the farm, as the planting of flowers and trimming the grass, which seems to me a very good sign. i had an opportunity, by a strange accident, of becoming very intimate with the outward appearance of new england during my youth by going about when a little boy with my father when he went on exchanges. he always went in his own vehicle, and he sometimes drove as far west as northampton. i do not wish to detain you on this point, except as it interested me and is now first in my mind. while i was in england i had occasion once to address them on the subject of democracy, and i could not help thinking when i came up here that i was coming to one of its original sources, for certain it is that in the village community of new england, in its "plain living and high thinking," began that social equality which afterwards developed on the political side into what we call democracy. and democracy--while surely we cannot claim for it that it is perfect--yet democracy, it seems to me, is the best expedient hitherto invented by mankind, not for annihilating distinctions and equalities, for that is impossible, but, so far as it is humanly possible, for compensating them. here in our little towns in the last century, people met without thinking of it on a high table-land of common manhood. there was no sense of presumption from below, there was no possibility of condescension from above, because there was no above and below in the community. learning was always respected in the clergyman, in the doctor, in the squire, the justice of the peace, and the rest of the community. this made no artificial distinction. i observe, also, that our people are getting over their very bad habit with regard to politics, for democracy, you must remember, lays a heavier burden on the individual conscience than any other form of government; and i have been glad to observe that we have been getting over that habit of thinking that our institutions will go of themselves. now it seems to me that there is no machine of human construction, or into which the wit of man has entered, that can go of itself without supervision, without oiling; that there are no wheels which will revolve without our help, except the great wheel of the constellations or that great circle of the sun's which has its hand upon the dial plate, and which was made by a hand much less fallible than ours. it also pleases me very much to see a friend whose constancy, whose faith, and whose courage have done so much more than any other man's to bring about that reform [great applause], though when i speak of civil service reform the friend who stands at our elbow on all these occasions will suggest to me a certain parallel, that is, that as mr. curtis is here to-day and i am here to-day, it reminds one of the temperance lecturer who used to go about carrying with him an unhappy person as the awful example [great laughter], and it may have flickered before some of your minds that i was the "awful example" of the very reform i had preached. however, i say that it is to me a very refreshing thing to find that this old happy-go-lucky feeling about our institutions has a very good chance of passing away. one thing which always impressed me on the other side of the water as an admirable one, and as one which gave them a certain advantage over us, is the number of men who train themselves specifically for politics, for government. we are apt to forget, over here, that the art of governing men, as it is the highest, so it is the most difficult, of all arts. we are particular how our boots are made, but about our constitutions we "trust in the lord," without even, as cromwell advised, keeping our powder dry. we commit the highest destinies of this republic, which some of us hope bears the hope of the world in her womb--to whom? certainly not always to those who are most fit on any principle of natural selection: certainly, sometimes to those who are most unfit on any principle of selection,--and this is a very serious matter, for if you will allow me to speak with absolute plainness, no country that allows itself to be governed for a moment by its blackguards is safe. [applause.] that was written before the united states of america existed. it is one of the truths of human nature and of destiny. if i were a man who had any political aspiration,--which, thank heaven, i have not,--if i had any official aspiration--which, thank heaven, also, i have not,--i should come home here, and when i first met an american audience i should say to them: my friends, america can learn nothing of europe; europe must come to school here. you have the tallest monument, you have the biggest waterfall, you have the highest tariff of any country in the world. [great laughter and applause.] i would tell you that the last census showed that you had gained so many millions, as if the rabbits did not beat us in that way of multiplication, as if it counted for anything! it seems to me that what we make of our several millions is the vital question for us. i was very much interested in what prof. stanley hall said. i am heretic enough to have doubted whether our common schools are the panacea we have been inclined to think them. i was exceedingly interested in what he said about the education which a boy gained on the hills here. it seems to me we are going to fall back into the easy belief that because our common schools teach more than they used--and in my opinion much more than they ought--we can dispense with the training of the household. when mr. harrison [j. p. harrison, author of "some dangerous tendencies in american life," one of the preceding speakers] was telling us of the men who were obliged to labor without hope from one end of the day to the other, and one end of the year to the other, he added, what is quite true--that, perhaps, after all, they are happier than that very large class of men who have leisure without culture, and whose sole occupation is either the killing of game or the killing of time--that is the killing of the most valuable possession that we have. but i will not detain you any longer for, as i did say, i did not come here to make a speech, and i did not know what i was going to say when i came. i generally, on such occasions, trust to the spur of the moment, and sometimes the moment forgets its spur. [laughter and applause.] * * * * * literature [speech of james russell lowell at the annual banquet of the royal academy, london, may , , in response to the toast, "the interests of literature." the president of the academy, sir frederic leighton, said, in introducing mr. lowell: "in the name of letters, of english letters, in the broadest sense, i rejoice to turn, not for the first time at this table, to one who counts among the very foremost of their representatives. as a poet richly endowed, as a critic most subtle and penetrating, among humorists the most genial, as a speaker not surpassed--who shall more fittingly rise in the name of literature than mr. russell lowell, whom i welcome once more to this country, as one not led to it to-day by mere hap and chance of diplomatic need, but drawn, i would fain believe, as by the memory of many friends."] your royal highnesses, my lords, and gentlemen:--i think that i can explain who the artist might have been who painted the reversed rainbow of which the professor[ ] has just spoken. i think, after hearing the too friendly remarks made about myself, that he was probably some artist who was to answer for his art at a dinner of the royal society; and, naturally, instead of painting the bow of hope, he painted the reverse, the bow of despair. [laughter.] when i received your invitation, mr. president, to answer for "literature," i was too well aware of the difficulties of your position not to know that your choice of speakers must be guided much more by the necessities of the occasion than by the laws of natural selection. [laughter and cheers.] i remembered that the dictionaries give a secondary meaning to the phrase "to answer for," and that is the meaning which implies some expedient for an immediate necessity, as, for example, when one takes shelter under a tree from shower he is said to make the tree answer for shelter. [laughter.] i think even an umbrella in the form of a tree has certainly one very great advantage over its artificial namesake--viz., that it cannot be borrowed, not even for the exigencies for which the instrument made of twilled silk is made use of, as those certainly will admit who have ever tried it during one of those passionate paroxysms of weather to which the italian climate is unhappily subject. [laughter.] i shall not attempt to answer for literature, for it appears to me that literature, of all other things, is the one which most naturally is expected to answer for itself. it seems to me that the old english phrase with regard to a man in difficulties, which asks: "what is he going to do about it?" perhaps should be replaced in this period of ours, when the foundations of everything are being sapped by universal discussion, with the more pertinent question: "what is he going to say about it?" ["hear! hear!" and laughter.] i suppose that every man sent into the world with something to say to his fellow-men could say it better than anyone else if he could only find out what it was. i am sure that the ideal after-dinner speech is waiting for me somewhere with my address upon it, if i could only be so lucky as to come across it. i confess that hard necessity, or, perhaps i may say, too soft good nature, has compelled me to make so many unideal ones that i have almost exhausted my natural stock of universally applicable sentiment and my acquired provision of anecdote and allusion. i find myself somewhat in the position of heine, who had prepared an elaborate oration for his first interview with goethe, and when the awful moment arrived could only stammer out that the cherries on the road to weimar were uncommonly fine. [laughter.] but, fortunately, the duty which is given to me to-night is not so onerous as might be implied in the sentiment that has called me up. i am consoled, not only by the lexicographer as to the meaning of the phrase "to answer for," but also by an observation of mine, which is, that speakers on an occasion like this are not always expected to allude except in distant and vague terms to the subject on which they are specially supposed to talk. now, i have a more pleasing and personal duty, it appears to me, on this my first appearance before an english audience on my return to england. it gives me great pleasure to think that, in calling upon me, you call upon me as representing two things which are exceedingly dear to me, and which are very near to my heart. one is that i represent in some sense the unity of english literature under whatever sky it may be produced; and the other is that i represent also that friendliness of feeling, based on a better understanding of each other, which is growing up between the two branches of the british stock. [cheers.] i could wish that my excellent successor here as american minister could fill my place to-night, for i am sure that he is as fully inspired as i ever was with a desire to draw closer the ties of friendship between the mother and the daughter, and could express it in a more eloquent and more emphatic manner than even i myself could do--at any rate in a more authoritative manner. for myself, i have only to say that i come back from my native land confirmed in my love of it and in my faith in it. i come back also full of warm gratitude for the feeling that i find in england; i find in the old home a guest-chamber prepared for me, and a warm welcome. [cheers.] repeating what his royal highness the commander-in-chief has said, that every man is bound in duty, if he were not bound in affection and loyalty, to put his own country first, i may be allowed to steal a leaf out of the book of my adopted fellow-citizens in america; and while i love my native country first, as is natural, i may be allowed to say i love the country next best which i cannot say has adopted me, but which, i will say, has treated me with such kindness, where i have met with such universal kindness from all classes and degrees of people, that i must put that country at least next in my affection. i will not detain you longer. i know that the essence of speaking here is to be brief, but i trust that i shall not lay myself open to the reproach that in my desire to be brief i have resulted in making myself obscure. [laughter.] i hope i have expressed myself explicitly enough; but i would venture to give another translation of horace's words, and say that i desire to be brief, and therefore i efface myself. [laughter and cheers.] * * * * * international copyright [speech of james russell lowell at the dinner of the incorporated society of authors, london, july , , given to the "american men and women of letters" who happened to be in london on that date.] mr. chairman, ladies and gentlemen:--i confess that i rise under a certain oppression. there was a time when i went to make an after-dinner speech with a light heart, and when on my way to the dinner i could think over my exordium in my cab and trust to the spur of the moment for the rest of my speech. but i find as i grow older a certain aphasia overtakes me, a certain inability to find the right word precisely when i want it; and i find also that my flank becomes less sensitive to the exhilarating influences of that spur to which i have just alluded. i had pretty well made up my mind not to make any more after-dinner speeches. i had an impression that i had made quite enough of them for a wise man to speak, and perhaps more than it was profitable for other wise men to listen to. [laughter.] i confess that it was with some reluctance that i consented to speak at all to-night. i had been bethinking me of the old proverb of the pitcher and the well which is mentioned, as you remember, in the proverb; and it was not altogether a consolation to me to think that that pitcher, which goes once too often to the well, belongs to the class which is taxed by another proverb with too great length of ears. [laughter.] but i could not resist. i certainly felt that it was my duty not to refuse myself to an occasion like this--an occasion which deliberately emphasizes, as well as expresses, that good feeling between our two countries which, i think, every good man in both of them is desirous to deepen and to increase. if i look back to anything in my life with satisfaction, it is to the fact that i myself have, in some degree, contributed--and i hope i may believe the saying to be true--to this good feeling. [applause.] you alluded, mr. chairman, to a date which gave me, i must confess, what we call on the other side of the water "a rather large contract." i am to reply, i am to answer to literature, and i must confess that a person like myself, who first appeared in print fifty years ago, would hardly wish to be answerable for all his own literature, not to speak of the literature of other people. but your allusion to sixty years ago reminded me of something which struck me as i looked down these tables. sixty years ago the two authors you mentioned, irving and cooper, were the only two american authors of whom anything was known in europe, and the knowledge of them in europe was mainly confined to england. it is true that bryant's "water-fowl" had already begun its flight in immortal air, but these were the only two american authors that could be said to be known in england. and what is even more remarkable, they were the only american authors at that time--there were, and had been, others known to us at home--who were capable of earning their bread by their pens. another singular change is suggested to me as i look down these tables, and that is the singular contrast they afford between the time when johnson wrote his famous lines about those ills that assail the life of the scholar, and by the scholar he meant the author-- "toil, envy, want, the patron, and the gaol." and i confess when i remember that verse it strikes me as a singular contrast that i should meet with a body of authors who are able to offer a dinner instead of begging one; that i have sat here and seen "forty feeding like one," when one hundred years ago the one fed like forty when he had the chance. [laughter.] you have alluded also, in terms which i shall not qualify, to my own merits. you have made me feel a little as if i were a ghost revisiting the pale glimpses of the moon, and reading with considerable wonder my own epitaph. but you have done me more than justice in attributing so much to me with regard to international copyright. you are quite right in alluding to mr. putnam, who, i think, wrote the best pamphlet that has been written on the subject; and there are others you did not name who also deserve far more than i do for the labor they have expended and the zeal they have shown on behalf of international copyright, particularly the secretaries of our international society--mr. lathrop and mr. g. w. green. and since i could not very well avoid touching upon the subject of international copyright, i must say that all american authors without exception have been in favor of it on the moral ground, on the ground of simple justice to english authors. but there were a great many local, topical considerations, as our ancestors used to call them, that we were obliged to take into account, and which, perhaps, you do not feel as keenly here as we did. but i think we may say that the almost unanimous conclusion of american authors latterly has been that we should be thankful to get any bill that recognized the principle of international copyright, being confident that its practical application would so recommend it to the american people that we should get afterwards, if not every amendment of it that we desire, at least every one that is humanly possible. i think that perhaps a little injustice has been done to our side of the question; i think a little more heat has been imported into it than was altogether wise. i am not so sure that our american publishers were so much more wicked than their english brethren would have been if they had had the chance. [laughter.] i cannot, i confess, accept with patience any imputation that implies that there is anything in our climate or in our form of government that tends to produce a lower standard of morality than in other countries. the fact is that it has been partly due to a certain--may i speak of our ancestors as having been qualified by a certain dulness? i mean no disrespect, but i think it is due to the stupidity of our ancestors in making a distinction between literary property and other property. that has been at the root of the whole evil. i, of course understand, as everybody understands, that all property is the creature of municipal law. but you must remember that it is the conquest of civilization, that when property passes beyond the boundaries of that _municipium_ it is still sacred. it is not even yet sacred in all respects and conditions. literature, the property in an idea, has been something that it is very difficult for the average man to comprehend. it is not difficult for the average man to comprehend that there may be property in a form which genius or talent gives to an idea. he can see it. it is visible and palpable, this property in an idea when it is exemplified in a machine, but it is hardly so apprehensible when it is subtly interfused in literature. books have always been looked on somewhat as _feræ naturæ_, and if you have ever preserved pheasants you know that when they fly over your neighbor's boundaries he may take a pot shot at them. i remember that something more than thirty years ago longfellow, my friend and neighbor, asked me to come and eat a game pie with him. longfellow's books had been sold in england by the tens of thousands, and that game pie--and you will observe the felicity of its being a game pie, _feræ naturæ_ always you see--was the only honorarium he had ever received from this country for reprinting his works. i cannot help feeling as i stand here that there is something especially--i might almost use a cant word and say monumentally--interesting in a meeting like this. it is the first time that english and american authors, so far as i know, have come together in any numbers, i was going to say to fraternize, when i remembered that i ought perhaps to add to "sororize." we, of course, have no desire, no sensible man in england or america has any desire, to enforce this fraternization at the point of the bayonet. let us go on criticising each other; it is good for both of us. we americans have been sometimes charged with being a little too sensitive; but perhaps a little indulgence may be due to those who always have their faults told to them, and the reference to whose virtues perhaps is sometimes conveyed in a foot-note in small print. i think that both countries have a sufficiently good opinion of themselves to have a fairly good opinion of each other. they can afford it; and if difficulties arise between the two countries, as they unhappily may,--and when you alluded just now to what de tocqueville said in you must remember that it was only thirteen years after our war,--you must remember how long it has been to get in the thin end of the wedge of international copyright; you must remember it took our diplomacy nearly one hundred years to enforce its generous principle of the alienable allegiance, and that the greater part of the bitterness which de tocqueville found in was due to the impressment of american seamen, of whom something like fifteen hundred were serving on board english ships when at last they were delivered. these things should be remembered, not with resentment but for enlightenment. but whatever difficulties occurred between the two countries, and there may be difficulties that are serious, i do not think there will be any which good sense and good feeling cannot settle. [applause.] i think i have been told often enough to remember that my countrymen are apt to think that they are in the right, that they are always in the right; that they are apt to look at their side of the question only. now, this conduces certainly to peace of mind and imperturbability of judgment, whatever other merits it may have. i am sure i do not know where we got it. do you? i also sympathize most heartily with what has been said by the chairman with regard to the increasing love for england among my countrymen. i find on inquiry that they stop longer and in greater numbers every year in the old home, and feel more deeply its manifold charms. they also are beginning to feel that london is the centre of the races that speak english, very much in the sense that rome was the centre of the ancient world. and i confess that i never think of london, which i also confess that i love, without thinking of that palace which david built, sitting in hearing of a hundred streams--streams of thought, of intelligence, of activity. and one other thing about london, if i may be allowed to refer to myself, impresses me beyond any other sound i have ever heard, and that is the low, unceasing roar that one hears always in the air. it is not a mere accident, like the tempest or the cataract, but it is impressive because it always indicates human will and impulse and conscious movement, and i confess that when i hear it i almost feel that i am listening to the roaring loom of time. a few words more. i will only say this, that we, as well as you, have inherited a common trust in the noble language which, in its subtle compositiveness, is perhaps the most admirable instrument of human thought and human feeling and cunning that has ever been unconsciously devised by man. may our rivalries be in fidelity to that trust. we have also inherited certain traditions, political and moral, and in doing our duty towards these it seems to me that we shall find quite enough occupation for our united thought and feeling. [long-continued applause.] john lowell humors of the bench [speech of judge john lowell at a banquet given by the boston merchants' association in boston, may , , in his honor, upon his retirement from the bench of the united states circuit court.] gentlemen:--i hardly know why i am here. i suppose i must have decided some case in favor of our honored chairman. but, then, if every one in whose favor i have decided a case should give me a dinner i should have some thousands to eat, if i could live long enough. i observe that in your invitation to me you say very little, if anything, about any judicial qualities which i may have displayed in office, but you do mention my courtesy and patience. you are right. there are better judges here to-night than i ever was; but in courtesy and consideration, which i learned at my mother's knee, i hope i have not been surpassed. i have received several compliments of the same kind. i will tell you one story about that. i was sitting one day up in court. the jury had just gone out, when a very nice looking young man came up. his hair was a little short, i believe, but i didn't notice it particularly. said he, "good-morning, jedge." "good morning." "you don't remember me?" he said. "your countenance is familiar to me," i said, "but it does not impress itself on my memory." said he: "four years ago to-day you sentenced me to four years' imprisonment in the state prison." i suppose it ought to have been five, i don't know. he said: "i got out to-day, and i thought i would make my first call on you." [laughter. a voice: "that was his courtesy."] true; and mine then came in. said i: "many happy returns of the day." [great laughter and applause.] he took it very kindly and went off. i haven't seen him since. i might have resigned some time ago. i was waiting to be turned out. [laughter.] i got tired of waiting. i will tell you how that is now. my great-grandfather was judge of the district court, appointed by washington; then he was made circuit judge by adams. well, adams made a good many circuit judges, and they were all federalists; and when the democrats--they called themselves republicans--all the same, you know [laughter]--when the republicans came in they abolished the court to get rid of the judges. they made a circuit court here about nineteen years ago, and they appointed my friend shepley the first judge. i told him if the democrats only got in soon enough he would go the way of my grandfather. he admitted it. when i was appointed i expected the same thing. in fact, some of our prominent democrats told me so. i said, "all right, bring on your bear. bring on your democratic president." so i waited for that democratic president about eight years. i got tired of waiting. that is the only reason i resign now. [laughter and applause.] you take things so good-naturedly i will tell you one or two more stories. one of the principal difficulties we have is in serving on the jury. the members of the merchants' association always presented me with a certificate showing that they were members of the ancient and honorable artillery company.[ ] [laughter.] but a man who was not a house guard came into my private office one day just as the jury was about to be impanelled. said he: "judge, i hear you live out of town." said i: "yes." said he: "i guess you burn kerosene. you don't have electric lights or anything of that kind? well," said he, "if you will let me off this jury i will give you the darnedest nice can of kerosene ever you see." said i: "young man, i see in your mind the exact virtues which would be most useful,--a justice and probity which will make you serve the country most admirably as a juryman." so he served. i don't know but that if it had been a barrel it might have been different. [great laughter.] another tried the intimidation dodge. he says: "jedge, i have been exposed to the small-pox, and expect it to break out every minute." said i: "break!" [laughter.] he broke into the jury box and served his country well, and had no incapacitating disease that i ever heard of. i don't know that there is much of anything else, except that i would give some advice. i am going to draw up some rules for my successor, and the first one will be: "always decide in favor of the merchants' association." when there are two merchants' associations together, in different interests, then you must do like that jury in kennebec county. there was a jury there which was very prompt and satisfactory. when they got through, the judge said: "gentlemen, i thank you very much for the very satisfactory character of your verdicts, for the great promptness with which they have been rendered, without a single disagreement." the foreman returned thanks for the compliment, and said that the jury had escaped the delays and disagreements to which his honor had referred, by always tossing up a copper as soon as they had retired, and abiding by the result of the throw. one word in a more serious vein. i wish to express, in closing, my profound gratification that my efforts to do my duty simply and industriously should have met with your approval, and my gratitude for its public and spontaneous expression. [applause.] lord lytton (sir edward bulwer-lytton) macready and the english stage [speech of sir edward bulwer-lytton at a public dinner given to william c. macready, london, march , , on the occasion of the tragedian's withdrawal from the stage. lord lytton, in proposing the toast of the evening, delivered the following speech.] gentlemen:--when i glance through this vast hall, and feel how weak and indistinct is my voice, i feel that i must frankly throw myself upon your indulgence, and entreat your most patient and courteous attention while i approach that subject which unites to-day an assembly so remarkable for the numbers and distinction of those who compose it. we are met to do honor to an eminent man, who retires into private life after those services to the public which are most felt at the moment we are about to lose them. there are many among you far better qualified than i am to speak critically of the merits of mr. macready as an actor, but placed as i am in this chair, i feel that i should justly disappoint you if i did not seek to give some utterance to those sentiments of admiration of which you have made me the representative. gentlemen, this morning i read in one of the literary journals, some qualifying remarks as to the degree of mr. macready's genius; and now, as i recognize here many who are devoted to literature and art, i will ask them if i am not right in this doctrine--that the true measure of the genius of an artist is the degree of excellence to which he brings the art that he cultivates. judge of mr. macready by this test, and how great is that genius that will delight us no more; for it is because it has so achieved what i will call the symmetry of art that its height and its breadth have been often forgotten. we know that it is the uneven and irregular surface that strikes us as the largest, and the dimensions of a genius, like those of a building, are lost in the justness of its proportions; and therefore it is that in recalling the surpassing excellence of our guest as an artistical performer, one is really at a loss to say in what line of character he has excelled the most. the titanic grandeur of lear, the human debasement of werner, the frank vivacity of henry v, the gloomy and timorous guilt of king john, or that--his last--personation of macbeth, in which it seemed to me that he conveyed a more correct notion of what shakespeare designed than i can recollect to have read in the most profound of the german critics; for i take it, what shakespeare meant to represent in macbeth was the kind of character which is most liable to be influenced by a belief in supernatural agencies--a man who is acutely sensitive to all impressions, who has a restless imagination more powerful than his will, who sees daggers in the air and ghosts in the banquet-hall, who has moral weakness and physical courage, and who--as our guest represented him--alternates perpetually between terror and daring--a trembler when oppressed by his conscience, and a warrior when defied by his foe. but in this and in all that numberless crowd of characters which is too fresh in your memories for me to enumerate, we don't so much say "how well this was spoken," or "how finely that was acted," but we feel within ourselves how true was the personation of the whole. gentlemen, there is a word that is often applied to artists and to authors, and i think we always apply it improperly when we speak of a superior intellect--i mean the word "versatile." now, i think the proper word is "comprehensive." the man of genius does not vary and change, which is the meaning of the word versatile, but he has a mind sufficiently expanded to comprehend variety and change. if i can succeed in describing the circle, i can draw as many lines as i please from the centre straight to the circumference, but it must be upon the condition--for that is the mathematical law--that all these lines shall be equal, one to the other, or it is not a circle that i describe. now, i do not say our guest is versatile; i say that he is comprehensive; and the proof that he has mastered the most perfect form of the comprehensive faculty is this--that all the lines he has created within the range of his art are equal the one to the other. and this, gentlemen, explains to us that originality which even his detractors have conceded to him. every great actor has his manner as every great writer has his style. but the originality of our guest does not consist in his manner alone, but in his singular depth of thought. he has not only accomplished the obvious and essential graces of the actor--the look, the gesture, the intonation, the stage play--but he has placed his study far deeper. he has sought to penetrate into the subtlest intentions of the poet, and made poetry itself the golden key to the secrets of the human heart. he was original because he never sought to be original but to be truthful; because, in a word, he was as conscientious in his art as he is in his actions. gentlemen, there is one merit of our guest as an actor upon which, if i were silent, i should be indeed ungrateful. many a great performer may attain to a high reputation if he restrains his talents to acting shakespeare and the great writers of the past; but it is perfectly clear that in so doing he does not advance one inch the literature of his time. it has been the merit of our guest to recognize the truth that the actor has it in his power to assist in creating the writer. he has identified himself with the living drama of his period, and by so doing, he has half created it. who does not recollect the rough and manly vigor of tell, the simple grandeur of virginius or the exquisite sweetness and dignity and pathos with which he invested the self-sacrifice of ion; and who does not feel that but for him, these great plays might never have obtained their hold upon the stage, or ranked among those masterpieces which this age will leave to posterity? and what charm and what grace, not their own, he has given to the lesser works of an inferior writer, it is not for me to say. but, gentlemen, all this, in which he has sought to rally round him the dramatic writers of his time, brings me at once from the merits of the actor to those of the manager. i recall, gentlemen, that brief but glorious time when the drama of england appeared suddenly to revive and to promise a future that should be worthy of its past; when by a union of all kindred arts, and the exercise of a taste that was at once gorgeous and severe, we saw the genius of shakespeare properly embodied upon our stage, though i maintain that the ornament was never superior to the work. just remember the manner in which the supernatural agency of the weird sisters was made apparent to our eye, in which the magic isle of prospero rose before us in its mysterious and haunted beauty, and in which the knightly character of the hero of agincourt received its true interpretation from the pomp of the feudal age, and you will own you could not strip the scene of these effects without stripping shakespeare himself of half the richness and depth of his conceptions. but that was the least merit of that glorious management. mr. macready not only enriched the scene, but he purified the audience; and for the first time since the reign of charles ii, a father might have taken his daughters to a public theatre with as much safety from all that could shock decorum as if he had taken them to the house of a friend. and for this reason the late lamented bishop of norwich made it a point to form the personal acquaintance of mr. macready, that he might thank him, as a prelate of the church, for the good he had done to society. gentlemen, i cannot recall that period without a sharp pang of indignant regret, for if that management had lasted some ten or twelve years, i know that we would have established a permanent school for actors--a fresh and enduring field for dramatic poetry and wit--while we should have educated an audience up to feel that dramatic performances in their highest point of excellence had become an intellectual want that could no more be dispensed with than the newspaper or review. and all this to be checked or put back for ages to come! why? because the public did not appreciate the experiment! mr. macready has told us that the public supported him nobly, and that his houses overflowed. why then? because of the enormous rent and exactions, for a theatre which even in the most prosperous seasons, make the exact difference between profit and loss. gentlemen, it is not now the occasion to speak of remedies for that state of things. remedies there are, but they are for legislation to effect. they involve considerations with regard to those patents which are secured to certain houses for the purpose of maintaining in this metropolis the legitimate drama, and which i fear, have proved the main obstacle to its success. but these recollections belong to the past. the actor--the manager--are no more. whom have we with us to-day? something grander than actor, or manager: to-day we have with us the man. gentlemen, to speak of those virtues which adorn a home, and are only known in secret, has always appeared to me to be out of place upon public occasions; but there are some virtues which cannot be called private, which accompany a man everywhere, which are the essential part of his public character, and of these it becomes us to speak, for it is to these that we are met to do homage. i mean integrity, devotion to pure ends, a high ambition, manly independence, and honor that never knew a stain. why should we disguise from ourselves that there are great prejudices to the profession of an actor? who does not know that our noble guest has lived down every one such prejudice, not falling into the old weakness of the actor, and for which garrick could not escape the sarcasm of johnson, of hankering after the society and patronage of the great? the great may have sought in him the accomplished gentleman, but he has never stooped his bold front as an englishman to court any patronage meaner than the public, or to sue for the smile with which fashion humiliates the genius it condescends to flatter. and therefore it is that he has so lifted up that profession to which he belongs into its proper rank amid the liberal arts; and therefore it is, that in glancing over the list of our stewards we find every element of that aristocracy upon which he has never fawned uniting to render him its tribute of respect. the ministers of foreign nations--men among the noblest of the peers of england--veterans of those professions of which honor is the lifespring--the chiefs of literature and science and art--ministers of the church, sensible of the benefits he has bestowed upon society in banishing from the stage what had drawn upon it the censure of the pulpit--all are here and all unite to enforce the truth, the great truth, which he leaves to those who come after him--that let a man but honor his calling, and the calling will soon be the honor of the man. gentlemen, i cannot better sum up all i would say than by the words which the roman orator applied to the actor of his day; and i ask you if i may not say of our guest as cicero said of roscius--"he is a man who unites yet more of virtues than of talents, yet more of truth than of art, and who, having dignified the scene by the various portraitures of human life, dignifies yet more this assembly by the example of his own." gentlemen, the toast i am about to propose to you is connected with many sad associations but not to-day. later and longer will be cherished whatever may be sad of these mingled feelings that accompany this farewell--later, when night after night we shall miss from the play-bill the old familiar name, and feel that one source of elevated delight is lost to us forever. to-day let us rejoice that he whom we prize and admire is no worn-out veteran retiring to a rest he can no longer enjoy--that he leaves us in the prime of his powers, with many years to come, in the course of nature, of that dignified leisure for which every public man must have sighed in the midst of his triumphs, and though we cannot say of him that his "way of life is fall'n into the sere, the yellow leaf," yet we can say that he has prematurely obtained "that which should accompany old age, as honor, love, obedience, troops of friends;" and postponing for this night all selfish regret, not thinking of the darkness that is to follow, but of the brightness of the sun that is to set, i call upon you to drink with full glasses and full hearts, "health, happiness and long life to william macready." * * * * * farewell to charles dickens [speech of sir edward bulwer-lytton at a farewell banquet given to charles dickens, london, november , , prior to his departure on a reading tour in the united states. in giving the toast of the evening, lord lytton, the chairman, delivered the following speech.] my lords and gentlemen:--i now approach the toast which is special to the occasion that has brought together a meeting so numerous and so singularly distinguished. you have paid the customary honors to our beloved sovereign, due not only to her personal virtues, but to that principle of constitutional monarchy in which the communities of europe recognize the happiest mode of uniting liberty with order, and giving to the aspirations for the future a definite starting-point in the experience and the habits of the past. you are now invited to do honor to a different kind of royalty, which is seldom peacefully acknowledged until he who wins and adorns it ceases to exist in the body, and is no longer conscious of the empire which his thoughts bequeath to his name. happy is the man who makes clear his title-deeds to the royalty of genius while he yet lives to enjoy the gratitude and reverence of those whom he has subjected to his sway. though it is by conquest that he achieves his throne, he at least is a conqueror whom the conquered bless; and the more despotically he enthralls, the dearer he becomes to the hearts of men. seldom, i say, has that kind of royalty been quietly conceded to any man of genius until his tomb becomes his throne, and yet there is not one of us now present who thinks it strange that it is granted without a murmur to the guest whom we receive to-night. it has been said by a roman poet that nature, designing to distinguish the human race from the inferior animals by that faculty of social progress which makes each combine with each for the aid and defence of all, gave to men _mollissima corda_,--hearts the most accessible to sympathy with their fellow kind; and hence tears,--and permit me to add, and hence laughter,--became the special and the noblest attributes of humanity. therefore it is humanity itself which obeys an irresistible instinct when it renders homage to one who refines it by tears that never enfeeble, and by a laughter that never degrades. you know that we are about to intrust our honored countryman to the hospitality of those kindred shores in which his writings are as much "household words" as they are in the homes of england. and if i may presume to speak as a politician, i should say that no time could be more happily chosen for his visit; because our american kinsfolk have conceived, rightly or wrongfully, that they have some cause of complaint against ourselves, and out of all england we could not have selected an envoy more calculated to allay irritation and to propitiate good-will. in the matter of good-will there is a distinction between us english and the americans which may for a time operate to our disadvantage; for we english insist upon claiming all americans as belonging to our race, and springing from the same ancestry as ourselves, and hence the idea of any actual hostility between them and us shocks our sense of relationship; and yet in reality a large and very active proportion of the american people derives its origin from other races besides the anglo-saxon. german and dutch and celtic forefathers combine to form the giant family of the united states; but there is one cause forever at work to cement all these varieties of origin, and to compel the american people, as a whole, to be proud as we are of their affinity with the english race. what is that cause? what is that agency? is it not that of one language in common between the two nations? it is in the same mother tongue that their poets must sing, that their philosophers must reason, that their orators must argue upon truth or contend for power. i see before me a distinguished guest, distinguished for the manner in which he has brought together all that is most modern in sentiment with all that is most scholastic in thought and language; permit me to say, mr. matthew arnold. i appeal to him if i am not right when i say that it is by a language in common that all differences of origin sooner or later we are welded together--that etruscans, and sabines, and oscans, and romans, became one family as latins once, as italians now? before that agency of one language in common have not all differences of ancestral origin in england between britons, saxons, danes, and normans, melted away; and must not all similar differences equally melt away in the nurseries of american mothers, extracting the earliest lessons of their children from our own english bible, or in the schools of preceptors who must resort to the same models of language whenever they bid their pupils rival the prose of macaulay and prescott, or emulate the verse of tennyson and longfellow? now, it seems to me that nothing can more quicken the sense of that relationship which a language in common creates, than the presence and voice of a writer equally honored and beloved in the old world and in the new; and i cannot but think that where-ever our american kinsfolk welcome that presence, or hang spell-bound on that voice, they will feel irresistibly how much of fellowship and unison there is between the hearts of america and england. so that when our countrymen quits their shores he will leave behind him many a new friend to the old fatherland which greets them through him so cordially in the accents of the mother tongue. and in those accents what a sense of priceless obligations--obligations personal to him and through him to the land he represents--must steal over his american audience! how many hours in which pain and sickness have changed into cheerfulness and mirth beneath the wand of this enchanter! how many a combatant beaten down in the battle of life--and nowhere is the battle of life more sharply waged than in the commonwealth of america--has caught new hope, new courage, new force from the manly lessons of this unobtrusive teacher! gentlemen, it is no wonder that the rising generation of people who have learned to think and to feel in our language, should eagerly desire to see face to face the man to whose genius, from their very childhood, they have turned for warmth and for light as instinctively as young plants turn to the sun. but i must not forget that it is not i whom you have come to hear; and all i might say, if i had to vindicate the fame of our guest from disparagement or cavil, would seem but tedious and commonplace when addressed to those who know that his career has passed beyond the ordeal of contemporaneous criticism, and that in the applause of foreign nations it has found a foretaste of the judgment of posterity. i feel as if every word that i have already said had too long delayed the toast which i now propose: "a prosperous voyage, health and long life, to our illustrious guest and countryman, charles dickens." hamilton wright mabie spirit of new england literature [speech of hamilton w. mabie at the ninety-first annual dinner of the new england society in the city of new york, december , . henry e. howland, vice-president of the society, presided and introduced the speaker as follows: "there is no person better qualified to speak upon any literary subject than the editor of a great paper. he scans the whole horizon of literature, and his motto is: 'where the bee sups there sup i.' as a gentleman eminently fitted to speak upon the literature of new england or any kindred subject, i have the pleasure of introducing to you mr. hamilton w. mabie, of 'the outlook.'"] mr. president and gentlemen:--when one has the army and navy behind him, he is impelled to be brief. and when one has a subject which needs no interpreter, when one has a theme the very recital of the details of which recalls the most splendid chapter in our intellectual history, one feels that any words would be impertinent. we are indebted to new england, in the first place, for giving us a literature. i know it has been questioned in congress, why anybody should want a literature; but if the spiritual rank of a people is to be determined by depth and richness of life, and if the register of this life of a people is its art, and especially its art in books, then no country is reputable among the nobler countries unless it has produced a literature; and we are, therefore, indebted to new england for literature. not the greatest we shall produce, but a literature continuous from the first settlement of the colonies. it is a very significant fact that the three men before the revolution whom we may call literary men were men born in new england--benjamin franklin, who is too well known to all of you for comment; john woolman, of whose work charles lamb said: "woolman's writings should be learned by heart;" and that great theologian, who wrote in a stately style, jonathan edwards. after the revolution i have but to call the roll of those names which are the glory of new england--hawthorne, the man of finest literary gift who has yet appeared upon this continent; longfellow, with his tender touch; holmes, with his three o'clock wit, as some one has called it, the man who was always awake; lowell, with his rich culture and his passionate loyalty to all that was best in life and art; and the historians of the country, motley, prescott, bancroft, and francis parkman, with his splendid record of patient and tireless energy. and then we have the new england writers of the second generation in edmund clarence stedman, thomas bailey aldrich, thomas wentworth higginson, charles dudley warner, john fiske, and henry james; and we have also a third generation. the most striking characteristic of the older, as of the younger, new england literature is its deep and beautiful humanism, the closeness of its touch upon experience, the warmth of its sympathy with men and women in contact with the great movement of life. growing out of such a soil, it could hardly have been otherwise, for new england represents, not an abstraction, but a commanding faith in personality, the clear self-realization of a man whose obligation goes straight to god, and to whom god's word travels like an arrow's flight. in one form or another, all the new england writers deal with this theme; they are concerned, not with abstractions, but with the hopes and fears and temptations of man. hawthorne is absorbed in the problem of the return of a man's deed, or of his ancestors' deed upon himself; lowell cares supremely for nobility and freedom of impulse, act and deed; whittier for truth and spiritual fellowship; emerson, for the reality of spiritual force and meaning in common duties and ordinary relations; longfellow, for the tenderness and purity of childhood, the sweetness and fragrance of family relations, the charm of historic association; holmes, for the endless paradox and surprise which are in human thought and conduct; brooks, for the abundance of man's life and the fulness of its spiritual possibilities; curtis, for a public life at once pure, free, rich and stable. for all these writers organization and institutions had great interest, but they cared primarily for the men whose history these institutions represent. the quays at geneva are massive and shine at night like a constellation; but our interest centres in the river which rushes between them from the alps to the sea. this is a democratic note, but there is another quite as distinct and characteristic--the note of buoyant cheerfulness, faith in god and man. there is a ringing tone in the literature of new england which is not only a protest against any form of oppression, but a challenge to fate. that courage came from faith in the divine order of life. and that buoyant courage and cheerfulness were possible because these writers kept life and art in harmony. there was no schism between ideal and action in them. they not only followed the vision in spirit; they lived in the light of it. they illustrated that unity of life without which there is no god. they kept in the way of growth and truth and inspiration because they lived wisely. we do not half value their splendid sanity. a manly and noble moral health was theirs. they rang true to every moral appeal. they were not only men of letters, but they were also gentlemen, and they have associated literature in the thought of the country with dignity, culture and beauty of life--emerson's unworldliness, lowell's loyalty to truth, and curtis's splendid rectitude, as enduring as the granite, are of lasting value to the higher life of the nation. their courage and buoyancy were of higher value than we yet understand. faith is absolutely essential in a great democratic society. when we cease to believe in god we cease to believe in man, and when our faith in man goes, democracy becomes a vast, irrational engine of tyranny and corruption. in the last analysis democracy rests in the belief that there is something of the divine in every man, and that through every life there shines a glimpse of the eternal order. for government rests, not in the will of the majority, but on the will of god; and democracy is but a vaster surface upon which to discover the play of that will. it follows from these characteristics that the real significance of the new england writers lies not in what they did, but in what they unconsciously predicted. clear and ringing as are the notes they struck, these notes are prelusive; they suggest the great _motifs_, but they do not completely unfold them; they could not, for the time was not yet ripe; they announced the principle of individuality, and they sang the great idea of nationality; but the depth and richness of national life was not theirs to express. that vast life rises more and more into the national consciousness, but its homer or dante or shakespeare has not appeared--probably cannot appear for a long time to come. that life is too wide and still too inharmonious for clear expression. its very richness postpones the day of its ultimate expression; but when the hour is ripe it will embody an ideal as significant as any in history, with illustration more varied and vital. we are still the victims of our continent; we shall one day be its masters. one of the oldest drawings in the world is on the side of a cave in france, and represents a man fleeing naked and defenceless from a great serpent--man still in bondage to material conditions. one of the most stirring of modern scenes is that in which siegfried waits at the mouth of the cavern--leaves rustling, light shimmering, birds singing about him. the glory of youth is on him and the beauty of the world about him; but he cannot understand what the sounds mean. then comes the struggle, the victory, the revelation of song and light; and the hero passes swiftly up the heights, where, encircled with flame, sleeps the soul of his strength. in some other day, when the continent is tamed and we have struck to the heart that materialism which is our only real foe, we, too, shall climb the heights of achievement, and we shall stand face to face with that ideal which is now so dim and remote. then comes the poet of the real new world--the world of opportunity, of sacrifice, of unselfish freedom of the larger art and diviner life. and when that day comes and the great poet sings and the great writer speaks, we shall hear faint and far the sounds of those old voices of new england; not so vast as the later music, but as pure and harmonious and true. we shall understand how they made the later music possible; how they have made possible the fulfilment of the prediction of one of their own number: between shakespeare in the cradle and shakespeare in "hamlet" there was needed but an interval of time, and the same sublime condition is all that lies between the america of toil and the america of art. [applause.] donald sage mackay the dutch domine [speech of rev. dr. d. sage mackay at the eleventh annual dinner of the holland society of new york, january , . the president, dr. d. b. st. john roosa, said in introducing the speaker: "before i announce the next toast i want to remark that one of our distinguished speakers, a huguenot, said at the st. nicholas dinner, that it was such a particularly good dinner, that there were such particularly good speeches, and that very few of them had been made by dutchmen. but now we shall have a gentleman who represents the profession we all delight to honor, and who will delineate the next regular toast:-- 'the dutch. domine: guide, philosopher, and friend, a man he was to all the country dear.' "i have the pleasure of introducing a gentleman who wishes he had been born a dutchman but who is not entitled, i suppose, to that great honor, as he is to many others deservedly showered upon him--the rev. dr. d. sage mackay."] mr. president and gentlemen:--i will confess, at the outset here to-night, that when by the courtesy of your committee i was asked to respond to this sentiment, which so poetically and yet so truly enshrines the memory of the old dutch domine, that i felt somewhat in the condition in which a member of the glasgow fire brigade found himself some years ago. one night, being on duty, he had the misfortune to fall asleep, and to insure his comfort before doing so he had divested himself of his heavy overalls. about midnight the alarm bell rang. he staggered to his feet, and in the condition of a man suddenly aroused from sleep drew on the overalls so that back was front and front was back. in the excitement of the moment he forgot all about his abnormal condition. coming down the staircase of the burning building he had the misfortune to slip and fall heavily to the ground, in a heap of cinders. his companions eagerly asked him if he was hurt. "no," he replied, with true scotch canniness. "no, chaps, i canna' say i am hurt, but eh, sirs, i maun hae got an awfu' twist." [laughter.] and so, sir, when i, unfortunately to-night, a scotchman born and bred, was asked to reply to the toast "the dutch domine," i felt that in the arrangements of the evening there was something of a twist. [laughter.] and yet, if twist it may be called, it was only on the surface. after a happy experience in the dutch ministry, and after enjoying for a second time the hospitality of this honorable society, i know nowhere where a scotchman can feel himself so at home as in the genial influences of dutch custom and dutch tradition. [applause.] we gladly echo all these patriotic and inspiring sentiments which have fallen from the lips of the speakers to-night. we believe that dutch influences have salted america, but we scotchmen have got the idea somehow that scotland was leavening if not salting holland for a hundred years before that exodus to these shores took place. [laughter.] general morgan, on one occasion, in discussing the fighting qualities of the soldiers of different nations, came to the conclusion that in many respects they were about the same, with one notable exception. "after all," he said, "for the possession of the ideal quality of the soldier, for the grand essential, give me the dutchman--he starves well." [laughter.] and, no doubt, when provisions are scarce, no man can afford to starve better than he, for the simple reason that when provisions are plentiful no man can manage to eat better. [laughter.] i feel like mentioning as the first quality of the dutch domine to-night the possession of a good digestion. i myself have fared so well on dutch fare for these last two or three years that i feel i could almost claim to be a dutchman, very much as a man once claimed to be a native of a certain parish in scotland. he was being examined by counsel. counsel asked him, "were you born here?" "maistly, your honor," was the reply. "what do you mean by 'maistly'? did you come here when you were a child?" "na, i didna' cam here when i was a chiel," he replied. "then what do you mean by 'maistly,' if you have not lived here most of your life?" counsel asked. "weel, when i cam here i weighed eighty pun, and now i weigh three hundred, so that i maun be maistly a native." [laughter.] so, perhaps, that "maistly" may be the claim to be a dutchman which some of us may make, if we go on. the sentiment to which i have been asked to respond is one which i doubt not will strike a responsive chord in the memories of most of you hollanders here to-night. across the vanished years will come back the picture of the old dutch village, nestling in some sheltered nook behind the hudson, and there in the old-fashioned pulpit arises the quaint, once well-loved face and form of the domine, with big, dome-shaped head, full mouth and nose, marked with lines of humor, the fringe of white whiskers, and underneath, around the throat, the voluminous folds of the white choker, a kind of a combination of a swaddling-band and a winding-sheet, suggestive of birth or death, as the occasion demanded. [laughter.] so he appeared an almost essential feature in the landscape, as year in and out he ministered in unassuming faithfulness to the needs of his people. by the bedside of the dying, or in the home of the widow, a comforter and friend; in the stirring days of revolutionary struggle, a leader and patriot, and sometimes a martyr too; in the social gatherings around the great open fireplace in the long dark nights, pipe in hand, a genial companion, so in every walk of life, in scenes gladsome or sad, the old domine was a constant presence, an influence for righteousness, moulding his people in that simplicity of life and independence of spirit, which in all times have been preeminent as features in the dutch character. into the homespun of common life, he wove the threads of gold, revealing by life and precept that type of religion which is not "too bright and good for human nature's daily food." what were some of the distinctive features in the character of the old domine? pre-eminently, we remember him for his wide and genial humanity, as a man strong in his convictions yet generous in his sympathies, faithful in his denunciation of sin yet holding outstretched hands of brotherhood to the weak and tempted. in a parish near by to where my grandfather was settled, there had been three ministers, one after the other in quick succession. the old beadle compared them to a friend something after this fashion: "the first yin was a mon, but he was na' a meenister; the second yin was a meenister, but he was na' a mon; but the third was neither a mon nor a meenister." [great laughter.] but the dutch domine was at once a man and a minister. the official never overshadowed the man, neither did the humanity of the man degrade the sacred office. all strong character is the union of two opposite qualities, and in the dutch minister i trace the harmonious presence of two elements not often found in one personality. on the one hand there was a rigid adherence to his own church and creed, so that to the orthodox dutch mind, whatever may happen elsewhere, heaven will be peopled by reformed dutchmen, and in the celestial hymn-book an appendix will be found for the heidelberg catechism and liturgical forms of the dutch church [laughter]; but on the other hand, with this loyalty to his own creed, there was a generous tolerance towards the view of others, a broad-minded charity, expressed in thought and life, towards those whose standpoint in religion differed from his own. in reality, your old domine had, and i venture to say, has, little sympathy with that narrow ecclesiasticism, which in effect claims a monopoly in religion and would practically hand over the salvation of the race to the hands of a close corporation. now, whence did it come; where did he learn this steadfastness to his own principles, yet this generosity towards the convictions of other men, which has been so eloquently dwelt on to-night as a cardinal feature of the american character through the leavening power of dutch influence? it came, gentlemen, as part of his birthright. we have been told that to study and appreciate dutch character and dutch history we must keep in view what has been called the geographical factor, that constant war with the elements, which trained the dutchman to patience, to endurance, and to self-mastery. so, in studying the dutch domine, you must keep in view the historic factor out of which he and his church have come. i make no extravagant claim for the old dutch church of new amsterdam and new york, when i say she stands to-day for a great and a splendid tradition in american life. she enshrines within her history facts and forces which have been woven into the texture of her most enduring institutions. out of the darkness of persecution she came, bearing to these shores the precious casket of civil and religious liberty. when with prophetic vision she gazed across the western sea, and saw the red dawn of a new day glow upon the waters, that dawn but reflected the red blood that dripped like sacramental wine from her robes--the blood of martyrdom poured forth for that sacred trophy of liberty of conscience which it is your privilege and mine to hand on to the generations yet to come. for full forty years, the dutch church was the only religious institution on this island, and who in these early times, when the great ideas for which america stands to-day were in their formative stage, guided in the light of truth the young country to a larger conception of her destiny? not only from the standpoint of religion, but from the standpoint of education, the dutch church and her clergy were a mighty factor in the evolution of the great twin truths of civil and religious liberty. to the dutch church we owe it, that liberty, in the reaction from old-world despotism, was not allowed to degenerate into license. to them we owe it that freedom of conscience was impressed not merely as a right to be claimed, but as a duty to be safe-guarded, and, need i say?--this sense of personal duty and responsibility in respect of the rights of conscience is the note above all others that we have to strike in our nation's life to-day. [applause.] gentlemen, in the old country, among others, i have looked at the monument of your noble old dutch admiral, tromp, and there it says, "unconquered by the english, he ceased to triumph only when he ceased to live," and i take these words, the epitaph of the old hero, not indeed as the epitaph of dutch influence--that will never die--but as the ideal of dutch character in this country in the years to come. let it cease to triumph only when it ceases to live; let it seek to lead onward and upward to a diviner freedom this country, whose history is the evolution of the great god-given idea--civil and religious liberty. [applause.] alexander c. mackenzie music [speech of sir alexander c. mackenzie at the annual banquet of the royal academy, london, may , . the toast to "music," to which sir alexander c. mackenzie responded, was coupled with that of the "drama" for which arthur w. pinero spoke. sir john millais, who proposed the toast, said: "i have already spoken for both music and the drama with my brush. i have painted sterndale bennett, arthur sullivan, irving, and hare."] mr. president, your royal highness, my lords, and gentlemen:--i am aware that there are some of my most distinguished colleagues now present whose claims to the honor of replying to your amiable words far exceed my own. but i also know that they will not grudge me that distinction and none of them would appreciate it more than myself, whom you have elected to mention in connection with your toast. i only hope that my companion, the brilliant representative of the drama, may be inclined to forgive me for taking precedence of him, for his art had already attained a state of perfection while ours was still lisping on a feeble tibia to the ill-balanced accompaniment of some more sonorous instrument of percussion. it was all we had to offer at the time, but i am sure that since then we have steadily improved. but even then we were accustomed to ring up the curtain, and so i look upon myself as a mere overture or prelude to the good thing, the word-painting, which will follow. ["hear! hear!"] let me assure him that the composer knows no greater delight than when he is called upon to combine his art with that of the dramatic author, even should our most divinely-inspired moments be but faintly conveyed to the audience through the medium of the--otherwise excellent but still metropolitan--under ground orchestras at our disposal. my only regret is that none of us were permitted to accompany the fascinating heroine of his latest work through the play. some correspondingly alluring music has doubtless been lost to the world. on the last occasion that the toast of music was responded to in this room, it was remarked that popularity was not without its drawbacks. i fear, sir, there are not many of us who are actually groaning under the oppressive weight of over-popularity--at least not to any very alarming extent. [cheers.] but i may permit myself to say that while the popularity of music itself is undeniable, it is not so equally obvious that the fact is an absolutely unmixed blessing; perhaps the very familiarity which it undoubtedly enjoys subjects it more than any other art to the fitful temper of fashion--to rash and hastily-formed judgments--as well as to the humors of self-complacent guides whose dicta all too frequently prove the dangerous possession of a very small allowance of real knowledge. "academic" is, i believe, sir, the winged word in daily use to mark those of us who may still cling to the effete and obsolete belief that music remains a science, difficult of acquirement and not either a toy art, or a mere nerve titillater. we are not, sir, by any means ashamed to bear the stigma of being academic; on the contrary, we feel it a genuine compliment--gratifying because, although perhaps unintentionally it implies that we have acquired the possession of "that one thing" which (as wilhelm meister was informed by the venerable three) "no child brings into the world with him,"--that is, "reverence"--reverence for our great past as well as, i hope, a due estimation of the vigorous activity of the present. so our sweet-natured muse smiles benignly upon the impish gambols of the "new boy" who has the supreme advantage of not having been to school, for any appreciable length of time at least, and who seems to derive considerable satisfaction from his endeavors to improve the education of those who have never left it. [laughter.] we are sometimes instructed that english purcell (whose glorious memory our musicians mean to honor in a few months), that german bach ought to be considerably touched up to suit the altered requirements of the day, and that the rich hues of romantic weber--nay, even of his giantship the great beethoven himself--are fading visibly and rapidly. far be it from the academics to undervalue the great significance of "modernity." our musical palette, the orchestra, has in our own time been enriched by the addition of many brilliant colors. music has become, if possible, still more closely allied with and indebted for inspiration to each and all of the sister arts: while the peremptory and ever-increasing demand upon the dexterity as well as the intellectual grasp of the executant has brought into the field such an array of splendid artist interpreters as possibly the world has never before seen. ["hear! hear!"] what the effect produced by audible performance of the works of the great past-masters in music may be upon the ricketty understandings is difficult even to guess at. the healthily trained student, however, to whom the preservation of the history of his art is still of some consequence, shows that the word "perishable" has positively no meaning to him so long as tough paper and honest leather hold together. to him those noble scores can never become dumb, sealed, or silent books; he has only to reach them down and, reading, hear them speak--each master in the language of his own time--in living notes, as glowing now as when they were first penned. it is not without some diffidence, sir, that i allude before sitting down to that time when our own english music had a high and most honorable place among the arts of the nations--because, alas! that recollection necessarily compels the remembrance of a subsequent and too prolonged period of decayed fortunes. but i must allow myself to say a few words in recognition of the efforts of the three of our native contemporary composers, who never tire in the endeavor to reclaim the lost ground. for, within very recent years, much has been achieved which has been helpful towards the recapture of the position, towards the recovery of the old-time renown. that "artist corps" may perhaps not be a very numerous company and besides it is without doubt, in the words of a popular lyrical humorist, a somewhat "nervous, shy, low-spoken" little band, which is content to wait and work incessantly in the service of its national music. generous in acknowledgment of the efforts of all who assist its onward progress, it has already done much, can and will do more. i said advisedly "national music" because its members, hailing as they do from all the subdivisions of this country, are no doubt, with so many widely differing musical characteristics by birthright, that it is not at all unreasonable even for the most modest among them--and this virtue still attaches to some, i should say, to all, of them--build great hopes of a definitely distinct british music, such as you, sir john [millais], doubtless had in your mind when you honored our art by proposing this toast; such our very best painters would willingly hail and acknowledge; such as your own academy would welcome in that genial manner which for many years past it has so generously taught us to expect. [cheers.] william charles macready farewell to the stage [speech of william c. macready at a farewell banquet given in his honor, london, march , , on the occasion of his retirement from the stage. sir edward bulwer-lytton acted as chairman. he said: "gentlemen, i cannot better sum up all i would say than by the words which the roman orator applied to the actor of his day, and i ask you if i may not say of our guest as cicero said of roscius, 'he is a man who unites yet more of virtues than of talents, yet more of truth than of art, and who, having dignified the scene by various portraitures of human life, dignifies yet more this assembly by the example of his own.' [great applause.] gentlemen, the toast i am about to propose to you is connected with many sad associations, but not to-day. later and long will be cherished whatever may be sad of these mingled feelings that accompany this farewell,--later when night after night we shall miss from the play-bill the old familiar name, and feel that one source of elevated delight is lost to us forever. ["hear! hear!"] to-day let us only rejoice that he whom we so prize and admire is no worn-out veteran retiring to a rest he can no longer enjoy [cheers]--that he leaves us in the prime of his powers, with many years to come, in the course of nature, of that dignified leisure for which every public man must have sighed in the midst of his triumphs; and though we cannot say of him that his 'way of life is fall'n with the sere, the yellow leaf,' yet we can say that he has prematurely obtained 'that which should accompany old age, as honor, love, obedience, troops of friends'--[cheers]--and postponing for this night all selfish regrets, not thinking of the darkness that is to follow, but of the brightness of the sun that is to set, i call upon you to drink with full glasses and full hearts, health, happiness, and long life to william macready."] mr. chairman and gentlemen:--i rise to thank you, i should say to attempt to thank you, for i feel the task is far beyond my power. what can i say in reply to all that the kindly feeling of my friend has dictated? i have not the skill to arrange and address in attractive language the thoughts that press upon me, and my incompetency may perhaps appear like a want of sensibility to your kindness, for we are taught to believe that out of the heart's fulness the mouth speaks. but my difficulty, let me assure you, is a contradiction to this moral. [cheers.] i have to thank my friend, your distinguished chairman, for proposing my health to you and for the eloquence--may i not add the brilliant fancy, with which he has enriched and graced his subject. but that we may readily expect from him, who in the wide and discursive range of his genius touches nothing that he does not adorn. ["hear!" and cheers.] i have to thank you for the cordiality and--if i may without presumption say so,--the enthusiasm with which the compliment proposed has been received, and for the honor--never to be forgotten--that you have conferred on me, by making me your guest to-day. never before have i been so oppressed with a sense of my deficiency as at this moment, looking on this assemblage of sympathizing friends crowded here to offer me a spontaneous testimony of their regard. i observe among you many who for years have been the encouraging companions of my course; and there are present too those who have cheered even my very earliest efforts. to all who have united in this crowning tribute, so far beyond my dues or expectations--my old friends, friends of many years, who welcomed me with hopeful greeting in the morning of my professional life, and to younger ones who now gather round to shed more brightness on my setting, i should wish to pour forth the abundant expression of my gratitude. [loud cheers.] you are not, i think, aware of the full extent of my obligations to you. independent of the substantial benefits due to the liberal appreciation of my exertions, my very position in society is determined by the stamp which your approbation has set upon my humble efforts. [cheers.] and let me unhesitatingly affirm that without undervaluing the accident of birth or titular distinction, i would not exchange the grateful pride of your good opinion which you have given me the right to cherish, for any favor or advancement that the more privileged in station could receive. [great cheering.] i really am too much oppressed, too much overcome to attempt to detain you long; but with the reflection and under the conviction that our drama, the noblest in the world, can never lose its place from our stage while the english language lasts, i will venture to express one parting hope--that the rising actors may keep the loftiest look, may hold the most elevated views of the duties of their calling. ["hear! hear!" and cheers.] i would also hope that they will strive to elevate their art, and also to raise themselves above the level of the player's easy life, to public regard and distinction by a faithful ministry to the genius of our incomparable shakespeare. [cheers.] to effect this creditable purpose, they must bring resolute energy and unfaltering labor to their work; they must be content "to scorn delights, and live laborious days;" they must remember that whate'er is excellent in art must spring from labor and endurance:-- "deep the oak, must sink in stubborn earth its roots obscure that hopes to lift its branches to the sky." this, gentlemen, i can assure you, was the doctrine of our own siddons, and of the great talma; and this is the faith i have ever held as one of their humblest disciples. [applause.] of my direction of the two patent theatres on which my friend has so kindly dilated, i wish to say but little. the preamble of their patents recites as a condition of their grant, that the theatres shall be instituted for the promotion of virtue and to be instructive to the human race. i think those are the words. i can only say that it was my ambition to the best of my ability to obey that injunction ["hear! hear!"] and believing in the principle that property has its duties as well as its rights, i conceived that the proprietors should co-operate with me. [general cries of "hear!"] they thought otherwise, and i was reluctantly compelled to relinquish on disadvantageous terms my half-achieved enterprise. others will take up this uncompleted work, and if inquiry were set on foot for one best qualified to undertake the task i should seek him in the theatre which, by eight years' labor, he has from the most degraded condition raised high in public estimation, not only as regards the intelligence and respectability of his audiences, but by the learned and tasteful spirit of his productions. [cheers.] gentlemen, i shall not detain you longer. all that i could desire and far more than i ever could expect you have conferred upon me in the honor you have done me to-day. it will be a memory that must remain as an actual possession to me and mine, which nothing in life can take from us. the repetition of thanks adds little to their force, and therefore, deeply as i am already obliged to you, i must draw still further on your indulgence. you have had faith in my zeal for your service; you will, i am sure, continue that faith in my gratitude, for the value you have set upon it. with a heart more full than the glass i hold, i return you my most grateful thanks, and have the honor of drinking all your healths. [mr. macready who had displayed considerable emotion during some portions of his address, then resumed his seat amid enthusiastic cheering.] justin mccarthy ireland's struggle [speech of justin mccarthy at a dinner given in his honor, new york city, october , . when the speaking began, judge browne, who presided, asked the audience to drink the health of justin mccarthy, the guest of the evening, with this quotation from thomas moore:-- "here's the poet who drinks; here's the warrior who fights; here's the statesman who speaks in the cause of men's rights; charge! hip, hip, hurrah! hurrah!" continuing, judge browne said: "we feel it a proud privilege to be permitted to gather and do honor to one who has done honor to our name and nation in a foreign land. when the great leader of the irish people was bidding you good-by at the other side of the water, he said that the aid you had rendered him and his colleagues had largely helped to advance the interests of ireland in her onward march to freedom. our knowledge of you enables us to indorse that statement. [applause.] what you have written in one of our city papers has shown us step by step the progress of the home rule movement. that great work has been accomplished by the irish leader there can be no doubt. i witnessed it personally a few short weeks ago, when standing in the strangers' gallery in the house of commons, i saw a handful of irish members under the leadership of parnell withstand the assaults of six hundred english members. [applause.] it was an awe-inspiring sight. when one remembers that within the four walls of that small building that group of englishmen were making laws for three hundred millions of people, and that the representatives of a nation numbering only five millions were enabled to keep them in check at the bidding of parnell, i was struck with astonishment. not only have the irish people parnell with them now, but they have gladstone [applause], and more than half of the english people; and we have in addition justin mccarthy [prolonged applause], and with this continuation of moral force we are certain to win home rule for ireland soon. gentlemen, i give you the health of our guest, justin mccarthy."] gentlemen, friends, all:--i am very sure you will believe that i speak with the utmost sincerity when i say that, although much in the habit of addressing public meetings of various kinds, friendly and hostile, i really do feel somewhat embarrassed in rising to address this entirely friendly meeting to-night. the warmth and the kindness of your reception, many of you irishmen, some of you americans, does surprise and does, to a great extent, overpower me. judge browne, your chairman, has regretted the absence of eugene kelly. i myself regret his absence on personal and on public grounds; on personal grounds for his sake, and still more, as i am rather selfish, for my own sake. [applause.] for his sake because ill health keeps him away, and for my own sake because i have never yet had the chance of meeting him, and had finally hoped that here to-night i should have the pleasure of making his acquaintance. i should not complain very much for myself after all, for the worthy gentleman who fills the place of mr. kelly so ably--i mean judge browne [applause]--has said more complimentary things of me than i really deserve before a gathering so influential and so representative as this. upon the great political questions which interest me, and which interest you, i shall perhaps have occasion to say a few words, perhaps more than a few words monday night, and i hope to see many of the gentlemen who are now here present then, and if they be wavering on the question of home rule i am nearly certain they will go away stanch disciples of justice to ireland, in a legislative sense, at all events. [applause.] there may be some among you who do not entirely agree with me upon my views regarding the relations between england and ireland. some may regard me with more favor as a writer of books than as an expounder of home rule for ireland. [cries of "no! no!"] i will therefore regard this occasion as a welcome given by you to me personally, and shall not go into any political question whatever. regarding myself, i may assume this much, at least, that the question of home rule for ireland is now universally regarded in america as one of those questions bound up with the great cause of civilization and of progress, and i entirely agree with the chairman when he said that the irish people in this struggle do not entertain any feelings of hate or enmity for the english people. [applause.] i may say sincerely that i would not have joined the agitation if it had been selfish and merely for the sake of ireland alone, and not, as it has been, a movement for the advancement of freedom and enlightened ideas among other struggling nations of the earth. [applause.] i have said over and over again, in england as well as in ireland, that the cause that i was advocating was one of interest and of the most vital importance to england as well as to ireland. [applause.] many years ago i heard mr. bright deliver a great speech in the house of commons in favor of a french commercial treaty. he wound up that great speech by saying that the adoption of that treaty would be a policy of justice to england, and of mercy to france. i call the policy that i and my colleagues in the english parliament are identified with, a policy of justice to ireland and of mercy to england. [applause.] i call it a policy of mercy to england because it is a policy which shall bury forever the rancor of centuries that has existed between irishmen and englishmen; a policy which will change things so far that ireland, instead of being the enemy at the gate shall be the friend at the gate, who, if need be, can speak with some effect to the enemy from without. after a long, a very long and a very bitter agitation, we now at last are within reach of the consummation of our hopes. [applause.] i am glad indeed to receive from an audience in this city, composed as it is of many nationalities, such a hearty endorsement of the policy which i and my people have carried out in struggling to give ireland her rights. i see here the irish harp and the american stars and stripes. long and forever may these flags wave side by side. [prolonged applause.] how shall we distinguish between irishmen and americans? are the echoes which resound in this hall irish or american echoes? [cries of "both! both!"] the voices that speak are irish certainly, but the roof, the walls that give back the sound are american. [applause.] may we not therefore claim the indistinguishable unity of nationality, of sentiment, and of feeling? i should be ungrateful, indeed, gentlemen, did i not express my warm acknowledgments for this greeting which you have given me--this hearty irish welcome. i shall never forget the words of warmth which you have spoken to myself personally and the expressions of encouragement which you have given to my people and my cause. i shall tell my friends when i go back, that among the best supporters we have upon this side are americans and irish-americans who believe firmly in the justice of ireland's cause and of the determined yet peaceable, strictly peaceable, character of the struggle which ireland's representatives are making for the re-establishment of her parliament in college green. [prolonged applause.] alexander kelly mcclure an editorial retrospect [speech of colonel a. k. mcclure, editor of the "philadelphia times," delivered at a banquet at philadelphia, december , , commemorating the fiftieth year of his connection with the press of pennsylvania. governor daniel h. hastings, in introducing the guest of the evening, concluded by saying: "i said in the beginning that he is the nestor of pennsylvania journalism. yes, like the king of pylos, in grecian legend of the siege of troy, he is the oldest of the living chieftains. forney, morton, mcmichael and most of the pioneers of our modern journalism are gone. mcclure has been to pennsylvania what horace greeley was to new york journalism. dana, of the 'sun,' and mcclure, of the 'times,' are the links connecting the present with the past of american journalism. to-night the roses of friendship and fraternity are growing upon the walls that separate us in our life-work, and we are here to join in our congratulations and good wishes to him in whose honor we meet--colonel alexander k. mcclure."] mr. chairman:--i cannot express the measure of my grateful appreciation of this imposing greeting, so exceptional alike in welcome, in numbers, and in distinction. i accept it as a tribute to the matchless progress made by our newspapers during the present generation, rather than a personal tribute to an humble member of the profession, whose half century of editorial labor furnishes the occasion for leading men of state and nation to pay homage to american journalism, now the great forum of our free institutions. the duties and responsibilities of journalism are largely defined by their environment, and there may be fitness in this occasion to refer to the political, business, social and moral conditions under which the juniata "sentinel" was founded fifty years ago, in contrast with the greatly changed conditions which confront the journals of to-day. the people of juniata county were a well-to-do class, adapted to the primitive conditions in which they lived. the enervating blight of luxury and the despair of pinching want were strangers in their midst. they believed in the church, in the school, in the sanctity of home, in integrity between man and man. christianity was accepted by them as the common law, sincerely by many and with a respect akin to reverence by all; and that beautiful humanity that springs from the mingled dependence and affection of rural neighborly ties, ever taught that the bruised reed should not be broken. they had no political convulsions such as are common in these days. even a sweeping political revolution would not vary the party majority over a hundred in the few thousands of votes they cast, and excepting in the white heat of national contests, their personal affections often outweighed their duties to party. public vices and public wrongs in local administration were rarely known, and there was little to invite the aggressive features which are so conspicuous in modern journalism. ministers mingled freely with the every-day life of their flocks and were exemplars of simplicity, frugality and integrity, and the lawyer who hoped to be successful required first of all to command the confidence of the community in his honesty. the ballot and the jury-box were regarded as sacred as the sacrament itself, and the criminal courts had usually little to do beyond the cases of vagrant offenders. business was conducted as a rule without the formality of contracts, and those whose lives justly provoked scandal were shunned on every side. this community possessed the only real wealth the world can give--content; and the local newspaper of that day, even under the direction of a progressive journalist, could be little more than a commonplace chronicler of current events. the most satisfactory newspaper work i have ever done, i mean the most satisfactory to myself, was during the first few months after i founded the "sentinel." there was pardonable boyish pride in seeing my name given with studied prominence as editor and proprietor, and the reading of my own editorials was as soothing as the soft, sweet strains of music on distant waters in summer evening time. they were to my mind most exquisite in diction and logic, and it was a source of keen regret that they were so "cabined, cribbed, and confined" within the narrowest provincial lines, whereby the world lost so much that it greatly needed. i knew that there were others, like chandler, gales, greeley, ritchie, prentice, and kendall, who were more read and heeded, but i was consoled by the charitable reflection that entirely by reason of fortuitous circumstance they were known and i was not. then to me life was a song with my generously self-admired newspaper as the chorus. there came rude awakenings, of course, from those blissful dreams as the shock of editorial conflict gradually taught me that journalism was one unending lesson in a school that has no vacations. i have pleasant memories also of the intimate personal relations between the village editor and his readers. most of them were within a radius of a few miles of the publication office, and all the influences of social as well as political ties were employed to make them enduring patrons. with many of them the question of sparing from their scant income three cents a week for a county paper, was one that called for sober thought from year to year, and it often required a personal visit and earnest importunity to hold the hesitating subscriber. i well remember the case of a frugal farmer of the dunker persuasion who was sufficiently public-spirited to subscribe for the "sentinel" for six months, to get the paper started, but at the end of that period he had calculated the heavy expenses of gathering the ripening harvest and decided to stop his paper for a while. i need not say that he was enthusiastically confronted with many reasons why a man of his intelligence and influence should not be without the county newspaper, but he yielded only to the extent of further considering the matter with his wife. he returned in a few days and spread sunshine around the editorial chair by saying that his wife had decided to continue for another six months, as the paper would be very handy in the fall for tying up her apple-butter crocks. a few years after i had settled down in this quiet community to devote my life to journalism, a shrill, weird voice was heard in the beautiful valley of the juniata as the iron horse made his first visit to us with his train of cars. it was welcome music as it echoed over the foothills of the alleghenies, and entirely new to nearly all who heard it. with the railway came the telegraph, the express, and the advent of the daily newspaper among the people. in a single year the community was transformed from its sedate and quiet ways into more energetic, progressive, and speculative life. it was a new civilization that had come to disturb the dreams of nearly a century, and it rapidly extended its new influences until it reached the remotest ends of the little county, and with this beneficent progress of civilization came also the vices which ever accompany it, but against which the civilization itself is ever fortified by the new factors called into requisition to strengthen its restraining power. while advancing the better attributes of mankind it has left unrest in the shop, the field, the forest, and the mine, where there was content in other days, but that unrest is the inevitable attendant of our matchless strides in the most enlightened civilization of the age, and it will ever present new problems for our statesmanship. it should be remembered that while philadelphia had then two journals of national fame under the direction of such accomplished editorial writers as joseph r. chandler and morton mcmichael, there was not a daily newspaper in this city, or in the state, that had a circulation of , , excepting only the "ledger," then a penny journal almost unknown outside of the city. even the new york "tribune" and the new york "herald" then relatively quite as distinguished as national journals as they are to-day, did not have a daily circulation of over , . there are several daily journals now published in philadelphia, each of which circulates more newspapers every day than did all the great dailies of new york and pennsylvania combined, fifty years ago. there were then successful penny papers in new york and pittsburg as well as philadelphia, but the penny journal of that day was only a local newspaper in its way, and was unfelt as a political factor. contrast the business, political, moral, and social conditions which confront the journalism of this great city to-day, and none can fail to appreciate the greatly magnified duties and responsibilities of the journalist of this age. in this city of brotherly love, with the highest standard of average intelligence in any community of like numbers of the world, and the only great city to be found on the continent that is distinctively american in its policy, how sharp is the contrast between the civilization met by the juniata "sentinel" fifty years ago and the civilization that is met by the philadelphia journalist of to-day? public wrongs ever appear like huge cancers on the body politic, and the swarms of the idle and vicious, with the studied crimes of those who would acquire wealth without earning it, are a constant menace to the social order and the safety of person and property, and demand the utmost vigilance on the part of the faithful public journal. continued political power under all parties becomes corrupt and demoralized, and it is not uncommon for apparently reputable political leaders of all parties and organized crime to make common cause for public plunder. the business and social conditions are also radically changed, and with these the fearless journalists of to-day must deal with courage and fidelity. from what was many years ago regarded, and with some reason, as the license of the public press, has grown up the well-defined duty of reputable journalism to maintain with dignity and firmness its mission as public censor, and to-day in philadelphia, as in all the leading centres of the country, american journalism is not only the great educator of the people, but it is the faithful handmaid of law and order and of public and private morals. like all great callings, from which even the sacredness of the pulpit is not exempt, there are those who bring persistent dishonor upon journalism, and pervert its powers to ambition and greed; but discounted by all its imperfections, it is to-day the greatest of our great factors in maintaining the best attributes of our civilization and preserving social order and the majesty of law; and the duties of the journalist to-day in our great cities have reached a standard of dignity and magnitude of which even the wildest enthusiast of fifty years ago could not have dreamed. such is the revolution wrought in journalism within a single active lifetime. the newspaper is no longer a luxury. from being confined to the few, as it was half a century ago, the daily newspaper is now in almost every home in the great states of the union, and the grave responsibility of journalism may be appreciated when it is remembered that the newspaper to-day is the greatest educator of the people who are to maintain our free institutions. widely as our schools have extended until they are accessible to the humblest of the land, the newspaper as an educator reaches vastly more people than all the colleges and schools of the nation. it is read not only by the men and women of mature years, but it begins its offices as teacher in the home circle as soon as the child becomes a pupil in the school, and it is constantly although imperceptibly moulding the minds of millions of our youths of all classes and all conditions, and it has no vacations in its great work. it not only aids the more intelligent to a sound exercise of judgment on questions of public interest, but it is ever quickening the impulses and shaping the aims of those who are most easily impressed, and during the important period of life when the character of men and women is formed. i have long held that the responsible direction of a widely read and respected daily newspaper is the highest trust in our free government. i do not thus speak of it to claim for it honors which may be questioned, but i speak of it to present the oppressive responsibilities which rest upon those who are to-day educating a nation of , , of people, under a government where every citizen is a sovereign, and where the people hold in their own hands the destiny of the greatest republic of the world. presidents, cabinets, senators, and representatives come and play their parts on the public stage and pass away--the few to be remembered, the many to be forgotten--and political parties are created and perish as new necessities and new conditions arise in the progress of our free institutions. in my own day there have been created four new political organizations which attained national importance, all of which have elected governors in pennsylvania, and two of which have elected presidents of the united states, but three of them exist to-day only in history. they are the anti-masonic, the whig, the american, and the republican parties. thus while rulers and the parties which call them to power, come and go in the swift mutations of american politics, the newspaper survives them all, and continues in its great career regardless of the success or defeat of men or political organizations. to seek promotion in civil trust from the editorial chair of an influential newspaper, is to sacrifice the grander opportunity and responsibility for the unsatisfying fame of official distinction. it is the mission of the newspaper to create presidents and other rulers; to judge them when in power; to sustain them when they have been faithful and efficient in the discharge of public duties, and to defeat them when they are forgetful of the public welfare. in the discharge of these important duties the newspaper must, above all, be free from the suspicion of seeking individual advantage and it can be so only by accepting its trust as highest of all and more enduring than all. great editors have been presumably honored by conferring upon them high official positions in recognition of party services, but no editor in the entire history of american journalism who has made his newspaper secondary to political ambition, has written any other record than failure as both editor and statesman. my brethren of the press need not be reminded of the often painful duties which come to the fearless editor. they must ever remember that "faithful are the wounds of a friend," and no class of teachers so well-known that:-- "forgiveness to the injured does belong, but they ne'er pardon who have done the wrong." few, very few indeed, outside of the editorial sanctum ever learn how the surges of ambition, in all its varied and fantastic phases from the noblest to the meanest, assail and often vex journalistic duties. the public know not of the many gifted men who must thus at times be saved from themselves, and an editorial retrospect of half a century presents a sad record of the newspaper work of making bricks without straw. justly excepting the comparatively few public men who tower over mediocrity in public place, journalism gives the position and fashions the fame of most of them. it is not done arbitrarily nor from choice, as public and political necessities are often paramount with journalists, as with others, in awarding public honors; but with all its exactions and responsibilities, which are ever magnified by the greater opportunities for usefulness, there is no calling that brings richer compensation for fidelity to duty. the consciousness that each day the editor whose readers are numbered by hundreds of thousands, may greatly aid in making the world better than it was in the passing yesterday, is a constant inspiration to the best efforts, and it is especially gratifying that even in the many and at times impassioned conflicts of journalistic dispute, the rugged and sharp-angled walls which divide us are ever so beautiful and fragrant with the flowers of good-fellowship, as is impressively taught by this assembly. thus charged with the highest of civil trusts in the most enlightened government of the earth, the editor must be honored or dishonored here by the measure of his fidelity to his exceptional duties, and must be so judged in the hereafter, when the narrow pathway of life that divides past and future eternities has been traversed. we come when bidden, we know not whence; we go when bidden, we know not whither; but each and all have duties to themselves, to their homes, to their country, and to the common brotherhood of man, which when performed with the faithfulness that human infirmities will permit, must greatly brighten the brief and often fretful journey from the cradle to the grave. friends, in this evening twilight of my journalistic work, so sweetly mellowed by the smiling faces, young and old, about me, i answer your generous greeting with the gratitude that can perish only when the gathering shadows shall have settled into the night that comes to purple the better morn. st. clair mckelway smashed crockery [speech of st. clair mckelway before the national society of china importers, new york city, february , .] mr. chairman and friends:--the china i buy abroad is marked "fragile" in shipment. that which i buy at home is marked: "glass--this side up with care." the foreign word of caution is fact. the american note of warning is fiction--with a moral motive. the common purpose of both is protection from freight fractors and baggage smashers. the european appeals to knowledge. the american addresses the imagination. the one expresses the truth. the other extends it. neither is entirely successful. the skill and care of shippers cannot always victoriously cope with the innate destructiveness of fallen human nature. there is a great deal of smashed crockery in the world. you who are masters in the art of packing things and we whose vocation is the art of putting things, both have reason to know that no pains of placing or of preparation will guarantee freight or phrases, plates or propositions, china of any kind or principles of any sort, from the dangers of travel or from the tests of time. your goods and our wares have to take their chances in their way across the seas, throughout the land and around the world. you lose some of yours merely in handling. the defects of firing cannot be always foreseen. the intrusion of inferior clay cannot be always prevented. the mere friction of contact may produce bad nicks. nor is the fineness nor the excellence of the product an insurance against mishaps. from your factories or stores your output is at the mercy of carriers without compunction, and in our homes it is exposed to the heavy hands of servants without sentiment. the pleasure of many a dinner is impaired by the fear or the consciousness that inapt peasants are playing havoc with the treasures of art on which the courses are served. if, however, the ceramic kingdom is strewn with smashed crockery, how much more so are the worlds of theology, medicine, politics, society, law, and the like. no finer piece of plate was ever put forth than the one inscribed: "i will believe only what i know." it was for years agreeable to the pride and vanity of the race. it made many a fool feel as if his forehead was lifted as high as the heavens, and that at every step he knocked out a star. when, however, the discovery was made that this assumption to displace deity amounted to a failure to comprehend nature, some disappointment was admitted. he who affected by searching to find out and to equal god could not explain the power by which a tree pumps its sap from roots to leaves, or why a baby rabbit rejects the grasses that would harm it, or why a puling infant divines its mother among the motley and multitudinous mass of sibilant saints at a sewing society which is discussing the last wedding and the next divorce. he "who admits only what he understands" would have to look on himself as a conundrum and then give the conundrum up. he would have the longest doubts and the shortest creed on record. agnosticism is part of the smashed crockery of the moral universe. nor is the smug and confident contention: "medicine is a science, one and indivisible," so impressive and undented as it was. sir astley cooper in his plain, blunt way is reported to have described his own idea of his own calling as "a science founded on conjecture and improved by murder." the state of new york has rudely stepped in and legally and irrevocably recognized three schools of medicine and will recognize a fourth or a fifth as soon as it establishes itself by a sufficient number of cures or in a sufficient number of cemeteries. medical intolerance cannot be legislated out of existence, but it has no further recognition in legislation. a common and considerable degree of general learning is by the state required of all intending students of medicine. an equal and extended degree of professional study is required. an identical measure of final examination with state certification and state licensure is required. the claim that men and women must die _secundum artem_ in order to have any permit to live here or to live hereafter, has gone to the limbo of smashed crockery in the realm of therapeutics. the arrogant pretension that men must die _secundum artem_ has been adjourned--_sine die_. and the state which prescribes uniform qualifications among the schools will yet require uniform consultations between them in the interest of the people whom they impartially prod and concurrently purge with diversity of methods, but with parity of price. other long impressive and long pretty plaques have also been incontinently smashed. one was lovingly lettered: "once a democrat, always a democrat." another was inscribed: "unconditional republicanism." in the white light of to-day the truth that an invariable partisan is an occasional lunatic becomes impressively apparent. party under increasing civilization is a factor, not a fetish. it is a means, not an end. it is an instrument, not an idol. man is its master, not its slave. not that men will cease to act on party lines. party lines are the true divisional boundary between schools of thought. no commission is needed to discover or to establish those lines. they have made their own route or course in human nature. the bondage from which men will free themselves is bondage to party organizations. those organizations are combinations for power and spoils. they are feudal in their form, predatory in their spirit, military in their methods, but they necessarily bear no more relation to political principles than italian banditti do to italian unity, or the men who hold up railway trains do to the laws of transportation. party slavery is a bad and disappearing form of smashed crockery. the smashed crockery of society and of law could also be remarked. our fathers' dictum, that it is the only duty of women to be charming, deserves to be sent into retirement. it is no more their duty to be charming than it is the duty of the sun to light, or the rose to perfume, or the trees to cast a friendly shade. a function is not a duty. in the right sense of the word it is a nature or a habit. it is the property of women and it is their prerogative to be charming, but if they made it a duty, the effort would fail, for the intention would be apparent and the end would impeach the means. indeed, the whole theory of the eighteenth century about women has gone to the limbo of smashed crockery. it has been found that education does not hurt her. it has been discovered that learning strengthens her like a tonic and becomes her like a decoration. it has been discovered that she can compete with men in the domain of lighter labor, in several of the professions, and in not a few of the useful arts. the impression of her as a pawn, a property or a plaything, came down from paganism to christianity and was too long retained by the christian world. there is even danger of excess in the liberality now extended to her. the toast, "woman, once our superior and now our equal," is not without satire as well as significance. there must be a measurable reaction against the ultra tendency in progress which has evolved the new woman, as the phrase is. i never met one and i hope i never shall. the women of the present, the girls of the period, the sex up-to-date, will more than suffice to double our joys and to treble our expenses. the new fads, as well as the old fallacies, can be thrown among the smashed crockery of demolished and discarded misconceptions. i intended to say much about the smashed crockery of the lawyers. i intended to touch upon the exploded claim that clients are their slaves, witnesses theirs for vivisection, courts their playthings, and juries their dupes. more mummery has thrived in law than in even medicine or theology. the disenchanting and discriminating tendency of a realistic age has, however, somewhat reformed the bar. fluency, without force, is discounted in our courts. the merely smart practitioner finds his measure quickly taken and that the conscientious members of his calling hold him at arm's length. judges are learning that they are not rated wise when they are obscure, or profound when they are stupid, or mysterious when they are reserved. publicity is abating many of the abuses both of the bench and the bar. it will before long, even in this judicial department, require both rich and poor to stand equal before the bar of justice. the conjugal complications of plutocrats will not be sealed up from general view by sycophantic magistrates, while the matrimonial infelicities of the less well-to-do are spread broad on the records. the still continuing scandals of partitioning refereeships among the family relatives of judges will soon be stopped and the shame and scandal of damage suits or of libel suits, without cause, maintained by procured and false testimony and conducted on sheer speculation, will be brought to an end. the law is full of rare crockery, but it is also replete with crockery that ought to be smashed. much bad crockery in it has been smashed and much more will be, if necessary, by the press, which is itself not without considerable ceramic material that could be pulverized with signal benefit to the public and to the fourth estate. but why am i talking about smashed crockery when i am told that it is the very life of your trade? were crockery imperishable this would be the last dinner of your association. your members would be eating cold victuals at area doors, passed to you on the plates you have made, by the domestics whose free and easy carelessness is really the foundation of your fortunes. you want crockery to be smashed, because the more smash the more crockery and the more crockery the more output, and the more output the more revenue, and the more revenue the more waldorf dinners, and the more waldorf dinners the more opportunity for you to make the men of other callings stand and deliver those speeches, which i like to hear, and in the hope of hearing which i now give way. * * * * * tribute to mark twain [speech of st. clair mckelway at a dinner given in honor of samuel l. clemens [mark twain] by the lotos club, new york city, november , . the president of the lotos, frank r. lawrence, introduced dr. mckelway as the man whose wondrous use of adjectives has converted to his opinion many doubters throughout this city and country.] mr. president and friends:--years ago we here sought to hold up mark twain's hands. now we all feel like holding up our own, in congratulation of him and of ourselves. of him because his warfare is accomplished. of ourselves because he has returned to our company. if it was a pleasure to know him then, it is a privilege and an honor to know him now. he has fought the good fight. he has kept the faith. he is ready to be offered up, but we are not ready to have him offered up. for we want the indian summer of his life to be long, and that to be followed by a genial winter, which, if it be as frosty as his hair, shall also be as kindly as his heart. [applause.] he has enough excess and versatility of ability to be a genius. he has enough quality and quantity of virtues to be a saint. but he has honorably transmuted his genius into work, whereby it has been brought into relations with literature and with life. and he has preferred warm fellowship to cold perfection, so that sinners love him and saints are content to wait for him. may they wait long. [applause.] i think he is entitled to be regarded as the dean of america's humor; that he is entitled to the distinction of being the greatest humorist this nation ever had. i say this with a fair knowledge of the chiefs of the entire corps, from francis hopkinson and the author of "hasty pudding," down to bill nye and dooley. none of them would i depreciate. i would greatly prefer to honor and hail them all for the singular fittedness of their gifts to the needs of the nation in their times. hopkinson and joel barlow lightened the woes of the revolution by the touch of nature that makes the whole world grin. seba smith relieved the yankee sense of tension under the impact of jacksonian roughness, by tickling its ribs with a quill. lieutenant derby turned the searchlight of fun on the stiff formalities of army posts, on the raw conditions of alkali journalism and on the solemn humbugs of frontier politics. james russell lowell used dialect for dynamite to blow the front off hypocrisy or to shatter the cotton commercialism in which the new england conscience was encysted. robert h. newell, mirth-maker and mystic, satirized military ignorance and pinchbeck bluster to an immortality of contempt. bret harte in verse and story touched the parallels of tragedy and of comedy, of pathos, of bathos, and of humor, which love of life and lust of gold opened up amid the unapprehended grandeurs and the coveted treasures of primeval nature. charles f. browne made "artemus ward" as well known as abraham lincoln in the time the two divided the attention of the world. bill nye singed the shams of his day, and dooley dissects for hinnissey the shams of our own. nor should we forget eugene field, the beatifier of childhood; or joel chandler harris, the fabulist of the plantation; or ruth mcenery stuart, the coronal singer of the joys and hopes, the loves and the dreams of the images of god in ebony in the old south, ere it leaped and hardened to the new. to these, love and honor. but to this man honor's crown of honor, for he has made a mark none of the others has reached. few of them have diversified the delights to be drawn from their pages of humor. they have, as humorists, in distinction to the work of moralists, novelists, orators and poets, in which the rarest among them shine, they have as humorists, in the main, worked a single vein. and some of them were humorists for a purpose, a dreary grind that, and some of them were only humorists for a period as well as for a purpose. the purpose served, the period passed, the humor that was of their life a thing apart, ceased. 'tis clemens' whole existence! [applause.] as bacon made all learning his province, so mark twain has made all life and history his quarry, from the jumping frog to the yankee at arthur's court; from the inquested petrifaction that died of protracted exposure to the present parliament of austria; from the grave of adam to the mysteries of the adamless eden known as the league of professional women; from mulberry sellers to joan of arc, and from edward the sixth to puddin'head wilson, who wanted to kill his half of the deathless dog. nevada is forgiven its decay because he flashed the oddities of its zenith life on pages that endure. california is worth more than its gold, because he showed to men the heart under its swagger. he annexed the sandwich islands to the fun of the nation long before they were put under its flag. because of him the missouri and the mississippi go not unvexed to the sea, for they ripple with laughter as they recall tom sawyer, huckleberry finn, poor jim, and the duke. europe, asia minor, and palestine are open doors to the world, thanks to this pilgrim's progress with his "innocents abroad." purity, piety and pity shine out from "prince and pauper" like the eyes of a wondering deer on a torch-lighted night from a wooded fringe of mountain and of lake. but enough of what i fear is already too much. in expressing my debt to him, i hope i express somewhat at least of yours. i cannot repay him in kind any more than i could rival him. none of us can. but we can render to him a return he would like. with him we can get our way to reality, and burn off pretence as acid eats its way to the denuded plate of the engraver. we can strip the veneer of convention from style, and strengthen our thought in his anglo-saxon well of english undefiled. we can drop seeming for sincerity. we can be relentless toward hypocrisy and tender to humanity. we can rejoice in the love of laughter, without ever once letting it lead us to libertinism of fancy. we can reach through humor the heart of man. we can make exaggeration the scourge of meanness and the magnifier of truth on the broad screen of life. by study of him, the nothing new under the sun can be made fresh and fragrant by the supreme art of putting things. though none of us can handle his wand, all of us can be transformed by it into something different from and finer than our dull selves. that is our delight, that is our debt, both due to him, and long may he remain with us to brighten, to broaden and to better our souls with the magic mirth and with the mirthful magic of his incomparable spell. [applause.] [illustration: reproductions of mural decorations from the library of congress, washington "_patriotism_" _photo-engraving in colors after an original painting by george w. maynard_ this is from a series of eight panels, representing "the virtues"--fortitude, justice, patriotism, courage, temperance, prudence, industry, and concord. each figure is about five and a half feet high clad in drapery, and standing out on a solid red background. the style is pompeiian, the general tone is somewhat like marble, but relieved by a touch of color. "patriotism" is represented as feeding an eagle, the emblem of america, from a golden bowl, symbolizing the nourishment given by this virtue to the spirit of the nation.] william mckinley our country [speech of president mckinley, in response to the toast "our country," at the peace jubilee banquet in the auditorium, chicago, october , . the president was introduced by hon. franklin macveagh, in the following words: "since washington, with the exception of lincoln, no president has carried upon his shoulders such grave responsibilities or met such heavy demands upon his judgment, forbearance and wisdom as president mckinley. [great applause.] and no president, not even lincoln, has more willingly endured for his people, or has more trusted in the people, or has sought more high-mindedly to interpret and carry out the sober thought and ultimate will of the nation. [applause.] he has a reward in the affection and confidence of the people. [applause] it is this eminent president and this eminently patriotic man who will now address you on the subject of 'our country.'" it was several minutes before the cheering had subsided sufficiently to enable president mckinley to make his voice heard.] mr. toast-master and gentlemen:--it affords me gratification to meet the people of the city of chicago and to participate with them in this patriotic celebration. upon the suspension of hostilities of a foreign war, the first in our history for over half a century, we have met in a spirit of peace, profoundly grateful for the glorious advancement already made, and earnestly wishing in the final termination to realize an equally glorious fulfillment. with no feeling of exultation, but with profound thankfulness, we contemplate the events of the past five months. they have been too serious to admit of boasting or vain-glorification. they have been so full of responsibilities, immediate and prospective, as to admonish the soberest judgment and counsel the most conservative action. this is not the time to fire the imagination, but rather to discover, in calm reason, the way to truth, and justice, and right, and when discovered to follow it with fidelity and courage, without fear, hesitation, or weakness. [applause.] the war has put upon the nation grave responsibilities. their extent was not anticipated and could not have been well foreseen. we cannot escape the obligations of victory. we cannot avoid the serious questions which have been brought home to us by the achievements of our arms on land and sea. we are bound in conscience to keep and perform the covenants which the war has sacredly sealed with mankind. accepting war for humanity's sake, we must accept all obligations which the war in duty and honor imposed upon us. the splendid victories we have achieved would be our eternal shame and not our everlasting glory if they led to the weakening of our original lofty purpose or to the desertion of the immortal principles on which the national government was founded, and in accordance with whose ennobling spirit it has ever since been faithfully administered. the war with spain was undertaken not that the united states should increase its territory, but that oppression at our very doors should be stopped. this noble sentiment must continue to animate us, and we must give to the world the full demonstration of the sincerity of our purpose. duty determines destiny. destiny which results from duty performed may bring anxiety and perils, but never failure and dishonor. pursuing duty may not always lead by smooth paths. another course may look easier and more attractive, but pursuing duty for duty's sake is always sure and safe and honorable. it is not within the power of man to foretell the future and to solve unerringly its mighty problems. almighty god has his plans and methods for human progress, and not infrequently they are shrouded for the time being in impenetrable mystery. looking backward we can see how the hand of destiny builded for us and assigned us tasks whose full meaning was not apprehended even by the wisest statesmen of their times. our colonial ancestors did not enter upon their war originally for independence. abraham lincoln did not start out to free the slaves, but to save the union. the war with spain was not of our seeking, and some of its consequences may not be to our liking. our vision is often defective. short-sightedness is a common malady, but the closer we get to things or they get to us the clearer our view and the less obscure our duty. patriotism must be faithful as well as fervent; statesmanship must be wise as well as fearless--not the statesmanship which will command the applause of the hour, but the approving judgment of posterity. [applause.] the progress of a nation can alone prevent degeneration. there must be new life and purpose, or there will be weakness and decay. there must be broadening of thought as well as broadening of trade. territorial expansion is not alone and always necessary to national advancement. there must be a constant movement toward a higher and nobler civilization, a civilization that shall make its conquests without resort to war and achieve its greatest victories pursuing the arts of peace. in our present situation duty--and duty alone--should prescribe the boundary of our responsibilities and the scope of our undertakings. the final determination of our purposes awaits the action of the eminent men who are charged by the executive with the making of the treaty of peace, and that of the senate of the united states, which, by our constitution, must ratify and confirm it. we all hope and pray that the confirmation of peace will be as just and humane as the conduct and consummation of the war. when the work of the treaty-makers is done the work of the lawmakers will begin. the one will settle the extent of our responsibilities; the other must provide the legislation to meet them. the army and navy have nobly and heroically performed their part. may god give the executive and congress wisdom to perform theirs. [applause.] * * * * * the future of the philippines [speech of william mckinley at the eleventh annual banquet of the home market club, boston, mass., february , . william b. plunkett, president of the club, said in introducing the president of the united states: "not the home market club, not the city of boston, not massachusetts only, but all new england give you greeting of welcome, mr. president. in our retrospective of the year past we would give full meed of honor and praise to the president who so nobly met and so faithfully discharged the grave responsibilities of that great office, and thanksgiving to the divine providence that sustained him. in such hands, under such guidance, we may safely trust the future of our republic. i have the great honor to present to you the beloved president of the united states, william mckinley." the enthusiasm displayed when the president was introduced was tremendous. in it all he remained to all appearances calm and collected, as he stood and silently acknowledged the reception.] mr. toast-master and gentlemen:--i have been deeply and profoundly moved by this manifestation of your good-will and confidence and impressed by the expressions of good-will from the governor of your great commonwealth [roger wolcott] as well as from the chief executive [josiah quincy] of the capital city of your state. no one stands in this magnificent presence, listening to the patriotic strains from choir and band, without knowing what this great audience was thinking about. it was thinking, it is thinking this moment, of country, because they love it and have faith in themselves and in its future. i thank the governor of massachusetts, i thank the mayor of the city of boston, for their warm and generous words of welcome, offered in behalf of this people to me in your presence to-night. the years go quickly. it seems not so long, but it is in fact six years since it was my honor to be a guest of the home market club. much has happened in the intervening time. issues which were then engaging us have been settled or put aside for larger and more absorbing ones. domestic conditions have improved and are generally satisfactory. we have made progress in industry and have realized the prosperity for which we have been striving. we had four long years of adversity, which taught us some lessons which will never be unlearned and which will be valuable in guiding our future action. we have not only been successful in our financial and business affairs, but have been successful in a war with a foreign power, which has added great glory to american arms and a new chapter to american history. i do not know why in the year this republic has unexpectedly had placed before it mighty problems which it must face and meet. they have come and are here and they could not be kept away. many who were impatient for the conflict a year ago, apparently heedless of its larger results, are the first to cry out against the far-reaching consequences of their own act. those of us who dreaded war most and whose every effort was directed to prevent it, had fears of new and grave problems which might follow its inauguration. the evolution of events which no man could control has brought these problems upon us. certain it is that they have not come through any fault on our own part, but as a high obligation, and we meet them with clear conscience and unselfish purpose, and with good heart resolve to undertake their solution. war was declared in april, , with practical unanimity by the congress, and, once upon us, was sustained by like unanimity among the people. there had been many who had tried to avert it, as, on the other hand, there were many who would have precipitated it at an earlier date. in its prosecution and conclusion the great majority of our countrymen of every section believed they were fighting in a just cause, and at home or at sea or in the field they had part in its glorious triumphs. it was the war of an undivided nation. every great act in its progress, from manila to santiago, from guam to porto rico, met universal and hearty commendation. the protocol commanded the practically unanimous approval of the american people. it was welcomed by every lover of peace beneath the flag. [applause.] the philippines, like cuba and porto rico, were intrusted to our hands by the war, and to that great trust, under the providence of god and in the name of human progress and civilization, we are committed. it is a trust we have not sought; it is a trust from which we will not flinch. the american people will hold up the hands of their servants at home to whom they commit its execution, while dewey and otis and the brave men whom they command will have the support of the country in upholding our flag where it now floats, the symbol and assurance of liberty and justice. [applause.] what nation was ever able to write an accurate programme of the war upon which it was entering, much less decree in advance the scope of its results? congress can declare war, but a higher power decrees its bounds and fixes its relations and responsibilities. the president can direct the movements of soldiers on the field and fleets upon the sea, but he cannot foresee the close of such movements or prescribe their limits. he cannot anticipate or avoid the consequences, but he must meet them. no accurate map of nations engaged in war can be traced until the war is over, nor can the measure of responsibility be fixed till the last gun is fired and the verdict embodied in the stipulations of peace. we hear no complaint of the relations created by the war between this government and the islands of cuba and porto rico. there are some, however, who regard the philippines as in a different relation; but whatever variety of views there maybe on this phase of the question, there is universal agreement that the philippines shall not be turned back to spain. no true american consents to that. even if unwilling to accept them ourselves, it would have been a weak evasion of manly duty to require spain to transfer them to some other power or powers, and thus shirk our own responsibility. even if we had had, as we did not have, the power to compel such a transfer, it could not have been made without the most serious international complications. such a course could not be thought of. and yet had we refused to accept the cession of them we should have had no power over them, even for their own good. we could not discharge the responsibilities upon us until these islands became ours, either by conquest or treaty. there was but one alternative, and that was either spain or the united states in the philippines. the other suggestions--first, that they should be tossed into the arena of contention for the strife of nations; or, second, be left to the anarchy and chaos of no protectorate at all--were too shameful to be considered. [applause.] the treaty gave them to the united states. could we have required less and done our duty? could we, after freeing the filipinos from the domination of spain, have left them without government and without power to protect life or property or to perform the international obligations essential to an independent state? could we have left them in a state of anarchy and justified ourselves in our own consciences or before the tribunal of mankind? could we have done that in the sight of god or man? our concern was not for territory or trade or empire, but for the people whose interests and destiny, without our willing it, had been put in our hands. it was with this feeling that from the first day to the last not one word or line went from the executive in washington to our military and naval commanders at manila or to our peace commissioners at paris, that did not put as the sole purpose to be kept in mind, first after the success of our arms and the maintenance of our own honor, the welfare and happiness and the rights of the inhabitants of the philippine islands. did we need their consent to perform a great act for humanity? we had it in every aspiration of their minds, in every hope of their hearts. was it necessary to ask their consent to capture manila, the capital of their islands? did we ask their consent to liberate them from spanish sovereignty or to enter manila bay and destroy the spanish sea-power there? we did not ask these; we were obeying a higher moral obligation which rested on us and which did not require anybody's consent. we were doing our duty by them, as god gave us the light to see our duty, with the consent of our own consciences and with the approval of civilization. every present obligation has been met and fulfilled in the expulsion of spanish sovereignty from their islands, and while the war that destroyed it was in progress we could not ask their views. nor can we now ask their consent. indeed, can any one tell me in what form it could be marshaled and ascertained until peace and order, so necessary to the reign of reason, shall be secured and established? a reign of terror is not the kind of rule under which right action and deliberate judgment are possible. it is not a good time for the liberator to submit important questions concerning liberty and government to the liberated while they are engaged in shooting down their rescuers. we have now ended the war with spain. the treaty has been ratified by the votes of more than two-thirds of the senate of the united states and by the judgment of nine-tenths of its people. no nation was ever more fortunate in war or more honorable in its negotiations in peace. spain is now eliminated from the problem. it remains to ask what we shall now do. i do not intrude upon the duties of congress or seek to anticipate or forestall its action. i only say that the treaty of peace, honorably secured, having been ratified by the united states, and, as we confidently expect, shortly to be ratified in spain, congress will have the power, and i am sure the purpose, to do what in good morals is right and just and humane for these peoples in distant seas. it is sometimes hard to determine what is best to do, and the best thing to do is oftentimes the hardest. the prophet of evil would do nothing because he flinches at sacrifice and effort, and to do nothing is easiest and involves the least cost. on those who have things to do there rests a responsibility which is not on those who have no obligations as doers. if the doubters were in a majority, there would, it is true, be no labor, no sacrifice, no anxiety, and no burden raised or carried; no contribution from our ease and purse and comfort to the welfare of others, or even to the extension of our resources to the welfare of ourselves. there would be ease, but alas! there would be nothing done. but grave problems come in the life of a nation, however much men may seek to avoid them. they come without our seeking; why, we do not know, and it is not always given us to know; but the generation on which they are forced cannot avoid the responsibility of honestly striving for their solution. we may not know precisely how to solve them, but we can make an honest effort to that end, and if made in conscience, justice, and honor, it will not be in vain. the future of the philippine islands is now in the hands of the american people. until the treaty was ratified or rejected the executive department of this government could only preserve the peace and protect life and property. that treaty now commits the free and enfranchised filipinos to the guiding hand and the liberalizing influences, the generous sympathies, the uplifting education, not of their american masters, but of their american emancipators. no one can tell to-day what is best for them or for us. i know no one at this hour who is wise enough or sufficiently informed to determine what form of government will best subserve their interests and our interests, their and our well-being. if we knew everything by intuition--and i sometimes think that there are those who believe that if we do not, they do--we should not need information; but, unfortunately, most of us are not in that happy state. this whole subject is now with congress; and congress is the voice, the conscience and the judgment of the american people. upon their judgment and conscience can we not rely? i believe in them. i trust them. i know of no better or safer human tribunal than the people. [applause.] until congress shall direct otherwise, it will be the duty of the executive to possess and hold the philippines, giving to the people thereof peace and order and beneficent government, affording them every opportunity to prosecute their lawful pursuits, encouraging them in thrift and industry, making them feel and know that we are their friends, not their enemies, that their good is our aim, that their welfare is our welfare, but that neither their aspirations nor ours can be realized until our authority is acknowledged and unquestioned. that the inhabitants of the philippines will be benefited by this republic is my unshaken belief. that they will have a kindlier government under our guidance, and that they will be aided in every possible way to be a self-respecting and self-governing people is as true as that the american people love liberty and have an abiding faith in their own government and in their own institutions. no imperial designs lurk in the american mind. they are alien to american sentiment, thought and purpose. our priceless principles undergo no change under a tropical sun. they go with the flag. they are wrought in every one of its sacred folds and are inextinguishable in its shining stars. "why read ye not the changeless truth, the free can conquer but to save." if we can benefit these remote peoples, who will object? if in the years of the future they are established in government under law and liberty, who will regret our perils and sacrifices? who will not rejoice in our heroism and humanity? always perils, and always after them safety; always darkness and clouds, but always shining through them the light and the sunshine; always cost and sacrifice, but always after them the fruition of liberty, education and civilization. i have no light or knowledge not common to my countrymen. i do not prophesy. the present is all-absorbing to me, but i cannot bound my vision by the blood-stained trenches around manila, where every red drop, whether from the veins of an american soldier or a misguided filipino, is anguish to my heart; but by the broad range of future years, when that group of islands, under the impulse of the year just passed, shall have become the gems and glories of those tropical seas; a land of plenty and of increasing possibilities; a people redeemed from savage indolence and habits, devoted to the arts of peace, in touch with the commerce and trade of all nations, enjoying the blessings of freedom, of civil and religious liberty, of education and of homes, and whose children and children's children shall for ages hence bless the american republic because it emancipated and redeemed their fatherland and set them in the pathway of the world's best civilization. [long-continued applause and cheers.] william b. melish the ladies [speech of william b. melish at a banquet given in honor of the grand encampment of knights templars of the united states, by the templars of pennsylvania, at pittsburg, pa., . colonel melish, of cincinnati, ohio, was assigned the toast, "our ladies."] mr. chairman and gentlemen:--once in three years it falls to the lot of a few, a happy few, of us budding blossoms of the official corps of the grand encampment to be discovered by a triennial committee, and distinguished by having our names printed on the banquet lists, and told that we are to sit among the elect at the big centre table, and to respond to certain toasts. with all the vanity of man we gladly accept, and care little what the toast may be. so, when the pittsburg committee asked me to select my topic, i rashly said "any old thing," and they told me i was to talk about the ladies. then i regretted that i had said "any old thing." [laughter.] in vain i told them i knew but little of the subject, delightful though it be, and that what i did know i dare not tell in this presence. the chairman unearthed some ancient templar landmark of the crusaders hopkins and gobin, about "a knight's duty is to obey," hence as the poet says:-- "when a woman's in the case, you know all other things give place." last sunday when the grand master, and all the grand officers, save possibly the grand prelate, made their _triennial_ appearance in church, i picked up a book in the pew i was in, and was impressed with the opening chapters of a story called "the book of genesis." it is the first mention made of one who was entitled to be called the "first lady in the land." i read that the creator "saw everything that he had made and behold it was very good," and he rested. then he made man and said he was good--and he rested. he then made woman out of the rib of a man, but no mention is made of his remarks, or of his resting--in fact there has been no rest for mankind ever since. [laughter.] the first lady was called woman--"because she was taken out of man," and twenty centuries look down upon us, and we realize that what she has taken out of man is a plenty. as the poet moore pleasantly remarks:-- "disguise our bondage as we will 'tis woman, woman rules us still." for two thousand years the order of knighthood has been endeavoring to ameliorate and elevate the condition of womankind. among savages they are beasts of burden, among barbarians and mohammedans they are toys or slaves, but among us, thanks to american manhood, they have our love and respect, they have all our rights, all our money, and, in these days of tailor-made garments, they have nearly all our clothes; and we smile and smile, and wonder what next? [laughter.] is it surprising that a sedate, sober-minded, slightly bald-headed, middle-aged templar knight, "used only to war's alarms [laughter] and not to woman's charms," should be at a loss what to say on an occasion like this, or to do justice to such a subject? it is delightful to have the ladies here. like timon of athens we can truly say:-- "you have, fair ladies, set a fair fashion to our entertainment, which was not half so beautiful and kind." in the presence of the bright eyes, rosy cheeks, and warm red lips of the ladies it might be possible to work up to the proper degree of enthusiasm in the short time allotted me, if it were not for the stony glare of one which says "beware, i am here!" [laughter.] now, in my innocence, i presumed that poets were the fellows who had prepared all the pretty things to say about the dear girls, but i find a variety of opinions expressed. that good old masonic bard, bobby burns, says:-- "and nature swears, the lovely dears, her noblest work she classes, o; her 'prentice hand she tried on man an' then she made the lasses, o." but you will note that dame nature swears this, and she is not a competent witness, as she had nothing to do with the little surgical episode when brother adam lost his rib. [laughter.] lord lyttleton gave our sisters good advice, as follows:-- "seek to be good, but aim not to be great, a woman's noblest station is retreat, her fairest virtues fly from public sight, domestic worth that shuns too strong a light." another english authority named "howe," in his "advice to wives," says:-- "a wife, domestic, good and pure like snail should keep within her door, but not, like snail, with silver track place all her wealth upon her back." but who in these latter days would preach the heresies of those old-fashioned fellows to the hundreds of ladies present, plumed in all the titles and distinctions of the hundred and one woman's clubs of to-day, which they represent. perish the thought! woman is being emancipated. she is enthroned in the sun, crowned with stars, and, trampling beneath her dainty feet the burnt-out moon, emblem of a vanished despotism that denied her the companionship of her husband, questioned her immortality, locked her up in the harem, or harnessed her to the plough. a hundred years from now, if she does a man's work, she will be paid a man's wages [applause], and some of us will not have to work for a living, but can go to our clubs in peace, take our afternoon naps, and be ready in the evening to get mamma's slippers ready when she comes home from the office. [laughter.] but the problem for to-night is how to consider the various relations which women bear to us weak, frail men--as mother or mother-in-law, as sweetheart or wife. we are somewhat in the predicament of the green bridegroom at delmonico's who said: "waiter, we want dinner for two." "will ze lady and ze gentleman haf table d'hote or a la carte?" "oh, bring us some of both, with lots of gravy on 'em!" oh, ye knights! take the advice of the philosopher who is talking to you, and be on the best of terms with your mother-in-law. [laughter.] only get her on your side, and you have a haven to fly to when all others fail to appreciate you, and when some one of the others feels appointed a special agent to tell you about it. now, it isn't everybody that knows this, and i commend it to you. [laughter.] some men are like the two darkies i heard discussing the question of what a man should do if he were in a boat on a wide river, with his mother and his wife, and the boat should sink, and he could only save one woman. "johnson," said billy rice, "who would you save, yo' mudder or yo' wife?" johnson thought and said: "billy! i would save my mudder. i could get anudder wife, but where under the blue canopy of hebben could i get anudder dear old mudder?" "but look here, billy! 'spose you was in de boat, in de middle of de river, wid yo' wife and yo' mudder-in-law?" "oh, what a cinch!"--said billy. "and de boat," continued johnson, "was to strike a snag and smash to pieces, and eberybody go into de water, who would you save?" "my wife, dar! my mudder-in-law dar! and de boat strike a snag?" "yes!" "i would save de snag," said billy. "i could get anudder wife, i might den have anudder mudder-in-law, but where under de blue canopy of hebben could i find anudder dear, thoughtful old snag?" [laughter.] it has been well said that "all a woman has to do in this world is contained within the duties of a daughter, a sister, a wife, and a mother." she has sustained at least one of these relations to even the poorest of us; but i wonder if there is a man here to-night so miserably abject and forlorn and god-forsaken as not, some time in his life, to have been able to regard her in the delightful relation of sweetheart? i hope not. i would rather he had had a dozen, than no sweetheart at all. the most unselfish devotion we may ever know is that of our mother; a sweet affection is that of our sisters, a most tender love is that of our daughters, but the love and affection we all want, and without which we are never satisfied, is that of the sweethearts who reward our devotion--out of all proportion to our deserts--by becoming our wives and the mothers of our daughters. [applause.] it is not less the pleasure than the duty of every man to have a sweetheart--i was almost tempted to say, the more, the merrier--and the sooner he makes one of his sweethearts his wife, the better for him. if he is a "woman-hater," or professes to be (for, as a matter of fact, there is no such anomaly as a genuine "woman-hater" at liberty in this great and glorious country), let him beware, as i believe with thackeray, that a "woman, with fair opportunities, and without an absolute hump, may _marry_ whom she likes. [laughter.] only let us be thankful that the darlings are like the beasts of the field, and don't know their own power." as the poet--what's-his-name--so beautifully and feelingly and touchingly observes:-- "oh, woman, in our hours of ease, uncertain, coy, and hard to please,"-- "but seen too oft, familiar with her face, we first endure, then pity, then embrace." next to god, we are indebted to woman for life itself, and then for making it worth living. to describe her, the pen should be dipped in the humid colors of the rainbow, and the paper dried with the dust gathered from the wings of a butterfly. there is one in the world who feels for him who is sad a keener pang than he feels for himself; there is one to whom reflected joy is better than that which comes direct; there is one who rejoices in another's honor more than in her own; there is one upon whom another's transcendent excellence sheds no beam but that of delight; there is one who hides another's infirmities more faithfully than her own; there is one who loses all sense of self in the sentiment of kindness, tenderness, and devotion to another--that one is she who is honored with the holy name of wife. [applause.] with the immortal shakespeare we may say: "why, man, she is mine own; and i as rich in having such a jewel, as twenty seas, if all their sands were pearl, the water nectar, and the rocks pure gold." i can do no greater justice to my subject, the occasion, and myself, than by closing with the words of shelley: "win her and wear her if you can. she is the most delightful of god's creatures. heaven's best gift; man's joy and pride in prosperity; man's support and comfort in affliction." i drink her health. god bless her. [prolonged applause.] nelson appleton miles the spanish-american war [speech of major-general nelson a. miles at a banquet given in his honor by more than seven hundred of the most distinguished citizens of new york city, november , . while the last course was being served, a unique procession made the round of the hall. it was headed by three figures, one fifer and two drummers, attired to represent the famous painting called "spirit of ' ." these three were followed by a procession bearing miniature ships of war manufactured of various confections. joseph h. choate was chairman of the banquet.] mr. chairman and gentlemen:-- "joyfully dear is the homeward track, if we are but sure of a welcome back." such a generous reception has been extended to me to-night as few are permitted to enjoy, and i should be wanting in gratitude did i not appreciate the sentiment expressed in this cordial greeting. i should be vain indeed to ascribe it to myself, or for a moment to accept it solely as a personal tribute. as an expression of appreciation of the gallant troops which i have the honor to command, it is accepted in behalf of the living and for them i thank you, as well as for those whose lips are forever silent and whose heroism and sacrifice i know are here remembered and revered. this reception is to me doubly gratifying, for i am delighted to return once more to the shores of the great republic and also to be welcomed by the men of the great empire state and by those associated with them in this entertainment. for many years new york has seemed like home to me. i passed down broadway in , at the age of twenty-one, a lieutenant in a regiment from my native state; eight months later i was honored by that great patriot and statesman, governor morgan, with a commission as lieutenant-colonel in one of the new york regiments. from that time during the great civil war i was largely identified with the new york troops, commanding a regiment, a brigade, and, at one time, thirty-two regiments from the state of new york. many of my comrades in the field were from new york, many of my strongest friends are new yorkers, and i am honored to-night by such a greeting as would make the heart of any soldier proud. the wars of the past have had their objects, their achievements, and glorious results. the last war was one in the interest of humanity and in behalf of a heroic people, who for many years had been struggling against cruel atrocities, oppression, and the despotism of a decaying monarchy. it has been most remarkable in many respects. it has presented one series of victories, without a single disaster or a single defeat. the flag of the united states has not been lowered in a single instance. not a foot of ground has been surrendered, not a soldier, gun or rifle has been captured by the enemy. the american soldiers and sailors have been true to the principles and traditions of their fathers, and maintained the honor and glory of the american arms. one of the great blessings to the country in this brief but decisive war has been to unite firmly in bonds of imperishable union all sections of the united states: north, south, east, and west. still more, it has given us reason and opportunity to appreciate our obligations to the mother country for the dignified and powerful influence of the british empire in the maintenance of our principles and rights. there are other fields to conquer. the past has gone, and the future opens the door to greater responsibilities, and i trust to greater progress and prosperity. we are ascending to a clearer atmosphere, up to a higher level, where we should take a stronger position than ever before occupied by our government and people. we can no longer confine ourselves to the narrow limits that governed us as a people in the past. much has been said of what has been the ruling policy of the past. this much, i think, is apparent to all, that the grave responsibilities of the nation are too great to be contaminated by personal, partisan, or sectional interests. our interests are national in the highest degree. they embrace two hemispheres. they involve the welfare of a hundred millions of the human race. we are getting to that time when we shall require not only the ablest men but many of them, in every department, to protect and administer the affairs of the nation. in those impressive lines of holland we might exclaim:-- "god give us men; a time like this demands strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands, men whom the lust of office does not kill, men whom the spoils of office cannot buy, men who possess opinions and a will, men who have honor; men who will not lie." the important and great questions that had to be met and that have been decided during the last few months have had a broadening influence upon the great mass of our people. it has been uplifting to every community and every phase of society. it has turned the attention of our people to the great power and responsibility of our republic, and institutions, and true interests as a people and a nation, not only at home, but through every part of the globe. we have been enabled to give freedom to millions of the oppressed, and i believe that we shall be able to extend to them the hand of support and secure for them a full measure of justice and enlightened government. in behalf of the army and for myself, i wish to return my most heartfelt thanks for this most cordial greeting. [applause.] samuel freeman miller federal judges [speech of samuel f. miller, justice of the supreme court of the united states, at the annual dinner of the state bar association, albany, november , . justice miller spoke in response to the toast: "the supreme court of the united states." with the toast was associated the following sentiment from de tocqueville: "the peace, the prosperity, and the very existence of the union are vested in federal judges."] mr. chairman and gentlemen of the association:--i perceive that in the meeting of this state bar association it has devolved upon me to inaugurate the talking on all occasions. [laughter.] when i had supposed last evening that i should hear the eloquent voice of your then president, judge porter, to get up the enthusiasm which was necessary, i was surprised to find that he was absent, and that the distinguished gentleman who presided did not feel called upon to fill his place in that regard, though he did the honors and discharged the duties of the office very gracefully; and now when your own governor, and when the president of the united states are toasted in advance of the body of which i have the honor to be a member, there is nobody with the respectful and cordial approval of the association here to respond to the sentiments in their honor. but i have had the honor of sitting for a couple of hours in this body, and to find that although a moderate speaker myself, i had opened the way for a good deal of disposition to talk [applause]; and i trust it will be found that there will be a similar experience this evening, as i find here the judges of the court of appeals and of the supreme court of this state, and others, who know how to speak, and who, no doubt, will speak in response to toasts. the sentiment of de tocqueville, to which i am in some sense called upon to respond, is one which those of you who have read his work on "democracy in america," written forty-five years ago, must know has reference to a much smaller body of judges than now existing. perhaps i shall entertain you a little by telling you about what are the federal judges, and how many of them there are. we have fifty-seven or fifty-eight district judges who are federal judges. we have nine judges of the circuit court of the united states; we have five judges of the district of columbia; we have five judges of the court of claims; and we have nine judges of the supreme court of the united states, and these are all considered and treated as constitutional federal judges. that is to say, they enter their offices as officers of the united states, and hold their offices during life or good behavior. we have, in addition to these, eight territories, each of which has three judges, who are federal judges, although in a different sense. they are not called constitutional judges--i do not know that that is a very correct distinction--and they are only appointed for four years. these are the federal judges, the name which de tocqueville applies to them. you will excuse me if i talk for a few minutes about the court of which i have the honor to be a member--the supreme court of the united states. that court, if it is nothing else, certainly is a hard-working court. it is a court of which a great deal is required; and it is some solace for the hard work that we have to do, that we are supposed to be a court of a good deal of dignity and of a very high character. i hope you all concur. [laughter and applause.] just consider what the jurisdiction of that court is. there have come before that court often, states--states which in the old ante-bellum times, we called "sovereign states"--and some of them did not come voluntarily. they were brought by the process of that court. and when one state of the union has a question of juridical cognizance against another state of the union, it must come to that court. a subpoena is sent, and it is brought into that court just like an individual, and it must, by the constitution of this country, submit its rights and territorial jurisdiction, and the right which accompanies that territorial jurisdiction, to the decision of that supreme court. except the great court which sat on mount olympus, i know of no other which has ever had the right to decide, and compel states to submit to its decision. [applause.] it is within our province to declare a law of one of these sovereign states, void, absolutely null, because it may be in conflict with the constitution and laws of the united states; and that is a function of daily occurrence. what other court in the world has that power? to what other court has ever been submitted such a function as that--to declare the legislation of a state like new york, with five millions of population, and other states verging upon the same amount of population and wealth, to declare that the laws which you have passed in the ordinary discharge of your powers as legislators, are null and void? it is a great power. we not only do that, but we decide that the laws which the congress of the united states shall pass are void, if they conflict with that instrument under which we all live and move and have our being. though we approach these subjects with regretful hesitation, it is a duty from which the court has never shrunk, and from which i presume it never will shrink as long as that court has its existence. [applause.] gentlemen, i have told you about our high prerogatives; but just look at what we have done! see what it is that we are compelled to know or supposed to know--but i am very sorry to say we don't know at all. [laughter.] we are supposed to take judicial cognizance of all questions of international law, of treaties, of prize laws, and of the law of nations generally. we take notice of it without its being specially pleaded. we take notice of the laws and statutes of every state of these thirty-eight states of the union. they are not to be proved in our courts; they are not brought in issue, but the judge of the federal courts, from the lowest one to the highest, is supposed to take judicial cognizance of all the statute laws, and to know them, of the whole thirty-eight states of the union, and of the eight territories besides. in addition to that, we are supposed to take notice of the common law of the country. we take notice of the equity principles, and we apply them now in separate courts, notwithstanding you have combined them in your processes in the state courts. we are supposed to understand the civil law on which texas and louisiana have framed their system of laws; and we are supposed to understand all the other laws, as i said, of the states, divergent and varied as they are. we do the best we can to understand them; but, gentlemen, permit me to say that, but for the bar which practices before us; but for the lawyers who come up from new york and pennsylvania, and from the states of the west and of the south, to tell us what the law is; but for the instruction and aid which they afford to us, our duties would be but poorly fulfilled. i take pleasure in saying, gentlemen, and it is the last thing that i shall trouble you with, that a bar or set of men superior in information, in the desire to impart that information to the court, a set of gentlemen in the legal profession more instructive in their arguments, could hardly be found in any country in the world. [applause.] i doubt whether their equals are found, when you consider the variety of the knowledge which they must present to us, the topics which they discuss, the sources from which they derive the matter which they lay before us. i say that it is with pleasure that the court relies upon the lawyers of the country to enable it to perform its high functions. john morley literature and politics [speech of john morley at the banquet of the royal academy, london, may , . sir frederic leighton, president of the academy, said in introducing mr. morley: "with literature i associate, not for the first time, the name of a master of strong and sober english, a man in whose writings the clear vision of a seeker after truth controls the generous fervor of an idealist, and of whom every appreciator of a fine literary temper must earnestly hope that the paths upon which he has so long trod with growing honor may never become wholly strangers to his feet--i mean mr. john morley."] mr. president, your royal highness, my lords, ladies and gentlemen:--i feel that i am more unworthy now than i was eight years ago to figure as the representative of literature before this brilliant gathering of all the most important intellectual and social interests of our time. i have not yet been able like the prime minister, to go round this exhibition and see the works of art that glorify your walls; but i am led by him to expect that i shall see the pictures of liberal leaders, including m. rochefort. [laughter.] i am not sure whether m. rochefort will figure as a man of letters or as a liberal leader, but i can understand that his portrait would attract the prime minister because m. rochefort is a politician who was once a liberal leader, and who has now seen occasion to lose his faith in parliamentary government. [laughter and cheers.] nor have i seen the picture of "the flowing tide," but i shall expect to find in that picture when i do see it a number of bathing-machines in which, not the younger generation, but the elder generation are incarcerated. [laughter.] the younger generation, as i understand, are waiting confidently--for the arrival of the "flowing tide," and when it arrives, the elderly gentlemen who are incarcerated in those machines [laughter] will be only too anxious for a man and a horse to come and deliver them from their imminent peril. [laughter and cheers.] i thought that i detected in the last words of your speech, in proposing this toast, mr. president, an accent of gentle reproach that any one should desert the high and pleasant ways of literature for the turmoil and the everlasting contention of public life. i do not suppose that there has ever been a time in which there was less of divorce between literature and public life than the present time. ["hear! hear!"] there have been in the reign of the queen two eminent statesmen who have thrice had the distinction of being prime minister, and oddly enough, one of those statesmen [lord derby] has left behind him a most spirited version of homer, while the other eminent statesman [william e. gladstone]--happily still among us, still examines the legends and the significance of homer. [cheers.] then when we come to a period nearer to ourselves, and look at those gentlemen who have in the last six years filled the office of minister for ireland, we find that no fewer than three [george otto trevelyan, john morley, and arthur balfour] were authors of books before they engaged in the very ticklish business of the government of men. ["hear! hear!"] and one of these three ministers for ireland embarked upon his literary career--which promised ample distinction--under the editorial auspices of another of the three. we possess in one branch of the legislature the author of the most fascinating literary biography in our language. we possess also another writer whose range of knowledge and of intellectual interest is so great that he has written the most important book upon the holy roman empire and the most important book upon the american commonwealth [james bryce]. [cheers.] the first canon in literature was announced one hundred years ago by an eminent frenchman who said that in literature it is your business to have preferences but no exclusions. in politics it appears to be our business to have very stiff and unchangeable preferences, and exclusion is one of the systematic objects of our life. [laughter and cheers.] in literature, according to another canon, you must have a free and open mind and it has been said: "never be the prisoner of your own opinions." in politics you are very lucky if you do not have the still harder fate--(and i think that the gentlemen on the president's right hand will assent to that as readily as the gentlemen who sit on his left) of being the prisoner of other people's opinions. [laughter.] of course no one can doubt for a moment that the great achievements of literature--those permanent and vital works which we will never let die--require a devotion as unceasing, as patient, as inexhaustible, as the devotion that is required for the works that adorn your walls; and we have luckily in our age--though it may not be a literary age--masters of prose and masters of verse. no prose more winning has ever been written than that of cardinal newman; no verse finer, more polished, more melodious has ever been written than that of lord tennyson and mr. swinburne. [cheers.] it seems to me that one of the greatest functions of literature at this moment is not merely to produce great works, but also to protect the english language--that noble, that most glorious instrument--against those hosts of invaders which i observe have in these days sprung up. i suppose that every one here has noticed the extraordinary list of names suggested lately in order to designate motion by electricity [laughter]; that list of names only revealed what many of us had been observing for a long time--namely, the appalling forces that are ready at a moment's notice to deface and deform our english tongue. [laughter.] these strange, fantastic, grotesque, and weird titles open up to my prophetic vision a most unwelcome prospect. i tremble to see the day approach--and i am not sure that it is not approaching--when the humorists of the headlines of american journalism shall pass current as models of conciseness, energy, and color of style. [cheers and laughter.] even in our social speech this invasion seems to be taking place in an alarming degree and i wonder what the pilgrim fathers of the seventeenth century would say if they could hear their pilgrim children of the nineteenth century who come over here, on various missions, and among others, "on the make." [laughter.] this is only one of the thousand such like expressions which are invading the puritan simplicity of our tongue. i will only say that i should like, for my own part, to see in every library and in every newspaper office that admirable passage in which milton, who knew so well how to handle both the great instrument of prose and the nobler instrument of verse--declared that next to the man who furnished courage and intrepid counsels against an enemy he placed the man who should enlist small bands of good authors to resist that barbarism which invades the minds and the speech of men in methods and habits of speaking and writing. i thank you for having allowed me the honor of saying a word as to the happiest of all callings and the most imperishable of all arts. [loud cheers.] john lothrop motley the poets' corner [speech of john lothrop motley, united states minister to england at the eighty-fourth annual banquet of the royal literary fund, london, may , . the right-hon. william e. gladstone, first minister of the crown, was chairman. the bishop of derry proposed the toast, "the literature of the united states, and mr. motley," which was loudly cheered.] mr. chairman, my lords and gentlemen:--i can scarcely find fitting words to express my gratitude for the warm and genial manner in which the toast of "american literature" has been received by this distinguished assembly. i wish that the honor of responding to it had been placed in worthier hands. two at least of our most eminent men of letters i thought were in england, or near it--one, that most original, subtle, poetical and graceful of thinkers and essayists, mr. emerson [cheers]; the other, one of our most distinguished poets and prose-writers, second to none in the highest spheres of imagination and humor: mr. lowell. [cheers.] i had hoped to meet them both, but i look in vain for their friendly and familiar faces. in their absence, i venture to return thanks most sincerely, but briefly, for the eloquent and sympathetic words with which the distinguished prelate has spoken of our literature. i do so in behalf of the eminent poets and prose-writers in every department of literature and science, many of whose names tremble on my lips, but the long roll-call of which i will not enumerate, who are the living illustrators of our literature, and who it is a gratification to know are almost as familiar and highly appreciated in the old land of our forefathers as they are at home [cheers]; but i for one like to consider them all as fellow-citizens in the great english-speaking republic of letters--where all are brothers, not strangers to each other. and as an illustration of this, i believe that it is not long since one of our famous poets whose exquisite works are familiar in every palace and every cottage all over the world where the english language is spoken--mr. longfellow--was recently requested to preside at one of your meetings. [cheers.] i can produce nothing new on that great subject, which seems the inevitable one for an american on such an occasion as this, the international bond of a common language, a common literature, and centuries of common history and tradition, which connects those two great nations, the united empire and the united republic. may the shadows of both never grow less and may that international bond strengthen its links every year! [cheers.] what is the first hallowed spot in the transatlantic pilgrimage of every true american? what is the true mecca of his heart? not the hoary tombs of the pharaohs, and the one hundred gated cities of the nile. not the acropolis and the parthenon, the plains of marathon, the pass of thermopylæ, thrilling as they are with heroic and patriotic emotion; not the forum and the coliseum and the triumphal arches of rome. no; the pious pilgrim from the far west seeks a sequestered, old-fashioned little town, in the heart of the most delicious rural scenery that even old england can boast; he walks up a quiet, drowsy, almost noiseless street, with quaint old houses, half brick, half timber, hardly changed of aspect since they looked out on the wars of the roses. he comes to an ancient, ivy-mantled tower hard by a placid, silvery stream on which a swan is ever sailing; he passes through a pleached alley under a gothic gateway of the little church, and bends in reverence before a solitary tomb, for in that tomb repose the ashes of shakespeare. [cheers.] we claim our share in every atom of that consecrated dust. our forefathers, who first planted the seeds of a noble civilization in new england and virginia, were contemporaries and countrymen of the swan of avon. so long as we all have an undivided birthright in that sublimest of human intellects, and can enjoy, as none others can, those unrivalled masterpieces, americans and englishmen can never be quite foreigners to each other though seas between as broad have rolled since the day when that precious dust wore human clothing. [cheers.] and what is the next resting-place in our pilgrim's progress--the pilgrim of outre-mer? surely that stately and beautiful pile which we have all seen in our dreams long before we looked upon it with the eyes of flesh, time-honored westminster abbey. i can imagine no purer intellectual pleasure for an american than when he first wanders through those storied aisles, especially if he have the privilege which many of our countrymen have enjoyed, of being guided there by the hand of one whose exquisite urbanity and kindliness are fit companions to his learning and his intellect, the successor of the ancient abbot, the historian of the abbey, the present distinguished dean of westminster [dean stanley], to whom we have listened with such pleasure to-night. [cheers.] and it will be in the poets' corner that we shall ever linger the longest. those statues, busts and mural inscriptions are prouder trophies than all the banners from the most ensanguined battle-fields that the valor of england has ever won, and with what a wealth of intellect is that nation endowed which after the centuries of immortal names already enshrined there has had the proud although most melancholy honor of adding in one decade--scarcely more than ten years--the names of macaulay, grote, dickens, thackeray, and lytton? [cheers.] they are our contemporaries, not our countrymen; but we cannot afford to resign our claim to some portion of their glory as illustrators of our common language. and i would fain believe that you take a fraternal interest in the fame of those whom we too have lost, and who were our especial garland--washington irving, fenimore cooper, everett, hawthorne, and prescott. but i have trespassed far longer upon your attention than i meant to do when i arose; and i shall therefore only once more thank you for the great kindness with which you have received the toast of the literature of the united states. [cheers.] john philip newman commerce [speech of rev. dr. john p. newman, at the th annual banquet of the chamber of commerce of the state of new york, may , . the president, george w. lane, presided, and said: "gentlemen, i give you the fifth regular toast: 'commerce--distributing to all regions the productions of each, and, providing for the wants of all, it combines in friendly intercourse the nations of the earth.' to this toast the rev. dr. newman will respond."] mr. president and gentlemen of the chamber of commerce of new york:--this is a beautiful toast--beautiful both in structure and sentiment and would that it were true. [applause.] it is true in theory but not in history. it may be the voice of prophecy whose fulfilment shall be a sublime fact. it is in the highest degree worthy of this chamber of commerce and cannot fail in its peaceful mission among the nations of the earth. [applause.] but the ages testify that selfishness and greed have marked the commercial history of the world. how splendid have been the achievements of commerce, and how deplorable its failure to realize its legitimate mission--to unify the human race. "get all you can, and keep all you get," were the selfish maxims that influenced the dutch merchants in sumatra, java, and ceylon. the renowned merchants of portugal planted their commercial colonies on the rich coasts of malabar, took possession of the persian gulf and transformed the barren island of ormus into a paradise of wealth and luxury. but of that far-famed island milton sung in these truthful and immortal lines:-- "high, on a throne of royal state which far outshone the wealth of ormus and of ind. or where the gorgeous east with richest hand, show'rs on her kings barbaric pearl and gold, satan exalted sat." there is no less truth than poetry in that last line, for there the devil sat, and tom moore's "fair isle of kisham" has faded from the visions of the world. [applause.] the spanish merchants grasped the wealthy states of south america, and held as captives the affluent incas of peru and bolivia. but spain has long since retired from her commercial supremacy and the south american provinces are left poor indeed. while every anglo-saxon is justly proud of england's greatness in art and learning, in statesmanship and martial prowess, yet her commercial history does not always reflect credit upon her foreign trade. rapacity so characterized her merchants who composed the old east india company that the british government felt compelled to revoke the charter of that famous monopoly. influenced by some of her merchants the guns of her invincible navy opened the treaty ports of china and forced the opium trade upon the celestials against their earnest protests, and in that protest not a few of the best englishmen joined. to-day france and england, belgium and holland are contending for commercial supremacy in the "dark continent," which an american explorer and traveler opened to the foreign trade of all nations [applause]; but, judging from the past, the sable sons of africa are yet to learn the selfishness of commerce. happily for us, the united states has been more fortunate because more honorable in her commercial intercourse with other lands. [applause.] by his justice, by his prudence, by his firmness, commodore perry [cheers], our great sailor diplomatist, not only opened to us japan, that "kingdom of the rising sun," but secured for america the friendship and admiration of the japanese. and there is to-day, awaiting the action of our nation, a treaty of amity and commerce, drawn by the wisest of men, the most sagacious of statesmen, the greatest of living soldiers; and when that treaty shall have been ratified, the united states and mexico will be united in friendly intercourse, sweet and pleasant, like the love of david and jonathan. [applause.] it is a great question whether this country shall repeat the commercial history of the world, or carry to glorious consummation the noble sentiment of this toast. all the signs of the times seem to indicate that the commercial sceptre of the world, held by the phoenicians for , years, held by the romans through a whole millennium, held by the venetians during five centuries, held by the portuguese for three hundred years, and since held by the english--whether that sceptre is not rapidly to pass into the hands of the american merchant; and when that is an accomplished fact, we shall hear less of the decline of american shipping or that the balance of trade is against us. [applause.] our vast domain, our immense resources, our unparalleled productive capacity, all seem to prophesy that we are largely to feed and clothe adam's innumerable family. [applause.] if so, then any calm and sagacious mind must realize that our present methods of forming commercial treaties should be radically changed. if it has been found necessary to have a department of agriculture, a department of education, why not a department of commerce, connected with the national government, and from which shall come the suggestions, the facts, and the influence for the formation of commercial treaties, and at the head of which shall be a wise and prudent merchant conversant with the products of all lands and familiar with the best interests of our own country? [applause.] the science of political economy is so profound, so complicated, so far-reaching as to transcend the capacity of the average statesman. it has become a specialty. congressional committees on commerce and on foreign relations are hardly adequate to the task. not a few of the members of such know more about ward elections than tariff laws, and know as little about products and trade of foreign lands as of the geography of other nations. let us lift the whole subject of commerce from the arena of partisan politics. [applause.] this toast looks forward to the friendship of nations. the merchant is the chosen john the baptist of that better day. the merchant is the true cosmopolitan--the citizen of the world. farmers with their products of the soil, flocks and herds are local; miners with their metallic mines and mineral mountains are local; manufacturers with their fabrics of skill are local; inventors with their manifold contrivances to lift the burden of toil from the shoulders of humanity, are local; artists, with their canvas that glows and their marble that breathes, are local; authors, with their mighty thoughts of truth and fiction, are local; statesmen with their laws, wise and otherwise [laughter], are local; but the merchant is the cosmopolitan citizen of the world, the friend of all, the enemy of none, a stranger nowhere, at home everywhere; who sails all seas, travels all lands, and to whom all come with their fruit of hand and brain, waiting for a home or a foreign market. [applause.] commerce should ever be the voice of peace. aided by science, and sanctified by religion, it should be the all-powerful stimulant to universal amity. the honest and honorable merchant is the natural antagonist of the factious politician, the ambitious statesman, the glory-seeking warrior. [applause.] while the merchant is the most ardent of patriots, commerce is the unifier of nations, whereby is to be fulfilled the dream of poets and the vision of seers in the brotherhood of man, in a congress of nations, and a parliament of the world. the old german hanseatic league, representing sixty-six maritime cities and forty-four dependencies, seemed to prophesy an international chamber of commerce for the peace of the whole earth. if the high interests of our christian civilization demand international congresses of law, of geography, of peace, how much more an international congress of commerce, to give direction to the relations of peace and trade between all peoples. this would approach the realization of the dream of a universal republic. [applause.] it is eminently proper that from this christian city should go forth the voice of commercial peace, honesty and honor; give us such christian merchants as peter cooper [cheers], as william e. dodge [cheers], as governor morgan [cheers], dealing fairly and honorably with the weaker states with which we shall trade. [applause.] for say what you please, christianity is the religion of industry, of thrift, of wealth demanding the comforts of life and enriching all who follow its divine precepts, and giving to the world that code of higher and better commercial morality whereby wealth is permanent, and riches are a benediction. [applause.] awakened by this unseen power, it is commercial enterprise that has transformed our earth into one vast neighborhood, that has made air and ocean whispering galleries, that has started the iron horse to stride a continent in seven days and launched the majestic steamer which touches two continents between two sundays. [applause.] i confess to you, gentlemen, that i have no fear from the accumulations of vast mercantile wealth when under the benign constraints of religion. wealth is the handmaid of religion. such wealth has beautified the face of society, has advanced to this consummation those great philanthropic enterprises which have delivered the oppressed and saved the republic, and which have filled our city with schools of learning, galleries of art, halls of justice, houses of mercy, and temples of piety. [continued applause.] charles eliot norton castles in spain [speech of charles eliot norton at the "whittier dinner," in celebration of the poet's seventieth birthday, and the twentieth birthday of the "atlantic monthly," given by the publishers of the magazine, boston, december , . william dean howells, then editor of the "atlantic," officiated as chairman. mr. norton spoke for james russell lowell, the first editor of the "atlantic," then serving as united states minister to spain.] mr. chairman and gentlemen:--we miss to-night one man to whom many names are equally befitting: the humorist, the wit, the wise thinker, the poet, the scholar, the worker, the friend--but the man who, of all others, should be here to do honor to our guest. we miss the first editor of the "atlantic," whose comprehensive sympathies, wide as his vast, broad genius; whose cultivated taste, whose various and thorough learning gave to our monthly, from the beginning, first place among american magazines and secured for it that deserved popularity which you, sir [mr. howells], are doing so much to maintain. the same qualities which made him eminent as an editor will make him eminent as the representative abroad of what is best in the social and political life of our country. no man could more truly exhibit, as comprehending them in himself, the high spirit, the noble aims, the varied achievements of a generous and large-minded nation--a nation not always so careful as it ought to be that its ministers accredited to foreign powers should be servants creditable to itself. but in the place that he now fills i cannot but regard him as, in a special sense, the envoy of the company gathered around this table. i believe that every one of us has, or at least has had, possessions in spain that require to be well looked after; they are possessions of extraordinary, enormous, quite incalculable value, of which the title deeds are not always as complete as we could wish. lowell himself had large estates of this sort:-- "when i was a beggarly boy, i lived in a cellar damp, i had not a friend, nor a toy, but i had aladdin's lamp. "when i could not sleep for the cold, i had fire enough in my brain, and i built with their roofs of gold my beautiful castles in spain." and so too, he, the friend of us all, whose presence makes us all glad to-night, and whom we always greet with all love and honor, has had possessions in the same fair land:-- "how much of my heart, o spain, went out to thee in days of yore! what dreams romantic filled my brain, and summoned back to life again the paladins of charlemagne, the cid campeador?" how many "castles in spain not built of stone" has he dwelt in, and with what delightful hospitality has he welcomed us as guests within their spacious and splendid halls! and even you, sir, for whose sake we have met to-night, even you, modest as your retirement has seemed to be in that quiet home, which you have made dear to the lovers of poetry and purity and peace, you have privately had your speculations in real estate in that land of romance, from which you have drawn large revenues. you will pardon me for reminding you of one of them, where-- "on the banks of the xenil, the dark spanish maiden comes up with fruit of the tangled vine laden." i have sometimes fancied that even the concord river had its springs somewhere in the snowy sierras of estremadura, toward which the windows of the sage-poet's dwelling were turned, and from whose heaven-reaching summits he has so often caught the fresh airs of celestial breath. few of us, indeed, have had the good fortune to add to their vast real estates in spain any substantial articles of personal property, but one of us, rich in the gifts of don quixote's land, has actually a piece of plate, a silver punch bowl, which at times, when filled, has, i doubt not, given him assurance of undisputed rights in the most magnificent castles:-- "a spanish galleon brought the bar--so runs the ancient tale-- 'twas hammered by an antwerp smith, whose arm was like a flail." and even you and i, mr. editor, and all the rest of us, possess, as i have said, our smaller domains in that distant land, all of them with castles; but not all the castles, i fear, in good repair or quite habitable; and some of us would be perplexed to say if they lay in granada or andalusia, la mancha--or to tell exactly how many turrets they had, or how large a company they could accommodate with good entertainment. now, sir, such being the case, all of us having such real, but too often, alas! neglected possessions in spain, i am not surprised that lowell writes to me that he finds the spanish legation one of the busiest in europe. he is to establish our titles, and the work is not without its difficulties. let us send him our god-speed. may he come back to us to assure us, as he better than any other can do, of the henceforth undisturbed enjoyment of all our castles in spain. [applause.] richard oglesby the royal corn [speech of ex-governor richard oglesby at the banquet of the fellowship club, chicago, september , , on the occasion of the harvest-home festival. the toast-master was franklin h. head, and the toast that he gave to each speaker was, "what i know about farming." in the report by volney w. foster, member of the club, it is recorded that the governor rose slowly, after being called upon by the toast-master, and was seemingly waiting for an inspiration. he looked deliberately upon the harvest decorations of the room and finally his eyes seemed to rest upon the magnificent stalks of corn that adorned the walls. he then slowly and impressively paid the following impromptu tribute to the corn.] mr. chairman and gentlemen:--the corn, the corn, the corn, that in its first beginning and its growth has furnished aptest illustration of the tragic announcement of the chiefest hope of man. if he die he shall surely live again. planted in the friendly but sombre bosom of the mother earth it dies. yea, it dies the second death, surrendering up each trace of form and earthly shape until the outward tide is stopped by the reacting vital germ which, breaking all the bonds and cerements of its sad decline, comes bounding, laughing into life and light, the fittest of all the symbols that make certain promise of the fate of man. and so it died and then it lived again. and so my people died. by some unknown, uncertain and unfriendly fate, i found myself making my first journey into life from conditions as lowly as those surrounding that awakening, dying, living, infant germ. it was in those days when i, a simple boy, had wandered from indiana to springfield, that i there met the father of this good man [joseph jefferson] whose kind and gentle words to me were as water to a thirsty soul, as the shadow of a rock to weary man. i loved his father then, i love the son now. two full generations have been taught by his gentleness and smiles, and tears have quickly answered to the command of his artistic mind. long may he live to make us laugh and cry, and cry and laugh by turns as he may choose to move us. but now again my mind turns to the glorious corn. see it! look on its ripening, waving field! see how it wears a crown, prouder than monarch ever wore, sometimes jauntily; and sometimes after the storm the dignified survivors of the tempest seem to view a field of slaughter and to pity a fallen foe. and see the pendant caskets of the corn-field filled with the wine of life, and see the silken fringes that set a form for fashion and for art. and now the evening comes and something of a time to rest and listen. the scudding clouds conceal the half and then reveal the whole of the moonlit beauty of the night, and then the gentle winds make heavenly harmonies on a thousand-thousand harps that hang upon the borders and the edges and the middle of the field of ripening corn, until my very heart seems to beat responsive to the rising and the falling of the long melodious refrain. the melancholy clouds sometimes make shadows on the field and hide its aureate wealth, and now they move, and slowly into sight there comes the golden glow of promise for an industrious land. glorious corn, that more than all the sisters of the field wears tropic garments. nor on the shore of nilus or of ind does nature dress her forms more splendidly. my god, to live again that time when for me half the world was good and the other half unknown! and now again, the corn, that in its kernel holds the strength that shall (in the body of the man refreshed) subdue the forest and compel response from every stubborn field, or, shining in the eye of beauty make blossoms of her cheeks and jewels of her lips and thus make for man the greatest inspiration to well-doing, the hope of companionship of that sacred, warm and well-embodied soul, a woman. aye, the corn, the royal corn, within whose yellow heart there is of health and strength for all the nations. the corn triumphant, that with the aid of man hath made victorious procession across the tufted plain and laid foundation for the social excellence that is and is to be. this glorious plant, transmuted by the alchemy of god, sustains the warrior in battle, the poet in song, and strengthens everywhere the thousand arms that work the purposes of life. oh that i had the voice of song, or skill to translate into tones the harmonies, the symphonies and oratorios that roll across my soul, when standing sometimes by day and sometimes by night upon the borders of this verdant sea, i note a world of promise, and then before one-half the year is gone i view its full fruition and see its heaped gold await the need of man. majestic, fruitful, wondrous plant! thou greatest among the manifestations of the wisdom and love of god, that may be seen in all the fields or upon the hillsides or in the valleys! john boyle o'reilly moore, the bard of erin [speech of john boyle o'reilly at a banquet held in boston, may , , in commemoration of the centenary of thomas moore. mr. o'reilly, as chairman of the banquet, sat at the head of the table, with oliver wendell holmes on his right, and mayor frederick o. prince on his left. the company numbered more than one hundred, and was a representative gathering, mostly of irish-american citizens. the toast to the memory of moore, with which mr. o'reilly's speech closed, was drunk by the company standing, the orchestra meanwhile playing "should auld acquaintance be forgot?"] gentlemen:--the honorable distinction you have given me in seating me at the head of your table involves a duty of weight and delicacy. at such a board as this, where genius sits smiling at geniality, the president becomes a formality, and the burden of his duty is to make himself a pleasant nobody, yet natural to the position. like the apprentice of the armorer, it is my task only to hold the hot iron on the anvil while the skilled craftsmen strike out the flexible sword-blade. there is no need for me to praise or analyze the character or fame of the great poet whose centennial we celebrate. this will be done presently by abler hands, in eloquent verse and prose. tom moore was a poet of all lands, and it is fitting that his centenary should be observed in cosmopolitan fashion. but he was particularly the poet of ireland, and on this point i may be allowed to say a word, as one proud to be an irishman, and prouder still to be an american. not blindly but kindly we lay our wreath of rosemary and immortelles on the grave of moore. we do not look to him for the wisdom of the statesman or the boldness of the popular leader. neither do we look for solidity to the rose-bush, nor for strength to the nightingale, yet each is perfect of its kind. we take tom moore as god sent him--not only the sweetest song-writer of ireland, but even in this presence i may say, the first song-writer in the english language, not even excepting burns. the harshness of nature or even of human relations found faint response in his harmonious being. he was born in the darkness of the penal days; he lived to manhood under the cruel law that bred a terrible revolution; but he never was a rebel. he was the college companion and bosom friend of robert emmet, who gave his beautiful life on the gibbet in protest against the degradation of his country; but moore took only a fitful part in the stormy political agitation of the time. when all was done it was clear that he was one thing and no other--neither a sufferer, a rebel, an agitator, nor a reformer, but wholly and simply a poet. he did not rebel, and he scarcely protested. but he did his work as well as the best, in his own way. he sat by the patriot's grave and sang tearful songs that will make future rebels and patriots. it was a hard task for an irishman, in moore's day, to win distinction, unless he achieved it by treason to his own country. in his own bitter words:-- "unpriz'd are her sons till they've learned to betray; undistinguished they live, if they shame not their sires; and the torch that would light them thro' dignity's way must be caught from the pile where their country expires." and yet moore set out to win distinction, and to win it in the hardest field. the literary man in those days could only live by the patronage of the great, and the native nobility of ireland was dead or banished. a poet, too, must have an audience; and moore knew that his audience must not only be his poor countrymen, but all who spoke the english language. he lived as an alien in london, and it is hard for an alien to secure recognition anywhere, and especially an alien poet. the songs he sang, too, were not english in subject or tone, but irish. they were filled with the sadness of his unhappy country. he despaired of the freedom of ireland, and bade her:-- "weep on, weep on, your hour is past, your dream of pride is o'er;" but he did not turn from the ruin to seek renown from strange and profitable subjects. as the polished greeks, even in defeat, conquered their roman conquerors by their refinement, so this poet sang of ireland's sorrow and wrong till england and the world turned to listen. in one of his melodies, which is full of pathetic apology to his countrymen for his apparent friendship to england, he sighs in secret over erin's ruin:-- "for 'tis treason to love her and death to defend." he foresaw even then the immortality of his verse and the affection of future generations for his memory, when he wrote:-- "but tho' glory be gone, and tho' hope fade away, thy name, loved erin, shall live in his songs; not e'en in the hour when the heart is most gay, will he lose the remembrance of thee and thy wrongs. the stranger shall hear thy lament on his plains; the sigh of thy harp shall be sent o'er the deep; till thy masters themselves, as they rivet thy chains, shall pause at the song of their captive and weep." but this was not his entire work for ireland and for true literature and art; nor is it for this sentimental reason that his centenary is observed throughout the world. in some countries we are able to see the beginning of the artistic or literary life of the nation; we can even name the writer or artist who began the beautiful structure; and though the pioneer work is often crude, it merits and receives the gratitude of the nation. though moore was an original poet of splendid imagination, he undertook a national work in which his flights were restrained by the limitations of his task. he set himself to write new words to old music. he found scattered over ireland, mainly hidden in the cabins of the poor, pieces of antique gold, inestimable jewels that were purely irish. these were in danger of being lost to the world, or of being malformed, or stolen from their rightful owners, by strangers who could discover their value. these jewels were the old irish airs--those exquisite fabrics which moore raised into matchless beauty in his delicious melodies. this was his great work. he preserved the music of his nation and made it imperishable. it can never be lost again till english ceases to be spoken. he struck it out like a golden coin, with erin's stamp on it; and it has become current and unquestioned in all civilized nations. for this we celebrate his centennial. for this, gentlemen, i call on you to rise--for after one year, or a hundred, or a thousand, we may pour a libation to a great man--i ask you to rise and drink--"the memory of tom moore." footnotes: [ ] chauncey m. depew, who, earlier in the evening, had spoken on the subject of municipal consolidation. [ ] by sir archibald alison. [ ] burlesque comedians. [ ] henry ward beecher. [ ] john p. newman. [ ] the negro minstrel. [ ] the portrait referred to is that of colonel robert gould shaw, killed at fort wagner, south carolina, july , . [ ] the bust is that of general charles russell lowell, who died october , , of wounds received at cedar creek, va., october . [ ] william mckinley. [ ] he was not knighted till . [ ] professor stokes, president of the royal society. [ ] members of this organization are exempted from jury service. american society of civil engineers instituted transactions paper no. address at the d annual convention, chicago, illinois, june st, . by john a. bensel, president, am. soc. c. e. i know that to some of my audience a satisfactory address at a summer convention would be like that which many people regard as a satisfactory sermon--something soothing and convincing, to the effect that you are not as other men are, but better. while i appreciate very fully, however, the honor of being able to address you, i am going to look trouble in the face in an effort to convince you that, in spite of great individual achievements, engineers are behind other professional men in professional spirit, and particularly in collective effort. whether this, if true, is due to our extreme youth as a profession, or our extreme age, is dependent upon the point of view; but i think it is a fact that will be admitted by all that engineers have not as yet done much for their profession, even if they have done considerable for the world at large. looking backward, our calling may properly be considered the oldest in the world. it is older, in fact, than history itself, for man did not begin to separate from the main part of animal creation, until he began to direct the sources of power in nature for the benefit, if not always for the improvement, of his particular kind. in bible history, we find early mention of the first builder of a pontoon. this creditable performance is especially noted, and the name of the party principally concerned prominently mentioned. the same thing cannot be said of the unsuccessful attempt at the building of the first sky-scraper, for here the architect, with unusual modesty, has not given history his name, this omission being possibly due to the fact that the building was unsuccessful. if an engineer was employed on this particular undertaking, the architect had, even at that early stage of his profession, learned the lesson of keeping all except his own end of the work in the background. the distinctive naming of our profession does not seem, however, to go back any farther than the period of , when that father of the profession, john smeaton, first made use of the term, "engineer," and later, "civil engineer," applying it both to others and to himself, as descriptive of a certain class of men working along professional lines now existing and described by that term. remarkable progress has certainly been made in actual achievements since that time, and i know of nothing more impressive than to contemplate the tremendous changes that have been made in the material world by the achievements of engineers, particularly in the last hundred years. this was forcibly impressed upon me a short time ago, while in the company of the late charles haswell, then the oldest member of this society, who, seeing one of the recently built men-of-war coming up the harbor, remarked that he had designed the first steamship for the united states navy. the evolution of this intricate mass of mechanism, which, from the very beginning of its departure from the sailing type of vessel, has taken place entirely within the working period of one man's life, is as graphic a showing of engineering activity as i think can be found. our activities are forcibly shown in many other lines of invention and in the utilization of the forces of nature, particularly in the development of this country. we, although young in years, have become the greatest railroad builders in history, and have put into use mechanical machines like the harvester, the sewing machine, the telephone, the wireless telegraph, and almost numberless applications of electricity. ships have been built of late years greatly departing from those immediately preceding them, so that at the present time they might be compared to floating cities with nearly all a city's conveniences and comforts. we have done away with the former isolation of the largest city in the country, and have made it a part of the main land by the building of tunnels and bridges. in all our work it might be said that we are hastening, with feverish energy, from one problem to another, for the so-called purpose of saving time, or for the enjoyment of some new sensation; and we have also made possible the creation of that which might be deemed of doubtful benefit to the human race, that huge conglomerate, the modern city. there has been no hesitancy in grappling with the problems of nature by engineers, but they seem to be diffident and neglectful of human nature in their calculations, leaving it out of their equations, greatly to their own detriment and the world's loss. we can say that matters outside of the known are not our concern, and we can look with pride at our individual achievements, and of course, if this satisfies, there is nothing more to be said. but it is because i feel that engineers of to-day are not satisfied with their position, that i wonder whether we have either fulfilled our obligations to the community, or secured proper recognition from it; whether, in fact, the engineer can become the force that he should be, until he brings something into his equations besides frozen figures, however diverting an occupation this may be. one may wonder whether this state of affairs is caused from a fear of injecting uncertain elements into our calculations, or whether it is our education or training which makes us conservative to the point of operating to our own disadvantage. we may read the requirements of our membership and learn from them that in our accomplishments we are not to be measured as skilled artisans, but the fact remains that, to a great extent, society at large does so rate us, and it would seem that we must ourselves be responsible for this state of affairs. our colleges and technical schools are partly to blame for the existence of this idea, on account of the different degrees which they give. we have a degree of civil engineer, regarded in its narrowest sense, of mining engineer, mechanical engineer, electrical engineer, and by necessity it would seem as if we should shortly add some particular title to designate the engineer who flies. in reality there should be but two classes of engineers, and the distinction should be drawn only between civil engineers and military engineers. as a matter of fact, fate and inclination determine the specialty that a man takes up after his preliminary training, and so far as the degrees are concerned, the only one that has any right to carry weight, because it is a measure of accomplishment, is that which is granted by this society to its corporate members. the schools, in their general mix-up of titles, certainly befog the public mind. it is as if the medical schools, for instance, should issue degrees at graduation for brain doctors, stomach doctors, eye and ear doctors, etc. very wisely, it seems to me, the medical profession and the legal profession, with histories far older than ours, and with as wide variations in practice as we have, leave the variations in name to the individual taste of the practitioner, in a manner which we would do well to copy. the society itself has adopted very broad lines in admission to membership, classing as civil engineers all who are properly such; and there is good reason for the serious consideration of the term at this time, as we cannot fail to recognize a tendency in state and other governments to legislate as to the right to practice engineering. it was owing to the introduction of a bill limiting and prescribing the right to practice in the state of new york, that a committee was recently appointed to look into this matter and report to the society. this report will be before you for action at this meeting. as to the manner in which engineers individually perform their work, no criticism would properly lie, and in fact it is fortunate that our work speaks for itself, for, as a body, we say nothing. we are no longer, however, found working for the greater part of the time on the outskirts of civilization, and it becomes necessary, therefore, for us to change with changing conditions, and to use our society not only for the benefit of the profession as a whole, but for the benefit of the members individually. whether one of our first steps in this direction should be along legislative lines is for you to determine. for myself, having been confronted with legislation recently attempted in new york, i am convinced that we shall have legislation affecting our members, and this legislation should properly be moulded by some responsible body like our own society. if we do not take the matter up ourselves it is likely to be taken up by other associations, and from past experience, it would seem as though it might be carried on along lines that would tend to ridicule our desire for professional standing. the society is to be congratulated on its present satisfactory status. the reports show a very satisfactory financial condition, and you may note a continuing increase in membership that is extremely gratifying. this, after having nearly doubled in the last seven years, still shows no sign of diminishing in its rate of increase. it may be said, also, that we have in the society an excellent publishing house, where the members have an opportunity to secure technical papers published in the highest style of the art. we have in general in the officers, a number of men, who, within the prescribed limits, labor for the benefit of the members, but we also have constitutional limitations to the activity of our governing body, so that the voice of the society is never heard, or, at least, might be compared to that still, small voice we call "conscience," which is not audible outside of the body that possesses it. now, in these days, when the statement that two and two make four is accepted from its latest originator as a newly discovered truth, a little extension of our mathematics, to take into our estimate people as well as things, is what we principally need, and it would be a good thing, regarded either from the point of view of what the world needs or the more selfish view of our own particular gains. at the present time it would seem as though our world had thrown away the old gods without taking hold of any new ones. private ownership as it formerly existed is no longer recognized; individual action in almost any large field is to-day hampered and curtailed in a manner undreamed of twenty years ago. in fact, our whole scheme of government seems to be passing from the representative form on which it was founded, to some new form as yet undetermined. whether all this is, in our opinion, for good or for evil, is of no particular concern. the matter that concerns us is, that we have left our old moorings, and that, to secure new ones, new limits are to be set to the activities of men along lines which concern us, and that, therefore, it is necessary that those who by education and training are best fitted to consider facts and not desires, should guide society as much as possible along its new lines. i consider that we as a profession are particularly trained to do this by our consideration of facts as they exist, and i think it will be recognized by all that we are not in our work or activities bound by any precedent, even if we do learn all that we can from the past; and that we are by nature and training of a cool and calculating disposition, which is surely a thing that is needed in this time of many suggested experiments. to be effective, however, we must be cohesive, and thus be able to take our part not as the led, but as leaders, convincing the people, if possible, that all the ills of our social system cannot be cured by remedies which neglect the forces of creation, and that the best doctors for our troubles are not necessarily those whose sympathies are most audibly expressed. in the recent discoveries of science our ideas as to the forces of nature must be greatly enlarged and our theories amplified. recent discovery of radium and radio-active substances shows at least that much of our old knowledge needs re-writing along the lines of our greater knowledge of to-day. with this increase of knowledge it would seem as though those who devote their lives to the exploitation of natural forces should take a position in the future even more prominent than in the past, and it will undoubtedly become our function to help the world to that ideal state described by our greatest living poet of action, when he speaks of the time to come, as follows: "and no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame; but each for the joy of working, and each in his separate star; shall draw the thing as he sees it, for the god of the things as they are." produced from images generously made available by the kentuckiana digital library) [illustration] gov. bob. taylor's tales. "the fiddle and the bow," "the paradise of fools", "visions and dreams." illustrated. published by delong rice & company. nashville, tenn. copyrighted, . _all rights reserved by delong rice & co._ university press co., nashville, tenn. preface. this volume presents the first publication of the famous lectures of governor robert l. taylor. his great popularity as an orator and entertainer, and his wide reputation as a humorist, have caused repeated inquiries from all sections of the country for his lectures in book form; and this has given rise to an earlier publication than was expected. the lectures are given without the slightest abridgment, just as delivered from the platform throughout the country. the consecutive chain of each is left undisturbed; and the idea of paragraphing, and giving headlines to the various subjects treated, was conceived merely for the convenience of the reader. in the dialect of his characters, the melody of his songs, and the originality of his quaint, but beautiful conceptions, governor taylor's lectures are temples of thought, lighted with windows of fun. delong rice. temples of thought, lighted with windows of fun. contents. "the fiddle and the bow." cherish the little ones fat men and bald-headed men the poet laureate of music the convict and his fiddle a vision of the old field school the quilting and the old virginia reel the candy pulling the banquet there is music all around us the two columns. there is a melody for every ear music is the wine of the soul the old time singing school the grand opera music "the paradise of fools." the paradise of childhood the paradise of the barefooted boy the paradise of youth the paradise of home bachelor and widower phantoms the false ideal the circus in the mountains the phantom of fortune clocks the panic bunk city your uncle fools blotted pictures "visions and dreams." the happy long ago dreams of the years to come from the cave-man to the kiss-o-phone dreams visions of departed glory nature's musicians preacher's paradise brother estep and the trumpet "wamper-jaw" at the jollification the tintinnabulation of the dinner bells phantoms of the wine cup the missing link nightmare infidelity the dream of god "the fiddle and the bow." [illustration] i heard a great master play on the wondrous violin; his bow quivered like the wing of a bird; in every quiver there was a melody, and every melody breathed a thought in language sweeter than was ever uttered by human tongue. i was conjured, i was mesmerized by his music. i thought i fell asleep under its power, and was rapt into the realm of visions and dreams. the enchanted violin broke out in tumult, and through the rifted shadows in my dream i thought i saw old ocean lashed to fury. the wing of the storm-god brooded above it, dark and lowering with night and tempest and war. i heard the shriek of the angry hurricane, the loud rattling musketry of rain, and hail, and the louder and deadlier crash and roar of the red artillery on high. its rumbling batteries, unlimbered on the vapory heights and manned by the fiery gunners of the storm, boomed their volleying thunders to the terrible rythm of the strife below. and in every stroke of the bow fierce lightnings leaped down from their dark pavilions of cloud, and, like armed angels of light, flashed their trenchant blades among the phantom squadrons marshalling for battle on the field of the deep. i heard the bugle blast and battle cry of the charging winds, wild and exultant, and then i saw the billowy monsters rise, like an army of titans, to scale and carry the hostile heights of heaven. assailing again and again, as often hurled back headlong into the ocean's abyss, they rolled, and surged, and writhed, and raged, till the affrighted earth trembled at the uproar of the warring elements. i saw the awful majesty and might of jehovah flying on the wings of the tempest, planting his footsteps on the trackless deep, veiled in darkness and in clouds. there was a shifting of the bow; the storm died away in the distance, and the morning broke in floods of glory. then the violin revived and poured out its sweetest soul. in its music i heard the rustle of a thousand joyous wings, and a burst of song from a thousand joyous throats. mockingbirds and linnets thrilled the glad air with warblings; gold finches, thrushes and bobolinks trilled their happiest tunes; and the oriole sang a lullaby to her hanging cradle that rocked in the wind. i heard the twitter of skimming swallows and the scattered covey's piping call; i heard the robin's gay whistle, the croaking of crows, the scolding of blue-jays, and the melancholy cooing of a dove. the swaying tree-tops seemed vocal with bird-song while he played, and the labyrinths of leafy shade echoed back the chorus. then the violin sounded the hunter's horn, and the deep-mouthed pack of fox hounds opened loud and wild, far in the ringing woods, and it was like the music of a hundred chiming bells. there was a tremor of the bow, and i heard a flute play, and a harp, and a golden-mouthed cornet; i heard the mirthful babble of happy voices, and peals of laughter ringing in the swelling tide of pleasure. then i saw a vision of snowy arms, voluptuous forms, and light fantastic slippered feet, all whirling and floating in the mazes of the misty dance. the flying fingers now tripped upon the trembling strings like fairy-feet dancing on the nodding violets, and the music glided into a still sweeter strain. the violin told a story of human life. two lovers strayed beneath the elms and oaks, and down by the river side, where daffodils and pansies bend and smile to rippling waves, and there, under the bloom of incense-breathing bowers, under the soothing sound of humming bees and splashing waters, there, the old, old story, so old and yet so new, conceived in heaven, first told in eden and then handed down through all the ages, was told over and over again. ah, those downward drooping eyes, that mantling blush, that trembling hand in meek submission pressed, that heaving breast, that fluttering heart, that whispered "yes," wherein a heaven lies--how well they told of victory won and paradise regained! and then he swung her in a grapevine swing. young man, if you want to win her, wander with her amid the elms and oaks, and swing her in a grapevine swing. "swinging in the grapevine swing, laughing where the wild birds sing; i dream and sigh for the days gone by, swinging in the grapevine swing." [illustration: "swinging in the grapevine swing."] but swiftly the tides of music run, and swiftly speed the hours; life's pleasures end when scarce begun, e'en as the summer flowers. the violin laughed like a child and my dream changed again. i saw a cottage amid the elms and oaks and a little curly-head toddled at the door; i saw a happy husband and father return from his labors in the evening and kiss his happy wife and frolic with his baby. the purple glow now faded from the western skies; the flowers closed their petals in the dewy slumbers of the night; every wing was folded in the bower; every voice was hushed; the full-orbed moon poured silver from the east, and god's eternal jewels flashed on the brow of night. the scene changed again while the great master played, and at midnight's holy hour, in the light of a lamp dimly burning, clad in his long, white mother-hubbard, i saw the disconsolate victim of love's young dream nervously walking the floor, in his bosom an aching heart, in his arms the squalling baby. on the drowsy air, like the sad wails of a lost spirit, fell his woeful voice singing: [illustration: (sheet music)] with my la-e, lo-e, hush-a-bye ba-by, danc-ing the ba-by ev-er so high; with my la-e, lo-e, hush-a-bye ba-by mam-ma will come to you bye and bye. it was a battle with king colic. but this ancient invader of the empire of babyhood had sounded a precipitate retreat; the curly head had fallen over on the paternal shoulder; the tear-stained little face was almost calm in repose, when down went a naked heel square on an inverted tack. over went the work table; down came the work basket, scissors and all; up went the heel with the tack sticking in it, and the hero of the daffodils and pansies, with a yell like the indian war-whoop, and with his mother-hubbard now floating at half mast, hopped in agony to a lounge in the rear. [illustration: a battle with king colic.] there was "weeping and gnashing of teeth;" there were hoarse mutterings; there was an angry shake of the screaming baby, which he had awakened again. then i heard an explosion of wrath from the warm blankets of the conjugal couch, eloquent with the music of "how dare you shake my little baby that way!!!! i'll tell pa to-morrow!" which instantly brought the trained husband into line again, singing: "la-e, lo-e, hush-a-bye baby, dancing the baby ever so high, with my la-e, lo-e, hush-a-bye baby, mamma will come to you bye and bye." the paregoric period of life is full of spoons and midnight squalls, but what is home without a baby? the bow now brooded like a gentle spirit over the violin, and the music eddied into a mournful tone; another year intervened; a little coffin sat by an empty cradle; the prints of baby fingers were on the window panes; the toys were scattered on the floor; the lullaby was hushed; the sobs and cries, the mirth and mischief, and the tireless little feet were no longer in the way to vex and worry. sunny curls drooped above eyelids that were closed forever; two little cheeks were bloodless and cold, and two little dimpled hands were folded upon a motionless breast. the vibrant instrument sighed and wept; it rang the church bell's knell; and the second story of life, which is the sequel to the first, was told. then i caught glimpses of a half-veiled paradise and a sweet breath from its flowers; i saw the hazy stretches of its landscapes, beautiful and gorgeous as mahomet's vision of heaven; i heard the faint swells of its distant music and saw the flash of white wings that never weary, wafting to the bosom of god an infant spirit; a string snapped; the music ended; my vision vanished. the old master is dead, but his music will live forever. cherish the little ones. do you sometimes forget and wound the hearts of your children with frowns and the dagger of cruel words, and sometimes with a blow? do you sometimes, in your own peevishness, and your own meanness, wish yourself away from their fretful cries and noisy sports? then think that to-morrow may ripen the wicked wish; tomorrow death may lay his hand upon a little fluttering heart and it will be stilled forever. 'tis then you will miss the sunbeam and the sweet little flower that reflected heaven on the soul. then cherish the little ones! be tender with the babes! make your homes beautiful! all that remains to us of paradise lost, clings about the home. its purity, its innocence, its virtue, are there, untainted by sin, unclouded by guile. there woman shines, scarcely dimmed by the fall, reflecting the loveliness of eden's first wife and mother; the grace, the beauty, the sweetness of the wifely relation, the tenderness of maternal affection, the graciousness of manner which once charmed angel guests, still glorify the home. if you would make your homes happy, you must make the children happy. get down on the floor with your prattling boys and girls and play horse with them; take them on your back and gallop them to town; don't kick up and buck, but be a good and gentle old steed, and join in a hearty horse laugh in their merriment. take the baby on your knee and gallop him to town; let him practice gymnastics on top of your head and take your scalp; let him puncture a hole in your ear with his little teeth, and bite off the end of the paternal nose. make your homes beautiful with your duty and your love, make them bright with your mirth and your music. victor hugo said of napoleon the great: "the frontiers of kingdoms oscillated on the map. the sound of a super-human sword being drawn from its scabbard could be heard; and he was seen, opening in the thunder his two wings, the grand army and the old guard; he was the archangel of war." and when i read it i thought of the death and terror that followed wherever the shadow of the open wings fell. i thought of the blood that flowed, and the tears that were shed wherever the sword gleamed in his hand. i thought of the human skulls that paved napoleon's way to st. helena's barren rock, and i said, 'i would rather dwell in a log cabin, in the beautiful land of the mountains where i was born and reared, and sit at its humble hearthstone at night, and in the firelight, play the humble rural tunes on the fiddle to my happy children, and bask in the smiles of my sweet wife, than to be the 'archangel of war,' with my hands stained with human blood, or to make the 'frontiers of kingdoms oscillate on the map of the world, and then, away from home and kindred and country, die at last in exile and in solitude.' fat men and bald-headed men. it ought to be the universal law that none but fat men and bald-headed men should be the heads of families, because they are always good natured, contented and easily managed. there is more music in a fat man's laugh than there is in a thousand orchestras or brass bands. fat sides and bald heads are the symbols of music, innocence, and meek submission. o! ladies listen to the words of wisdom! cultivate the society of fat men and bald-headed men, for "of such is the kingdom of heaven." and the fat women, god bless their old sober sides--they are "things of beauty, and a joy forever." the violin, the poet laureate of music. how sweet are the lips of morning that kiss the waking world! how sweet is the bosom of night that pillows the world to rest. but sweeter than the lips of morning, and sweeter than the bosom of night, is the voice of music that wakes a world of joys and soothes a world of sorrows. it is like some unseen ethereal ocean whose silver surf forever breaks in song; forever breaks on valley, hill, and craig, in ten thousand symphonies. there is a melody in every sunbeam, a sunbeam in every melody; there is a flower in every song, a love song in every flower; there is a sonnet in every gurgling fountain, a hymn in every brimming river, an anthem in every rolling billow. music and light are twin angels of god, the first-born of heaven, and mortal ear and mortal eye have caught only the echo and the shadow of their celestial glories. the violin is the poet laureate of music; violin of the virtuoso and master, _fiddle_ of the untutored in the ideal art. it is the aristocrat of the palace and the hall; it is the _democrat_ of the unpretentious home and humble cabin. as violin, it weaves its garlands of roses and camelias; as fiddle it scatters its modest violets. it is admired by the cultured for its magnificent powers and wonderful creations; it is loved by the millions for its simple melodies. the convict and his fiddle. one bright morning, just before christmas day, an official stood in the executive chamber in my presence as governor of tennessee, and said: "governor, i have been implored by a poor miserable wretch in the penitentiary to bring you this rude fiddle. it was made by his own hands with a penknife during the hours allotted to him for rest. it is absolutely valueless, it is true, but it is his petition to you for mercy. he begged me to say that he has neither attorneys nor influential friends to plead for him; that he is poor, and all he asks is, that when the governor shall sit at his own happy fireside on christmas eve, with his own happy children around him, he will play one tune on this rough fiddle and think of a cabin far away in the mountains whose hearthstone is cold and desolate and surrounded by a family of poor little wretched, ragged children, crying for bread and waiting and listening for the footsteps of their father." who would not have been touched by such an appeal? the record was examined; christmas eve came; the governor sat that night at his own happy fireside, surrounded by his own happy children; and he played one tune to them on that rough fiddle. the hearthstone of the cabin in the mountains was bright and warm; a pardoned prisoner sat with his baby on his knee, surrounded by _his_ rejoicing children, and in the presence of _his_ happy wife, and although there was naught but poverty around him, his heart sang: "be it ever so humble, there's no place like home;" and then he reached up and snatched his fiddle down from the wall, and played "jordan is a hard road to travel." a vision of the old field school. did you never hear a fiddler fiddle? i have. i heard a fiddler fiddle, and the hey-dey-diddle of his frolicking fiddle called back the happy days of my boyhood. the old field schoolhouse with its batten doors creaking on wooden hinges, its windows innocent of glass, and its great, yawning fireplace, cracking and roaring and flaming like the infernal regions, rose from the dust of memory and stood once more among the trees. the limpid spring bubbled and laughed at the foot of the hill. flocks of nimble, noisy boys turned somersaults and skinned the cat and ran and jumped half hammon on the old play ground. the grim old teacher stood in the door; he had no brazen-mouthed bell to ring then as we have now, but he shouted at the top of his voice: "come to books!!!" and they came. not to come meant "war and rumors of war." the backless benches, high above the floor, groaned under the weight of irrepressible young america; the multitude of mischievous, shining faces, the bare legs and feet, swinging to and fro, and the mingled hum of happy voices, spelling aloud life's first lessons, prophesied the future glory of the state. the curriculum of the old field school was the same everywhere--one webster's blue backed, elementary spelling book, one thumb-paper, one stone-bruise, one sore toe, and peter parley's travels. the grim old teacher, enthroned on his split bottomed chair, looked terrible as an army with banners; and he presided with a dignity and solemnity which would have excited the envy of the united states supreme court: i saw the school commissioners visit him, and heard them question him as to his system of teaching. they asked him whether, in geography, he taught that the world was round, or that the world was flat. with great dignity he replied: "that depends upon whar i'm teachin'. if my patrons desire me to teach the round system, i teach it; if they desire me to teach the flat system, i teach that." at the old field school i saw the freshman class, barefooted and with pantaloons rolled up to the knees, stand in line under the ever uplifted rod, and i heard them sing the never-to-be-forgotten b-a ba's. they sang them in the _olden_ times, and this is the way they sang: "b-a ba, b-e be, b-i bi-ba be bi, b-o bo, b-u bu-ba be bi bo bu." i saw a sophomore dance a jig to the music of a dogwood sprout for throwing paper wads. i saw a junior compelled to stand on the dunce block, on one foot--(_a la_ gander) for winking at his sweetheart in time of books, for failing to know his lessons, and for "various and sundry other high crimes and misdemeanors." a twist of the fiddler's bow brought a yell from the fiddle, and in my dream, i saw the school come pouring out into the open air. then followed the games of "prisoner's base," "town-ball," "antney-over;" "bull-pen" and "knucks," the hand to hand engagements with yellow jackets, the bunker hill and brandywine battles with bumblebees, the charges on flocks of geese, the storming of apple orchards and hornet's nests, and victories over hostile "setting" hens. then i witnessed the old field school "exhibition"--the _wonderful_ "exhibition"--they call it commencement now. did you never witness an old field school "exhibition," far out in the country, and listen to its music? if you have not your life is a failure--you are a broken string in the harp of the universe. the old field school "exhibition" was the parade ground of the advance guard of civilization; it was the climax of great events in the olden times; and vast assemblies were swayed by the eloquence of the budding sockless statesmen. it was at the old field school "exhibition" that the goddess of liberty always received a broken nose, and the poetic muse a black eye; it was at the old field school "exhibition" that _greece_ and _rome_ rose and fell, in seas of gore, about every fifteen minutes in the day, and, the american eagle, with unwearied flight, soared upward and upward, till he soared out of sight. it was at the old field school "exhibition" that the fiddle and the bow immortalized themselves. when the frowning old teacher advanced on the stage and nodded for silence, instantly there _was_ silence in the vast assembly; and when the corps of country fiddlers, "one of which i was often whom," seated on the stage, hoisted the black flag, and rushed into the dreadful charge on "old dan tucker," or "arkansas traveller," the spectacle was sublime. their heads swung time; their bodies rocked time; their feet patted time; the muscles of their faces twitched time; their eyes winked time; their teeth ground time. the whizzing bows and screaming fiddles electrified the audience who cheered at every brilliant turn in the charge of the fiddlers. the good women laughed for joy; the men winked at each other and popped their fists; it was like the charge of the old guard at waterloo, or a battle with a den of snakes. upon the completion of the grand overture of the fiddlers the brilliant programme of the "exhibition," which usually lasted all day, opened with "mary had a little lamb;" and it gathered fury until it reached patrick henry's "give me liberty or give me death!!!" the programme was interspersed with compositions by the girls, from the simple subject of "flowers," including "blessings brighten as they take their flight," up to "every cloud has a silver lining;" and it was interlarded with frequent tunes by the fiddlers from early morn till close of day. [illustration: music of the old field school exhibition.] did you never hear the juvenile orator of the old field school speak? he was not dressed like a united states senator; but he was dressed with a view to disrobing for bed, and completing his morning toilet instantly; both of which he performed during the acts of ascending and descending the stairs. his uniform was very simple. it consisted of one pair of breeches rolled up to the knees, with one patch on the "western hemisphere," one little shirt with one button at the top, one "gallus," and one invalid straw hat. his straw hat stood guard over his place on the bench, while he was delivering his great speech at the "exhibition." with great dignity and eclat, the old teacher advanced on the stage and introduced him to the expectant audience, and he came forward like a cyclone. [illustration: the old field school orator.] "the boy stood on the burnin' deck whence all but him had fled----the flames that lit the battle's wreck shown 'round him o'er the dead, yet beautiful and bright he stood----the boy stood on the burnin' deck----and he wuz the bravest boy that ever wuz. his father told him to keep a-stan'in' there till he told him to git off'n there, and the boy he jist kep' a stan'in' there----and fast the flames rolled on----the old man went down stairs in the ship to see about sump'n, an' he got killed down there, an' the boy he didn't know it, an' he jist kept a stan'in' there----an' fast the flames rolled on. he cried aloud: "say father, say, if _yit_ my task is done," but his father wuz dead an' couldn't hear 'im, an' the boy he jist kep' a stan'in' there----an' fast the flames rolled on.----they caught like flag banners in the sky, an' at last the ol' biler busted, an' the boy he went up!!!!!!!!" at the close of this great speech the fiddle fainted as dead as a herring. the quilting and the old virginia reel. the old fiddler took a fresh chew of long, green tobacco, and rosined his bow. he glided off into "hop light ladies, your cake's all dough," and then i heard the watch dog's honest bark. i heard the guinea's merry "pot-rack." i heard a cock crow. i heard the din of happy voices in the "big house" and the sizz and songs of boiling kettles in the kitchen. it was an old time quilting--the may-day of the glorious ginger cake and cider era of the american republic; and the needle was mightier than the sword. the pen of jefferson announced to the world, the birth of the child of the ages; the sword of washington defended it in its cradle, but it would have perished there had it not been for the brave women of that day who plied the needle and made the quilts that warmed it, and who nursed it and rocked it through the perils of its infancy, into the strength of a giant. the quilt was attached to a quadrangular frame suspended from the ceiling; and the good women sat around it and quilted the live-long day, and were courted by the swains between stitches. at sunset the quilt was always finished; a cat was thrown into the center of it, and the happy maiden nearest to whom the escaping "kitty-puss" passed was sure to be the first to marry. then followed the groaning supper table, surrounded by giggling girls, bashful young men and gossipy old matrons who monopolized the conversation. there was a warm and animated discussion among the old ladies as to what was the most delightful product of the garden. one old lady said, that so "fur" as she was "consarned," she preferred the "per-turnip"--another preferred the "pertater"--another the "cow-cumber," and still another voted "ingern" king. but suddenly a wise looking old dame raised her spectacles and settled the whole question by observing: "ah, ladies, you may talk about yer per-turnips, and your pertaters, and your passnips and other gyardin sass, but the sweetest wedgetable that ever melted on these ol' gums o' mine is the 'possum." at length the feast was ended, the old folks departed and the fun and frolic began in earnest at the quilting. old uncle "ephraham" was an old darkey in the neighborhood, distinguished for calling the figures for all the dances, for miles and miles around. he was a tall, raw-boned, angular old darkey with a very bald head, and a great deal of white in his eyes. he had thick, heavy lips and a very flat nose. i will tell you a little story of uncle "ephraham." he lived alone in his cabin, as many of the old time darkeys lived, and his 'possum dog lived with him. one evening old uncle "ephraham" came home from his labors and took his 'possum dog into the woods and soon caught a fine, large, fat 'possum. he brought him home and dressed him; and then he slipped into his master's garden and stole some fine, large, fat sweet potatoes--("master's nigger, master's taters,") and he washed the potatoes and split them and piled them in the oven around the 'possum. he set the oven on the red hot coals and put the lid on, and covered it with red hot coals, and then sat down in the corner and nodded and breathed the sweet aroma of the baking 'possum, till it was done. then he set it out into the middle of the floor, and took the lid off, and sat down by the smoking 'possum and soliloquized: "dat's de fines' job ob bakin' 'possum i evah has done in my life, but dat 'possum's too hot to eat yit. i believes i'll jis lay down heah by 'im an' take a nap while he's coolin', an' maybe i'll dream about eat'n 'im, an' den i'll git up an' eat 'im, an' i'll git de good uv dat 'possum boaf times dat-a-way." so he lay down on the floor, and in a moment he was sleeping as none but the old time darkey could sleep, as sweetly as a babe in its mother's arms. old cye was another old darkey in the neighborhood, prowling around. he poked his head in at "ephraham's" door ajar, and took in the whole situation at a glance. cye merely remarked to himself: "i loves 'possum myself." and he slipped in on his tip-toes and picked up the 'possum and ate him from tip to tail, and piled the bones down by sleeping "ephraham;" he ate the sweet potatoes and piled the hulls down by the bones; then he reached into the oven and got his hand full of 'possum grease and rubbed it on "ephraham's" lips and cheeks and chin, and then folded his tent and silently stole away. at length "ephraham" awoke--"sho' nuf, sho' nuf--jist as i expected; i dreampt about eat'n dat 'possum an' it wuz de sweetest dream i evah has had yit." he looked around, but empty was the oven--"'possum gone." "sho'ly to de lo'd," said "ephraham," "i nuvvah eat dat 'possum while i wuz a dreamin' about eat'n 'im." he poked his tongue out--"yes, dat's 'possum grease sho,--i s'pose i eat dat 'possum while i wuz a dreamin' about eat'n 'im, but ef i did eat 'im, he sets lighter on my constitution an' has less influence wid me dan any 'possum i evah has eat in my bo'n days." old uncle "ephraham" was present at the country dance in all his glory. he was attired in his master's old claw-hammer coat, a very buff vest, a high standing collar the corners of which stood out six inches from his face, striped pantaloons that fitted as tightly as a kid glove, and he wore number fourteen shoes. he looked as though he were born to call the figures of the dance. the fiddler was a young man with long legs, a curving back, and a neck of the crane fashion, embellished with an adam's apple which made him look as though he had made an unsuccessful effort to swallow his own head. but he was a very important personage at the dance. with great dignity he unwound his bandana handkerchief from his old fiddle and proceeded to tune for the fray. did you never hear a country fiddler tune his fiddle? he tuned, and he tuned, and he tuned. he tuned for fifteen minutes, and it was like a melodious frog pond during a shower of rain. at length uncle "ephraham" shouted: "git yo' pardners for a cow-tillion." the fiddler struck an attitude, and after countless yelps from his eager strings, he glided off into that sweet old southern air of "old uncle ned," as though he were mauling rails or feeding a threshing machine. uncle "ephraham" sang the chorus with the fiddle before he began to call the figures of the dance: "lay down de shovel an' de hoe--hoe--hoe, hang up de fiddle an' de bow, for dar's no mo' work for poor ol' ned--he's gone whar de good niggahs go." then, drawing himself up to his full height, he began! "honah yo' pardnahs! swing dem co'nahs--swing yo' pardnahs! fust couple for'd an' back! half right an' leff fru! back agin! swing dem co'nahs--swing yo' pardnahs! nex' couple for'd an' back! half right and leff fru! back agin! swing dem co'nahs--swing yo' pardnahs! fust couple to de right--lady in de centah--han's all around--suhwing!!!--nex' couple suhwing!!! nex' couple suhwing!!! suh-wing, suh-wing, suh-wing!!!!!!" [illustration: uncle "ephraham" calling the figures of the dance.] about this time an angry lad who had been jilted by his sweetheart, shied a fresh egg from without; it struck "ephraham" square between the eyes and broke and landed on his upper lip. uncle "ephraham" yelled: "stop de music--stop de dance--let de whole circumstances of dis occasion come to a stan' still till i finds out who it is a scram'lin eggs aroun' heah." and then the dancing subsided for the candy-pulling. the candy pulling the sugar was boiling in the kettles, and while it boiled the boys and girls played "snap," and "eleven hand," and "thimble," and "blindfold," and another old play which some of our older people will remember: "oh! sister phoebe, how merry were we, when we sat under the juniper tree-- the juniper tree-i-o." and when the sugar had boiled down into candy they emptied it into greased saucers, or as the mountain folks called them, "greased sassers," and set it out to cool; and when it had cooled each boy and girl took a saucer; and they pulled the taffy out and patted it and rolled it till it hung well together; and then they pulled it out a foot long; they pulled it out a yard long; and they doubled it back, and pulled it out; and when it began to look like gold the sweethearts paired off and consolidated their taffy and pulled against each other. they pulled it out and doubled it back, and looped it over, and pulled it out; and sometimes a peachblow cheek touched a bronzed one; and sometimes a sweet little voice spluttered out; "you jack;" and there was a suspicious smack like a cow pulling her foot out of stiff mud. they pulled the candy and laughed and frolicked; the girls got taffy on their hair--the boys got taffy on their chins; the girls got taffy on their waists--the boys got taffy on their coat sleeves. they pulled it till it was as bright as a moonbeam, and then they platted it and coiled it into fantastic shapes and set it out in the crisp air to cool. then the courting in earnest began. they did not court then as the young folks court now. the young man led his sweetheart back into a dark corner and sat down by her, and held her hand for an hour, and never said a word. but it resulted next year in more cabins on the hillsides and in the hollows; and in the years that followed the cabins were full of candy-haired children who grew up into a race of the best, the bravest, and the noblest people the sun in heaven ever shone upon. in the bright, bright hereafter, when all the joys of all the ages are gathered up and condensed into globules of transcendent ecstacy, i doubt whether there will be anything half so sweet as were the candy-smeared, ruby lips of the country maidens to the jeans-jacketed swains who tasted them at the candy-pulling in the happy long ago. (sung by gov. taylor to air of "down on the farm.") in the happy long ago, when i used to draw the bow, at the old log cabin hearthstone all aglow, oh! the fiddle laughed and sung, and the puncheons fairly rung, with the clatter of the shoe soles long ago. oh! the merry swings and whirls of the happy boys and girls, in the good old time cotillion long ago! oh! they danced the highland fling, and they cut the pigeon wing, to the music of the fiddle and the bow. but the mischief and the mirth, and the frolics 'round the hearth, and the flitting of the shadows to and fro, like a dream have passed away-- now i'm growing old and gray, and i'll soon hang up the fiddle and the bow. when a few more notes i've made, when a few more tunes i've played, i'll be sleeping where the snowy daises grow. but my griefs will all be o'er when i reach the happy shore, where i'll greet the friends who loved me long ago. oh! how sweet, how precious to us all are the memories of the happy long ago! [illustration: the old virginia reel.] the banquet. let us leave the "egg flip" of the country dance, and take a bowl of egg-nog at the banquet. it was a modern banquet for men only. music flowed; wine sparkled; the night was far spent--it was in the wee sma' hours. the banquet was given by col. punk who was the promoter of a town boom, and who had persuaded the banqueters that "there were millions in it." he had purchased some old sedge fields on the outskirts of creation, from an old squatter on the domain of dixie, at three dollars an acre; and had stocked them at three hundred dollars an acre. the old squatter was a partner with the colonel, and with his part of the boodle nicely done up in his wallet, was present with bouyant hopes and feelings high. countless yarns were spun; numberless jokes passed 'round the table until, in the ecstacy of their joy, the banqueters rose from the table and clinked their glasses together, and sang to chorus: "landlord, fill the flowing bowl until it doth run over; landlord fill the flowing bowl until it doth run over; for to-night we'll merry merry be, for to-night we'll merry merry be, for to-night we'll merry merry be; and to-morrow we'll get sober." the whole banquet was drunk (as banquets usually are), and the principal stockholders finally succumbed to the music of "old kentucky bourbon," and sank to sleep under the table. the last toast on the programme was announced. it was a wonderful toast--"our mineral resources:" the old squatter rose in his glory, about three o'clock in the morning, to respond to this toast, and thus he responded: "mizzer churman and gent-tul-men of the banquet: i have never made mineralogy a study, nor zoology, nor any other kind of 'ology,' but if there haint m-i-n-e-r-l in the deestrick which you gent-tul-men have jist purchased from me at sitch magnifercent figers, then the imagernation of man is a deception an' a snare. but gent-tul-men, you caint expect to find m-i-n-e-r-l without plenty uv diggin'. i have been diggin' thar for the past forty year fur it, an' haint never struck it yit, i hope you gen-tul-men will strike it some time endurin' the next forty year." here, with winks and blinks and clinched teeth, the old colonel pulled his coat tail; he was spoiling the town boom. but he would not down. he continued in the same eloquent strain: "gent-tul-men, you caint expect to find m-i-n-e-r-l without plenty uv diggin.' you caint expect to find nothin' in this world without plenty uv diggin'. there is no excellence without labor gent-tul-men. if old vanderbilt hadn't a-been persevering in his pertickler kind uv dig-gin', whar would he be to-day? he wouldn't now be a rich man, a-ridin' the billers of old ocean in his magnifercent 'yatchet.' if i hadn't a-been perseverin', an' hadn't a-kep on a-dig-gin' an' a-diggin, whar would i have been to-day? i mout have been seated like you gent-tul-men, at this stupenduous banquet, with my pockets full of watered stock, and some other old american citizen mout have been deliverin' this eulogy on our m-i-n-e-r-l resources. gent-tul-men, my injunction to you is never to stop diggin'. and while you're a-diggin', cultivate a love for the beautiful, the true and the good. speakin' of the beautiful, the true, and the good, gent-tul-men, let us not forgit woman at this magnifercent banquet--oh! woman, woman, woman! when the mornin' stars sung together for joy--an' woman--god bless 'er----great god, feller citerzens, caint you understand!!!!" [illustration: the banquet.] at the close of this great speech the curtain fell to slow music, and there was a panic in land stocks. there is music all around us. there is music all around us, there is music everywhere. there is no music so sweet to the american ear as the music of politics. there is nothing that kindles the zeal of a modern patriot to a whiter heat than the prospect of an office; there is nothing that cools it off so quickly as the fading out of that prospect. i stood on the stump in tennessee as a candidate for governor, and thus i cut my eagle loose: "fellow citizens, we live in the grandest country in the world. it stretches from maine's dark pines and crags of snow to where magnolia breezes blow; it stretches from the atlantic ocean on the east, to the pacific ocean on the west"--and an old fellow jumped up in my crowd and threw his hat in the air and shouted: "let 'er stretch, durn 'er--hurrah for the dimocrat party." an old dutchman had a beautiful boy of whom he was very proud; and he decided to find out the bent of his mind. he adopted a very novel method by which to test him. he slipped into the little fellow's room one morning and placed on his table a bible, a bottle of whiskey, and a silver dollar. "now," said he, "ven dot boy comes in, ef he dakes dot dollar, he's goin' to be a beeznis man; ef he dakes dot bible he'll be a breacher; ef he dakes dot vwiskey, he's no goot--he's goin' to be a druenkart." and he hid behind the door to see which his son would choose. in came the boy whistling. he ran up to the table and picked up the dollar and put it in his pocket; he picked up the bible and put it under his arm; then he snatched up the bottle of whiskey and took two or three drinks, and went out smacking his lips. the old dutchman poked his head out from behind the door and exclaimed: "mine got--he's goin' to be a bolitician." there is no music like the music of political discussion. i have heard almost a thousand political discussions. i heard the great debate between blaine and ben hill; i heard the angry coloquies between roscoe conkling and lamar; i have heard them on down to the humblest in the land. but i prefer to give you a scrap of one which occurred in my own native mountains. it was a race for the legislature in a mountain county, between a straight democrat and a straight republican. the mountaineers had gathered at the county site to witness the great debate. the republican spoke first. he was about six feet two in his socks, as slim as a bean pole, with a head about the size of an ordinary tin cup and very bald, and he lisped. webster in all his glory in the united states senate never appeared half so great or half so wise. thus he opened the debate: "f-e-l-l-o-w t-h-i-t-i-t-h-e-n-s: i come befo' you to-day ath a republikin candidate, fer to reprethent you in the lower branch uv the legithlachah. and, fellow thitithens, ef i thould thay thumpthin conthernin' my own carreckter, i hope you will excuthe me. i sprung frum one of the humbletht cabins in all thith lovely land uv thweet liberty; and many a mornin' i have jumped out uv my little trundle bed onto the puncheon floor, and pulled the splinterth and the bark off uv the wall of our 'umble cabin, for to make a fire for my weakley parenth. fellow thitithenth, i never had no chanthe. all that i am to-day i owe to my own egtherthionth!! and that aint all. when the cloud of war thwept like a bethom of destructhion over this land uv thweet liberty, me and my connecthion thouldered our musketh and marched forth on the bloody battlefield to fight for your thweet liberty! fellow thitithenth, if you can trust me in the capathity uv a tholjer, caint you trust me in the capathity uv the legithlature? i ask my old dimocrat competitor for to tell you whar he wath when war shook thith continent from its thenter to its circumputh! i have put thith quethtion to him on every stump, and he's ath thilent ath an oysthter. fellow citithenth, i am a republikin from printhiple. i believe in every thing the republikin party has ever done, and every thing the republikin party ever expecthts to do. fellow thitithenth, i am in favor of a high protective tarriff for the protecthion of our infant induthtreth which are only a hundred yearth old; and fellow thitithenth, i am in favor of paying of a penthun to every tholjer that fit in the federal army, while he lives, and after hethe dead, i'm in favor of paying uv it to hith exthecutor or hith adminithtrator." he took his seat amid great applause on the republican side of the house, and the old democrat who was a much older man, came forward like a roaring lion, to join issue in the great debate, and thus he "joined:" "feller citerzuns, i come afore you as a dimocrat canderdate, fur to ripresent you in the lower branch of the house of the ligislator. and fust and fomust, hit becomes my duty fer to tell you whar i stand on the great queshtuns which is now a-agitatin' of the public mind! fust an' fomust, feller citerzuns, i am a dimocrat inside an' out, up one side an' down tother, independent defatigly. my competitor axes me whar i wuz endurin' the war--hit's none uv his bizness whar i wuz. he says he wuz a-fightin' fer yore sweet liberty. ef he didn't have no more sense than to stand before them-thar drotted bung-shells an' cannon, that's his bizness, an' hit's my bizness whar i wuz. i think i have answered him on that pint. "now, feller citerzuns, i'll tell you what i'm fur. i am in favor uv payin' off this-here drotted tariff an' stoppin' of it; an' i'm in favor of collectin' jist enuf of rivenue fur to run the government ekernomical administered, accordin' to andy jackson an' the dimocrat flatform. my competitor never told you that he got wounded endurin' the war. whar did he git hit at? that's the pint in this canvass. he got it in the back, a-leadin' of the revance guard on the retreat--that's whar he got it." this charge precipitated a personal encounter between the candidates, and the meeting broke up in a general battle, with brickbats and tan bark flying in the air. it would be difficult, for those reared amid the elegancies and refinements of life in city and town, to appreciate the enjoyments of the gatherings and merry-makings of the great masses of the people who live in the rural districts of our country. the historian records the deeds of the great; he consigns to fame the favored few; but leaves unwritten the short and simple annals of the poor--the lives and actions of the millions. the modern millionaire, as he sweeps through our valleys and around our hills in his palace car, ought not to look with derision on the cabins of america, for from their thresholds have come more brains and courage and true greatness than ever eminated from all the palaces of this world. the fiddle, the rifle, the axe, and the bible, symbolizing music, prowess, labor, and free religion, the four grand forces of our civilization, were the trusty friends and faithful allies of our pioneer ancestry in subduing the wilderness and erecting the great commonwealths of the republic. wherever a son of freedom pushed his perilous way into the savage wilds and erected his log cabin, these were the cherished penates of his humble domicile--the rifle in the rack above the door, the axe in the corner, the bible on the table, and the fiddle with its streamers of ribbon, hanging on the wall. did he need the charm of music, to cheer his heart, to scatter sunshine, and drive away melancholy thoughts, he touched the responsive strings of his fiddle and it burst into laughter. was he beset by skulking savages, or prowling beasts of prey, he rushed to his deadly rifle for protection and relief. had he the forest to fell, and the fields to clear, his trusty axe was in his stalwart grasp. did he need the consolation, the promises and precepts of religion to strengthen his faith, to brighten his hope, and to anchor his soul to god and heaven, he held sweet communion with the dear old bible. the glory and strength of the republic today are its plain working people. "princes and lords may flourish and may fade, a breath can make them, as a breath has made; but an honest yeomanry--a country's pride, when once destroyed, can never be supplied;" long live the common people of america! long live the fiddle and the bow, the symbols of their mirth and merriment! the two columns. music wooes, and leads the human race ever onward, and there are two columns that follow her. one is the happy column, ringing with laughter and song. its line of march is strewn with roses; it is hedged on either side by happy homes and smiling faces. the other is the column of sorrow, moaning with suffering and distress. i saw an aged mother with her white locks and wrinkled face, swoon at the governor's feet; i saw old men tottering on the staff, with broken hearts and tear stained faces, and heard them plead for their wayward boys. i saw a wife and seven children, clad in rags, and bare-footed, in mid-winter, fall upon their knees around him who held the pardoning power. i saw a little girl climb upon the governor's knee, and put her arms around his neck; i heard her ask him if he had little girls; then i saw her sob upon his bosom as though her little heart would break, and heard her plead for mercy for her poor, miserable, wretched, convict father. i saw want, and woe, and poverty, and trouble, and distress, and suffering, and agony, and anguish, march in solemn procession before the gubernatorial door; and i said: "let the critics frown and rail, let this heartless world condemn, but he who hath power and doth not temper justice with mercy, will cry in vain himself for mercy on that great day when the two columns shall meet! for, thank god, the stream of happy humanity that rolls on like a gleaming river, and the stream of the suffering and distressed and ruined of this earth, both empty into the same great ocean of eternity and mingle like the waters, and there is a god who shall judge the merciful and the unmerciful!" there is a melody for every ear. [illustration: the mid-night serenade.] the multitudinous harmonies of this world differ in pathos and pitch as the stars differ, one from another, in glory. there is a style for every taste, a melody for every ear. the gabble of geese is music to the goose; the hoot of the hoot-owl is lovlier to his mate than the nightingale's lay; the concert of signor "tomasso cataleny" and mademoiselle "pussy" awakeneth the growling old bachelor from his dreams, and he throweth his boquets of bootjacks and superannuated foot gear. the peripatetic gentleman from italy asks no loftier strain than the tune of his hand organ and the jingle of the nickels, "the tribute of the cæsars." the downy-lipped boy counts the explosion of a kiss on the cheek of his darling "dul-ci-ni-a del to-bo-so" sweeter than an echo from paradise; and it is said that older folks like its music. the tintinnabulations of the wife's curtain lecture are too precious to the enraptured husband to be shared with other ears. and in the hush of the bed-time hour, when tired daddies are seeking repose in the oblivion of sleep, the unearthly bangs on the grand piano below in the parlor, and the unearthly screams and yells of the budding prima donna, as she sings to her admiring beau: [illustration: (sheet music)] "men may come and men may go, but i go on 'for-ev-oor' 'ev-oor' i go on 'for-ev-o-o-r' 'e-v-o-o-r' i go on 'for-ev-oor.'" it is a thing of beauty, and a "nightmare" forever. music is the wine of the soul. music is the wine of the soul. it is the exhileration of the palace; it is the joy of the humblest home; it sparkles and glows in the banquet hall; it is the inspiration of the church. music inspires every gradation of humanity, from the orangoutang and the cane-sucking dude with the single eye glass, _up to man_. there was "a sound of revelry by night," where youth and beauty were gathered in the excitement of the raging ball. the ravishing music of the orchestra charmed from the street a red nosed old knight of the demijohn, and uninvited he staggered into the brilliant assemblage and made an effort to get a partner for the next set. failing in this, he concluded to exhibit his powers as a dancer; and galloped around the hall till he galloped into the arms of a strong man who quickly ushered him to the head of the stairs, and gave him a kick and a push; he went revolving down to the street below and fell flat on his back in the mud; but "truth crushed to earth will rise again!" he rose, and standing with his back against a lamp post, he looked up into the faces that were gazing down, and said in an injured tone: "gentlemen, (hic) you may be able to fool some people, but, (hic) you can't fool me, (hic) i know what made you kick me down them stairs, (hic, hic). you don't want me up there--that's the reason!" so, life hath its discords as well as its harmonies. there was music in the magnificent parlor of a modern chesterfield. it was thronged with elegant ladies and gentlemen. the daughter of the happy household was playing and singing verdi's "ah! i have sighed to rest me;" the fond mother was turning the pages; the fond father was sighing and resting up stairs, in a state of innocuous desuetude, produced by the "music" of old kentucky bourbon; but he could not withstand the power of the melody below. quickly he donned his clothing; he put his vest on over his coat; put his collar on hind side foremost; buttoned the lower buttonhole of his coat on the top button, stood before the mirror and arranged his hair, and started down to see the ladies and listen to the music. but he stumped his toe at the top of the stairs, and slid down head-foremost, and turned a somersault into the midst of the astonished ladies. the ladies screamed and helped him to his feet, all crying at once: "are you hurt mr. 'rickety'--are you hurt?" standing with his back against the piano he exclaimed in an assuring tone: "why, (hic) of course not ladies, go on with your music, (hic) that's the way i always come down----!" [illustration: mr. "rickety."] two old banqueters banqueted at a banquet. they banqueted all night long, and kept the banquet up together all the next day after the banquet had ended. they kept up their banqueting a week after the banquet was over. but they got separated one morning and met again in the afternoon. one of them said: "good mornin':" the other said: "good evenin'!" "why;" said one, "it's mornin' an' that's the sun; i've investigated the queshtun." "no-sir-ee," said the other, "you're mistaken, it's late in the evenin' an' that's the full moon." they concluded they would have no difficulty about the matter, and agreed to leave it to the first gentleman they came to to settle the question. they locked arms and started down the street together; they staggered on till they came upon another gentleman in the same condition, hanging on a lamp post. one of them approached him and said: "friend (hic) we don't desire to interfere with your meditation, (hic) but this gen'lman says it's mornin' an' that's the sun; i say it's evenin' an' that's the full moon, (hic) we respectfully ask you (hic) to settle the question." the fellow stood and looked at it for a full minute, and in his despair replied: "gen'lmen, (hic) you'll have to excuse me, (hic) i'm a stranger in this town!" [illustration: after the banquet.] the old time singing school. did you never hear the music of the old time singing school? oh! who can forget the old school house that stood on the hill? who can forget the sweet little maidens with their pink sun bonnets and checkered dresses, the walks to the spring, and the drinks of pure, cold water from the gourd? who can forget the old time courtships at the singing school? when the boy found an opportunity he wrote these tender lines to his sweetheart: "the rose is red; the violet's blue-- sugar is sweet, and so are you." she read it and blushed, and turned it over and wrote on the back of it: "as sure as the vine clings 'round the stump, i'll be your sweet little sugar lump." who can forget the old time singing master? the old time singing master with very light hair, a dyed mustache, a wart on his left eyelid, and with one game leg, was the pride of our rural society; he was the envy of man and the idol of woman. his baggy trousers, several inches too short, hung above his toes like the inverted funnels of a cunard steamer. his butternut coat had the abbreviated appearance of having been cut in deep water, and its collar encircled the back of his head like the belts of jupiter and the rings of saturn. his vest resembled the aurora borealis, and his voice was a cross between a cane mill and the bray of an ass. yet beautiful and bright he stood before the ruddy-faced swains and rose-cheeked lassies of the country, conscious of his charms, and proud of his great ability. he had prepared, after a long and tedious research of webster's unabridged dictionary, a speech which he always delivered to his class. [illustration: the singing master delivering his great speech.] "boys and girls," he would say, "music is a conglomeration of pleasing sounds, or a succession or combernation of simultaneous sounds modulated in accordance with harmony. harmony is the sociability of two or more musical strains. melody denotes the pleasing combustion of musical and measured sounds, as they succeed each other in transit. the elements of vocal music consist of seven original tones which constitute the diatonic scale, together with its steps and half steps, the whole being compromised in ascending notes and half notes, thus: do re mi fa sol la si do-- do si la sol fa mi re do. now, the diapason is the ad interium, or interval betwixt and between the extremes of an octave, according to the diatonic scale. the turns of music consist of the appoggiatura which is the principal note, or that on which the turn is made, together with the note above and the semi-tone below, the note above being sounded first, the principal note next and the semi-tone below, last, the three being performed sticatoly, or very quickly. now, if you will keep these simple propersitions clear in your physical mind, there is no power under the broad canister of heaven which can prevent you from becoming succinctly contaminated with the primary and elementary rudiments of music. with these few sanguinary remarks we will now proceed to diagnosticate the exercises of the mornin' hour. please turn to page thirty-four of the southern harmony." and we turned. "you will discover that this beautiful piece of music is written in four-four time, beginning on the downward beat. now, take the sound--sol mi do--all in unison--one, two, three, _sing_: [illustration: (sheet music)] sol sol, mi fa sol, la sol fa, re re re, re mi fa re mi fa, sol fa mi, do do do-- si do re, re re re, mi do si do, re do si la sol, si do re, re mi fa sol la, sol fa mi, do do do." [illustration: beating time.] the grand opera. [illustration: the grand opera singer.] i heard a great italian tenor sing in the grand opera, and oh! how like the dew on the flowers is the memory of his song! he was playing the role of a broken-hearted lover in the opera of the "bohemian girl." i can only repeat it as it impressed me--an humble young man from the mountains who never before had heard the _grand opera_: [illustration: (sheet music)] "when ethaer-r-r leeps and ethaer-r-r hairts, their-r-r tales auf luff sholl tell, in longwidge whose ex-cess impair-r-r-ts. the power-r-r-r they feel so well, there-r-r-e may per-haps in-a such a s-c-e-n-e some r-r-re-co-lec-tion be, auf days thot haive as hop-py bean-- then you'll-a r-r-r-re-mem-b-a-e-r-r-r me-e-e, then you'll-a r-re-mem-b-a-e-r-r, you'll-a r-re-mem-ber a-me-e-e!!" music. [illustration] the spirit of music, like an archangel, presides over mankind and the visible creation. her afflatus, divinely sweet, divinely powerful, is breathed on every human heart, and inspires every soul to some nobler sentiment, some higher thought, some greater action. o music, sweetest, sublimest ideal of omniscience, first-born of god, fairest and loftiest seraph of the celestial hierarchy, muse of the beautiful, daughter of the universe! in the morning of eternity, when the stars were young, her first grand oratorio burst upon raptured deity, and thrilled the wondering angels; all heaven shouted; ten thousand times ten thousand jeweled harps, ten thousand times ten thousand angel tongues caught up the song; and ever since, through all the golden cycles, its breathing melodies, old as eternity, yet ever new as the flitting hours, have floated on the air of heaven. the seraph stood, with outstretched wings, on the horizon of heaven--clothed in light, ablaze with gems; and with voice attuned, swept her burning harp strings, and lo! the blue infinite thrilled with her sweetest note. the trembling stars heard it, and flashed their joy from every flaming center. the wheeling orbs that course their paths of light were vibrant with the strain, and pealed it back into the glad ear of god. the far off milky way, bright gulf-stream of astral glories, spanning the ethereal deep, resounded with its harmonies, and the star-dust isles floating in that river of opal, re-echoed the happy chorus from every sparkling strand. [illustration] "the paradise of fools." have you ever thought of the wealth that perished when paradise was lost? have you ever thought of the glory of eden, the first estate of man? i think it was the very dream of god, glowing with ineffable beauty. i think it was rimmed with blue mountains, from whose moss-covered cliffs leaped a thousand glassy streams that spread out in mid-air, like bridal veils, kissing a thousand rainbows from the sun. i think it was an archipelago of gorgeous colors, flecked with green isles, where the grapevine staggered from tree to tree, as if drunk with the wine of its own purple clusters, where peach, and plum, and blood-red cherries, and every kind of berry, bent bough and bush, and shone like showered drops of ruby and of pearl. i think it was a wilderness of flowers, redolent of eternal spring and pulsing with bird-song, where dappled fawns played on banks of violets, where leopards, peaceful and tame, lounged in copses of magnolias, where harmless tigers lay on snowy beds of lilies, and lions, lazy and gentle, panted in jungles of roses. i think its billowy landscapes were festooned with tangling creepers, bright with perennial bloom, and curtained with sweet-scented groves, where the orange and the pomegranate hung like golden globes and ruddy moons. i think its air was softened with the dreamy haze of perpetual summer; and through its midst there flowed a translucent river, alternately gleaming in its sunshine and darkening in its shadows. and there, in some sweet, dusky bower, fresh from the hand of his creator, slept adam, the first of the human race; god-like in form and feature; god-like in all the attributes of mind and soul. no monarch ever slept on softer, sweeter couch, with richer curtains drawn about him. and as he slept, a face and form, half hidden, half revealed, red-lipped, rose-cheeked, white bosomed and with tresses of gold, smiled like an angel from the mirror of his dream; for a moment smiled, and so sweetly, that his heart almost forgot to beat. and while yet this bright vision still haunted his slumber, with tenderest touch an unseen hand lay open the unconscious flesh in his side, and forth from the painless wound a faultless being sprang; a being pure and blithesome as the air; a sinless woman, god's first thought for the happiness of man. i think he wooed her at the waking of the morning. i think he wooed her at noon-tide, down by the riverside, or by the spring in the dell. i think he wooed her at twilight, when the moon silvered the palm tree's feathery plumes, and the stars looked down, and the nightingale sang. and wherever he wooed her, i think the grazing herds left sloping hill and peaceful vale, to listen to the wooing, and thence themselves, departed in pairs. the covies heard it and mated in the fields; the quail wooed his love in the wheat; the robin whistled to his love in the glen; "the lark was so brim-full of gladness and love, the green fields below him--the blue sky above, that he sang, and he sang, and forever sang he: i love my love, and my love loves me." love songs bubbled from the mellow throats of mocking-birds and bobolinks; dove cooed love to dove; and i think the maiden monkey, fair "juliet" of the house of orang-outang, waited on her cocoanut balcony for the coming of her "romeo," and thus plaintively sang: [illustration: juliet.] (sung to the air of my sweetheart's the man in the moon.) "my sweetheart's the lovely baboon, i'm going to marry him soon; 'twould fill me with joy just to kiss the dear boy, for his charms and his beauty no power can destroy." "i'll sit in the light of the moon, and sing to my darling baboon, when i'm safe by his side and he calls me his bride; oh! my angel, my precious baboon!" [illustration: romeo.] all paradise was imbued with the spirit of love. oh, that it could have remained so forever! there was not a painted cheek in eden, nor a bald head, nor a false tooth, nor a bachelor. there was not a flounce, nor a frill, nor a silken gown, nor a flashy waist with aurora borealis sleeves. there was not a curl paper, nor even a threat of crinoline. raiment was an after thought, the mask of a tainted soul, born of original sin. beauty was unmarred by gaudy rags; eve was dressed in sunshine, adam was clad in climate. every rich blessing within the gift of the almighty father was poured out from the cornucopia of heaven, into the lap of paradise. but it was a paradise of fools, because they stained it with disobedience and polluted it with sin. it was the paradise of fools because, in the exercise of their own god-given free agency, they tasted the forbidden fruit and fell from their glorious estate. oh, what a fall was there! it was the fall of innocence and purity; it was the fall of happiness into the abyss of woe; it was the fall of life into the arms of death. it was like the fall of the wounded albatross, from the regions of light, into the sea; it was like the fall of a star from heaven to hell. when the jasper gate forever closed behind the guilty pair, and the flaming sword of the lord mounted guard over the barred portal, the whole life-current of the human race was shifted into another channel; shifted from the roses to the thorns; shifted from joy to sorrow, and it bore upon its dark and turbulent bosom, the wrecked hopes of all the ages. i believe they lost intellectual powers which fallen man has never regained. operating by the consent of natural laws, sinless man would have wrought endless miracles. the mind, winged like a seraph, and armed like a thunderbolt, would have breached the very citadel of knowledge and robbed it of its treasures. i think they lost a plane of being only a little lower than the angels. i believe they lost youth, beauty, and physical immortality. i believe they lost the virtues of heart and soul, and many of the magnificent powers of mind, which made them the images of god, and which would have even brushed aside the now impenetrable veil which hides from mortal eyes the face of infinite love; that love which gave the ever-blessed light, and filled the earth with music of bird, and breeze, and sea; that love whose melodies we sometimes faintly catch, like spirit voices, from the souls of orators and poets; that love which inlaid the arching firmament of heaven with jewels sparkling with eternal fires. but thank god, their fall was not like the remediless fall of lucifer and his angels, into eternal darkness. thank god, in this "night of death" hope _does_ see a star! it is the star of bethlehem. thank god, "listening love" _does_ "hear the rustle of a wing!" it is the wing of the resurrection angel. the memories and images of paradise lost have been impressed on every human heart, and every individual of the race has his own ideal of that paradise, from the cradle to the grave. but that ideal in so far as its realization in this world is concerned, is like the rainbow, an elusive phantom, ever in sight, never in reach, resting ever on the horizon of hope. the paradise of childhood. i saw a blue-eyed child, with sunny curls, toddling on the lawn before the door of a happy home. he toddled under the trees, prattling to the birds and playing with the ripening apples that fell upon the ground. he toddled among the roses and plucked their leaves as he would have plucked an angel's wing, strewing their glory upon the green grass at his feet. he chased the butterflies from flower to flower, and shouted with glee as they eluded his grasp and sailed away on the summer air. here i thought his childish fancy had built a paradise and peopled it with dainty seraphim and made himself its adam. he saw the sunshine of eden glint on every leaf and beam in every petal. the flitting honey-bee, the wheeling june-bug, the fluttering breeze, the silvery pulse-beat of the dashing brook sounded in his ear notes of its swelling music. the iris-winged humming-bird, darting like a sunbeam, to kiss the pouting lips of the upturned flowers was, to him, the impersonation of its beauty. and i said: truly, this is the nearest approach in this world, to the paradise of long ago. then i saw him skulking like a cupid, in the shrubbery, his skirts bedraggled and soiled, his face downcast with guilt. he had stirred up the mediterranean sea in the slop bucket, and waded the atlantic ocean in a mud puddle. he had capsized the goslings, and shipwrecked the young ducks, and drowned the kitten which he imagined a whale, and i said: _there_ is the original adam coming to the surface. [illustration: the paradise of childhood.] "lo'd bless my soul! jist look at dat chile!" shouted his dusky old nurse, as she lifted him, dripping, from the reeking pond. "what's you bin doin' in dat mud puddle? look at dat face, an' dem hands an' close, all kivvered wid mud an' mulberry juice! you bettah not let yo' mammy see you while you's in dat fix. you's gwine to ketch it sho'. you's jist zackly like yo' fader--allers git'n into some scrape or nuddah, allers breakin' into some kind uv devilment--gwine to break into congrus some uv dese days sho'. come along wid me dis instinct to de baff tub. i's a-gwine to dispurgate dem close an' 'lucidate some uv dat dirt off'n dat face uv yone, you triflin' rascal you!" and so saying, she carried him away, kicking and screaming like a young savage in open rebellion, and i said: _there_ is some more of the original adam. then i saw him come forth again, washed and combed, and dressed in spotless white, like a young butterfly fresh from its chrysalis. and when he got a chance, i saw him slip on his tip-toes, into the pantry; i heard the clink of glassware, as if a mouse were playing there, among the jam pots and preserves. there two little dimpled hands made trip after trip to a rose-colored mouth, bearing burdens of mingling sweets that dripped from cheek, and chin, and waist, and skirt, and shoes, subduing the snowy white with the amber of the peach, and the purple of the raspberry, as he ate the forbidden fruit. then i watched him glide into the drawing room. there was a crash and a thud in there, which quickly brought his frightened mother to the scene, only to find the young rascal standing there catching his breath, while streams of cold ink trickled down his drenched bosom. and as he wiped his inky face, which grew blacker with every wipe, the remainder of the ink was pouring from the bottle down on the carpet, and making a map of darkest africa. then the rear of a small skirt went up over a curly head and the avenging slipper, in lightning strokes, kept time to the music in the air. and i said: _there_ is "_paradise lost_." the sympathizing, half angry old nurse bore her weeping, sobbing charge to the nursery and there bound up his broken heart and soothed him to sleep with her old time lullaby: [illustration: paradise lost.] "oh, don't you cry little baby, oh, don't you cry no mo', for it hurts ol' mammy's feelin's fo' to heah you weepin' so. why don't da keep temptation frum de little han's an' feet? what makes 'em 'buse de baby kaze de jam an' zarves am sweet? oh, de sorrow, tribulations, dat de joys of mortals break, oh, it's heb'n when we slumber, it's trouble when we wake. oh, go to sleep my darlin', now close dem little eyes, an' dream uv de shinin' angels, an' de blessed paradise; oh, dream uv de blood-red roses, an' de birds on snowy wing; oh, dream uv de fallin' watahs an' de never endin' spring. oh, de roses, oh, de rainbows, oh, de music's gentle swell, in de dreamland uv little childun, whar de blessed sperrits dwell." "dar now, dar now, he's gone. bless its little heart, da treats it like a dog." and then she tucked him away in the paradise of his childish slumber. [illustration: old black "mammy."] the day will come when the south will build a monument to the good old black mammy of the past for the lullabies she has sung. i sometimes wish that childhood might last forever. that sweet fairy land on the frontier of life, whose skies are first lighted with the sunrise of the soul, and in whose bright-tinted jungles the lions, and leopards, and tigers of passion still peacefully sleep. the world is disarmed by its innocence, the drawn bow is relaxed, and the arrow is returned to its quiver; the Ã�gis of heaven is above it, the outstretched wings of mercy, pity, and measureless love! the paradise of the barefooted boy. [illustration] i would rather be a barefooted boy with cheeks of tan and heart of joy than to be a millionaire and president of a national bank. the financial panic that falls like a thunderbolt, wrecks the bank, crushes the banker, and swamps thousands in an hour. but the bank which holds the treasures of the barefooted boy never breaks. with his satchel and his books he hies away to school in the morning, but his truant feet carry him the other way, to the mill pond "a-fishin'." and there he sits the livelong day under the shade of the tree, with sapling pole and pin hook, and fishes, and fishes, and fishes, and waits for a nibble of the drowsy sucker that sleeps on his oozy bed, oblivious of the baitless hook from which he has long since stolen the worm. there he sits, and fishes, and fishes, and fishes, and like micawber, waits for something to "turn-up." but nothing turns up until the shadows of evening fall and warn the truant home, where he is welcomed with a dogwood sprout. then "sump'n" _does_ turn up. he obeys the call of the sunday school bell, and goes with solemn face, but e'er the "sweet bye and bye" has died away on the summer air, he is in the wood shed playing sullivan and corbett with some plucky comrade, with the inevitable casualties of _one_ closed eye, _one_ crippled nose, _one_ pair of torn breeches and _one_ bloody toe. he takes a back seat at church, and in the midst of the sermon steals away and hides in the barn to smoke cigarettes and read the story of "one-eyed pete, the hero of the _wild_ and _woolly_ west." there is eternal war between the barefooted boy and the whole civilized world. he shoots the cook with a blow-gun; he cuts the strings of the hammock and lets his dozing grandmother fall to the ground; he loads his grandfather's pipe with powder; he instigates a fight between the cat and dog during family prayers, and explodes with laughter when pussy seeks refuge on the old man's back. he hides in the alley and turns the hose on uncle ephraim's standing collar as he passes on his way to church, he cracks chestnut burrs with his naked heel; he robs birds' nests, and murders bullfrogs, and plays "knucks" and "base-ball." he puts asafetida in the soup, and conceals lizzards in his father's hat. he overwhelms the family circle with his magnificent literary attainments when he reads from the bible in what he calls the "pasalms of david"--"praise ye the lord with the pizeltry and the harp." [illustration: the paradise of the barefooted boy.] his father took him to town one day and said to him: "now john, i want you to stay here on the corner with the wagon and watch these potatoes while i go round the square and see if i can sell them. don't open your mouth sir, while i am gone; i'm afraid people will think you're a fool." while the old man was gone the merchant came out and said to john: "what are those potatoes worth, my son?" john looked at him and grinned. "what are those potatoes worth, i say?" asked the merchant. john still looked at him and grinned. the merchant turned on his heel and said: "you're a fool," and went back into his store. when the old man returned john shouted: "pap, they found it out and i never said a word." his life is an endless chain of pranks and pleasures. look how the brawling brook pours down the steep declivities of the mountain gorge! here it breaks into pearls and silvery foam, there it dashes in rapids, among brown bowlders, and yonder it tumbles from the gray crest of a precipice. thus, forever laughing, singing, rollicking, romping, till it is checked in its mad rush and spreads into a still, smooth mirror, reflecting the inverted images of rock, and fern, and flower, and tree, and sky. it is the symbol of the life of a barefooted boy. his quips, and cranks, his whims, and jollities, and jocund mischief, are but the effervescences of exuberant young life, the wild music of the mountain stream. if i were a sculptor, i would chisel from the marble my ideal of the monumental fool. i would make it the figure of a man, with knitted brow and clinched teeth, beating and bruising his barefooted boy, in the cruel endeavor to drive him from the paradise of his childish fun and folly. if your boy _will_ be a boy, let him be a boy still. and remember that he is following the paths which your feet have trodden, and will soon look back upon its precious memories, as you now do, with the aching heart of a care-worn man. [illustration: the wild music of the mountains.] (sung to the air of down on the farm.) oh, i love the dear old farm, and my heart grows young and warm, when i wander back to spend a single day; there to hear the robins sing in the trees around the spring, where i used to watch the happy children play. oh, i hear their voices yet and i never shall forget how their faces beamed with childish mirth and glee. but my heart grows old again and i leave the spot in pain, when i call them and no answer comes to me. the paradise of youth. [illustration: the paradise of youth.] if childhood is the sunrise of life, youth is the heyday of life's ruddy june. it is the sweet solstice in life's early summer, which puts forth the fragrant bud and blossom of sin e'er its bitter fruits ripen and turn to ashes on the lips of age. it is the happy transition period, when long legs, and loose joints, and verdant awkwardness, first stumble on the vestibule of manhood. did you never observe him shaving and scraping his pimpled face till it resembled a featherless goose, reaping nothing but lather, and dirt, and a little intangible fuzz? that is the first symptom of love. did you never observe him wrestling with a pair of boots two numbers too small, as jacob wrestled with the angel? that is another symptom of love. his callous heel slowly and painfully yields to the pressure of his perspiring paroxysms until his feet are folded like fans and driven home in the pinching leather; and as he sits at church with them hid under the bench, his uneasy squirms are symptoms of the tortures of the infernal regions, and the worm that dieth not; but that is only the penalty of loving. when he begins to wander through the fragrant meadows and talk to himself among the buttercups and clover blossoms, it is a sure sign that the golden shaft of the winged god has sped from its bended bow. love's archer has shot a poisoned arrow which wounds but never kills. the sweet venom has done its work. the fever of the amorous wound drives the red current bounding through his veins, and his brain now reels with the delirium of the tender passion. his soul is wrapped in visions of dreamy black eyes peeping out from under raven curls, and cheeks like gardens of roses. to him the world is transformed into a blooming eden, and _she_ is its only eve. he hears her voice in the sound of the laughing waters, the fluttering of her heart in the summer evening's last sigh that shuts the rose; and he sits on the bank of the river all day long and writes poetry to her. thus he writes: "as i sit by this river's crystal wave, whose flow'ry banks its waters lave, me-thinks i see in its glassy mirror, a face which to me, than life is dearer. oh, 'tis the face of my gwendolin, as pure as an angel, free from sin. it looks into mine with one sweet eye, while the other is turned to the starry sky. could i the ocean's bulk contain, could i but drink the watery main, i'd scarce be half as full of the sea, as my heart is full of love for thee!" thus he lives and loves, and writes poetry by day, and tosses on his bed at night, like the restless sea, and dreams, and dreams, and dreams, until, in the ecstacy of his dream, he grabs a pillow. one bright summer day, a rural youth took his sweetheart to a baptist baptizing; and, in addition to his verdancy and his awkwardness, he stuttered most distressingly. the singing began on the bank of the stream; and he left his sweetheart in the buggy, in the shade of a tree near by, and wandered alone in the crowd. standing unconsciously among those who were to be baptized, the old parson mistook him for one of the converts, and seized him by the arm and marched him into the water. he began to protest: "ho-ho-hold on p-p-p-parson, y-y-y-you're ma-ma-makin' a mi-mi-mistake!!!" "don't be alarmed my son, come right in," said the parson. and he led him to the middle of the stream. the poor fellow made one final desperate effort to explain--"p-p-p-p-parson, l-l-l-l-let me explain!" but the parson coldly said: "close your mouth and eyes, my son!" and he soused him under the water. after he was thoroughly baptized the old parson led him to the bank, the muddy water trickling down his face. he was "diked" in his new seersucker suit, and when the sun struck it, it began to draw up. the legs of his pants drew up to his knees; his sleeves drew up to his elbows; his little sack coat yanked up under his arms. and as he stood there trembling and shivering, a good old sister approached him, and taking him by the hand said: "god bless you, my son, how do you feel?" looking, in his agony, at his blushing sweetheart behind her fan, he replied in his anguish: "i fe-fe-fe-feel l-l-l-l-like a d-d-d-d-durned f-f-f-f-fool!" [illustration: the seersucker youth at the baptizing.] if i were called upon to drink a toast to life's happiest period, i would hold up the sparkling wine, and say: "here is to youth, that sweet, seidlitz powder period, when two souls with scarcely a single thought, meet and blend in one; when a voice, half gosling, half calliope, rasps the first sickly confession of puppy love into the ear of a blue-sashed maiden at the picnic in the grove!" but when she returns his little greasy photograph, accompanied by a little perfumed note, expressing the hope that he will think of her only as a sister, his paradise is wrecked, and his puppy love is swept into the limbo of things that were, the school boy's tale, the wonder of an hour. but wait till the shadows have a little longer grown. wait till the young lawyer comes home from college, spouting blackstone, and kent, and ram on facts. wait till the young doctor returns from the university, with his whiskers and his diploma, to tread the paths of glory, "that lead but to the grave." wait till society gives welcome in the brilliant ball, and the swallow-tail coat, and the patent leather pumps whirl with the decollette and white slippers till the stars are drowning in the light of morning. wait till the graduate staggers from the giddy hall, in full evening dress, singing as he staggers: "after the ball is over, after the break of morn, after the dancer's leavin', after the stars are gone; many a heart is aching, if we could read them all-- many the hopes that are vanished, after the ball." [illustration: after the ball.] it is then that "somebody's darling" has reached the full tide of his glory as a fool. the paradise of home. how rich would be the feast of happiness in this beautiful world of ours, could folly end with youth. but youth is only the first act in the "comedy of errors." it is the pearly gate that opens to the real paradise of fools. "it's pleasures are like poppies spread-- you seize the flower, its bloom is shed, or like the snowfall on the river-- a moment white then melts forever." whether it be the child at its mother's knee or the man of mature years, whether it be the banker or the beggar, the prince in his palace or the peasant in his hut, there is in every heart the dream of a happier lot in life. i heard the sound of revelry at the gilded club, where a hundred hearts beat happily. there were flushed cheeks and thick tongues and jests and anecdotes around the banquet spread. there were songs and poems and speeches. i saw an orator rise to respond to a toast to "home, sweet home," and thus he responded: "mr. chairman and gentlemen: john howard payne touched millions of hearts when he sang: 'mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, be it ever so humble, there's no place like home. but as for me, gentlemen, give me the pleasures an' the palaces--give me liberty, or give me death. no less beautifully expressed are the tender sentiments expressed in the tender verse of lord byron: "'tis sweet to hear the watchdog's honest bark bay deep mouthed welcome as we draw near home; 'tis sweet to know there is an eye will mark our coming, and look brighter when we come." but as for me, gentlemen, i would rather hear the barkin' of a gatlin' gun than to hear the watch dog's honest bark this minute. i would rather look into the mouth of a cannon than to look into the eyes that are now waitin' to mark my comin' at this delightful hour of three o'clock in the morning." then he launched out on the ocean of thought like a magnificent ship going to sea. and when the night was far spent, and the orgies were over, and the lights were blown out at the club, i saw him enter his own sweet home in his glory--entered it, like a thief, with his boots in his hands,--entered it singing softly to himself: "i'm called little gutter pup, sweet little gutter pup, though i could never tell why--(hic), yet still i'm called gutter pup, sweet little gutter pup, poor little gutter pup--i--(hic)." he was unconscious of the presence of the white figure that stood at the head of the stairs holding up a lamp, like liberty enlightening the world, and as a tremulous voice called him to the judgment bar, the door closed behind him on the paradise of a fool, and he sneaked up the steps, muttering to himself, "what shadows we are--(hic)--what shadows we pursue." then i saw him again in the morning, reaping temptation's bitter reward in the agonies of his drunk-sick; and like mark twain's boat in a storm, "he heaved and sot, and sot and heaved, and high his rudder flung, and every time he heaved and sot, a mighty leak he sprung." if i were a woman with a husband like "that," i would fill him so full of keely's chloride of gold that he would jingle as he walks and tinkle as he talks and have a fit at every mention of the silver bill. the biggest fool that walks on god's footstool is the man who destroys the joy and peace of his own sweet home; for, if paradise is ever regained in this world, it must be in the home. if its dead flowers ever bloom again, they must bloom in the happy hearts of home. if its sunshine ever breaks through the clouds, it must break forth in the smiling faces of home. if heaven ever descends to earth and angels tread its soil, it must be in the sacred precincts of home. that which heaven most approves is the pure and virtuous home. for around it linger all the sweetest memories and dearest associations of mankind; upon it hang the hopes and happiness of the nations of the earth, and above it shines the ever blessed star that lights the way back to the paradise that was lost. [illustration: returning from the club.] bachelor and widower. i saw a poor old bachelor live all the days of his life in sight of paradise, too cowardly to put his arm around it and press it to his bosom. he shaved and primped and resolved to marry every day in the year for forty years. but when the hour for love's duel arrived, when he stood trembling in the presence of rosy cheeks and glancing eyes, and beauty shook her curls and gave the challenge, his courage always oozed out, and he fled ingloriously from the field of honor. far happier than the bachelor is old uncle rastus in his cabin, when he holds aunt dina's hand in his and asks: "who's sweet?" and dina drops her head over on his shoulder and answers, "boaf uv us." a thousand times happier is the frisky old widower with his pink bald head, his wrinkles and his rheumatism, who wires in and wires out, and leaves the ladies all in doubt, as to what is his age and what he is worth, and whether or not he owns the earth. he "toils not, neither does he spin," yet solomon, in all his glory was not more popular with the ladies. he is as light-hearted as "mary's little lamb." he is acquainted with every hog path in the matrimonial paradise and knows all the nearest cuts to the "sanctum sanctorum" of woman's heart. but his jealousy is as cruel as the grave. woe unto the bachelor who dares to cross his path. an old bachelor in my native mountains once rose in church to give his experience, in the presence of his old rival who was a widower, and with whom he was at daggers' points in the race to win the affections of one of the sisters in zion. thus the pious old bachelor spake: "brethren, this is a beautiful world. i love to live in it just as well to-day as i ever did in my life. and the saddest thought that ever crossed this old brain of mine is, that in a few short days at best, these old eyes will be glazed in death and i'll never get to see my loved ones in this world any more." and his old rival shouted from the "amen corner," "_thank god!_" phantoms. in every brain there is a bright phantom realm, where fancied pleasures beckon from distant shores; but when we launch our barks to reach them, they vanish, and beckon again from still more distant shores. and so, poor fallen man pursues the ghosts of paradise as the deluded dog chases the shadows of flying birds in the meadow. the painter only paints the shadows of beauty on his canvas; the sculptor only chisels its lines and curves from the marble; the sweetest melody is but the faint echo of the wooing voice of music. we stumble over the golden nuggets of contentment in pursuit of the phantoms of wealth, and what is wealth? it can not purchase a moment of happiness. marble halls may open wide their doors and offer her shelter, but happiness will flee from a palace to dwell in a cottage. we crush under our feet the roses of peace and love in our eagerness to reach the illuminated heights of glory; and what is earthly glory? "he who ascends to mountain tops shall find the loftiest peaks most wrapped in clouds and snow; he who surpasses or subdues mankind, must look down on the hate of those below. though high above the sun of glory glow, and far beneath the earth and ocean spread, 'round him are icy rocks, and loudly blow contending tempests on his naked head." i saw a comedian convulse thousands with his delineations of the weaknesses of humanity in the inimitable "rip van winkle." i saw him make laughter hold its sides, as he impersonated the coward in "the rivals;" and i said: i would rather have the power of joseph jefferson, to make the world laugh, and to drive care and trouble from weary brains and sorrow from heavy hearts, than to wear the blood-stained laurels of military glory, or to be president of the united states, burdened with bonds and gold, and overwhelmed with the double standard, and three girl babies. the false ideal. it is the false ideal that builds the "paradise of fools." it is the eagerness to achieve success in realms we cannot reach, which breeds more than half the ills that curse the world. if all the fish eggs were to hatch, and every little fish become a big fish, the oceans would be pushed from their beds, and the rivers would be eternally "dammed"--with fish; but the whales, and sharks, and sturgeons, and dog-fish, and eels, and snakes, and turtles, make three meals every day in the year on fish and fish eggs. if all the legal spawn should hatch out lawyers, the earth and the fullness thereof would be mortgaged for fees, and mankind would starve to death in the effort to pay off the "aforesaid and the same." if the entire crop of medical eggs should hatch out full fledged doctors, old "skull and cross bones" would hold high carnival among the children of men, and the old sexton would sing: "i gather them in, i gather them in." if i could get the ear of the young men who pant after politics, as the hart panteth after the water brook, i would exhort them to seek honors in some other way, for "jordan is a hard road to travel." the poet truly said: "how like a mounting devil in the heart is the unreined ambition. let it once but play the monarch, and its haughty brow glows with a beauty that bewilders thought and unthrones peace forever. putting on the very pomp of lucifer, it turns the heart to ashes, and with not a spring left in the bosom for the spirit's lip, we look upon our splendor and forget the thirst of which we perish." the circus in the mountains. [illustration: the circus in the mountains.] i saw a circus in a mountain town. the mountaineers swarmed from far and near, and lined the streets on every hand with open mouth and bated breath, as the grand procession, with band, and clown, and camels, and elephants, and lions, and tigers, and spotted horses, paraded in brilliant array. the excitement was boundless when the crowd rushed into the tent, and they left behind them a surging mass of humanity, unprovided with tickets, and destitute of the silver half of the double standard. their interest rose to white heat as the audience within shouted and screamed with laughter at the clown, and cheered the girl in tights, and applauded the acrobats as they turned somersaults over the elephant. but temptation whispered in the ear of a gentleman in tow breeches, and he stealthily opened his long bladed knife and cut a hole in the canvas. a score of others followed suit, and held their sides and laughed at the scenes within. but as they laughed a showman slipped inside, armed with a policeman's "billy." he quietly sidled up to the hole where a peeper's nose made a knot on the tent on the inside. "whack!" went the "billy"--there was a loud grunt, and old "tow breeches" spun 'round like a top, and cut the "pigeon wing," while his nose spouted blood. "whack!" went the "billy" again, and old "hickory shirt" turned a somersault backwards and rose "a-runnin'." the last "whack" fell like a thunderbolt on the roman nose of a half drunk old settler from away up at the head of the creek. he fell flat on his back, quivered for a moment, and then sat up and clapped his hand to his bleeding nose and in his bewilderment exclaimed: "well i'll be durned! hel-lo there stranger!" he shouted to a bystander, "whar wuz you _at_ when the lightnin' struck the show?" then i saw a row of bleeding noses at the branch near by, taking a bath; and each nose resembled a sore hump on a camel's back. [illustration: "whack!" went the "billy!"] so it is around the great arena of political fame and power. "whack!" goes the "billy" of popular opinion; and politicians, like old "tow breeches," spin 'round with the broken noses of misguided ambition and disappointed hope. in the heated campaign many a would-be webster lies down and dreams of the triumph that awaits him on the morrow, but he wakes to find it only a dream, and when the votes are counted his little bird hath flown, and he is in the condition of the old jew. an englishman, an irishman and a jew hung up their socks together on christmas eve. the englishman put his diamond pin in the irishman's sock; the irishman put his watch in the sock of the englishman; they slipped an egg into the sock of the jew. "and did you git onny thing?" asked pat in the morning. "oh yes," said the englishman, "i received a fine gold watch, don't you know. and what did you get pat?" "begorra, i got a foine diamond pin." "and what did you get, jacob?" said the englishman to the jew. "vell," said jacob, holding up the egg. "i got a shicken but it got avay before i got up." the phantom of fortune. i would not clip the wings of noble, honorable aspiration. i would not bar and bolt the gate to the higher planes of thought and action, where truth and virtue bloom and ripen into glorious fruit. there are a thousand fields of endeavor in the world, and happy is he who labors where god intended him to labor. the contented plowman who whistles as he rides to the field and sings as he plows, and builds his little paradise on the farm, gets more out of life than the richest shylock on earth. the good old spectacled mother in israel, with her white locks and beaming face, as she works in her sphere, visiting the poor, nursing the sick, and closing the eyes of the dead, is more beautiful in her life, and more charming in her character, than the loveliest queen of society who ever chased the phantoms of pleasure in the ballroom. the humblest village preacher who faithfully serves his god, and leads his pious flock in the paths of holiness and peace, is more eloquent, and plays a nobler part than the most brilliant infidel who ever blasphemed the name of god. the industrious drummer who travels all night and toils all day to win comfort for wife, and children, and mother, and sister, is a better man, and a far better citizen, than the most successful speculator on wall street, who plays with the fortunes of his fellow-man as the wolf plays with the lamb, or as the cyclone plays with the feather. young ladies, when the time comes to marry, say "yes" to the good-natured, big-hearted drummer. for he is a spring in a desert, a straight flush in a weary hand, a "thing of beauty and a joy forever," and he will never be at home to bother you. clocks. oliver wendell holmes says: "our brains are seventy year clocks. the angel of life winds them up once for all, closes the case, and gives the key into the hand of the resurrection angel." and when i read it i thought, what a stupendous task awaits the angel of the resurrection, when all the countless millions of old rickety, rusty, worm-eaten clocks are to be resurrected, and wiped, and dusted, and repaired, for mansions in the skies! there will be every kind and character of clock and clockwork resurrected on that day. there will be the catholic clock with his beads, and the episcopalian clock with his ritual. there will be an old clock resurrected on that day wearing a broadcloth coat buttoned up to the throat; and when he is wound up he will go off with a whizz and a bang. he will get up out of the dust shouting, "hallelujah!" and he will proclaim "_sanctification!_" and "_falling from grace!_" and "_baptism by sprinkling and pouring!_" as the only true doctrine by which men shall go sweeping through the pearly gate, into the new jerusalem. and he will be recognized as a methodist preacher, a little noisy, a little clogged with chicken feathers, but ripe for the kingdom of heaven. there will be another old clock resurrected on that day, dressed like the former, but a little stiffer and straighter in the back, and armed with a pair of gold spectacles and a manuscript. when he is wound up he will break out in a cold sepulchral tone with, firstly: "_foreordination!_" secondly: "_predestination!_" and thirdly: "_the final perseverance of the saints!_" and he will be recognized as a presbyterian preacher, a little blue and frigid, a little dry and formal, but one of god's own elect, and he will be labeled for paradise. there will be an old hard-shell clock resurrected, with throat whiskers, and wearing a shad-bellied coat and flap breeches. and when he is wound up a little, and a little oil is squirted into his old wheels, he will swing out into space on the wings of the gospel with: "my dear beloved brethren-ah: i was a-ridin' along this mornin' a-tryin' to study up somethin' to preach to this dying congregation-ah; and as i rid up by the old mill pond-ah lo and behold! there was an old snag a sticking up out of the middle of the pond-ah, and an old mud turtle had clim up out uv the water and was a settin' up on the old snag a sunnin' uv himself-ah; and lo! and behold-ah! when i rid up a leetle nearer to him-ah, he jumped off of the snag, 'ker chugg' into the water, thereby proving emersion-ah!" our brains _are_ clocks, and our hearts are the pendulums. if we live right in this world, when the resurrection day shall come, the lord god will polish the wheels, and jewel the bearings, and crown the casements with stars and with gold. and the pendulums shall be harps encrusted with precious stones. they shall swing to and fro on angel wings, making music in the ear of god, and flashing his glory through all the blissful cycles of eternity! the panic. happy is the man who lives within his means, and who is contented with the legitimate rewards of endeavor. the dreadful panic that checks the progress of civilization and paralyzes the commerce of the world, is the death angel that follows speculation. everything is staked and hazarded on contingences that are as baseless as the fabric of a dream. the day of settlement comes and nobody is able to settle. the borrower is powerless to meet his note in the bank; the banker is powerless to pay his depositors, and confidence is stampeded like a herd of cattle. the timid and suspicious old farmer catches the wild note of alarm, and deserting his plow and sleepy steers in the field, he mounts his mule, and urging him on with pounding heels, rushes pell-mell to the bank, and with bulging eyes, demands his money. the excitement spreads like fire. the blacksmith leaves his anvil, the carpenter his bench, and the tailor his goose. the tanner deserts his hide, and the shoemaker throws down his last to save his all. the mason with his trowel in his hand, rushes from the half-finished wall; pat drops his hod between heaven and earth and slides down the ladder, muttering: "oi'll have me moaney or _oi'll_ have blood!" the fat phlegmatic dutchman, dozing behind his bar, wakes to the situation and waddles down the street, puffing and blowing like an engine, and muttering: "mine got in himmel--mine debosit ish boosted!" and thus they make the run on the bank, gathering about it like the hosts of armageddon. the bottom drops out, and millionaires go under like the passengers of a wrecked steamer. "bunk city." did you ever pass the remains of a "boom" town in your travels? did you never gaze upon the remains of "bunk city," where but yesterday all was life and bustle, and to-day it looks like the ruins of babylon? the empty fields for miles and miles around are laid off and dug up in streets, and look like they had been struck with ten thousand streaks of chain lightning. standing here and there are huge frames holding up mammoth sign boards, bearing the names of land companies, but the land companies are gone. half driven nails are left to rust in a few old skeleton buildings, the brick lies unmortared in half finished walls, and tenantless houses stand here and there like the ghosts of buried hope. down by the river stands the furnace, grim and silent as the extinct crater of popocatepetl; and the great hotel on the hill looks like the tower of babel two thousand years after the confusion of tongues. the last of the speculators, with his blue nose and his old battered plug hat which resembles an accordion that has been yanked by a cyclone, stands on the corner and contemplates his old sedge fields which have shrunk in value from one hundred dollars a front foot, to one _dollar for a hundred front acres_, and balefully sings a new song: "after the boom is over, after the panic's on, after the fools are leavin', after the money's gone, many a bank is "busted," if we could see in the room, many a pocket is empty, after the boom." "your uncle." [illustration: coming.] an impecunious speculator once flooded a town with handbills and posters containing this announcement: "your uncle is coming." the streams of passers-by looked at the bill boards and wondered what it meant. the speculator rented the theatre, and one day a new flood of handbills and posters made this announcement: "your uncle is here." he gave orders to his stage manager to raise the curtain exactly at eight o'clock. the speculator himself stood in the door and received the admission fees and then disappeared. in their curiosity to see the performance of "your uncle," the villagers filled every seat in the theatre long before the hour for the performance arrived. the curtain rose at the appointed hour, and lo! on a board, in the center of the stage, was a card bearing this announcement in large letters: "_your uncle is gone._" what a splendid illustration of modern speculation and its willing victims who are so easily led into the "paradise of fools!" [illustration: gone.] fools. but why mourn and brood over broken fortunes and the calamities of life? why tarry in the doldrums of pessimism, with never a breeze to catch your limp and drooping sails and waft you on a joyous wave? pessimism is the nightmare of the world. it is the prophet of famine, pestilence, and human woe. it is the apostle of the devil, and its mission is to impede the progress of civilization. it denounces every institution established for human development as a fraud. it stigmatizes law as the machinery of injustice; it sneers at society as hollow-hearted corruption and insincerity; it brands politics as a reeking mass of rottenness, and scoffs at morality as the tinsel of sin. its disciples are those who rail and snarl at everything that is noble and good, to whom a joke is an assault and battery, a laugh is an insult to outraged dignity, and the provocation of a smile is like passing an electric current through the facial muscles of a corpse. god deliver us from the fools who seek to build their paradise on the ashes of those they have destroyed. god deliver us from the fools whose life work is to cast aspersions upon the motives and characters of the leaders of men. i believe the men who reach high places in politics are, as a rule, the best and brainiest men in the land, and upon their shoulders rest the safety and well-being of the peace-loving, god-fearing millions. i believe the world is better to-day than it ever was before. i believe the refinements of modern society, its elegant accomplishments, its intellectual culture, and its conceptions of the beautiful, are glorious evidences of our advancement toward a higher plane of being. i think the superb churches of to-day, with the glorious harmonies of their choral music, their great pipe organs, their violins and cornets, and their grand sermons, full of heaven's balm for aching hearts, are expressions of the highest civilization that has ever dawned upon the earth. i believe each successive civilization is better, and higher, and grander, than that which preceded it; and upon the shining rungs of this ladder of evolution, our race will finally climb back to the paradise that was lost. i believe that the society of to-day is better than it ever was before. i believe that human government is better, and nobler, and purer, than it ever was before. i believe the church is stronger and is making grander strides toward the conversion of the world and the final establishment of the kingdom of god on earth, than it ever made before. i believe that the biggest fools in this world are the advocates and disseminators of infidelity, the would-be destroyers of the paradise of god. a blotted picture. i sat in a great theatre at the national capital. it was thronged with youth, and beauty, old age, and wisdom. i saw a man, the image of his god, stand upon the stage, and i heard him speak. his gestures were the perfection of grace; his voice was music, and his language was more beautiful than i had ever heard from mortal lips. he painted picture after picture of the pleasures, and joys, and sympathies, of home. he enthroned love and preached the gospel of humanity like an angel. then i saw him dip his brush in ink, and blot out the beautiful picture he had painted. i saw him stab love dead at his feet. i saw him blot out the stars and the sun, and leave humanity and the universe in eternal darkness, and eternal death. i saw him like the serpent of old, worm himself into the paradise of human hearts, and by his seductive eloquence and the subtle devices of his sophistry, inject his fatal venom, under whose blight its flowers faded, its music was hushed, its sunshine was darkened, and the soul was left a desert waste, with only the new made graves of faith and hope. i saw him, like a lawless, erratic meteor without an orbit, sweep across the intellectual sky, brilliant only in his self-consuming fire, generated by friction with the indestructible and eternal truths of god. [illustration: infidelity.] that man was the archangel of modern infidelity; and i said: how true is holy writ which declares, "the fool hath said in his heart, there is no god." tell me not, o infidel, there is no god, no heaven, no hell! "a solemn murmur in the soul tells of a world to be, as travelers hear the billows roll before they reach the sea." tell me not, o infidel, there is no risen christ! when every earthly hope hath fled, when angry seas their billows fling, how sweet to lean on what he said, how firmly to his cross we cling! what intelligence less than god could fashion the human body? what motive power is it, if it is not god, that drives that throbbing engine, the human heart, with ceaseless, tireless stroke, sending the crimson streams of life bounding and circling through every vein and artery? whence, and what, if not of god, is this mystery we call the mind? what is this mystery we call the soul? what is it that thinks and feels and knows and acts? oh, who can comprehend, who can deny, the divinity that stirs within us! god is everywhere, and in everything. his mystery is in every bud, and blossom, and leaf, and tree; in every rock, and hill, and vale, and mountain; in every spring, and rivulet, and river. the rustle of his wing is in every zephyr; its might is in every tempest. he dwells in the dark pavilions of every storm cloud. the lightning is his messenger, and the thunder is his voice. his awful tread is in every earthquake and on every angry ocean; and the heavens above us teem with his myriads of shining witnesses. the universe of solar systems whose wheeling orbs course the crystal paths of space proclaim through the dread halls of eternity, the glory, and power, and dominion, of the all-wise, omnipotent, and eternal god. "visions and dreams." [illustration] the infinite wisdom of almighty god has made a plane of intelligence, and a horizon of happiness, for every being in the universe, from the butterfly to the archangel. and every plane has its own horizon, narrowest and darkest on the lowest level, but broad as the universe on the highest. man stands on that wondrous plane where mortality and immortality meet. below him is animal life, lighted only by the dim lamp of instinct; above him is spiritual life, illuminated by the light of reason and the glory of god. below him is this old material world of rock, and hill, and vale, and mountain; above him is the mysterious world of the imagination whose rivers are dreams, whose continents are visions of beauty, and upon whose shadowy shores the surfs of phantom seas forever break. we hear the song of the cricket on the hearth, and the joyous hum of the bees among the poppies; we hear the light-winged lark gladden the morning with her song, and the silver-throated thrush warble in the tree-top. what are these, and all the sweet melodies we hear, but echoes from the realm of visions and dreams? the humming-bird, that swift fairy of the rainbow, fluttering down from the land of the sun when june scatters her roses northward, and poising on wings that never weary, kisses the nectar from the waiting flowers; how bright and beautiful is the horizon of his little life! how sweet is the dream of the covert in the deep mountain gorge, to the trembling, panting deer in his flight before the hunter's horn and the yelping hounds! how dear to the heart of the weary ox is the vision of green fields and splashing waters! and down on the farm, when the cows come home at sunset, fragrant with the breath of clover blossoms, how rich is the feast of happiness when the frolicsome calf bounds forward to the flowing udder, and with his walling eyes reflecting whole acres of "calf heaven" and his little tail wiggling in speechless bliss, he draws his evening meal from nature's commissariat. the snail lolls in his shell and thinks himself a king in the grandest palace in the world. and how brilliant is the horizon of the firefly when he winks his "other eye!" the red worm delves in the sod and dines on clay; he makes no after-dinner speeches; he never responds to a toast; but silently revels on in his dark banquet halls under the dank violets or in the rich mould by the river. but the red worm never reaches the goal of his visions and dreams until he is triumphantly impaled on the fishhook of the barefooted boy, who sees other visions and dreams other dreams, of fluttering suckers in shining streams. and oh, there is no thrill half so rapturous to the barefooted boy as the thrill of a nibble! two darkies sat on a rock on the bank of a river, fishing. one was an old darkey; the other was a boy. the boy got a nibble, his foot slipped, and he fell headlong into the surging waters and began to float out to the middle of the stream, sinking, and rising, and struggling, and crying for help. the old man hesitated on the rock for a moment; then he plunged in after the drowning boy, and after a desperate struggle, landed his companion safely on shore. a passer-by ran up to the old darkey and patted him on the shoulder and said: "old man, that was a noble deed in you, to risk your life that way to save that good-for-nothing boy." "yes boss," mumbled the old man, "i was obleeged ter save dat nigger, he had all de bate in his pocket!" the happy long ago. not long ago i wandered back to the scenes of my boyhood, on my father's old plantation on the bank of the river, in the beautiful land of my native mountains. i rambled again in the pathless woods with my rifle on my shoulder. i sat on the old familiar logs amid the falling leaves of autumn and heard the squirrels bark and shake the branches as they jumped from tree to tree. i heard the katydid sing, and the whip-poor-will, and the deep basso-profundo of the bullfrog on the bank of the pond. i heard the drumming of a pheasant and the hoot of a wise old owl away over in "sleepy hollow." i heard the tinkling of bells on the distant hills, sweetly mingling with the happy chorus of the song birds in their evening serenade. every living creature seemed to be chanting a hymn of praise to its god; and as i sat there and listened to the weird, wild harmonies, a vision of the past opened before me. i thought i was a boy again, and played around the cabins of the old time darkies, and heard them laugh and sing and tell their stories as they used to long ago. my hair stood on ends again (i was afflicted with hair when i was a boy), and the chills played up and down my back when i remembered old uncle rufus' story of the panthers. he said: "many years ago, mas. jeems was a-gwine along de path by de graveyard late in de evenin', an' bless de lo'd, all of a sudden he looked up, an' dar was a painter crouchin' down befo' 'im, a-pattin' de ground wid his tail, an' ready to spring. mas. jeems wheeled to run, an' bless de lo'd, dar was annudder painter, crouchin' an' pattin' de groun' wid his tail, in de path behind him, an' ready to spring. an' boaf ov dem painters sprung at de same time, right toards mas. jeemses head; mas. jeems jumped to one side. an' dem painters come to-gedder in de air. an' da was a-gwine so fast, an' da struck each udder wid sitch turble ambition dat instid ov comin' down, da went up. an' bless de lo'd, mas. jeems stood dar an' watched dem painters go on up, an' up, an' up, till da went clean out o' sight a-fightin'. an' bless de lo'd, de hair was a-fallin' for three days. which fulfills de words ob de scripchah whar it reads, 'de young men shall dream dreams, an' de ol' men shall see visions.'" [illustration: the music of the old plantation.] i remembered the tale uncle solomon used to tell about the first convention that was ever held in the world. he said: "it wuz a convenchun ov de animils. bruder fox wuz dar, an' brudder wolf, an' brudder rabbit, an' all de rest ov de animil kingdom wuz geddered togedder fur to settle some questions concarnin' de happiness ov de animil kingdom. de first question dat riz befo' de convenchun wuz, how da should vote. brudder coon, he took de floah an' moved dat de convenchun vote by raisin' der tails; whereupon brudder possum riz wid a grin ov disgust, an' said: 'mr. chaiahman, i's unanimous opposed to dat motion: brudder coon wants dis couvenchun to vote by raisin' der tails, kase brudder coon's got a ring striped an' streaked tail, an' wants to show it befo' de convenchun. brudder coon knows dat de 'possum is afflicted wid an ole black rusty tail, an i consider dat moshun an insult to de 'possum race; an' besides dat, mr. chaiahman, if you passes dis moshun for to vote by raisin yo' tails, de billy-goat's already voted!'" i sometimes think that uncle solomon's homely story of the goat would be a splendid illustration of some of our modern politicians. it is difficult to tell which side of the question they are on. [illustration: the happy long ago.] i remembered the yarn uncle yaddie once spun at the expense of uncle rastus. rastus looked sour and said: "you bettah not go too fur; i'll tell about dem watermillions what disappeared frum mas. landon's watermillion patch." but uncle yaddie was undismayed by the threatened attack upon his own record, and said: "some time ago rastus concluded to go into de egg bizness, an' he prayed to de lo'd to send him some hens, but somehow or nudder de hens never come; an' den he prayed to de lo'd to send him after de hens, an' lo! an' behold! nex' mornin' his lot wus full ov chickens. rastus fixed de nestiz, an' waited, an' waited fur de hens to lay, but somehow or nudder de hens wouldn't lay dat summer at all; an' rastus kep git'n madder an' madder, till one day de ole rooster hopped up on de porch an begun to flop his wings an' crow. rastus looked at him sideways, an' muttered, 'yes! floppin' yo' wings an' crowin' aroun' heah like an ole fool, an' you caint lay a egg to save yo' life!'" the darkies fell over in the floor, and every body laughed except rastus. but to appease his wrath, uncle yaddie rolled out a big "watermillion" from under the bed, which lighted up the face of the frowning old rastus with smiles, and as the luscious red pulp melted away in his mouth, he cut the "pigeon wing" in the middle of the floor, and sang like a mocking bird: "oh, de honeymoon am sweet, de chicken am good, de 'possum, it am very very fine, but give me, o, give me, oh, how i wish you would! dat watermillion hanging' on de vine!" then old uncle newt rosined his bow, and the welkin rang with the music of the fiddle. there i sat in the old familiar woods and dreamed of the happy long ago, until a gang of blackbirds, spluttering in a neighboring treetop woke me. and when i rose from the log and threw myself into the shape of an interrogation point, and touched the trigger, at the crack of my rifle old bullfrogg shot into the pond; the hoot-owl "scooted" into his castle in the trunk of an old hollow tree; the blackbirds cut the "asymptote of a hyperbolical curve" in the air; the squirrel fell to the ground at my feet, with a bullet through his brain, and there was silence--silence in the frog pond; silence in the trees; silence in "sleepy hollow;" silence all around me. i shouldered my rifle and wended my way back to the old homestead on the bank of the river and silence was there. the voices of the happy long ago were hushed. the old time darkies were sleeping on the hill, close by the spot where my father sleeps. the moss-covered bucket was gone from the well. the old barn sheds had "creeled." the old house where i was born was silent and deserted. as i looked upon these scenes of my earliest recollection, i was softened and subdued into a sweet pensive sorrow, which only the happiest and holiest associations of by-gone years can call into being. there are times in our lives when grief lies heaviest on the soul; when memory weeps; when gathering clouds of mournful melancholy pour out their floods and drown the heart in tears. oh, beautiful isle of memory, lighted by the morning star of life! where the roses bloom by the door, where the robins sing among the apple blossoms, where bright waters ripple in eternal melody! there are echoes of songs that are sung no more; tender words spoken by lips that are dust; blessings from hearts that are still. there's a useless cradle, and a broken doll; a sunny tress, and an empty garment folded away; there's a lock of silvered hair, and an unforgotten prayer, and _mother_ is sleeping there! dreams of the years to come. [illustration: ambition's dream.] there, under the shade of the sycamores, on my father's old farm, i used to dream of the years to come. i looked through a vista blooming with pleasures, fruiting with achievements, and beautiful as the cloud-isles of the sunset. the siren, ambition, sat beside me and fired my young heart with her prophetic song. she dazzled me, and charmed me, and soothed me, into sweet fantastic reveries. she touched me and bade me look into the wondrous future. the bow of promise spanned it. hope was enthroned there and smiled like an angel of light. under that shining arch lay the goal of my fondest aspirations. visions of wealth, and of laurels, and of applauding thousands, crowded the horizon of my dream. i saw the capitol of the republic, that white-columned pantheon of liberty, lifting its magnificent pile from the midst of the palaces, and parks, the statues, and monuments, of the most beautiful city in the world. infatuated with this vision of earthly glory, i bade adieu to home and its dreams, seized the standard of a great political party, and rushed into the turmoil and tumult of the heated campaign. unable to bear the armor of a saul, i went forth to do battle armed with a fiddle, a pair of saddlebags, a plug horse, and the eternal truth. there was the din of conflict by day on the hustings; there was the sound of revelry by night in the cabins. the mid-night stars twinkled to the music of the merry fiddle, and the hills resounded with the clatter of dwindling shoe soles, as the mountain lads and lassies danced the hours away in the good old time virginia reel. i rode among the mountain fastnesses like the "knight of the woeful figure," mounted on my prancing "rozenante," everywhere charging the windmill of the opposing party, and wherever i drew rein the mountaineers swarmed from far and near to witness the bloodless battle of the contending candidates in the arena of joint discussion. my learned competitor, bearing the shield of "protection to american labor," and armed to the teeth with mighty argument, hurled himself upon me with the fury of a lion. his blows descended like thunderbolts, and the welkin rang with cheers when his lance went shivering to the center. his logic was appalling, his imagery was sublime. his tropes and similes flashed like the drawn blades of charging cavalry, and with a flourish of trumpets, his grand effort culminated in a splendid tribute to the republic, crowned with goldsmith's beautiful metaphor: "as some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, swells from the vale and midway leaves the storm; though 'round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, eternal sunshine settles on its head." i received the charge of the enemy "with poised lance, and visor down." i deluged the tall cliff under a flood of "mountain eloquence" which poured from my patriotic lips like molasses pouring from the bung-hole of the universe. i mounted the american eagle and soared among the stars. i scraped the skies and cut the black illimitable far out beyond the orbit of uranus, and i reached the climax of my triumphant flight with a hyperbole that eclipsed goldsmith's metaphor, unthroned the foe, and left him stunned upon the field. thus i soared: "i stood upon the sea shore, and with a frail reed in my hand, i wrote in the sand, 'my country, i love thee;' a mad wave came rushing by and wiped out the fair impression. cruel wave, treacherous sand, frail reed; i said, 'i hate ye i'll trust ye no more, but with a giant's arm, i'll reach to the coast of norway, and pluck its tallest pine, and dip it in the crater of vesuvius, and write upon the burnished heavens; 'my country, _i love thee_! and i'd like to see _any_ durned wave rub that out!!'" between the long intervals of argument my speech grinned with anecdotes like a basketfull of 'possum heads. the fiddle played its part, the people did the rest, and i carved upon the tombstone of the demolished knight these tender words: "tread softly 'round this sacred heap, it guards ambition's restless sleep; whose greed for place ne'er did forsake him, don't mention office, or you'll wake him!" i reached the goal of my visions and dreams under that collossal dome whose splendors are shadowed in the broad river that flows by the shrine of mt. vernon. i sat amid the confusion and uproar of the parliamentary struggles of the lower branch of the congress of the united states. "sunset" cox, with his beams of wit and humor, convulsed the house and shook the gallaries. alexander stephens, one of the last tottering monuments of the glory of the old south, still lingering on the floor, where, in by-gone years the battles of his vigorous manhood were fought. i saw in the senate an assemblage of the grandest men since the days of webster and clay. conkling, the intellectual titan, the apollo of manly form and grace, thundered there. the "plumed knight," that grand incarnation of mind and magnetism, was at the zenith of his glory. edmunds, and zack chandler, and the brilliant and learned jurist, mat. carpenter, were there. thurman the "noblest roman of them all" was there with his famous bandana handkerchief. the immortal ben hill, the idol of the south, and lamar, the gifted orator and highest type of southern chivalry were there. garland, and morgan, and harris, and coke, were there; and beck with his sledge-hammer intellect. it was an arena of opposing gladiators more magnificent and majestic than was ever witnessed in the palmiest days of the roman empire. there were giants in the senate in those days, and when they clashed shields and measured swords in debate, the capitol trembled and the nation thrilled in every nerve. but how like the ocean's ebb and flow are the restless tides of politics! these scenes of grandeur and glory soon dissolved from my view like a dream. i "saved the country" for only two short years. my competitor proved a lively corpse. he burst forth from the tomb like a locust from its shell, and came buzzing to the national capital with "war on his wings." i went buzzing back to the mountains to dream again under the sycamores; and there a new ambition was kindled in my soul. a new vision opened before me. i saw another capitol rise on the bank of the cumberland, overshadowing the tomb of polk and close by the hermitage where reposes the sacred dust of andrew jackson. and i thought if i could only reach the exalted position of governor of the old "volunteer state" i would then have gained the sum of life's honors and happiness. but lo! another son of my father and mother was dreaming there under the same old sycamore. we had dreamed together in the same trundle-bed and often kicked each other out. together we had seen visions of pumpkin pie and pulled hair for the biggest slice. together we had smoked the first cigar and together learned to play the fiddle. but now the dreams of our manhood clashed. relentless fate had decreed that "york" must contend with "lancaster" in the "war of the roses." and with flushed cheeks and throbbing hearts we eagerly entered the field; his shield bearing the red rose, mine the white. it was a contest of principles, free from the wormwood and gall of personalities, and when the multitude of partisans gathered at the hustings, a white rose on every democratic bosom, a red rose on every republican breast, in the midst of a wilderness of flowers there was many a tilt and many a loud huzzah. but when the clouds of war had cleared away, i looked upon the drooping red rose on the bosom of the vanquished knight, and thought of the first speech my mother ever taught me: "man's a vapor full of woes, cuts a caper--down he goes!" the white rose triumphed. but the shadow is fairer than the substance. the pathway of ambition is marked at every mile with the grave of some sweet pleasure slain by the hand of sacrifice. it bristles with thorns planted by the fingers of envy and hate, and as we climb the rugged heights, behind us lie our bloody footprints, before us tower still greater heights, scarred by tempests and wrapped in eternal snow. like the edelweiss of the alps, ambition's pleasures bloom in the chill air of perpetual frost, and he who reaches the summit will look down with longing eyes, on the humbler plain of life below and wish his feet had never wandered from its warmer sunshine and sweeter flowers. from the cave-man to the "kiss-o-phone." but let us not forget that it is better for us, and better for the world, that we dream, and that we tread the thorny paths, and climb the weary steeps, and leave our bloody tracks behind in the pursuit of our dreams. for in their extravagant conceptions lie the germs of human government, and invention, and discovery; and from their mysterious vagaries spring the motive power of the world's progress. our civilization is the evolution of dreams. the rude tribes of primeval men dwelt in caves until some unwashed savage dreamed that damp caverns and unholy smells were not in accord with the principles of hygiene. it dawned upon his _mighty_ intellect that one flat stone would lie on top of another, and that a little mud, aided by sir isaac newton's law of gravitation, would hold them together, and that walls could be built in the form of a quadrangle. here was the birth of architecture. and thus, from the magical dreams of this unmausoleumed barbarian was evolved the home, the best and sweetest evolution of man's civilisation. john howard payne touched the tenderest chord that vibrates in the great heart of all humankind when he gave to immortality his song of "home, sweet home;" and thank god, the grand mansions and palaces of the rich do not hold all the happiness and nobility of this world. there are millions of humble cottages where virtue resides in the warmth and purity of vestal fires, and where contentment dwells like perpetual summer. the antediluvians plowed with a forked stick, with one prong for the beam and the other for the scratcher; and the plow boy and his sleepy ox had no choice of prongs to hitch to. it was all the same to adam whether "buck" was yoked to the beam or the scratcher. but some noble cincinnatus dreamed of the burnished plowshare; genius wrought his dream into steel and now the polished oliver chill slices the earth like a hot knife plowing a field of jersey butter, and the modern gang plow, bearing upon its wheels the gloved and umbrella'd leader of the populist party, plows up the whole face of the earth in a single day. what a wonderful workshop is the brain of man! its noiseless machinery cuts, and carves, and moulds, in the imponderable material of ideas. it works its endless miracles through the brawny arm of labor, and the deft fingers of skill, and the world moves forward by its magic. aladdin rubbed his lamp and the shadowy genii of fable performed impossible wonders. the dreamer of to-day rubs his fingers through his hair and the genii of his intellect work miracles which eclipse the most extravagant fantasies of the "arabian nights." a dreamer saw the imprisoned vapor throw open the lid of a teakettle, and lo! a steam engine came puffing from his brain. and now many a huge monster of corliss, beautiful as a vision of archimedes and smooth in movement as a wheeling planet, sends its thrill of life and power through mammoth plants of humming machinery. the fiery courser of the steel-bound track shoots over hill and plain, like a mid-night meteor through the fields of heaven, outstripping the wind. a dreamer carried about in his brain a great leviathan. it was launched upon the billows, and like some collossal swan the palatial steamship now sweeps in majesty through the blue wastes of old ocean. six hundred years before christ, some old greek discovered electricity by rubbing a piece of amber, and unable to grasp the mystery, he called it soul. his discovery slept for more than two thousand years until it awoke in the dreams of galvani, and volta, and benjamin franklin. in the morning of the nineteenth century the sculptor and scientist, morse, saw in his dreams, phantom lightnings leap across continents, and oceans, and felt the pulse of thunder beat as it came bounding over threads of iron that girdled the earth. in each throb he read a human thought. the electric telegraph emerged from his brain, like minerva from the brow of jove, and the world received a fresh baptism of light and glory. in a few more years we will step over the threshold of the twentieth century. what greater wonders will the dreamers yet unfold? it may be that another magician, greater even than edison, the "wizzard of menloe park," will rise up and coax the very laws of nature into easy compliance with his unheard-of dreams. i think he will construct an electric railway in the form of a huge tube, and call it the "electro-scoot," and passengers will enter it in new york and touch a button and arrive in san francisco two hours before they started! i think a new discovery will be made by which the young man of the future may stand at his "kiss-o-phone" in new york, and kiss his sweetheart in chicago with all the delightful sensations of the "aforesaid and the same." i think some liebig will reduce foods to their last analyses, and by an ultimate concentration of their elements, will enable the man of the future to carry a year's provisions in his vest pocket. the sucking dude will store his rations in the head of his cane, and the commissary department of a whole army will consist of a mule and a pair of saddlebags. a train load of cabbage will be transported in a sardine box, and a thousand fat texas cattle in an oyster can. power will be condensed from a forty horse engine to a quart cup. wagons will roll by the power in their axles, and the cushions of our buggies will cover the force that propels them. the armies of the future will fight with chain lightning, and the battlefield will become so hot and unhealthy that, "he who fights and runs away will never fight another day." some dreaming icarus will perfect the flying machine, and upon the aluminium wings of the swift pegassus of the air the light-hearted society girl will sail among the stars, and "behind some dark cloud, where no one's allowed, make love to the man in the moon." the rainbow will be converted into a ferris wheel; all men will be bald headed; the women will run the government--_and then i think the end of time will be near at hand_. dreams. i heard a song of love, and tenderness, and sadness, and beauty, sweeter than the song of a nightingale. it was breathed from the soul of robert burns. i heard a song of deepest passion surging like the tempest-tossed waves of the sea. it was the restless spirit of lord byron. i heard a mournful melody of despairing love, full of that wild, mad, hopeless longing of a bereaved soul which the mid-night raven mocked at with that bitterest of all words--"nevermore!" it was the weird threnody of the brilliant, but ill-starred poe, who, like a meteor, blazed but for a moment, dazzling a hemisphere, and then went out forever in the darkness of death. then i was exalted, and lifted into the serene sunlight of peace, as i listened to the spirit of faith, pouring out in the songs of our own immortal longfellow. with milton i walked the scented isles of long lost paradise, and caught the odor of its bloom, and the swell of its music. he led me through its rose brakes, and under the vermilion and flame of its orchids and honeysuckles, down to the margin of the limpid river, where the water lilies slept in fadeless beauty, and the lotus nodded to the rippling waves; and there, under a bridal arch of orange blossoms, cordoned by palms and many-colored flowers, i saw a vision of bliss and beauty from which satan turned away with an envy that stabbed him with pangs unfelt before in hell! it was earth's first vision of wedded love. but the horizon of shakespeare was broader than them all. there is no depth which he has not sounded, no height which he has not measured. he walked in the gardens of the intellectual gods and gathered sweets for the soul from a thousand unwithering flowers. he caught music from the spheres, and beauty from ten thousand fields of light. his brain was a mighty loom. his genius gathered and classified, his imagination spun and wove; the flying shuttle of his fancy delivered to the warp of wisdom and philosophy the shining threads spun from the fibres of human hearts and human experience; and with his wondrous woof of pictured tapestries, he clothed all thought in the bridal robes of immortality. his mind was a resistless flood that deluged the world of literature with its glory. the succeeding poets are but survivors as by the ark, and, like the ancient dove, they gather and weave into garlands only the "flotsam" of beauty which floats on the bosom of the shakespearean flood. oh, shakespeare, archangel of poetry! the light from thy wings drowns the stars and flashes thy glory on the civilizations of the whole world! "unwearied, unfettered, unwatched, unconfined, be my spirit like thee, in the world of the mind; no leaning for earth e'er to weary its flight; but fresh as thy pinions in regions of light." all honor to the poets and philosophers and painters and sculptors and musicians of the world! they are its honeybees; its songbirds; its carrier doves, its ministering angels. visions of departed glory. [illustration] i walked with gibbon and hume, through the sombre halls of the past, and caught visions of the glory of the classic republics and empires that flourished long ago, and whose very dust is still eloquent with the story of departed greatness. the spirit of genius lingers there still like the fragrance of roses faded and gone. i thought i heard the harp of pindar, and the impassioned song of the dark-eyed sappho. i thought i heard the lofty epic of the blind homer, rushing on in the red tide of battle, and the divine plato discoursing like an oracle in his academic shades. the canvas spoke and the marble breathed when apelles painted and phidias carved. i stood with michael angelo and saw him chisel his dreams from the marble. i saw raphael spread his visions of beauty in immortal colors. i sat under the spirit of paganini's power. the flow of his melody turned the very air into music. i thought i was in the presence of divinity as i listened to the warbles, and murmurs, and the ebb and flow of the silver tides, from his violin. and i said: music is the dearest gift of god to man. the sea, the forest, the field, and the meadow, are the very fountain heads of music. i believe that mozart, and mendelssohn, and schubert, and verdi, and all the great masters, caught their sweetest dreams from nature's musicians. i think their richest airs of mirth, and gladness, and joy, were stolen from the purling rivulet and the rippling river. i believe their grandest inspirations were born of the tempest, and the thunder, and the rolling billows of the angry ocean. nature's musicians. [illustration] i sat on the grassy brink of a mountain stream in the gathering twilight of evening. the shadowy woodlands around me became a great theatre. the greensward before me was its stage. the tinkling bell of a passing herd rang up the curtain, and i sat there all alone in the hush of the dying day and listened to a concert of nature's musicians who sing as god hath taught them to sing. the first singer that entered my stage was signor grasshopper. he mounted a mullein leaf and sang, and sang, and sang, until professor turkey gobbler slipped up behind him with open mouth, and signor grasshopper vanished from the footlights forevermore. and as professor turkey gobbler strutted off my stage with a merry gobble, the orchestra opened before me with a flourish of trumpets. the katydid led off with a trombone solo; the cricket chimed in with his e. flat cornet; the bumblebee played on his violoncello, and the jay-bird, laughed with his piccolo. the music rose to grandeur with the deep bass horn of the big black beetle; the mocking bird's flute brought me to tears of rapture, and the screech-owl's fife made me want to fight. the tree-frog blew his alto horn; the jar-fly clashed his tinkling cymbals; the woodpecker rattled his kettledrum, and the locust jingled his tambourine. the music rolled along like a sparkling river in sweet accompaniment with the oriole's leading violin. but it suddenly hushed when i heard a ripple of laughter among the hollyhocks before the door of a happy country home. i saw a youth standing there in the shadows with his arm around "something" and holding his sweetheart's hand in his. he bent forward; lip met lip, and there was an explosion like the squeak of a new boot. the lassie vanished into the cottage; the lad vanished over the hill, and as he vanished he swung his hat in the shadows, and sang back to her his happy love song. [illustration: love among the hollyhocks.] did you never hear a mountain love song? this is the song he sang: "oh, when she saw me coming she rung her hands and cried, she said i was the prettiest thing that ever lived or died. oh, run along home miss nancy, get along home miss nancy, run along home miss nancy, down in rockinham." the birds inclined their heads to listen to his song as it died away on the drowsy summer air. that night i slept in a mansion; but i "closed my eyes on garnished rooms to dream of meadows and clover blooms," and love among the hollyhocks. and while i dreamed i was serenaded by a band of mosquitoes. this is the song they sang: [illustration] "hush my dear, lie still and slumber; holy angels guard thy bed; heavenly 'skeeters without number buzzing 'round your old bald head!!!" preacher's paradise. there is no land on earth which has produced such quaint and curious characters as the great mountainous regions of the south, and yet no country has produced nobler or brainier men. when i was a barefooted boy my grandfather's old grist mill was the mecca of the mountaineers. they gathered there on the rainy days to talk politics and religion, and to drink "mountain" dew and fight. adam wheezer was a tall, spindle-shanked old settler as dark as an indian, and he wore a broad, hungry grin that always grew broader at the sight of a fat sheep. the most prominent trait of adam's character, next to his love of mutton, was his bravery. he stood in the mill one day with his empty sack under his arm, as usual, when bert lynch, the bully of the mountains, with an eye like a game rooster's, walked up to him and said: "adam, you've bin a-slanderin' of me, an' i'm a-gwine to give you a thrashin'." he seized adam by the throat and backed him under the meal spout. adam opened his mouth to squall and it spouted meal like a whale. he made a surge for breath and liberty and tossed bert away like a feather. then he shot out of the mill door like a rocket, leaving his old battered plug hat and one prong of his coat tail in the hands of the enemy. he ran through the creek and knocked it dry as he went. he made a bee line for my grandfather's house, a quarter of a mile away, on the hill. he burst into the sitting-room, covered with meal and panting like a bellowsed horse, frightening my grandmother almost into hysterics. the old lady screamed and shouted: "what in the world is the matter, adam?" adam replied: "that there durned bert lynch is down yander a-tryin' to raise a fuss with me." but every dog has his day. brother billy patterson preached from the door of the mill on the following sunday. it was his first sermon in that "neck of the woods," and he began his ministrations with a powerful discourse, hurling his anathemas against satan and sin and every kind of wickedness. he denounced whiskey. he branded the bully as a brute and a moral coward, and personated bert, having witnessed his battle with adam. this was too much for the champion. he resolved to "thrash" brother patterson, and in a few days they met at the mill. bert squared himself and said: "parson, you had your turn last sunday; it's mine to-day. pull off that broadcloth an' take your medicine. i'm a-gwine to suck the marrow out'n them ole bones o' yourn." the pious preacher plead for peace, but without avail. at last he said: "then, if nothing but a fight will satisfy you, will you allow me to kneel down and say my prayer before we fight?" "o yes, that's all right parson," said bert. "but cut yer prayer short, for i'm a-gwine to give you a good sound thrashin'." the preacher knelt and thus began to pray: "oh lord, thou knowest that when i killed bill cummings, and john brown, and jerry smith, and levi bottles, that i did it in self defense. thou knowest, oh lord, that when i cut the heart out of young sliger, and strewed the ground with the brains of paddy miles, that it was forced upon me, and that i did it in great agony of soul. and now, oh lord, i am about to be forced to put in his coffin, this poor miserable wretch, who has attacked me here to-day. oh lord, have mercy upon his soul and take care of his helpless widow and orphans when he is gone!" and he arose whetting his knife on his shoe-sole, singing: "hark, from the tomb a doleful sound, mine ears attend the cry." but when he looked around, bert was gone. there was nothing in sight but a little cloud of dust far up the road, following in the wake of the vanishing champion. [illustration] brother estep and the trumpet. during the great revival which followed brother patterson's first sermon and effective prayer, the hour for the old-fashioned methodist love feast arrived. old brother estep, in his enthusiasm on such occasions sometimes "stretched his blanket." it was his glory to get up a sensation among the brethren. he rose and said: "bretheren, while i was a-walkin' in my gyardin late yisterday evenin', a-meditatin' on the final eend of the world, i looked up, an' i seed gabrael raise his silver trumpet, which was about fifty foot long, to his blazin' lips, an' i hearn him give it a toot that knocked me into the fence corner an' shuck the very taters out'n the ground." "tut, tut," said the old parson, "don't talk that way in this meeting; we all know you didn't hear gabrael blow his trumpet." the old man's wife jumped to her feet to help her husband out, and said: "now parson, you set down there. don't you dispute john's word that-away--he mout a-hearn a toot or two." "wamper-jaw" at the jollification. the sideboard of those good old times would have thrown the prohibition candidate of to-day into spasms. it sparkled with cut glass decanters full of the juices of corn, and rye, and apple. the old squire of the mill "deestrict" had as many sweet, buzzing friends as any flower garden or cider press in christendom. the most industrious bee that sucked at the squire's sideboard was old "wamper-jaw." his mouth reached from ear to ear, and was inlaid with huge gums as red as vermilion; and when he laughed it had the appearance of lightning. on the triumphant day of the squire's re-election to his great office, when everything was lovely and "the goose hung high," he was surrounded by a large crowd of his fellow citizens, and thomas jefferson, in his palmiest days, never looked grander than did the squire on this occasion. he was attired in his best suit of homespun, the choicest product of his wife's dye pot. his immense vest with its broad luminous stripes, checked the rotundity of his ample stomach like the lines of latitude and longitude, and resembled a half finished map of the united states. his blue jeans coat covered his body as the waters cover the face of the great deep, and its huge collar encircled the back of his head like the belts of light around a planet. the squire was regaling his friends with his latest side-splitting jokes. old "wamper-jaw" threw himself back in his chair and exploded with peal after peal of laughter. but suddenly he looked around and said: "gen-tul-men, my jaw's flew out'n jint!" his comrades seized him and pulled him all over the yard trying to get it back. finally old "wamper-jaw" mounted his mule, and with pounding heels, rode, like tam o'shanter, to the nearest doctor who lived two miles away. the doctor gave his jaw a mysterious yank and it popped back into socket. "wamper-jaw" rushed back to join in the festivities at the squire's. the glasses were filled again; another side-splitting joke was told, another peal of laughter went 'round, when "wamper-jaw" threw his hand to his face and said: "gen-tul-men, she's out agin!!!" there was another hasty ride for the doctor. but in the years that followed; "wamper-jaw" was never known to laugh aloud. on the most hilarious occasions he merely showed his gums. [illustration: "wamper-jaw."] the tintinnabulation of the dinner bells. how many millions dream on the lowest planes of life! how few ever reach the highest and like stars of the first magnitude, shed their light upon the pathway of the marching centuries! what multitudes there are whose horizons are lighted with visions and dreams of the flesh pots and soup bowls,--whose fallstaffian aspirations never rise above the fat things of this earth, and whose ear flaps are forever inclined forward, listening for the dinner bells! "the bells, bells, bells! what a world of pleasure their harmony foretells! the bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells! the tintinnabulation of the dinner bells!" in my native mountains there once lived one of these old gluttonous dreamers. i think he was the champion eater of the world. many a time i have seen him at my grandfather's table, and the viands and battercakes vanished "like the baseless fabric of a vision,"--he left not "a wreck behind." but one day, in the voracity of his shark-like appetite, he unfortunately undertook too large a contract for the retirement of an immense slice of ham. it scraped its way down his rebellious esophagus for about two inches, and lodged as tightly as a bullet in a rusty gun. his prodigious adam's apple suddenly shot up to his chin; his eyes protruded, and his purple neck craned and shortened by turns, like a trombone in full blast. he scrambled from the table and pranced about the room like a horse with blind staggers. my grandfather sprang at him and dealt him blow after blow in the back, which sounded like the blows of a mallet on a dry hide; but the ham wouldn't budge. the old man ran out into the yard and seized a plank about three feet long, and rushed into the room with it drawn. "now william," said he, "get down on your all-fours." william got down. "now william, when i hit, you swallow." he hit, and it popped like a winchester rifle. william shot into the corner of the room like a shell from a mortar, but in a moment he was seated at his place at the table again, with a broad grin on his face. "is it down william?" shouted the old man. "yes, mr. haynes, the durned thing's gone,--please pass the ham." [illustration: "when i hit, you swallow."] i thought how vividly that old glutton illustrated the fools who, in their effort to gulp down the sensual pleasures of this world, choke the soul, and nothing but the clap-board of hard experience, well laid on, can dislodge the ham, and restore the equilibrium. phantoms of the wine cup. [illustration] a little below the glutton lies the plane of the drunkard whose visions and dreams are bounded by the horizon of a still tub. "a little wine for the stomach's sake is good," but in the trembling hand of a drunkard, every crimson drop that glows in the cup is crushed from the roses that once bloomed on the cheeks of some helpless woman. every phantom of beauty that dances in it is a devil; and yet, millions quaff, and with a hideous laugh, go staggering to the grave. [illustration] the missing link. a little below the plane of the drunkard is the dude, that missing link between monkey and man, whose dream of happiness is a single eye-glass, a kangaroo strut, and three hours of conversation without a sensible sentence; whose only conception of life is to splurge, and flirt, and spend his father's fortune. "out of the fullness of his heart his mouth singeth:" "i'm a dandy; i'm a swell. just from college, can't you tell? i'm the beau of every belle; i'm the swellest of the swell. i'm the king of all the balls, i'm a prince in banquet halls. my daddy's rich, they know it well, i'm the swellest of the swell." nightmare. unhappily for us all, in the world of visions and dreams, there is a dark side to human life. here have been dreamed out all the crimes which have steeped our race in shame since the expulsion from eden, and all the wars that have cursed mankind since the birth of history. alexander the great was a monster whose sword drank the blood of a conquered world. julius cæsar marched his invincible armies, like juggernauts, over the necks of fallen nations. napoleon bonaparte rose with the morning of the nineteenth century, and stood, like some frightful comet, on its troubled horizon. distraught with the dream of conquest and empire, he hovered like a god on the verge of battle. kings and emperors stood aghast. the sun of austerlitz was the rising sun of his glory and power, but it went down, veiled in the dark clouds of waterloo, and napoleon the great, uncrowned, unthroned, and stunned by the dreadful shock that annihilated the grand army and the old guard, "wandered aimlessly about on the lost field," in the gloom that palled a fallen empire, as hugo describes him, "the somnambulist of a vast, shattered dream." infidelity. it is in the desert of evil, where virtue trembles to tread, where hope falters, and where faith is crucified, that the infidel dreams. to him, all there is of heaven is bounded by this little span of life; all there is of pleasure and love is circumscribed by a few fleeting years; all there is of beauty is mortal; all there is of intelligence and wisdom is in the human brain; all there is of mystery and infinity is fathomable by human reason, and all there is of virtue is measured by the relations of man to man. to him, all must end in the "tongueless silence of the dreamless dust," and all that lies beyond the grave is a voiceless shore and a starless sky. to him, there are no prints of deathless feet on its echoless sands, no thrill of immortal music in its joyless air. he has lost his god, and like some fallen seraph flying in rayless night, he gropes his way on flagging pinions, searching for light where darkness reigns, for life where death is king. the dream of god. [illustration] i have wondered a thousand times, if an infidel ever looked through a telescope. the universe is the dream of god, and the heavens declare his glory. there is our mighty sun, robed in the brightness of his eternal fires, and with his planets forever wheeling around him. yonder is mercury, and venus, and there is mars, the ruddy globe, whose poles are white with snow, and whose other zones seem dotted with seas and continents. who knows but that his roseate color is only the blush of his flowers? who knows but that mars may now be a paradise inhabited by a blessed race, unsullied by sin, untouched by death? there is the giant orb of jupiter, the champion of the skies, belted and sashed with vapor and clouds; and saturn, haloed with bands of light and jeweled with eight ruddy moons; and there is uranus, another stupendous world, speeding on in the prodigious circle of his tireless journey around the sun. and yet another orbit cuts the outer rim of our system; and on its gloomy pathway, the lonely neptune walks the cold, dim solitudes of space. in the immeasurable depths beyond appear millions of suns, so distant that their light could not reach us in a thousand years. there, spangling the curtains of the black profound, shine the constellations that sparkle like the crown jewels of god. there are double, and triple, and quadruple suns of different colors, commingling their gorgeous hues and flaming like archangels on the frontier of stellar space. if we look beyond the most distant star, the black walls are flecked with innumerable patches of filmy light like the dewy gossamers of the spider's loom that dot our fields at morn. what beautiful forms we trace among those phantoms of light! circles, and elipses, and crowns, and shields, and spiral wreaths of palest silver. and what are they? did i say phantoms of light? the telescope resolves them into millions of suns, standing out from the oceans of white hot matter that contain the germs of countless systems yet to be. and so far removed from us are these suns, that the light which comes to us from them to-night has been speeding on its way for more than two million years. what is that white belt we call the milky way, which spans the heavens and sparkles like a sahara of diamonds? it is a river of stars: it is a gulf stream of suns; and if each of these suns holds in his grasp a mighty system of planets, as ours does, how many multiplied millions of worlds like our own are now circling in that innumerable concourse? oh, where are the bounds of this divine conception! where ends this dream of god? and is there no life and intelligence in all this throng of spheres? are there no sails on those far away summer seas, no wings to cleave those crystal airs, no forms divine to walk those radiant fields? are there no eyes to see those floods of light, no hearts to share with ours that love which holds all these mighty orbs in place? it cannot be, it cannot be! surely there is a god! if there is not, life is a dream, human experience is a phantom, and the universe is a flaunting lie! * * * * * [illustration: syrup of figs] one enjoys both the method and results when syrup of figs is taken; it is pleasant and refreshing to the taste, and acts gently yet promptly on the kidneys, liver, and bowels, cleanses the system effectually, dispels colds, headaches, and fevers and cures habitual constipation. syrup of figs is the only remedy of its kind ever produced, pleasing to the taste and acceptable to the stomach, prompt in its action and truly beneficial in its effects, prepared only from the most healthy and agreeable substances, its many excellent qualities commend it to all and have made it the most popular remedy known. syrup of figs is for sale in cent bottles by all leading druggists. any reliable druggist who may not have it on hand will procure it promptly for any one who wishes to try it. do not accept any substitute. california fig syrup co. san francisco, cal. louisville, ky. new york, n. y. * * * * * vanderbilt university, department of dentistry nashville, tennessee. a purely dental school--a training school for dentists--does what it claims to do, as the results show. regular session will begin oct. th; ends march , . post-graduate and practical courses, also. for information, address dr. w. h. morgan, dean, n. high st. * * * * * [illustration: balmer's magnetic inhaler] a magic cure ... for ... catarrh, asthma, hay fever, la grippe, sore throat, etc. a positive preventive and cure for all germ diseases. a quick cure for colds. used and praised by over a million americans. one minute's trial will convince you of its wonderful merit. endorsed by leading physicians. every one guaranteed. money refunded if not satisfied. will last two years and can be refilled by us for cents in stamps. thousands have been sold under guarantee. it speaks for itself. show it and it sells itself. price cents postpaid. stamps taken. agents wanted. send cents for one inhaler and ask for wholesale prices to agents. address baptist and reflector, nashville, tenn. * * * * * [illustration] new southern hotel, chattanooga, tenn. centrally located. newly furnished. first-class in all respects. best ventilated and the best fire protection of any house in the city. prompt and polite service. rates $ . to $ . . commercial rates to travelling men. special rates to excursions of five and upwards. w. o. peeples, manager. * * * * * the south's leading jewelers. stief jewelry co. & union st., nashville, tenn. direct importers of fine diamonds. dealers in watches, jewelry, and fancy goods. we are strictly "up-to-date" in designs, with quality and prices guaranteed. write for our illustrated catalogue, if unable to call and see us. special attention given to all mail orders. _james b. carr, manager._ largest jewelry house in the south. * * * * * highest award. starr pianos world's fair, . buy direct and save money. america's leading manufacturers and dealers. branches in leading cities of u. s. factories: richmond, ind. jesse french piano & organ co., nashville, tenn. * * * * * artistic home decorations. we can show you effects never before thought of, and at moderate prices, too. why have your house decorated and painted by inferior workmen, when you can have it done by skilled workmen--by artists--for the same price? 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"prof. draughon--i learned bookkeeping at home from your books, while holding a position as night telegraph operator." c. e. leffingwell, bookkeeper for gerber and ficks, wholesale grocers, south chicago, ill. (_mention this paper when writing._) * * * * * young people. free: $ . in gold, bicycle, gold watch, diamond ring, or a scholarship in draughon's practical business college, nashville, tenn., galveston or texarkana, tex., or a scholarship in most any other reputable business college or literary school in the u. s. can be secured by doing a little work at home for the youths' advocate, an illustrated semi-monthly journal. it is elevating in character, moral in tone, and especially interesting and profitable to young people, but read with interest and profit by people of all ages. stories and other interesting matter well illustrated. sample copies sent free. agents wanted. address youths' advocate pub. co., nashville, tenn. [mention this paper.] [illustration: _george w. bain._] _wit, humor, reason, rhetoric, prose, poetry and story woven into_ _eight popular lectures._ _by_ _george w. bain._ published by the pentecostal publishing company louisville, ky. copyrighted by geo. w. bain, lexington, ky. to anna m. bain. so far as this life is concerned, i can express no better wish for any young man who reads this book, than that he may be wedded to a wife as loyal, loving and helpful to him as mine has been to me. introduction. in offering this book to the public no claim is made to literary merit or originality of thought. it is published with the same purpose its contents were spoken from the platform, namely, to do good. with the testimony of many, that hearing these lectures helped to shape their lives, came the thought that reading them might help others when the tongue that spoke them is silent. as a public speaker the author admits, that how to get a grip on his hearers outweighed the grammar of language; that the ring of sincerity and truth in presenting a proposition appealed to him more than relation of pronoun or preposition; besides in the "high school of hard knocks" from which he graduated artistic taste in literature was not taught. if it is true that "tongue is more potent than pen," then the mysterious power of personality and delivery will be missed in the reading, yet it is hoped the simplicity of the setting of anecdote and argument, incident and experience, facts and figures, story, poetry and appeal will suffice to make this volume attractive and helpful to those who read it, and thus the lives of many may be made brighter and better by the life work of the author. george w. bain. popular lectures. index. lecture page i. among the masses, or traits of character ii. a searchlight of the twentieth century iii. our country, our homes and our duty iv. the new woman and the old man v. the safe side of life for young men vi. platform experiences vii. the defeat of the nation's dragon viii. if i could live life over i among the masses, or traits of character. whatever criticism i choose to make on human character, i hope to soften the criticism with the "milk of human kindness." as rude rough rocks on mountain peaks wear button-hole bouquets so there are intervening traits in the rudest human character, which, if the clouds could only part, would show out in redeeming beauty. to begin with, i believe prejudice to be one of the most unreasonable traits in character. it is said: "one of the most difficult things in science is to invent a lense that will not distort the object it reflects; the least deviation in the lines of the mirror will destroy the beauty of a star." how unreliable then must be the distorting lense of human prejudice. i had a bit of experience during the civil war which gave me something of that whole-heartedness necessary to the service of my kind. in the twilight of a summer evening, making a sharp curve in a road, about a dozen men confronted me. they were dressed in blue, a color i was not very partial to at that time. i had read that "he that fights and runs away may live to fight another day." it occurred to me that he who would run without fighting might have a still better chance, but the click of gun locks and an order to surrender changed my mind to "safety first" and i was a prisoner of the blue-coated cavalry. the commanding officer who had me in charge (during my visit) was a kentucky colonel. he afterward became a major-general. i looked at him during the remainder of the war from the narrow standpoint of prejudice and cherished revenge in my heart for his having exposed me to the flying bullets of the confederate pickets, a peril he was not responsible for and of which he knew nothing until i informed him in after years. a few years after the war our barks met upon the same wave of life's ocean. we became engaged in the same work of reform, i as an advocate of temperance, he as candidate for the presidency of the united states on the prohibition ticket. from the warmth of friendship, my prejudice melted like mist before the morning sun and i found in general green clay smith a combination of the noblest traits in human character. whoever would graduate in the highest franchise of being, and realize the royalty that comes of partnership with sovereignty, must have respectfulness of bearing and feeling toward those from whom they differ. we are greatly creatures of education and environment anyway, and until we can unlock the alphabet of a life and sum up the mingling, blending, reciprocal forces that have been playing upon that life, we have no more right to abuse persons for honest convictions than we have to blame them for their parentage. you do not know the forces that have given direction to the lives of others; if so, you might know why one is a member of this or that church, this or that political party, why one lives north, another south, one on the land, another on the sea. some of you may differ with me, but i believe if general grant had been born in the south, reared and educated in the south, his father had owned a cotton plantation and many slaves, general grant would have been a confederate general in the civil war; while robert e. lee if born, reared and educated in new england would have been a union general. if my opinion is correct, if all you northern people had lived down south, and we southern people had lived north, we would have gotten the better of the conflict instead of you. if yonder oak, that came from the finest acorn and promised to be the monarch of the forest, was dwarfed by simply a drop of dew; if yonder rolling river, bearing its commerce to sea, was turned seaward, instead of lakeward, by simply a pebble thrown in the fountain-head; why not have consideration for those whose circumstances and early training set in motion convictions differing from ours. god did not intend all the trees to be oaks, or that all the rivers should run in one direction, but he did intend all to make up at last his one great purpose. thomas f. marshall in an address many years ago, to illustrate the differences between people of different sections, said: "if you call a mississippian a liar, he will challenge you to a duel; call a kentuckian a liar, he will stab you with a bowie-knife or shoot you down; call an indianian a liar, he will say, 'you're another;' call a new englander a liar, he will say, 'i bet you a dollar you can't prove it.'" mr. marshall intended his compliment for the mississippian and kentuckian, but really his compliment was to the new englander. if a man calls you a liar, and you are not a liar, the manliest thing to do is to say, "i challenge you, sir, not on to a field of dishonor, where the better aimed bullet will tell who's a murderer, but i challenge you out into the sunlight of god's truth where i'll prove myself a man and you a slanderer." i use this to show it is not just to look at character or questions from the narrow standpoint of prejudice. then again, we should not judge a person by one trait. there are persons for whom you may do fifty favors, yet make one mistake and they will never forgive you. george dewey went to the philippine islands, remained in the harbor for months, never made a mistake and returned to this country the naval hero of the world; and never were so many babies, horses and dogs named for one man in the same length of time. but one morning the papers came out with the statement that he had deeded to his wife a piece of property some friends had presented to him, and within three days after, when his picture was thrown on a canvas in an opera house in washington city it was hissed from the audience, and when later on he dared to allow his name used as a candidate for the presidency of the united states, we were ready to smash the hero at once. but we must remember there are very few men able to withstand the world's praises. indeed there never was but one man who could be successfully lionized and that man was daniel. captain smith of the titanic was held responsible by public opinion for the sinking of the great ship and was harshly criticised by the press. his forty years of faithful, careful service on the sea was erased by the one mistake. it was a tremendous one, but let it be said to his credit that experts had declared that a ship with fifteen air-tight compartments could not sink, that if cut into halves both ends would ride the sea. the bulk-head was made to withstand any contact, and captain smith never dreamt of danger from icebergs. but when he saw his idol shattered, he did all a brave seaman could do to save human lives. when the last life-boat was launched he came upon a little child who was lost from its parents. he seized a life-belt, buckled it about his waist and taking the child in his arms, jumped into the icy ocean. holding the child above the water with one hand, he used the other as an oar, and reaching a boat he placed the little one in the arms of a woman. then returning to his sinking ship, he threw off the life-belt and went down to his death. who knows but in the great reckoning day, his reward will be "inasmuch as ye did it unto that little one on the sea, ye did it unto me." the great joseph cook had a reputation that caused many to look upon him as one who was all brains and no heart. before meeting mr. cook i was very much prejudiced against him because of what i had heard. i lectured for a teachers' institute at new wilmington, pennsylvania, when the great preacher was to follow me the next evening. as i was leaving the county superintendent said to me: "when you reach the main line joseph cook will get off the train which you are to take. i wish you would speak to him and give him the name of the hotel where i have reserved a room for him." when i reached the junction, and the great savage looking lecturer stepped from the train, i said to myself: "you can go to any hotel you please, i'll tell you nothing." some months later i lectured in cooper union hall in new york city. just about time to begin the lecture joseph cook entered the door and took a seat just inside. when i had talked about ten minutes, he arose and passed out. i thought he was not pleased and the incident did not lessen my unfavorable estimate of the great thinker. some three years later mr. cook was on our chautauqua program at lexington, kentucky. doctor w.l. davidson, superintendent of the assembly, requested me to call at the hotel and inform our distinguished visitor of his hour and see to his reaching the chautauqua grounds. with reluctance i went to the hotel and sent my card to his room. he ordered me to be shown up to the room at once. approaching the door i found it open and mr. cook stood facing me. my impression is that politeness was sacrificed in my haste to explain that i was sent to inform him as to the hour of his lecture and to offer to call for him in time to escort him to the grounds. extending his hand he said: "come in and let me make my best bow to you for the service you have rendered the temperance cause. i heard you once for about ten minutes in cooper union, when i had an engagement and had to leave. i see you are on the program tomorrow and i shall be there." after his first lecture, returning to the hotel i said: "mr. cook, if i can be of any service to you while you are in our city, please feel at liberty to command me at any time." he replied: "i order you at once. i am anxious to see the home of henry clay and the monument erected to his memory." next morning we went to ashland and then to the cemetery. after visiting the clay monument, we were passing near where my daughter had been buried only a few months before. when i had called his attention to the sacred spot, mr. cook said: "i read miss willard's account of her death, and the beautiful tribute paid her in the union signal. please stop a moment." he left the carriage and going to the grave, took off his hat and stood with uncovered head for a few moments. then taking his seat beside me in the carriage, he laid his hand on mine and said: "blessed are the dead that die in the lord." with tears rolling down my cheeks i said to myself: "under the great brain of joseph cook beats a tender heart." not to know him was to misjudge him, while the close touch of friendship revealed one of god's noblemen. unity in variety is the order of nature. out of what seems to us a medley of contradictions come amendments and reconstructions that illustrate the benevolent guardianship of god in working out the problem of creation. out of the most discordant elements god can bring the most harmonious results. out of the bitterness and bloodshed of our civil war has come a more harmonious, united, happy and prosperous people. it was said of general grant: "he's an artist in human slaughter. he cares nothing for the loss of men, so he wins the battle." but, general grant believed the harder the battle the sooner it would be over. when the end came he gave back the sword of lee, and said to the worn-out confederate soldiers: "take your horses with you, you'll need them on your farms. go back to your homes and peace go with you." that manly strength of character that enables a man to face shot and shell on the battlefield, is not any more sublime than the manly weakness of heart which "weeps with those who weep." while we should not judge one by a single trait in character we must not overlook the importance of little traits. in this age of great movements, great schemes and great combinations, our young people are disposed to ignore little things. a little thing in this great big age is too insignificant. yet, we are told it was the cackling of a goose that saved rome; the cry of a babe in the bull-rushes gave a law-giver to the jews; the kick of a cow caused the great chicago fire; the omission of a comma in preparing a bill that passed congress cost this republic a half million dollars; while the ignoring of a comma in reading a church notice cost a minister quite a bit of embarrassment. among his announcements was one which ran thus: "a husband going to _sea_, his wife desires the prayers of this church." the preacher read: "a husband going to see his wife, desires the prayers of this church." little things are suggestive of great things. we read that a ship-worm, working its way through a dry stick of wood, suggested to brunell a plan by which the thames river could be tunneled. the twitching of a frog's flesh as it touched a certain kind of metal led galvani to invent the electric battery. the swinging of a spider's web across a garden walk led to the invention of the suspension bridge. the oscillation of a lamp in the temple of pisa led galileo to invent the measurement of time by a pendulum. a butterfly's wing suggested the combination of colors. so little things are suggestive of great things in character. "boy wanted" was the sign at the entrance to a store. a boy took the sign down and with it in his hand entered the store. "what are you doing with that sign?" asked the proprietor. the boy replied: "well, i'm here, so i brought in the sign." that boy was given the place. attention to small things has made many a successful man, while a little temper, a little indifference, a little cigarette, a little drink or some other little thing has been the undoing of many a young man. what are these little traits in human character? they are matches struck in the dark. do you know what that means, a match struck in the dark? if not, get up some night when it's pitch dark in the room, run your face up against a half open door, knock the pitcher off the table and spill the cold water on your bare feet, sit down on a chair that's not there, and you'll realize what it means to strike a match. if i were to go into a parlor of one of your finest homes at midnight with all the lights out, i would see nothing, but let me strike a match and beautifully decorated walls, fine paintings, and furniture will meet and greet my vision. you cannot be very long in the company of anyone until a match will be struck. of one you will say, "that's good; i'm glad to find such a trait in that person," but directly another match will flare up and you will find another trait as disappointing as the other was commendable, and you are at a loss to know what "manner of man" you are with. it's a wonder to me when so many characters are so difficult to solve that many young people rush headlong into matrimony without striking a match, except the match they strike at the marriage altar. a girl sees a young man today; he's handsome, talks well, and she falls in love with him, dreams about him tonight, sighs about him tomorrow and thinks she'll surely die if he doesn't ask her to marry him. yet she knows nothing about his parentage or his character. no wonder we have so many unhappy marriages, so many homes like the one where a stranger knocked at the front door and receiving no response went around to the rear where he found a very small husband and a very large wife in a fight, with the wife getting the better of the battle. the stranger said: "hello! who runs this house?" "that's what we are trying to settle now," shouted the little husband. my young friends, i will admit love is a kind of spontaneous, impulsive, natural affinity, something after the order of molecular attraction or chemical affinity, but while by the natural law of love, a young woman may see in the object of her affection her ideal of perfection in humanity, she owes volitional conformity to a higher law than natural affinity. she owes to herself, to posterity and to her country a careful study of the character of the young man to whom she should link her life and love. i believe two dark clouds hanging upon the horizon of this republic to be the recklessness with which life is linked with life at the marriage altar, and the recklessness with which we elect men to offices of public trust. while we have many public men, schooled in the science of government, whom the spoils of office cannot corrupt, we have an army of demagogues who rely upon saloon politics for promotion, and on all moral questions reason with their stomachs instead of their brains. this is especially true in the government of our large cities. sam jones, lecturing in a city noted for its corrupt government said: "take the political gang you have running this city, put them in a cage, then let the devil pass along and look in and he would say, 'that beats anything i have in my show.'" we don't seem to realize that every public man is a teacher, every home is a school, and the education received outside the schoolroom is often more effective than the education inside. all the forces and elements of the organism of society are teachers and all life is learning. the birth of an infant into this world is its matriculation into a university, where it graduates in successive degrees. and do you know in this great school of human life, where i come with you to study the traits of our kind, that we never reach a grade that we are not influenced by what touches us? here i am past fifty years of age (and then "some"), yet i am constantly being influenced by what touches me. start a new song with a popular air and it will spread throughout the whole country. boys will whistle it and girls will sing it. a number of years ago, when at the station ready to leave home for new england, a lad near me began to whistle and then to sing a new song. it was a catchy tune and took hold of me. on the train i found myself trying to hum that tune, then i tried to whistle it, and failing in both attempts i finally gave it up. two days after i left the train up in a new hampshire town and took a street car for the hotel. a blizzard was on, but there stood the motorman, muffled to his ears, whistling the same tune i had heard down in kentucky, "there'll be a hot time in the old town tonight." when the telephone made its appearance a good christian man had one installed in his store and during the morning hours of the first day he called up all his friends who had phones, and "hello! hello!" took hold of him. he went home to lunch and being a little late he hurried into his chair at the table. with the telephone still on his mind, he bowed his head to return thanks and said: "hello." he was a good christian man, but the telephone had taken hold of him. the very tone of the voice has a tendency to influence and control character. i wonder so many parents train their voices as they do. they have a kind of snap to the tone which they evidently think makes the children and the servants "get a move" on them. perhaps it does, but at the same time it falls upon a family like frost upon a field of flowers. you pay three dollars to have your piano tuned, yet you train your voice to sound harsh and hard. how the tone of the voice controls was illustrated in my own home several years ago. i went home in the early spring and found some one had been among my bees and had left the lids of the hives lifted at the time the bees were making brood. going to the house i said to my wife: "where is charlie?" he was the colored man in charge of the barn and garden. mrs. bain replied: "i suppose he is about the barn; he doesn't stay in the house." i knew that, but somehow we adams will go to our eves with anything that goes wrong. "what's the trouble?" my wife asked. i told her about the exposure of the bees, (about the effect of which i knew very little) and said: "i want charlie to keep out of that apiary. he'll kill every bee i have." mrs. bain in a very gentle manner said: "i did that myself. that's the way father used to do. i was afraid your bees might starve during the long cold spell, so i made some syrup and placed it in the upper compartments. i lifted the lids so that the light would attract the bees up to the syrup. i'm very sorry i did it, but i thought it would please you." i said: "well, i believe you did the right thing, my dear, and i am very much obliged to you." if my wife had said in a harsh tone: "i did that, sir. what are you going to do about it?" then i would have said something. a little bit of anger let loose in a field of human nature is as destructible to noble impulses and generous feelings as a cyclone is to a town. i was in an iowa cyclone some years ago and i noticed when it was approaching the people didn't run out of their homes and throw stones at it. they ran for the storm cellars. when you see a bit of anger coming toward you from brother, sister, husband, wife or friend, don't throw a dictionary of aggravating words at it; get out of the way and it will quiet down like the troubled waters of galilee when "peace be still" fell upon them. when we realize how sensitive character is to the touch of influences, and how uncertain the character of the influence that may touch us, how very careful we should be as parents as to what shall touch us, how we shall touch others, who may be fed by our fulness, starved by our emptiness, uplifted by our righteousness or tainted by our sins. sometimes a boy is sent to school with the idea that the influence of the teacher will mold the character of the boy, when the magnetic touch by which the faculties of the boy are sprung doesn't come from the teacher, but from some boy on the playground and perhaps not the best boy. some boys are as potent on the playground as a major-general on a battle-field. some persons are like loadstones, they draw, others are like loads of stone, they have to be drawn. i have known down south in the days of slavery, coal black queens of the domestic circle. the cows would come to the cupping as if it were a spiritual devotion. maiden mistresses would tell them their love stories, when they wouldn't tell their own mothers. i am a southern man, born and reared mid slavery, and i pay this tribute to the black "mammies" of the south before the war. down there in that hale, hearty colored motherhood was laid the foundation of future health and strength for many a white baby, when otherwise its mother would have had to see it die. frail, delicate mothers, who because of slavery had not done sufficient work to develop physical womanhood, were not able to nurse their own infants and gave them to the care of vigorous, healthy colored mothers, who took them to their bosoms and nursed them into strength. but for that supplemental supply of vigor, but for that sympathetic partnership in motherhood, much of the most potent manhood of the south would never have been known. you who lived in the north before the war, and you who are younger and have read about the auction block, the slave driver and the cottonfield cannot understand the attachment between one of these colored mothers and the white boy or girl she nursed. i know whereof i speak, for i revere the memory of my old black mammy. there are verses, written by whom i do not know, the words of which i cannot recall except a line here and there, hence i take the liberty to supply the missing lines and revise the verses to express my feelings for the slave mammy of my childhood. "she was only a dear old darkey, in a cabin far away, down in the sunny southland, where sunbeams dance and play. yet oft in dreams i hear her crooning, crooning soft and low: 'sleep on, baby boy, the sleep will make you grow.' "oft when tired of fighting in a world so full of wrong; when wearied and worried with the tumult and the throng, i seek again the cabin, where dwelt a heart of gold and in dreams she loves and pets me, as she did in days of old. "oh, my dear old colored mammy, in the cabin far away, since you rocked me in the cradle seems forever and a day. yet in dreams i hear you crooning above my cradle nest; 'sleep on, baby boy, mammy watches while you rest.'" a white baby, whose mother was ill for months, was given to one of these colored mothers to nurse. after the war the white family moved west. as their child grew up the father and mother often told her about aunt hannah, how she loved her, petted her, cooked for her, and drove away her own pickaninnies to let "mammy's baby" sleep. the girl, when she had grown to womanhood, heard that aunt hannah was still living and she longed to see her devoted old colored mammy. her parents had the same desire, and with other attachments for the old southern home, they went back to georgia on a visit and to the village where the old woman lived. she was sent for and the old black mammy and the beautiful young girl faced each other. the young lady was disappointed. she expected to see a nice, comely old woman, but there she stod, crippled with rheumatism, gray headed, wrinkled, and poorly clad. the old woman was surprised, for there before her stood a beautiful young woman, with rosy cheeks, blue eyes, auburn locks and queenly form. the father and mother stood near, with tears rolling down their cheeks as memory came surging up like successive waves from out a past hallowed to them, for they could see in that old woman the health and strength of their child. the old woman broke the silence, saying: "is dat my chile? is dat de chile i loved and laid wake wif so many nights and cooked so many sweet things for? why, bless yo' heart, honey; dese old hands ust to take yo' and hug yo' to dis bosom, but yo's too nice now for dese old hands to eber touch agin." the young girl said: "no, i'm not, aunt hannah. you shall take me in your arms as when i was a little child," and she gave a bound into the old woman's arms. that does not mean social equality, but it does mean gratitude neither condition nor color can ever bound. if the reciprocities of that old woman and that beautiful girl were such as to weave enrichments into both hearts, why should not all peoples, and all individuals, see in all others but a multiplication of the one each of us is, and that each is enhanced or diminished in value according to the concentrated worth of the whole? if man would stand in his lot of conformity to man, as that old colored woman stood in her lot, it would lift this world to that height from which we could see the one interest, one reciprocal, interdependent, together-woven, god-allied and god-saved humanity. but in this we fail. several men, one of them an irishman, were standing on a street corner when a negro passed. the irishman said: "faith, and if i had been makin' humanity for a world, i would niver have made a nager." i suppose in return the negro would not have made the irishman, nor would the white man have made the indian or chinaman, but god made them all and in proportion as we have the philanthropic comprehensiveness to accept them all, and benevolently try to serve them in their places, do we honor the place assigned us in the world's creation. it is not for us to know why god made this or that; he made everything for a purpose. a father took his boy to an animal show. the lad had never seen a monkey and as they played their pranks about the cage he said: "father, did god make monkeys?" when the father replied: "yes," the boy said: "well, don't you guess god laughed when he made the first monkey?" i don't know about that, but if god made the monkey for a joke it was certainly a success. if god had made the monkey for no other purpose than to create laughter it wouldn't have been a mistake. the lachrymal glands were placed in us for sorrow to play upon; we are commanded to "weep with those who weep." in antithesis to this the risable nerves were placed in us for mirthful music, and i pity the one who has broken the keys and cannot laugh. i believe we owe the irishman a vote of thanks for the ringing laughs he has sent around the world. an irishman said to a rich english land-owner: "me lord, i think the world is very unaqually divided; it should be portioned out and each one given an aqual share with ivery other one?" the englishman replied: "well, pat, if we were to divide today, in ten years i would have ten thousand pounds and you wouldn't have a shilling." "then we would divide again," said the irishman. on an electric car going out of new york city, a man, who occupied a seat next to the aisle, had a pet monkey in a cage on the seat with him, next to the window. an irishman boarded the car and seeing all the seats taken he remained standing, holding on to a strap, when suddenly he spied the monkey in the cage. he immediately addressed the man who had the monkey: "sir, is that gintleman in the cage paying his fare? if not, i'd like to have the sate." the owner of the monkey lifted the cage to his lap and moved over, giving the irishman a seat. "what's the nationality of that gintleman, anyway?" asked pat. by this time the other man was very much out of humor and said: "he's half ape and half irish." "faith, then he's related to both of us," replied the witty son of erin, and there were two monkeys on that car. i'll admit this trait of humor comes in sometimes when it is quite embarrassing, as it was to sam jones upon one occasion, when in the midst of a sermon before a large audience, he said: "all you who want to go to heaven, stand up; i'd like to take a look at you." the audience arose in great numbers. when seated again mr. jones said: "now all you who want to go to the devil, stand and let's have a look at you." all was silent for a moment and then a tall, lank, lean fellow from the backwoods arose and said: "well, parson, i don't care anything special about seeing the old chap, but i never desert a friend in trouble, specially a minister, so i guess i'll have to stand with you." dr. frank gunsaulus told me of a time when he had to laugh under embarrassing circumstances. he was called upon to preach the funeral of a man who had died from the effects of drink. his friends had made a box for the corpse and had placed in the top a ten by twelve window glass to go over the face, but when the time came to put the top on the box, being double-sighted from drink, they reversed the top and had the glass at the foot of the coffin instead of the head. the preacher took his place, as he supposed, at the head of the deceased, when looking down his eyes fell upon a pair of feet. with great effort he kept his face straight and conducted the service. at the close he invited the friends to view the remains. one stimulated friend walked up to the coffin, shook his head and turning to another said: "don't look at him, jim. he's changing very fast and you won't know him." the great preacher is to be excused if he did laught at that funeral. it's good to laugh, and yet, while i pay tribute to the trait of humor, i would have the undergirding trait of all traits of character, the trait of principle. though you may use policy now and then, never use a policy you must get off the heaven-bound express train of principle to use. i don't like that word policy. there is another and better name for the trait i would present just here, and that is _tact_. it means the doing of a right thing at the right time and in the right place. some young men win first honors in college and fail in the business of life for want of tact. here is where the yankee excels. the southerner is genial, generous and has many traits of character to be admired, but he must doff his hat to yankee character for the development of tact. sam jones, who rarely ever failed to get the best of whoever tried repartee with him, met more than his match when he ran up against yankee tact. he was raising money to pay off the debt on a church. a liberal member said: "mr. jones, i have given about all i can afford to give, but if you will get one dollar from that old man on the end of the back bench of the 'amen corner,' i'll give you ten dollars more." "has he any money, and is he a member of the church?" "yes," was the answer to both questions. the great evangelist said: "well, that's easy," and started for the dollar. approaching the old man he said: "brother, i'm collecting money for the lord. you owe him a dollar. i'm told you are an honest man and always pay your debts, so hand over that dollar." "how old are you, sir?" asked the old man. when sam gave his age at about forty, the old brother said: "i'm nearly double your age, sir, and will very likely see the lord before you do, so i'll just give him the dollar myself." i lectured in new england a few years ago when before me sat a yankee with his two sons. he sat between them and when i made a point which he approved, he would nudge the boys. he seemed to be driving my advice in with his elbows. at the close of the lecture i took his hand and said: "i see you have your boys with you." he replied: "yes, i always take the two boys with me when i attend a lecture. i presume when a speaker has prepared himself he is going to get about the best things out of his subject, and will put them in a way to take hold and benefit young men. if i were going to get the same information out of books i might have to spend a dollar or two, when i only paid fifteen cents each for them to hear your lecture." this trait of tact, however, is moving south, and even the colored race is getting hold of it. an old negro who was born on the plantation where he lived when set free, remained after the war in his cabin and worked for the son of his old master. in his old age his memory began to fail and he would neglect to do things he was told to do. the young man was patient with the old negro for quite a while but finally said to him: "uncle dan, you must do better or you and i will have to separate." the old servant said: "mars jim, i does the best i can. i is mighty sorry i forgits things and i'se gwine to try to do better." but he grew worse and one evening when he failed to do a very important chore, the young man said: "i told you what would happen if you did not do better and the time has come when you and i separate." uncle dan replied: "i'se mighty sorry, marse jim. i was here when you was born, and when you growed big enuf i ust to take you on de mule out to de field wif me, and i members how you ust to take de lines and dribe de ole mule. den when de war broke out and ole master jined de army, i stayed here and took care ob ole missus and you chilluns. i shore is mighty sorry we's got to part, but if you says so den its got to be, but look here, mars jim, if we's got to part, whar's you counting on moving to?" by this time tact had done its work, aggravation had melted into forgiveness and the young man said: "i'm not going to move anywhere, uncle dan, nor shall you. we'll both stay here on the old plantation together." that was certainly tact on the old man's part. a young negro, who craved a ride on a railroad train but had no money, crept under the baggage car and fixed himself on the truck. the train started and when at full speed the engine struck a mule and tore the animal to pieces. part of the mangled remains was carried into the running gear of the baggage car. the engineer stopped the train and commenced pulling out pieces of mule here and there until he reached the baggage car, when, looking under for more of the mule, he saw the white eyes of the negro. "come out, you imp, what are you doing under there?" said the engineer. back came the tactful reply: "boss, i wus de fellow what wus ridin' dat mule." the engineer said: "well, i guess you've paid your fare; climb into the cab and help me run this train." i commend to you the cultivation of tact, but don't let it lead you into the meanest trait of character--selfishness. to say, "of all my father's family i love myself the best, if providence takes care of me, who cares what takes the rest?" in the days when there was a community hearse in a country neighborhood, and carpenters made the coffins, a young man, who was ashamed of the old worn-out hearse, went about soliciting money to purchase a new one. presenting the purpose to an old man of means, he received from this selfish citizen the reply: "i won't give you a dollar. i helped to buy the old hearse twenty years ago, and neither me nor my family have ever had any benefit from it." against this trait of selfishness i place the most beautiful of all traits--sympathy. i would rather have the record of clara barton in the great reckoning day than that of any statesman whose portrait hangs in a hall of fame. during our civil war she went from battlefield to battlefield, and was just as kind to the boy in gray as she was to the boy in blue. after the civil war queen victoria desired to communicate with clara barton regarding the same mission of mercy for the german army, where the queen's daughter was then engaged. but clara barton was already on the ocean, and soon after was in the war zone with the german army. she was with the first who climbed the defenses of strassburg, where she ministered to the wounded and dying. at the close of her work there she took ten thousand garments with her to france. there she waited till the commune fell and again she was with the first to reach the suffering. in our own war with spain she went to cuba, and though then past sixty years of age, she stood among the cots of our wounded and sick soldiers, soothing their sufferings and cheering their hearts. still later on in storm-swept galveston, texas, she fell at her post of duty and was borne back by loving hands to her home, where she recovered and again resumed her work of love and mercy, to carry it on to the end of her long and useful life. no wonder the king and court of germany bestowed upon her medals of remembrance; no wonder the grand duchess of baden placed upon her the "red cross of geneva;" and in the great day of reward, he who bore the cross for us all will place upon clara barton the crown of eternal life. when my wife was president of the house of mercy, in lexington, kentucky, a home for the rescue of fallen girls, she went in her carriage to a dentist with one of the unfortunate inmates. soon after a business man of the city said to me: "i hardly see how you can give your consent to have your wife do such work. i saw her recently in her carriage with a girl i would not have my wife seen with for any amount of money." my reply was: "i would rather my wife should go through the golden gates, bearing in her arms the spirit of a poor girl, snatched from the hell of a harlot's home, than to be the leader of the fashionable four hundred of new york city." there is a beautiful story told of one of the most influential and wealthy men of england. he inherited fame as well as fortune, had an oxford education and early in life he was elected a member of parliament. one evening he sat in his fine library, watching the wood fire build its temples of flame around the great andirons, and as he heard the beating of the wild winter storm against the window pane, his heart went out to the homeless hungry poor of the city. ordering his carriage he went to the city mission and asked for a helper, and then drove to london bridge, under the shelter of which the penniless poor gather in time of storms. he took them two by two to shelter, gave them food, and cots on which to sleep, and then returned to his princely home. we are told that for years after, when parliament would adjourn at midnight, this young man would go through the slums on his way home, that he might relieve some poor child of misfortune. on sunday afternoons, while aristocracy lined the boulevards, this son of fortune would take his physician in his carriage and go through the slums, seeking the sick and suffering. one afternoon, while he stood outside a tenement door, awaiting the return of the doctor from a visit to a poor sick soul inside the tenement, he became deeply moved by the ragged children playing in the gutters and reaching into garbage barrels for crusts of bread. he said: "ah! here's the riddle of civilization. i wish i could help to solve it; perhaps i can." he began the establishment of "ragged schools" and into these ware gathered thousands of poor children. then followed night schools for boys who had to work by day. to these schools he added homes for working women, and for these women he persuaded parliament to give shorter hours of service. he tore down old rookeries, built neat dwellings instead, beneath the windows planted little flower gardens, and rented them to the poor at the same price they had paid for the rookeries. when he began to fade, as the leaf fades in its autumn beauty, and the day of his departure was at hand, he said: "i am sorry to leave the world with so much misery in it, but i have lived to prove that every kind word spoken, and every good deed done, sooner or later returns to bless the giver." as the end drew near he said to his daughter: "read me the twenty-third psalm, for 'though i walk through the valley of the shadow of death, i fear no evil.'" a few days later westminster abbey was crowded with england's nobility to do him honor. when the funeral procession reached trafalgar square, thousands of working women stood, with uncovered heads and tearful eyes, to pay their tribute. children came from the "ragged schools" bearing banners with the motto: "i was naked and ye clothed me." from the hospitals came the motto: "i was sick and ye visited me," while the working girls came with a silk flag on which they had embroidered with their own fingers: "inasmuch as ye did it unto the least of these, ye did it unto me." thus loaded down with the fruits of the spirit, lord shaftsbury died, and yet lives in memory as the noblest embodiment of christian charity. that's sweet music when nature hangs her wind-harps in the trees for autumn breezes to play thereon; that must have been sweet music when jenny lind so charmed the world with her voice, and when ole bull rosined the bow and touched the strings of his violin; that was sweet music when i sat in the twilight on the stoop of my childhood's home and heard the welkin ring with the songs of the old plantation; but the sweetest music in this old world is that which thrills the soul when spoken in "words of love and deeds of kindness." cultivate the trait of sympathy. the good things you are going to say of your friend when he's dead, say them to him while he's alive. take care of the living; god will care for the dead. to the trait of sympathy i would add two grand traits--decision and courage. "tender handed touch a nettle. and it stings you for your pains; grasp it like a man of mettle, silk it in your hand remains." the decision to throw over the tea in boston harbor, to write "charles carroll of carrolton," and the courage to say, "give me liberty or give me death," gave us this government by and for the people. "if you come to a river deep and wide, and you've no canoe to skim it; if your duty's on the other side, jump in, my boy, and swim it." have the courage to stand for what you believe to be right. you may have to go ahead of public sentiment at times, but you will be rewarded in having your conviction and conscience with you. a number of years ago in boston, i gave a temperance address on sunday afternoon in music hall. at the close of the lecture a friend said to me: "you said some good things but though from the old bourbon state of kentucky, you are ahead of public sentiment in boston." i replied: "public sentiment does not always indicate what is right even in boston. on your beautiful commonwealth avenue yesterday afternoon i met an elegantly dressed lady, i suppose a wealthy one from her jewels and dress. she had a poodle dog in her arms, with a blue ribbon on its neck. yet, the same woman wouldn't be caught carrying her six-weeks' old baby down the street for any consideration." such is public sentiment in fashionable society in our cities, and yet the highest type of the world's creation is a pure, sweet mother with a babe in her arms, and another holding her apron strings. i think it would be a blessing to home life if an avenging angel should go through this country, smiting every english pug and poodle dog bought to take the place of babies. in their places i would put bright-eyed, rosy cheeked children to greet fathers when they return home from their day's labor. battle for the right, remembering that far better is a fiery furnace with an angel for company, than worshiping a brazen image on the plains of dura. some young man may now be saying in his mind, "for me to always stand for the right would be to meet difficulties at every step of the way." don't get alarmed over difficulties. half of them are imaginary. i made my first trip to california thirty-five years ago. one morning i stood on the eastern edge of the plains with a sleeping car berth at my service and a through ticket to san francisco in my pocket, while the iron horse stood there all harnessed and ready for the journey. wasn't i in good condition for the trip? yes, but i saw trouble before me. one can always see trouble who looks for it. i had never been across the plains and before the time for the train to start i walked to the front of the engine and looking along the track as it reached out across the prairie i saw trouble. what was it? why, six miles ahead the track wasn't wide enough. yes, i saw it. then on six miles more the rails came together, with my destination nineteen hundred miles away. soon the train moved and as we neared the difficulty, the track opened to welcome us. not a pin was torn up nor a rail displaced. again i looked ahead and a mountain was on the track, but before i had time to get off the mountain got off. next came a precipice and the engine making directly for it, but we dodged that and i concluded our train had right of way, so i stuck to the pullman car and went through all right. ever since god made the world principle has had right of way. get you a through ticket, get on the train, battle for the right and you'll come out victorious in the end. napoleon said: "god is on the side of the strongest battalions." he entered moscow with one hundred and twenty thousand men. snow began to fall several weeks earlier than usual, the highways were blocked, frost fiends ruled the air, the great french army was broken into pieces and napoleon had to fly for his life. god taught napoleon as well as the commander of the great spanish armada, that victory is in the hands of him who rules weather and waves. the next trait i would mention is contentment. many persons make themselves miserable by contrasting the little they have with the much that others have, when if they would compare their blessings with the miseries of others it would add to their contentment. let me give you an old but a good motto: "never anything so bad, but it might have been worse!" it is told of a happy hearted old man that no matter what would happen he would say: "it might have been worse." a friend, who wanted to see if the old man would say the same under all circumstances, went into a grocery store where he was seated by a big fire and said: "uncle jim, last night i dreamt i died and was sent to perdition." prompt the reply came: "well, it might have been worse." when some one asked, "how could it have been worse," he answered: "it might have been true." doctor a.a. willetts, "the apostle of sunshine," used to say: "there are two things i never worry over; one is the thing i can help, the other is the thing i can't help." "count your blessings," was a favorite expression of the same beloved old man. there are more bright days than cloudy ones, a thousand song birds for every rain-crow, a whole acre of green grass for every grave, more persons outside the penitentiary than inside, more good men than bad, more good women than good men; slavery, dueling, lottery and polygamy are outlawed, the saloon is on the run, the wide world will soon be so sick of war that universal peace, with "good will among men," will prevail, labor and capital will be peaceful partners and human brotherhood will rule in righteousness throughout the world. "o, this is not so bad a world, as some would like to make it, and whether it is good or bad, depends on how we take it." fanny crosby, whose gospel hymns are continually singing souls into the kingdom, when but six weeks old lost her sight and for ninety-two years made her way in literal darkness, without seeing the beauties of nature about her, the blue sky with its sun, moon and stars above her, the faces of her loved ones, and yet at ninety-two she said: "i never worry, never think disagreeable things, never find fault with anything or anybody. if in all the world there is a happier being than myself, i would like to shake that one's hand." no wonder out of such contentment came such songs as, "jesus is calling," "i am thine, o lord," "safe in the arms of jesus." how different the cultured young woman, with all her senses preserved, who after passing through a flower garden where perfect sight had feasted on the beauty of the scene said: "to think of summers yet to come, that i am not to see; to think a weed is yet to bloom, from dust that i shall be." poor soul! instead of enjoying the summer she had, she was coveting all the summers between her and eternity. instead of thanking god for the immortality of the soul when done with the body, she was disappointed because she couldn't carry the old body along with her. don't let these things trouble you. live one summer so you will be worthy to breathe the air of the next if you live to see it; take care of your body so it will make a decent weed if god chooses to make one out of your remains. enjoy what you have, don't covet what you have not, thank god for your home on earth, follow fanny crosby's receipt for contentment and you will be happy enough to shake hands with her in the "land of the leal." before i close would you like to have me point you to greatness? in attempting to do so, i would not point you to congress hall or senate chamber. you can find greatness anywhere. that was greatness when john bartholamew held the throttle of an engine going over the sierra mountains, with a train load of passengers depending upon his skill and caution, and swinging round a curve he saw the wood-work of a tunnel before him on fire. to attempt to stop the train then, would be to halt in the flames. he threw on more steam and sent the train whizzing through the furnace of fire. passing out on the other end he was badly burned, but still held the rein of his iron horse. a poem dedicated to this brave engineer closes with the verse: "i 'spose i might have jumped the train, in thought of saving sinew and bone, and left them women and children to take the ride alone. "but i thought on a day of recknin', and whatever old john done here, the lord ain't going to say to him there, 'you went back as an engineer.'" history of life on the ocean tells us of a ship doomed to go down with four hundred human beings on board. the pumps were not equal to the task of holding the water down to the safety line. the captain said: "we will draw lots for the life-boats, one hundred and twenty will go in them and the remainder must go down with the ship." one after another drew his lot. a sailor, who had drawn the lot of death, walked to the railing and said to a comrade in a life-boat: "when you reach the shore, see my wife, tell her good-bye for me and help her in getting my back pay, for she will need it," and he stepped back and took his place with the doomed. finally the old mate thrust in his brawny hand and drew a lot for the life-boats. he stepped aside to watch those to follow in the drawing, when a very popular officer of the ship drew his lot. he was doomed to go down with the ship. though a brave man, the thought of his loved ones at home overcame him, and dropping upon his knees he said: "o god, have mercy upon my wife and little children." the old mate went up to him and taking his hand said: "we have been in many storms together and have been good friends for years. you have a wife and three sweet little children, while i have no one that will rejoice at my coming, nor will any one weep if i never return. it might have been my fate to go down instead of you, and it shall be. you take my lot, and i'll take yours." the offer was refused, but the mate forced his friend into a boat saying, "good-bye, i'll die for you like a man." the greatness of this world doesn't all belong to your solons, solomons, washingtons, napoleons, grants, lees or gladstones, but yonder in the humbler walks of life are heroes and heroines, who in the final reckoning day, will pale the lustre of some whose names are engraved on marble monuments and whose praises are perpetuated in poetry and song. if you ask me to point you to greatness i do not direct your minds to historic heights, but that you may win your share of greatness i close this address by saying, wherever your lot in life be cast, "in the name of god advancing, plow, sow and labor now; let there be when evening cometh, honest sweat upon thy brow. then will come the master, when work stops at set of sun, saying, as he pays the wages, 'good and faithful one, well done.'" ii a searchlight of the twentieth century. but a little more than a century ago, the old world laughed at the new. writers of the old world called our american eagle, "a paper bird, brooding over a barren waste;" yet in what they then called a barren waste, railroads now carry more of the products of the earth, than all the railroads of all the lands, of all the peoples on the face of the earth. when new england people believed there would never be anything worth having west of the connecticut river, what if some seer had prophesied that in nineteen hundred there would be a city on manhattan island named new york that would rival london, two southwest, baltimore and washington to equal venice, philadelphia to match liverpool, pittsburg and buffalo to surpass birmingham, and beyond these a city called chicago, which in grit and growth would beat anything the old world ever dreamt of; while on still farther west, would be a state named iowa, in which in nineteen hundred and fourteen, would be produced enough cattle to beef england, enough potatoes to feed ireland and hogs to "beat the jews." what if he had continued; that in the libraries of the barren waste, there would be ten million more books, than in the combined libraries of europe; that its college students would outnumber the college students of england, france and germany combined; that its wealth would be great enough to purchase the empires of russia and turkey, the kingdoms of norway, sweden, denmark and switzerland, with south africa and all her diamond mines thrown in, and then have enough left to buy a dozen archipelagoes at twenty millions each, and still have the wealth of the republic growing at the rate of five millions of dollars every twenty-four hours. what a land in which to live! think of it; less than a century and a half ago, liberty and england's runaway daughter, columbia, took each other "for better or for worse, forever and for aye" and started down time's rugged stream of years. george washington, then chief magistrate, performed the ceremony, and what he joined together time has not put asunder. it was not a wedding in high life, such as shakes the foundation of fashionable society today, but rather more like the swearing away of a verdant country couple, in some gretna green, with no other capital than youth, health and trusting confidence. we have had some domestic discords; once a very serious family row, but i of the south, join you of the north, in thanks to god, the application for divorce was not granted, and we are still a united republic. the memories which followed that civil strife were so bitter, doubtless many of you northern brethren believed the men who surrendered at appomattox were not any too sincere, and if we should ever have war with any foreign country, the north, east and west would have to furnish the patriotism, for the south would never again march under the stars and stripes. but when the spanish-american war broke out, the first boy to pour out his heart's blood for his country's flag, was ensign bagley, of north carolina. the young man who penetrated the island of cuba, 'mid spanish bayonets and bullets, and searched out cevera and his fleet in the harbor was victor blue, the son of a confederate soldier. the young man who sank the merrimac, captain richmond pearson hobson, was the son of another confederate. our consul in cuba, whose patriotism no one ever doubted, was general fitzhugh lee, and the old man who planted the flag in the tree-tops around santiago, and led two negro regiments into the battle, was fighting joe wheeler of the confederate army. if i were to close here, what an optimistic picture would be left in the glow of the century's searchlight. but alas! we have unsolved problems of imperial moment, and my purpose is to throw the searchlight upon a few of these unsolved problems. first, being a southern man, i shall turn it upon the race problem. a century ago the indian question was a perplexing problem, but it cuts but little figure now, for the indian is nightly pitching his moving tepee a day's march nearer the sunset shore, where one more shove, and, "mad to life's history glad to death's mystery," the red race will go, to where the pale face will cease from troubling, and the weary spirit will find its rest at last. the chinese question is of equal insignificance, since our doors are closed and barred against the almond eyes of the orient. the negro question seems to be the race riddle of our civilization and it will take much tact, patience and wisdom to solve the problem. it may be a revelation to some of you to know, that at the rate the negro race has grown since the civil war, when the twentieth century goes out, there will be sixty millions of negroes in one black belt across the southland. i say across the southland because, the main body of the negro race will never leave the track of the southern sun. the south held the negro in slavery, the north set him free. we supposed at the close of the war, he would leave the south and go to live among his liberators. but after half a century, he is still clinging to the cotton and the cane, or sitting in his log house home, the "shadowed livery of the burning sun" upon his brow, the plantation song still lingering on his lips, the banjo tuned to memory's melodies on his knee, a clump of kinky-headed pickaninnies playing in the sand about his cabin door, and there he sits multiplying the southland and problemizing the century. i have not time to discuss at length the solution of the problems before us, but i hope to present them in such a manner as will help you to appreciate their importance and how they are linked with the destiny of the republic. it seems to me exaltation of character, dignification of labor, material prosperity, leaving social equality to take care of itself, makes up the best solution of the negro problem. social equality does take care of itself even among the white races. some of you may have a white servant who is a good woman, a christian woman, you expect to meet her in heaven (if you get there), but she is not admitted to your social set. there is a vast difference between social rights and civil rights. near lexington, ky., where i claim my home, is the country residence of j.b. haggin, the multi-millionaire horseman. soon after the completion of his mansion home, he gave a reception which cost thousands of dollars. the "first cut" of society came from far and near, but i was not invited, nor did i feel slighted, for i had no claim upon the millionaire magnate socially. but when i meet the great turf-king on the turnpike, he in his limozine and i in my little runabout, i say, "mr. haggin, give me half the road, sir." inside his gates i have no claim, but outside, the turnpike's free, and j.b. haggin can't run over me. so the negro has no claim on the white man for social equality, but he has a right to the key of knowledge and a chance in the world. slavery was not an unmixed evil. like the famed shield it had two sides. while it had its blighting effects it had its blessings. in bondage the negro was taught to speak the english language, and in childhood had the association of white children with their southern home training. they were taught two valuable lessons, industry and obedience, without which liberty means license. the negro was compelled to work and obey, two lessons the indian never had and never respected. beside these valuable lessons the negro was taught the fundamental principles of christianity and at the opening of the war nearly every negro belonged to some church. their preachers used to get their dictionary and bible very amusingly mixed at times. elder barton exhorting his hearers said: "paul may plant and apolinarus water, but if you keeps on tradin' off your birthright for a pot of messapotamia you'se gwine to git lost. you may go down into de water and come up out ob de water like dat ethiopian unitarium, but if you keeps on ossifyin' from one saloon to another; if you keeps on breakin' the ten commandments to satisfy your appetite for chicken; if you keeps on spendin' your time playing craps, the fourteenth amendment ain't gwine to save you. seben come elebin never took a man to heben. i want you to understand dat." yet from such crudeness of expression has come preaching, remarkable for thought as well as scholarship and eloquence, while out of the suffering of slavery, through the law of compensation, we have matchless melodies in negro choirs and negro concert companies. leaders of thought may differ as to the methods of solution, but upon one thing all must agree. the net-work of our republic is such that if one suffers all suffer, and the negro is so interwoven with the various interests of our national life, we must level the race up or it will level the white race down. the lower classes must be lifted to the tableland of a better life, where they can breathe the pure air of intelligence and morality, or they will pollute the whole body politic. they must also acquire property. economy is a lesson the negro race needs to learn. this lesson was well presented to a drunken white man by a sober old negro. the white man spent his money for liquor, and then started for home. reaching a river he must cross by ferry, he found he had spent his last penny for drink. seeing an old colored man seated at a cabin door near by, he turned toward the cabin. nearing the old man he said: "uncle, would you loan me three cents to cross the ferry?" "boss, ain't you got three cents?" "i ain't got one cent," replied the white man. "well, you can't git the three cents. ef you ain't got three cents, you'se just as well off on one side de river as you is on de other." i said we may differ as to methods for solving this race problem. remembering as i do the days of slavery, how in christian homes the most merciful masters and the most faithful slaves were found, i believe the best solution lies in the golden rule of the gospel of jesus christ. i now give the searchlight a swing and it falls upon the city problem. at the opening of the nineteenth century three per cent. of the people of this country lived in cities, ninety-seven per cent. in the country. at the rate migration is now going from country to city in twenty years there will be ten millions more people in the cities than in the country. this means a change of civilization, and new problems to solve. it means a day when cities will control in state and national elections, and if ignorance and vice control our cities, then virtue and intelligence as saving influences will not suffice to save us. the ignorance prominent in the machinery of large cities is illustrated by the police force of new york city. when applicants for positions on the police force were being tested a few years ago, the question was asked: "name four of the six new england states." several replied: "england, ireland, scotland and wales." another question was: "who was abraham lincoln?" as many as ten answered: "he was a great general." one said: "he discovered america;" another said: "he was killed by a man name garfield;" and another's answer was, "he was shot by ballington booth." the growth of large cities means the growth of slum-life. hear me, you who live out in the uncrowded part of the country. maud ballington booth tells of finding five families, living in one attic room in new york city, with no partitions between. here they "cook, eat, sleep, wash, live and die," in the one room. in our large cities are armies of children, whose shoulders "droop with parental vice," whose feet are fast in the mire of miserable conditions, whose hovel homes line the sewers of social life, and who are cursed and doomed by inheritance. some twenty or more years ago, a chicago paper that had money behind it, and could have been sued for damages said: "the man who controls the purse strings of this city, the school board and board of public works, is the vilest product of the slums, a saloon keeper, a gambler, a man a leading citizen of this city would not invite into his home." that man then controlled the purse strings of the great city of chicago. i am glad to say a better man holds the place today. hannibal could not save carthage; demosthenes could not save greece; jesus himself could not save jerusalem. can we save the cities of this republic? yet our lads and lassies are eager to leave the country and go to large cities, where gas-lit streets are thronged with humanity and entertainments provided every hour. a country boy said to me: "mr. bain, you go everywhere; you see everything; i live out here in the country and see nothing." i have tried it all. for about twenty-eight years i lived in the country. since then my life has been in cities and on railroad trains between the oceans. my experience is, there is no life that keeps the heart so pure and the mind so contented as life in the country. some years ago i gave two addresses at ocean grove, new jersey, on saturday evening a popular lecture, and on sunday an address to young men. i had the popular lecture made but not the sunday talk. for three months i promised myself to get that lecture but kept on delaying. as i neared the time i hoped something would prevent my going. the time came, i was at ocean grove, knew i would have a great audience, for the day was ideal, and still i did not have the lecture except in skeleton form. after breakfast sunday i began to walk the floor, working out clothing for that skeleton and racking my brain for climaxes. my wife was with me and she never would worry over my having nothing to say. into every sentence i would weave she would inject a piece of her mind about home or children or some woman's dress or bonnet. i said: "this is a trying time with me, won't you take a stroll along the beach and let me be alone today?" like a good wife she gratified my request, and left me to work and worry over that lecture. at four o'clock p.m., i could not see daylight, and in the darkness cried out: "o lord, if you will help me this time i won't ask you again for awhile." the lord did help me. my friends said i never did so well as that evening. at the close of the lecture the audience arose and handkerchiefs, like so many white doves, fluttered in the air. in the midst of that scene, an old superannuated minister of the new york methodist conference planted a kiss on my cheek, and i have wondered often, why a man should have thought of that instead of a woman. at the close of the service a friend said: "that must have been the proudest moment of your life, for surely i never witnessed such a scene." i said: "no, i can recall one that was greater than the white lilies." away back in bourbon county, kentucky, when i was not quite twenty i was married to a girl of nineteen. soon after, we went to housekeeping in a country home. it was supper time. i had fed the chickens and horses, and washed my face in a tin pan on the kitchen steps, when a sweet voice said: "come, supper's ready." as i entered the dining room my young wife came through the kitchen door, the coffee pot in her hand, her cheeks the ruddier from the glow of the cook stove, her face all lit up with expectancy as to what her young husband would think of his first meal prepared by his wife. all the operas i have heard since, and all the cities i have seen, dwindle into insignificance compared with that pure, peaceful home in the country. another sweep of the searchlight brings us to the immigration problem. we are today the most cosmopolitan country of the world. at the rate of a million a year immigrants are pouring in upon us, and no wonder they come, when they read of the marvelous fortunes made in the new world; of mackay a penniless boy in the old world, worth fifty millions at middle life in america; a.t. stewart peddling lace at twenty, a merchant prince at fifty; carnegie a poor scotch lad at eighteen, a half billionaire at seventy. these with many more such results on a smaller scale, rainbow the sky that spans the sea, and from the other end, this end is seen pouring its gold and greatness into the lap of the land of the free. so they come, and though they do not find all they expected, they do find far more here than they left behind, and writing letters back over the ocean, they set others wild with a desire to live in america. many of them are excellent people; their children go into our public schools and come out with ours, one in thought, one in purpose, one in feeling. a little boy in chicago said: "papa, you were born in england?" "yes." "and mama was born in scotland?" "yes." "and you had a king at the head of your armies?" "yes." "well! _we_ licked you all the same." the children of our foreign born citizens in our public schools are intensely american. a boy who was born in this country but whose parents were foreign born, was for some misdemeanor chastised by his father. when his playmates teased him he said: "oh, the whipping didn't count for much, but i don't like being licked by a foreigner." there is another class coming to our country not only injurious but dangerous. they bring with them the heresies of the lands they hail from. they do not come to be american citizens. there is not an american hair in their heads, or an american thought in their minds. every drop of blood in their veins, beats to the music of continental customs, and they come prepared to sow and grow the seeds of anarchy. many come with tags on their backs giving their destination; not to build american homes; not to learn our language; not to obey our laws, or honor our institutions, but to undermine the honest laboring classes who toil to build homes and educate and clothe their children. i say, take off their tags and let them tag back home. out of this class came the men who cheered to the echo a speaker in chicago when he said: "i am in favor of dynamiting every bank vault in this city and taking the money we are entitled to." out of such schools of anarchy, came the man who crossed the sea from patterson, new jersey, to send a bullet through the heart of king humbert, and out of this class came the teachers, who shrouded our land with shame and sorrow in buffalo, new york. just here, i congratulate the spirit of william mckinley upon its auspicious flight to the spirit world. there is no better time and place for one to die, than at the summit of true greatness, "enshrined in the hearts of his countrymen, at peace with his god," the sun of his life going down, "before eye has grown dim or natural force has abated." take him from the time he entered the army, where his commanding general said: "a night was never so dark, storm never so wild, weather never so cold as to interfere with his discharge of every duty." from this time on, as lawyer, commonwealth's attorney, congressman, governor, and president, he was a jonathan to his friends, a ruth to his kindred, a jacob to his family, a gideon to his country. take him in private life where an intimate friend said: "i never heard him utter a word his wife or mother might not have heard; i never heard him speak evil of any man." take him when stricken down by an assassin, hear him say: "let no man harm him; let the law take its course; good-bye to all; god's will be done," and in his last conscious moments chanting "nearer my god to thee," and you have one of the most touching stories of this old world. all honor to our martyred president, william mckinley. what a shame that in a land whose constitution guarantees life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to the humblest citizen, the life of its chief executive is not safe, though guarded by detectives and surrounded by devoted friends. until the country is rid of organized anarchy it would be well to abandon free-for-all hand-shaking. when senator hoar made his speech in the united states senate against anarchy he said: "it would be well if the nations of the earth would combine together, purchase an island in the sea, place all anarchists on that island, and let them run a government of their own." an irishman said: "i'm not in favor of any sich thing; i am in favor of gathering thim up all right, takin' thim out in the middle of the ocean, dumpin' them out, and letin' thim find their own island." out of the personal liberty league, which is but another form of anarchy, came the man who in an address a few years ago said: "this republic is our hunting ground and the american sabbath shall be our hunting day. down with the american sabbath!" it has been well said: "the sabbath is the window of our week, the sky-light of our souls, opened by divine law and love, up through the murk and cloud and turmoil of earthly life to the divine life above." whoever would destroy the sabbath day is undermining the republic, and any man who does not like the restrictions of our sabbath, can find a vessel leaving our ports about every day in the year. he can take passage any day he chooses, and as the vessel steams out we can afford to sing, "praise god from whom all blessings flow." another move of the searchlight and we have the expansion problem. yonder in the philippine islands are seventy different tribes, speaking many languages. how to mold them into one common whole, loyal to one flag is a mighty problem; and yet i am one of those who believe god intends this american republic shall be a standard-bearer of civilization to the darkest corners of the earth. i do not mean by this that i advocate imperialism from the standpoint of wider domain. indeed i am disposed to dodge the question of imperialism, as i dodged the money question in colorado when the question was the issue in politics. i gave three addresses for the boulder, colorado, chautauqua when the money question was the all-absorbing one in the west. at the close of my second address i was introduced to the superintendent of the railroad that runs over the switzerland trail. he said: "i understand your wife is here, and i will be pleased to have you and mrs. bain as my guests tomorrow." i knew that meant a free ride and i accepted. the next morning we were at the station at the appointed hour and after a wonderful ride mid scenic grandeur up to where eagles nest, and blizzards hatch out their young, our host said: "i want you to have the most thrilling ride you ever had, and at the next station be ready to leave the train." as the brakes gripped the wheels, and the train rested on the eye-brow of the mountain height, we stepped off. a hand car was taken from the baggage car and the train moved on up the trail. while mrs. bain was captivated by the mountains, i was looking at that hand car, without any handles on it, a flat truck with four wheels. the superintendent said: "will you help me lift this on to the track?" i said: "yes, but what are you going to do with it?" when he said: "going down the mountain to where we came from," i said, "what will we hold to?" "to each other," he replied, and i could see he was enjoying mrs. bain's placidness and my apprehension of trouble ahead. determined to sustain kentucky's reputation for courage i said no more, but hoped mrs. bain would come to my relief since she knew her husband was given to dizziness when riding backwards or swinging round sudden curves. she said: "isn't this a grand sight?" i said: "yes, it's grand, but we are going down the mountain on this hand car." "that will be fine," was all the comfort she gave me. though i have traveled close to a million miles behind the iron horse i cannot ride backwards on a railroad train. in that respect i am like the husband who when about to die said to his wife: "i want to make a special request of you, and that is, see that i am buried face down; it always did make me sick to travel backwards." when a boy i could not swing as could other boys. my head is not level on my shoulders. i have never crossed the ocean and never will. i cannot ride the rolling waves. some years ago when out on a little coast ride for pleasure, (if that's what you call it) i said to the captain: "how long till we reach the shore?" when he answered forty minutes, i felt i couldn't live that long. but i did, and when the boat touched the wharf i felt as the old lady did who landed from her first ocean trip saying: "thank the lord, i'm on vice-versa again." when mrs. bain had seated herself on one side of that hand car i fixed myself on the other, gripping the edge of the car. off went the brake and we started. in a few minutes i said to myself: "farewell vain world, i'm going home." as we ran along the wrinkle of the mountain, and swung out toward the point of a crag with seemingly no way to dodge the mighty abyss below, i was reminded of the preacher's mistake, when in closing a meeting with the benediction he said: "to thy name be ascribed all the praises in the world with the end out." around frost-filed mountain crags, over spider bridges, through sunless gorges, we went down that mountain like an eagle swooping from a storm. when we reached boulder, mrs. bain jumped from the car like a school-girl and while she was thanking our host, i was thanking kind providence that we were back in boulder. on our way to the hotel i said: "were you not frightened when we started down that mountain?" "why not at all," mrs. bain replied; "i knew the superintendent would not invite us to take the ride unless it was safe." i said: "well, you had more confidence in him than you have in me. when i call at the door with a new horse in the carriage or phaeton, you won't get in until you know all about the horse." "yes," she said, "but i know _you_." i do not regret having had that thrilling experience, but i _do_ feel by that hand car ride, as the dutchman felt about his twin babies. he said: "i wouldn't take ten thousand dollars for dot pair of twins, and i wouldn't give ten cents for another pair." that evening i gave my last lecture at boulder and in closing said: "i suppose you who live mid these mines would like to know how i stand on the money question." they cheered, showing their desire to know my views on the then popular question, and i proceeded to dodge by saying: "last evening i stood on yonder veranda watching the sun as it went down over the mountain's brow, leaving its golden slipper on flag staff peak. colorado clouds, shell-tinted by the golden glory of the setting sun, were hanging as rich embroideries upon the blue tapestry of the sky, and soon the full moon began to pour its _silver_ on the scene. as i stood gazing at the picture painted by the _gold_ of the sun, and _silver_ of the moon, i felt whatever may have been my views on the money question, the sun's gold-standard glory, and the moon's free-silver coinage, as seen from these colorado chautauqua grounds make me henceforth a boulder bi-metalist." on leaving the platform an old miner said: "how do you stand on the money question? you got your views so mixed up with the sun and moon i couldn't understand you." so if some one should say to me: "do you believe in imperialism of humanity:" if asked: "do you believe in expansion," my answer is; "i believe in the expansion of human brotherhood." "i believe there's a destiny that shapes our ends," and since the philippine islands were pitched into our lap in a night, it may be it was done that the home, the church and the school might have a chance under civil liberty in the philippine islands. with boundless resources and immense means, are linked great responsibilities, and we who live in freedom's land, and humanity's century, are under obligations to help carry the light of christian civilization to the darkest corners of the earth. along with the christian missionary goes that other "pathfinder of civilization," the commercial traveler, who is known as the "evangel of peaceful exchange" that makes the whole world kin. when the filipinos are fit for self-government, let us do as we did cuba, make them as free as the air they breathe, but keep the key to manila bay as our doorway to the orient; for whatever may be said of the old "joss house" kingdom with all her superstitions, she possesses today the "greatest combination of natural conditions for industrial activity of any undeveloped part of the globe." by building the suez canal england secured an advantage of three thousand miles, in her oriental trade over the united states. the panama canal wipes out this advantage and places the trade of new york a thousand miles nearer than that of liverpool. now let the united states build her own merchant marine, then with her own ships, loaded with her own goods, in her own harbor at manila, she has easy access to the orient, with its seven hundred and fifty millions of people, who purchased last year more than a billion and a half dollars worth of the kind of goods we have to sell, and much of it cotton goods, which means future employment for the growing millions of negroes in the south. while it may be best to confine our territorial domain within our ocean ditches, we must encourage commercial expansion, for we have already one hundred millions of people; soon we will have one hundred and fifty millions, and experts tell us when the present century closes there will be three hundred millions in this country. if this republic would build for the future she must strive to create a world-wide business fraternity, through which will go and grow the spirit of the noblest civilization of the world. another swing of the searchlight and it falls upon the labor and capital question. after all the years of education, agitation and legislation, we find capital combining in great corporations on one hand, and labor organizing in great trade unions on the other. like two great armies they face each other, both determined to win. while capital is expanding on one side, the wants of the laboring classes are expanding on the other. they see excursion trains bound for world's fairs; they want to go. they see stores crowded with the necessaries and luxuries of life; they want a share. they live in days of startling pronouncements, they can read, they want the morning papers. they live in a larger world, and knowing their brains and brawn helped to create the larger world they feel they deserve a larger share in its fortunes. when they see avenues lined with the mansion homes of capital, and the toiling world crowded into tenement quarters, and these tenements owned by capital, not five in fifty of the country's wage-earners owning their homes, they naturally conclude there is something wrong somewhere. over an inn in ireland hangs a picture representing the "four alls;" a king with a scepter in his hand saying, "i rule all;" a soldier with a sword in his hand saying, "i fight for all;" a bishop with a bible in his hand saying, "i pray for all," and a working man with a shovel in his hand saying, "i pay for all." "god bless them, for their brawny hands have built the glory of all lands; and richer are their drops of sweat, than diamonds in a coronet." i must say, however, all the fault for present conditions must not be charged to capital. there are faults within i wish the laboring world would see and correct. i travel the country over and note the men who file in and out the saloons. are they bankers or leading business men? no, they are laborers from factories, furnaces, fields and work-shops, spending their money for what is worse than nothing and giving it to a business that pays labor less and robs more than any other capitalization in the world. the new york sun says: "every successful man in wall street is a total abstainer. he knows he must keep his brain free from alcohol when he enters the stock exchange, where his mind goes like a driving wheel from which the belt has slipped." the laboring man needs brain as clear and nerves as steady as the capitalist if he expects to win in this age of sharp competition. what the laboring classes in this country spend for liquor in twelve months would purchase five hundred of the average manufactories of the land; what they spend in ten years would purchase five thousand, and what they spend in twenty years would control the entire manufacturing interests of the country. a few years ago a strike occurred with the pullman palace car company. what the laboring classes spend for intoxicating liquors in three months would purchase the pullman palace car company and all its rolling stock. instead of a strike, in which laboring men are out of work and families suffering for the necessaries of life, why not stop drinking beer and whiskey for ninety days, buy the whole business and let the pullman company do something else. how to husband the resources of the poor is far more important than the right use of the fortunes of the rich. there is less danger in the massing of money by the rich than there is in wasting the wages of the working world in saloons. now i have already thrown the searchlight upon enough problems for you to realize i have given you an incongruous picture. you must be impressed with the conflicting forces at work upon our republic. never have we had so many advocates of peaceful arbitration for differences between nations and never such armament for war; never such an accumulation of comforts, never such a multiplication of wants; never so much done to make men honest, never so many thieves. in seven thousand in our penitentiaries; in twenty thousand; in thirty-two thousand; in fifty-eight thousand; in eighty-two thousand, and in one hundred thousand. in london, england, last year with over seven millions of people, twenty-four murders; in chicago, one hundred and eighteen. there are more murders in this republic than in any civilized land beneath the sky. yet in face of all these unsettled questions, with advancement along all social, moral, intellectual and religious lines i have faith to believe this twentieth century american citizenship will prove itself sufficiently thoughtful, testful and tactful to deal with all national issues as one by one they come within reach of practical politics, and that this country is big enough, brave enough, wise enough and just enough to solve every problem vexing us today. some have not this faith. they see an army of three hundred thousand tramps eating bread by the sweat of other men's brows; the slums of great cities, cradles of infamy where children are trained to sin; the "fire-damp of combination trusts" stifling the working world; gambling brokers cornering the markets in the necessaries of life; the wages of working girls being such as to lead many from life's eden of purity; a great battle on between labor and capital and in this combination of threatening dangers they see the overthrow of free government. if these pessimists would take a view from the nether standpoint and see what we have come through as a country their fears would be dispelled. look backward fifty years from today and see the republic wrapped in the throes of civil strife; the soil of our southland soaked with blood and tears; the nation overwhelmed with debt; four million negroes turned loose penniless in the south to beg bread at the white man's door, and he already on "poverty row;" abraham lincoln dead in the white house, shot down by an assassin; the secretary of war bleeding from three stab wounds the same night; and columbia reeling on her throne. now see the harmonious association of all sections; a firmer establishment of this "government of the people, by the people and for the people" than was ever known. look over the ocean and see turkey's massacre of the armenians, russia with her siberian horrors, spain with her cruelty to the moors and jews; or look closer home over the mexican border and see the government torn to tatters and public men shot down like dogs. then turn and note our country's magnanimous dealings with cuba; her teachers schooling filipinos into nobler life; our president leading the armies of russia and japan out of the rivers of blood; slavery gone, lottery gone, polygamy outlawed, the saloon iniquity tottering to its fall; hospitals nestled in shadows of bereavement, hungry children fed on their way to school, and men who know how to make money, giving it away for the relief of suffering and uplift of mankind as never before. don't tell me the world is getting worse. i was in new york city for two weeks at the time of the titanic disaster. on saturday evening before the ocean tragedy i stood on the elevated at the corner of thirty-third and broadway. the "great white way" was thronged with pleasure-seekers, crowding their way to theatres and picture shows. it seemed to me i never saw the great city so gay. but, on monday morning after, there came on ether waves the appalling news that the finest ship in the world had gone down, and sixteen hundred human beings had gone with it. i never witnessed such a transformation. it seemed to me every woman had tears in her eyes, and every man a lump in his throat. actors played to empty houses that evening; a pall hung over the great metropolis. but when details came, with them came the triumph of humanity. the rich had died for the poor, the strong had died for the weak. john jacob astor had turned away from his fine mansion on fifth avenue, his summer home at newport, his hundred millions of dollars in wealth, and was found spending his last moments saving women and children. all honor to the brave young bridegroom who carried his bride to a life boat, said, "good-bye sweetheart," kissed her and stepping back went down with the ship. all hail to that loyal loving hebrew wife and mother, mrs. straus, who holding to her husband's arm said: "i would rather die with you than live without you." like ruth of old, she said: "where thou goest, i will go; where thou diest i will die, and there will i be buried." there side by side at the ocean gateway to eternity these old lovers went down together. ah! this republic will never perish while we have such manhood and womanhood to live and die for its honor. it has been said: "we live in a materialistic age; that all human activities are born of selfishness; that manhood is dying out of the world." all over the land at midnight, men lean from the saddles of iron horses, peering down the railroad track, ready to die if need be for the safety of those entrusted to their care. firemen will climb ladders tonight and their souls will go up in flames, like jim bludsoe's, to save the lives of imperiled women and children. look at the orchestra on board the titanic. when the supreme moment of danger came, they rushed to the deck, not to put on life belts, not to get into lifeboats but to form in order, and send out over the icy ocean, the music of the sweet song, "nearer, my god, to thee." when the ship lifted at one end and started on its headlong dive of twenty-seven hundred fathoms to the depths of the salty sea, those brave men, without a discordant note, sent out the sweet refrain; "now let the way appear steps unto heaven; all that thou sendest me, in mercy given; angels to beckon me, nearer, my god to thee; near to thee." may we not hope those brave musicians and those who died that others might live, "on joyful wings cleaving the sky," ocean and icebergs forgot _did_ upward fly, and on their flight to the spirit world continued the song, "nearer, my god, to thee." manhood is not dying out of the world. students of history are asking, "will the fate of rome be repeated in the history of this republic?" the answer is, we have saving influences in this republic rome never knew. rome never had an asylum for her blind or insane; she never had a home for widows and orphans; her "golden house" of nero never had an equal, but nowhere in her dusty highways could be found footprints of mercy. in rome the soldier was the cohesive power, while socially everything was isolated. in this republic there is an interlacing and binding together in bonds of human brotherhood. a methodist here bound to methodists everywhere, presbyterian to presbyterian, baptist to baptist, disciple to disciple, lutheran to lutheran, catholic to catholic, masons, odd fellows, knights of pythias, red men, maccabees, woodmen, christian endeavor societies, epworth leagues, y.m.c.a.'s, w.c.t.u.'s, and many other fraternities, making up an interdependent, together-woven, god-allied and god-saving influence ancient empires never dreamt of. these are the moral lightning rods that avert from this republic the wrath of god. am i putting too much stress upon the humanity side of national life? do you tell me money is the great question of this country, tariff the great question? bring me the bible and what do i find? only a very few pages given to the creation of the material universe, with all its gold and silver, suns and systems, but i find page after page, chapter after chapter, and book after book, given to the healing of the lame, the halt and the blind, teaching a kindred spirit of sympathy to meet the common woes of humanity. what i am about to say may seem more like sermon than lecture, but i believe it will be the best thing i have said when the lecture closes. in the formula of human touch, laid down in the life of jesus of nazareth, there is more saving influence for national endurance than in all the wealth of our country's treasury. from the time his beautiful mother wrapped him in coarse linen, and cradled him on cattle straw in that bethlehem barn, on up to his death on the cross, he was ever touching the masses, healing their diseases, soothing their sorrows and teaching the lesson, "the more humanity you place at the bottom the better citizenship you will have at the top." in the golden rule of this human touch lies the hope of this home of the free. a little boy boarded a car in new york city. a few feet from him sat a finely-dressed lady and as the boy stared at her, he moved nearer and nearer until he was close beside her. "what do you mean by getting so close to me? don't you see you have put mud on my dress from your shoes? move away," said the lady. the little urchin replied: "i'm so sorry i got mud on your dress; i didn't mean to do it." "where are you going, all by your little self, anyway?" "i'm going to my aunt's where i live." "have you no mother?" "no mam; she died four weeks ago. i ain't got any mother now, and that's why i was settin' up close to you to make believe you wuz my mother. i'm sorry 'bout the mud, you'll 'scuse me, won't you, good lady?" the woman extending her hand said: "yes i will; come here," and soon her arm was about him, and tears in her eyes, and the boy could have wiped his feet on any dress in that car without rebuke. we want more of human touch in national and individual life. a tramp called at a fine home for his supper. the owner said: "you can have something to eat provided you do some work beforehand." "what can i do," asked the "hobo." a set of harness was given him to clean. the gentleman went to his supper, and soon after a blue-eyed, golden-haired girl of four years came out, and approaching the tramp, said: "good evening, sir. is you got a little girl like me?" "no, i am all alone in the world." "ain't you got no mama and papa?" "no, they died a long time ago," and the tramp wiped away a tear as memory came rolling up from out the hallowed past. "oh! i'm so sorry for you, 'cause i have a home and papa and mama." the man of the house came out, and looking at the harness said: "that's a good job; you must have done that work before. come in and you shall have a good supper." the little tot ran around to the front gate, where a pair of horses, hitched to a carriage, waited to take the family on a drive. the tramp finished his supper and passing out, the little one in the carriage said: "good-bye, mister. when you want supper again you come and see us, won't you;" and turning to the driver she said: "he ain't got no papa, nor mama, no little girl and no home." the tramp, who heard these words taking off his old hat bowed low to the little one who had spoken the kind words. a few minutes later while standing on a street corner, wondering where he could spend the night, some one shouted, "horses running away!" the driver had left the team and the horses started with the little girl alone in the carriage, screaming for help. men ran out but the mad horses cleared the track. the tramp fixed himself, and as the team swept by, he gave a bound and caught the bit of the nearest horse. the horses reared and plunged but the tramp held on, until he swerved them to the sidewalk. as the near horse struck the curb he fell and the tramp was crushed beneath the horse. a physician came and as he bent over to examine the heart, the tramp said: "was the little one saved?" the child was brought and as her sweet blue eyes tenderly looked at the face of the dying man he smiled, and then the spirit took its flight, to where he who died to save the world, looked with compassion upon the tramp who gave his life for "one of these little ones." oh, the beauty and power of human touch! the panama canal is considered the glory crowning achievement of this century; but the building of a highway of sympathy over which to send help to the hopeless is a far greater achievement. if this republic is to endure with the stars; if it is to go down the ages like a broadening colonade of light, and stand in steady splendor at the height of the world's civilization; it will not be because of its money standard, its tariff or expansion policy, but because the heart-beat of human brotherhood sends the blood of a common father bounding through the veins of the concentrated whole of humanity, binding high and low, rich and poor, weak and strong together. "work brothers; sisters work; work hand and brain, we'll win the golden age again; and love's millennial morn shall rise in happy hearts and blessed eyes. we will, we will, brave champions be in this the lordlier chivalry." iii our country, our homes and our duty. a plea for the home against the saloon. the sweetest word in the language we speak is home. no matter in what clime or country, whether where sunbeams dance and play or frost fiend rules the air, there's no place like home. at the world's fair in chicago i visited the eskimo village. to a woman who could speak english i said: "how do you like this country?" "beautiful, beautiful country. oh, the flowers, the green grass, the lovely homes!" was her reply. but when i ventured to ask: "will you remain here after the fair and not return to your land of ice and snow," she shook her head and said: "no, i want to go home. i am so homesick." "be it ever so humble, there's no place like home." in lexington, kentucky, there is a modest looking house, nestled mid linden and locust trees. visitors who pass in quest of historic spots about the far-famed city, seldom give even a glance at that humble abode. yet when i am far away, whether in the wonderful west with its scenic grandeur, or in the east surrounded by mansions of millionaires, my heart goes back in memory's aeroplane to the old blue grass town, where six generations of my family sleep, the dearest spot on earth to me--"home, sweet home." when years ago i was nearing the end of a three months' lecture tour in california, a friend invited me to join him on a visit to yosemite valley, saying: "you will see the grandest scenery and biggest trees in the world." my reply was: "i thank you very much, but my engagements in the golden west close on the eighth and i will start east on the ninth; my old kentucky home is grander to me than yosemite valley and my baby bigger than any tree in california." someone has said the nearest spot to heaven in this world is a happy home, where the parents are young and the children small. i don't know about that. it seems to me a little nearer heaven is the home where husband and wife have lived long together, where children honor parents and parents honor god; where the aged wife can look her husband in the face and give him the sentiment of the dame of john anderson: "john anderson, my jo john, when we were first acquent; your locks were like the raven, your bonnie brow was brent; but now your brow is beld, john, your locks are like the snaw; but blessings on your frosty pow, john anderson, my jo. "john anderson, my jo, john, we clamb the hill thegither; and mony a cantie day, john, we've had wi' one anither: now we maun totter down, john, and hand in hand we'll go, and sleep thegither at the foot, john anderson, my jo." james a. garfield said: "it's by the fireside, where calm thoughts inspired by love of home and love of country, the history of the past, the hope of the future, god works out the destiny of this republic." a spartan general pointing to his army said: "there stand the walls of sparta and every man's a brick." can i not point to the homes of our country and say: "there stand the walls of this republic and every home's a brick." suppose a battery, planted on some eminence outside this city, were to send a shell through some building every hour; how long until your beautiful city would be one of crumbling walls and flying population? on yonder heights of law are planted two hundred thousand rum batteries, sending shells of destruction through the homes of the people and every day hundreds of homes are knocked out of the walls of the republic. do you realize what it means when an american home is destroyed by drink? some years ago on sunday afternoon i visited an eastern penitentiary by invitation of the chaplain. passing a row of cells my attention was called to a man whose face bore the marks of intelligence and refinement. the chaplain said: "that man is an ideal prisoner and a born gentleman, though here for life. he is the graduate of an eastern college. he married an accomplished young woman. in social life he was led into the drink habit, and it grew upon him until at times he became intoxicated. when under the influence of liquor his reason was dethroned, and one night in a brawl he killed a man. he was given a life sentence. asking permission to speak he said: 'i have no complaint to make of the verdict, but beg the privilege of saying, god who knows the secrets of all hearts, knows i am not a murderer at heart, for i don't know how nor when i killed my friend.' a few days after he entered this prison his wife came to visit him. she had with her a sweet little golden-haired child. as he entered the office in his striped prison garb his wife fell into his arms; the agony on that man's face i can never forget. the child shrank from him at first, then recognizing her father, she ran to him. as he hugged her to his bosom the little one twined her arms about his neck and said: 'papa, please come home with us. mama cries so much cause you don't come home.' the man sinking into a chair said: 'o god, am i never to see my home again?'" this is but one of the thousands of homes destroyed every year by the drink curse. if i could draw aside the veil and let you look into the desolate homes of your own city tonight, you would feel ex-governor hanley of indiana did not give an overwrought picture when he said: "personally, i have seen so much physical ruin, mental blight and moral corruption from strong drink that i hate the traffic. i hate it for its arrogance; i hate it for its hypocrisy; i hate it for its greed and avarice; i hate it for its domination in politics; i hate it for its disregard of law; i hate it for the load it straps on labor's back; i hate it for the wounds it has given to genius, for the human wrecks it has wrought, for the alms-houses it has peopled, for the prisons it has filled, for the crimes it has committed, the homes it has destroyed, the hearts it has broken, the malice it has planted in the hearts of men, and the dead sea fruit with which it starves immortal souls." with proof of the truth of this phillipic on every hand, it is a strange anomaly in our government that the degrading influence of the saloon is linked by law to the elevating influence of school, church and home. when jesus was on earth he came to a fig tree, dressed in rich leaves but barren of fruit; it was in fig season but the tree had only leaves. we read that jesus cursed the tree and it withered. we have in this country a upas tree named the liquor traffic. it is not a barren tree, but far worse than barren. its branches bend with the weight of its fruit, but not a pint, nor a quart, nor gallon, nor barrel from its boughs ever benefited a single mortal by its use as a beverage. its leaves drip with poison and the bones of its dead victims would build a pyramid as high as appenines piled on the alps. jesus withered the tree that produced nothing. we license and cultivate the tree whose fruitage the bible compares to the bite of a serpent, the sting of an adder and the poison of asps. in the earlier days of the temperance movement, when we discussed the question along moral lines, the license advocates made it an economic question, but since the commercial world is fast becoming a great temperance league, and great industries are blacklisting the saloon as an enemy of legitimate business, the liquor advocates are taking refuge behind the bible, and claiming that he who cursed the tree that was barren, planted the one whose root and heart, bark and branches are poisoning the blood of the nation. they pervert scripture, take isolated passages and present an ominum gatherum of quotations to prove the bible indorses the use of strong drink. by the same process i can prove one of these bible license scholars should hang himself and be in haste about it. i read on one page of the bible, "judas went out and hanged himself." on another page i read, "go thou and do likewise." and on another, "whatsoever thou doest, do it quickly." against these sacrilegious uses of scripture, i place the estimate of the fruit of this upas tree from one whose words are unmistakable, and whose wisdom none can question. solomon said: "wine is a _mocker_." was there ever a word of more weight in its application? when a boy in school nothing so vexed me and made me want to fight, as for a boy to _mock_ me. i remember when one of the prettiest girls in school made faces at me and _mocked_ me; from that hour i could never see any beauty in that girl's face, nor have i quite forgiven her to this day. when the jews wanted to heap the greatest indignity possible upon jesus, when they had driven the nails in his hands, pierced his side, placed the crown of thorns upon his head and pressed the bitter cup to his lips, they stood off and _mocked_ him. is wine a mocker? did solomon know what he was talking about when he gave it that detestable name? he added still another word and called it a deceiver. does it deceive and mock? it meets a young man at a social feast, garlands itself with the graces of hospitality, sparkles in the brilliant jewels of fashion, smiles through the faces of female beauty, furnishes inspiration for the dance and mingles with music, mirth and hilarity. gently it takes the young man by the hand, leads him down the green, flowery sward of license, filled with the rich aroma of the wild flowers of life. when it has firmly fixed itself in his appetite, it begins to strip him of his manhood as hail strips the trees, and when, with will-power gone, nerves shattered, eyes bleared and face bloated, he stands with the last vestige of manly beauty swept from the shattered temple of the soul, it stands off and _mocks_ him. it goes to a home, tramples upon the pure unselfish love of a wife, enthrones the shadow of a drunkard's poverty upon the hearth-stone, makes the empty cupboard echo the wail of hungry children for bread, with its bloody talons marks the door lintels with the death sentence of an immortal soul, and then stands off and _mocks_ the home. it goes to the congress of the united states and says: "put upon me the harness of taxation and i'll pull you out of the mire of national debt, and make the administration of the party in power a financial success." then with a government permit, it proceeds to take out of the pockets of the people five times as much as it pays the government; creates three-fourths of the country's crimes, four-fifths of its pauperism, sixty per cent. of its divorces, dooms to poverty and shame a great army of children, blights rosebuds of beauty on cheeks of innocence, shatters oaks of manhood, leaves its polluting taint upon all that it touches, and then stands off and mocks the republic. was there ever more meaning condensed into one brief utterance than in solomon's warning, "wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging, and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise?" is it wisdom in this republic to deliberately, for revenue, set in motion causes that neutralize its progress, waste its forces and destroy the fireside nurseries of the nation's destiny? if i were an artist i would now place before you a picture of an ideal american home. i would not make it the fine mansion on the avenue, nor would i make it "the old log cabin in the lane." i would make it a neat country home with garden of flowers, orchard of fruits, a barn lot with bubbling spring and laughing brook. in the door of this home i would place an american mother with the youngest of four children in her arms; the oldest son driving his tired team to the barn, the second one the cows to the cupping, the daughter spreading the cloth for tea, and the head of the house sinking the iron-bound bucket in the well for a draught of cold water when day's work for loved ones is o'er. approaching the door a commission appointed by congress on political economy lift their hats as the spokesman says: "madam, are you mistress of this mansion?" "i am the wife and mother of this humble home, gentlemen; the man at the well is my husband." "madam, we are commissioned by congress to investigate the home life of the country and would like to learn what this home is doing for the republic." "come in, gentlemen, and be seated, while i call my husband. we feel honored by your visit and would be pleased to have you take tea with us." the invitation is readily accepted and after a good country supper the investigation proceeds. in answer to the question as to the relation of the home to the welfare of the republic, the head of the house says: "gentlemen, we are trying to keep our home pure; it is our purpose to make our boys patriotic american citizens and our daughters true american women. we love god and endeavor to keep his commandments, and this is about all i can say about our home." "that is well so far, but may we ask what sacrifice would this home be willing to make for the republic if its flag were in peril?" the wife exclaims: "you alarm us by your question. is our country in danger?" "yes, madam. the combined forces of the old world are nearing our shores and the republic is in peril." "wait, gentlemen, until we talk it over." the family retires for consultation and soon the mother appears, and with tears in her eyes says: "gentlemen, we've decided. take our oldest boy, who is eager to go. take him to the battlefield; if he falls in defense of his country's flag, come back, we'll kiss the second one and tell him, 'go fill your brother's place.' gentlemen, we love our country next to our god and this home is pledged to this country's honor." i say, any country that has such mothers for its patriotism, such guardians for its homes, should protect these homes and mothers with all the power of police, all the majesty of law, and any evil that attempts to destroy these homes ought not to be licensed, but should be buried as the old scotch woman would bury the devil--with "face down, so the more he scratched the deeper he would go." i am sick of the hollow sentiment, "the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world," insofar as it relates to the drink problem. if the hand that rocks the cradle did rule the world, there would not be two hundred thousand rum-fiend vultures soaring over the cradle homes of our country today. if a mother could keep her boy in the cradle she might rule the world, but the trouble is, the boy gets too big for the cradle and jumps out. in the cradle he's mama's child, coos if mama coos, and laughs when mama laughs; but out of the cradle he's papa's boy, swears if papa swears, smokes if papa smokes, drinks if papa drinks. if papa does none of these things, then the world, ruled by hands that don't rock cradles, steps in with licensed schools of vice to teach him to drink. when general grant was president of the united states he appointed an old colored man mail-carrier over a route in the mountains of virginia. one day, when in a lonely spot, two robbers faced the negro and demanded the mail. the old man, lifting himself in his saddle said: "gentlemen, i is de mail-carrier of de united states; you touch dis darkey and you'll have de whole army of dis government on you in twenty fo' hours." blessed will be the day when every mother in our land can say to the saloon: "you touch my home and you'll have the police power of this republic on your heels in twenty-four hours." but, who is the government? we are told that in the early history of this country, a country magistrate rode horseback from maryland to washington to consult the government. going to the white house he was informed the government was not there. at the capitol he was informed the people are the government. he returned home, called the voters of his county to a meeting in the courthouse and said: "gentlemen, i have a very important question i want to present to the government." so i desire to talk to the government, you voters who are to decide the policy of this republic regarding the liquor traffic. an irishman brought before the court for an assault upon a saloon keeper was questioned by the judge, who said: "mr. dolan, what have you to say; are you guilty or innocent of the charge made against you?" the irishman replied: "by me soul, judge, i couldn't tell ye. i was blind, stavin' drunk on the manest whiskey ye iver tasted, yer honor." "i do not use whiskey of any kind," said the judge. "ye don't. thin i don't think ye are doin' yer duty by such constituents as meself. ye license men to sell the stuff; ye ought to taste the stuff ye license men to sell, thin ye would know how it makes a gintlemen behave himself." the judge rapped for order in the court and repeated the question, "are you guilty or innocent of the charge?" "judge, i'll state the case and let yer honor decide for me, which ye are hired to do anyway. i was standin' by the corner of the strate on me way home from work, when i spied the bottles in the window of the saloon. the sight of thim bottles made me thirsty, so i wint in and took a drink. jist thin three other thirsty ones came in and i took a drink with thim; thin they took a drink with me and we kept on drinkin' till we thought we were back in auld ireland at donnybrook fair. whenever we saw a head we struck it and i suppose this gintlemin's head came my way. now here's the case, judge. if i hadn't taken the whiskey, i wouldn't a been in the row, for i'm always paceable whin sober; if the saloon hadn't been there i wouldn't have taken the whiskey; and if the court hadn't licensed the saloon it wouldn't have been there. ye can take the case, sir." what makes the drunkard? the drink. what supplies the drink? the saloon. what makes the saloon? the law. who makes the law? the legislator. who makes the legislator? the voter. it's the "house that jack built," only i will change the verbage a little. intemperance is the fire the devil built. strong drink is the fuel that feeds the fire the devil built. distilleries, breweries and saloons are the axes that cut the fuel that feeds the fire the devil built. license laws are molds that cast the axes, that cut the fuel that feeds the fire the devil built. license voters and legislators are the patentees who invented the molds that cast the axes that cut the fuel that feeds the fire the devil built. prohibition ballots are the sledge hammers destined to destroy the molds that cast the axes that cut the fuel that feeds the fire the devil built. there is a chain of responsibility running through the drink question which many good men fail to recognize. you know a chain is made up of links welded together. the drunkard is only one link; he is not a chain. when you link him to the drink then you begin the chain; the drunkard comes from the drink. that is not all of the chain however; the drink is linked to the saloon. if you have the saloon, you have the drink, you have the drunkard. this is not all of the chain; you have the license law. if you have the license law, you have the saloon, you have the drink, you have the drunkard. there is yet another link; the license law is linked to the license voter. the drunkard comes from the drink, the drink comes from the saloon, the saloon from the law, and law from the license voter. who are the license voters? many of them are christian men on their way to heaven; but the trouble with them is the other end of the chain is going another road. "no drunkard can enter the kingdom of heaven." i know it is a common remark that this is a free country, and if a man chooses to drink, let him do so and take the consequences. if one could take alone the consequences of his sin there might be some claim to personal liberty. but when a man's liberty involves another life the scene changes. a young man may commit a sin in social life and by reform be forgiven, but when that other life involved in his sin, is seen in after years, walking the streets in painted shame, reproducing the consequences of that man's sin, memory and conscience will combine to give him waking hours while the world sleeps. a man may never enter a saloon, never take a drink of intoxicating liquor, but if he votes for the saloon his life becomes involved in the consequences of the saloon. what are the consequences? here is a sample. after a three days' blizzard in one of our large cities a reformer visited a morgue and seeing a large clothes-hamper full of dead babies he said: "what does this mean?" the reply came: "they were gathered from the drunkards' hovels of the city this morning." the visitor tells us: "their bodies were frozen, and several arms were sticking up out of the basket as if reaching out after life and love." the streets of our city slums are rivers along whose shores at midnight can be heard the death gurgle of helpless little ones, while poverty's row is full of children cursed by inheritance, who are not living but merely existing by scraping the moss of bare subsistence from empty buckets in wells of poverty; and the air is freighted with oaths and obscenities from demonized men and demi-monde women who pour the poison of their blood into the social life of city slums. i was both grieved and amazed when i read from the pen of a brilliant kentucky editor an editorial denouncing as tyrannical a sumptuary law that "denies to a citizen the right to order his home, his meat, his drink, his clothing, according to his conscience." i wonder if the great editor ever considered the sumptuary law of the saloon. every woman who fills the holy office of wife and mother has a right to a home. the sumptuary law of the saloon says to hundreds of thousands of such women: "you shall not have a home; you shall live in a hovel. you shall not order your home, your food, your drink, your clothing, according to your conscience, but according to the best interest of the saloon these comforts shall be ordered. you shall work all day in the harness of oppression and when night comes instead of restful sleep, you shall watch the stars out and wait the return of husband and sons." what about this inhuman denial of the right to order meat, drink, clothing and home life? such is the sumptuary law of the saloon. every child in this country has a right to an education and a chance in the world. the saloons say to hosts of children: "you shall have neither education nor opportunity. you shall go to the streets and sweat-shops to earn bread. you shall live in ignorance and mid evil environment that we may gather in the wages of your fathers." how does this sumptuary law of the saloon compare with a sumptuary law that forbids the sale of what is of no earthly or eternal benefit to any one who uses it. the same distinguished editor said: "when women gather around voting booths on election days with sandwiches and coffee, they present an indecent spectacle to the public." the man who goes with gun in hand and shoots down another in defense of his country is a hero. the mother lion or bear that defies the hunter's bullets and dies in defense of her young we can but respect; but when woman, who has suffered so long in silence, goes near where the welfare of her home is at stake and out of the sore, sad sorrow of her heart appeals to men for protection to her home from the ravages of the saloon, she is not paid the respect given to a mother hen or bird or bear by the advocate of the liquor traffic. when the niece of cardinal richelieu was demanded by a licentious king, the cardinal said: "around her form i draw the awful circle of our kingly church; set a foot within and on thy head, aye, though it wear a crown, shall fall the curse of rome." shall the crown of gold on the distiller's and brewer's brow hush into silence the lion-hearted manhood of our republic when its sons and daughters are demanded to feed the maw of the liquor traffic? one of the famous pictures of the masters is of a woman bound fast to a pillar within the tide-mark of the ocean. the waves are curling about her feet. a ship is passing under full sail but no one seems to see or heed the woman in peril. birds of prey hover above her, but she sees neither bird, nor ship, nor sea; knowing her doom is sealed, she lifts her eyes to heaven and prays. this picture represents thousands of women tied fast to their doom within the tide-waves of the ocean of intemperance. the ship of state passes by, bearing its share of the ill-gotten gains of the liquor traffic, but heeds not the moans and cries of struggling, strangling, dying woman. oliver cromwell said: "it is relative misgovernment that lashes nations into fury." the long suffering in silence by the womanhood of this country from the misgovernment that has heaped upon woman the woes of strong drink by the licensed saloon, whether a tribute to the patience of woman or not, is to the eternal shame of man, whose inhumanity to woman through the liquor traffic is making "countless millions mourn." to this misgovernment is due the unrest among women and the impetus behind the equal suffrage movement today. there needs to be a saving influence brought into our political life, and i have faith to believe that woman's ballot will provide that influence. having proved her dignity in every new field of activity she has entered, i believe the same flowers of refinement will adorn the ballot box when she holds in her hand the sacred trust of franchise. her life-long habit of house-cleaning will be carried to the dirty pool of politics, where the saloon is entrenched, and the demagogue and demijohn will be carted away to the garbage pile of discarded rubbish. now and then i am asked: "what will become of the men who are engaged in the liquor business if the country goes dry? what will become of their families?" i answer by asking: what becomes of the men the saloons put out of business? what becomes of their families? when prohibition puts a man out of business, it leaves him his brain, blood, bone, muscle, nerves and whatever manhood he has left in store, while his long rest from active toil has given him a reserve force for active, useful business. when the saloon puts a man out of business, he goes out with shattered nerves, weak will, poisoned blood and so unfitted for service no place is open for him to earn a living. recently a man put out of business by prohibition said to me: "this town went dry seven years ago, and going out of the saloon business has been such a benefit to me and to my family, i shall work and vote to put all other saloon-keepers in this state out of business for their own good." on the other hand, i have in mind a man who once chained the congress of the united states by his eloquence. clients clamored for his service, and prosperity crowned his practice in the courts. in drinking saloons he lost his clientage and in penniless poverty he died--unwept, unhonored, unsung. the ex-saloon-keeper to whom i referred is city marshall and very popular, while the man put out of business by the saloon has no chance: "where he goes and how he fares, nobody knows and nobody cares." along with the question of what will become of the men put out of business by prohibition, comes the question, what will the farmers do with their corn if distilleries are closed? less consumption of whiskey means more consumption of cornbread and that means more corn. less consumption of whiskey means greater consumption of bacon, and more bacon means more corn to feed hogs. when a liquor advocate said to an audience of farmers: "if this state goes dry what will you farmers do with your corn," an old, level-headed farmer shouted: "we'll raise more hogs and less hell." prohibition means more of everything good, and less of everything bad; more manhood, less meanness; more gain, less groans; more bread, less brawls; more clothing, less cussedness; less heartaches and more happiness. turn saloons into bake shops and butcher stalls, distilleries into food factories, breweries into stock pens, and the country will be a thousandfold better off than feeding its finances by starving its morality. this question lifts itself head and shoulders above every other question touching practical politics today. you nowhere read of a nation going to destruction because of too much gold or too little silver, too much tariff or too little tariff, but always because of the vices of its people. the nation that bases perpetuity upon moral character will endure with the stars, while walls thick and high as babylon's will not save a drunken republic. "vain mightiest fleets of iron found, vain all her conquering guns, unless columbia keeps unstained the true hearts of her sons." beautiful constance of france was dressing for a court ball. while standing before a mirror, clasping a necklace of pearls, a spark from the fireplace caught in the folds of her gown. absorbed in her attire, she did not detect the danger until a blaze started. soon, rolling on the floor in flames, she burned to death. when the news reached the ballroom the music hushed, the dance halted, and "poor constance! poor constance!" went from lip to lip, but soon the music started and the dance went on. while i am talking now the youth, beauty and sweetness of american life is in peril from the flames that are kindled by the licensed saloon. from an inward fire men are being consumed and homes destroyed. will we say, "poor columbia!" and keep step to the _mocker's_ march to the nation's death; or will we put out every distillery and brewery fire and make this in reality "the land of the free and the home of the brave?" in the name of all that is pure and true and vital in national life, i plead with every lover of home and country to come to the help of the cause that must succeed if this republic is to live. i plead with christians in the name of the church, bleeding at every pore because of the curse of drink. if everyone whose name is on a church roll would step out in line of duty on this question, very soon god would stretch out his arm and save this republic from the liquor traffic. god has been ready a long time; his people have not been ready to do their part. too many christians are like the horse sam jones used to tell of. he said: "we have a horse in my neighborhood in georgia, which if hitched to a load of stone or cotton balks and won't go a step; but in light harness in the shafts of a race cart he will pace a mile in two-thirty. we have too many christians who are like this horse; they trot out to church sunday morning, but hitch them to a prayer meeting and they won't pull a pound." dr. mcleod, the stalwart scotch preacher, on his way to a session of his church had with him a small hunch-back member of his church, a dwarf in size but an earnest worker. crossing a certain stream a storm struck the boat and the waves were sending it toward the rocks. a boatman at one end said: "let the big preacher pray for us." the helmsman at the other end said: "no, let that little fellow pray and the big one take an oar." oliver cromwell, going through a cathedral, came upon twelve silver statues. turning to the guide he said: "who are these?" the guide replied: "those are the twelve apostles, life-size and solid silver." cromwell said: "what good are they doing as silver apostles? melt them down into money and let them be of some service to the country." we have too many silver statue church members who need melting down and sending out to help save our republic from the fate of other nations that have perished through their vices. we need more men with moral courage to voice and vote their convictions. when the slavery question was agitating the country henry clay stood for a compromise he believed would help to solve the question. many of his friends in the south censured him, and sent him letters calling him a traitor. he arose in the senate to speak, it is said, looking pale from the effect of the censure he was then receiving day by day. addressing the senate he said: "i suppose what i shall say in this address will cost me many dear friends." a reporter said: "he hesitated as if choked with emotion at the thought of losing his friends." then with the majesty of greatness and magnetism of manner he proceeded, saying: "i am charged with being ambitious. if i had listened to the soft whisperings of ambition i would have stood still, gazed upon the raging storm and let the ship of state drift on with the winds. i seek no office at the cost of courage or conviction. pass this bill. restore affection to the states of this union and i will go back to my ashland home; there in its groves, on its lawns, 'mid my flocks and herds, and in the bosom of my family, i will find a sincerity i have not found in the public walks of life. yes, i am ambitious, but my ambition is that i may become the humble instrument in the hands of god, in restoring harmony to a distracted nation, and behold the glorious spectacle of a true, united happy and prosperous people." there is a grandeur in the mountain that lifts itself above the hamlets at its base, and bearing its brow to the threatening storm clouds says to the forked lightning, "strike me!" but grander is the man who can stand 'mid the allurements of the world's honors and say: "i would rather be right than president." dare to do right and what you do will have its reward. "shamgar, what's that in thy hand?" "only an ox-goad." "come dedicate it to god, and go slay those philistines." "david, what's that in thy hand?" "only a sling and a little stone from the brook." "come dedicate them to god, and go kill the giant." "my little lad, what's that you have?" "only five loaves and two little fishes." "come, dedicate them to god; they'll feed thousands and you will have baskets full left." my brother, what's that in thy hand? only a little american ballot. come dedicate it to god and home and native land, go cast it against the licensed liquor traffic and your life will bear fruit which the angels will gather when you have "finished your course" and "kept the faith." you are soon to have the local option test in your county. if i could do one thing i could make the victory for the home overwhelming. you know if the saloons continue they will have their victims in the future as they have had in the past. you know too their victims will come from the youth of your county. those who are victims now will soon be dead bodies, or "dead broke." the men in the saloon business do not look to men who are drunkards now, for future use nor do they intend to use horses or cattle or dogs, but _boys_. if i could announce that on the evening before the vote is to be taken i would present to the public the future victims of the saloons in this county. if i had a prophet's eye and could select these victims, how many homes i would enter where i would not only be an unwelcome but an unexpected visitor. when the hour would arrive for the exhibition, what an audience i would have! nothing like it ever gathered in this county; from every corner of it parents would come. when placed in line on an elevated platform so all could see, i would speak through a megaphone saying: "i present to you the future victims of the liquor traffic in your county; here are the boys who will be your future drunkards and here are the girls who will be the wives of drunkards." i imagine some father, who thinks regulation the best policy, would exclaim: "there's my boy. i never thought the saloon would take my son. don't talk to me about regulation. come, you fathers whose sons are not here, and help me save my boy." another would press through the crowd to be sure that he was not mistaken and say: "there's my daughter. i never dreamt she would be a drunkard's wife. i have said prohibition won't prohibit, but i will say it no more. come, good fathers who love your children, and help me save my child." this is but the forecast for some parents in this audience. would it be wrong if i should say: "o god, if the saloons are to continue in this county, if they are to have their victims in the future as in the past, let the fathers who vote the curse on the county furnish the victims." i do not offer up any such prayer, but i do say: "o god, give to the home the protection of a prohibition law, and may the victims not be anybody's boy or anybody's girl. go out of this hall tonight resolved you will link your faith in principle with your work. faith and work!" i like that story of the mother in new england, who on a visit from home, received a message calling her to the bedside of a daughter who was hopelessly ill. hurrying to the nearest railroad station she said to the conductor: "sir, do you connect at the junction with the train that will take me to my sick child," at the same time handing him the message. "no, madam, we do not run our trains to connect with trains on that road. the train will be gone some little time before we reach the junction." "sir, are you a christian?" "no, madam, i'm a railroad conductor." "have you a christian man with the train?" "yes, that man you see oiling the engine claims to be a christian, and i think he is; you might consult him if you like." going to the engineer she said: "please read this message and tell me if you can catch that train at the junction." the engineer read the message and said: "i'm sorry, madam, but that train goes fifteen minutes before we get there." "please sir, catch that train and let me see my daughter before she dies." "i would give a whole month's wages if i could," said the tender hearted engineer. "then don't you think god can hold the train fifteen minutes till we get there," said the distressed mother. "oh yes, god can do anything," was the reply. "won't you ask god to hold that train? and i will ask him." the engineer said: "yes, i will." the mother boarded the train, and on schedule time the engine moved. the engineer took hold of the lever and up with the smoke from the engine went the prayer: "lord, hold that train fifteen minutes for that good mother." with this prayer more steam was turned on than usual and at the next station the train was two minutes ahead of time. at the next station two more minutes had been gained. it was in the early days of railroading when rules were not so strict as now; the conductor knew there was nothing in the way, so he concluded to let the christian engineer have his way. as the train was starting for its third and last run for the junction, the engineer said: "lord, if you will hold that other train seven and a half minutes, i'll make up the other seven and a half." when the engineer had made up his seven and a half, sure enough there stood the other train. when the engineer said to the conductor: "what are you waiting for," the reply was: "something the matter with the engine, but the boys have it fixed now and we'll go on in a minute." "yes," said the engineer, "you'll go on when this godly mother gets on and not before." each one of you do your part, god will do his part, and the end will be victory for "god and home and native land." iv the new woman and the old man. in the exhibition of fine paintings it is important to have the benefit of proper light and shadow. so it should be in the study of questions. those who look at the new woman through the distorted lense of false education or prejudice, see the monstrosity such as we have pictured in the public press. they see dr. mary walker, whose dress offends our sense of propriety; they see the ranting woman on the platform, or suffragettes throwing stones through plate-glass windows, and defacing costly specimens of art. these no more represent the genuine new woman i indorse, than does the goggled-eyed, kimbo-armed dandy represent true manhood. fanaticism marks every new movement, every life has its defect, the sun its spots and the fairest face its freckles. the new woman is not to be judged by exceptions, nor is she to be measured by the standard of public sentiment. public sentiment has often condemned the right. it ridiculed columbus; put roger bacon in jail because he discovered the principle of concave and convex glass; condemned socrates, and jeered fulton and morse. it pronounced the making of table forks a mockery of the creator who gave us fingers to eat with, and broke up a church in illinois because a woman prayed in prayer meeting. hume said: "there is nothing in itself, beautiful or deformed. these attributes arise from the peculiar construction of human sentiment and affection; the attractiveness or repulsiveness of a thing depends very much upon our schooling." prof. john stuart blackie wore his hair so long that it almost reached his waist. seated one day in front of a hotel in london, a bootblack halted before him and said: "mister, will you have a shine?" professor blackie replied: "no, but if you will go wash that dirty face of yours i will give you the price of a shine." the boy went but soon returned with his rosy cheeks cleansed, saying: "sir, how do you like the job?" "that's all right; you have earned your sixpence," said prof. blackie as he held out the coin. the bootblack turning away said: "i dinna want your sixpence; keep it, old chap, and have yer hair cut." the long hair of professor blackie was as offensive to the boy as the dirty face of the boy to professor blackie. one had been schooled to short-haired men, the other to cleanly children. i have in my presence now scores of persons, who believe the sale of a negro on the auction block in the south to the domination of a white man was wrong. i did not think so in my youth. my schooling was that japheth was a white man, shem a red man and ham was black; that it was a divine decree that the descendants of japheth should dwell in the tents of shem and send for the children of ham to be their servants, thereby supporting the white man in his dealings with the black and red races. as the bible was used to justify slavery, so it is quoted today in favor of the liquor traffic, and against the new woman movement. yet it's the bible that has given woman her broader liberty. it was the bible that broke the chains that harnessed woman to a plow by the side of an ox. in the vision of john, a woman is crowned with stars, the burnt-out moon is her footstool and the wings of a great eagle given to bear her above the floods that would engulf her. the viewpoint of schooling has much to do with our convictions and prejudices. when the bicycle craze first came upon us, women bicycle clubs were formed throughout the country. wheels were made specially for woman, and to facilitate the pleasure and comfort, bloomers were worn by women in all our cities. the fat and lean, tall and short, old and young wore bloomers. at that time if a man from the country neighborhood where i was reared, one given to dancing, had gone to chicago and seen these bloomer-clad women, he would have thought the whole sex disgraced. and i must admit i didn't like the bloomer girl myself. i can appreciate the yankee farmer who lived between boston and wareham, mass. a young woman who lived in boston had a friend in wareham, and donning her bloomers she mounted her wheel and started for the village. passing several diverging points, and thinking possibly she had missed the right road, she decided to inquire at the next house. seeing the yankee farmer at the front gate she rode up, dismounted and said: "sir, will you please tell me, is this the way to wareham?" the farmer, with eyes fixed upon the new garb, said: "miss, you'll have to excuse me. i can't tell you, for i never saw anything like them before." i said our opinions are based upon schooling. let the man from the dancing community leave chicago, go back to kentucky, attend a country ball, see a young woman with low neck dress and short sleeves, in the arms of a man she never met before, and he thinks her the picture of propriety, as well as grace and beauty. yet the bloomer girl was completely clad from her chin to the soles of her feet while the other is so un-clad that when a woman, now noted for her great work among the unfortunate of new york city, was a society leader, and was passing through her library to her carriage one evening, her little son said: "mama, you are not going out on the street looking that way, are you? why, you are scarcely dressed at all." the mother realizing as never before, the immodesty of her attire, returned to her room, changed her apparel to what met the approval of her boy, and has never since worn a decollete gown. let a respectable woman in this town stand on a street corner to-morrow, and utter an oath; she would shock every one within sound of her voice. a man can "cuss" to his satisfaction and, if not a church member, the community is not shocked. let a young woman seeking a position in a public school in one of our cities, call a member of the school board into a saloon and order beer set up for two; would she get the position? not much. not if the community found it out, or the remainder of the board who were slighted. a man can invite a dozen men into a saloon, order drinks for the company, and thereby help to win the position he seeks. in the city where i reside a young man can get drunk and howl like a wolf through the streets, yet if he has wealth and family influence, in ten days he can attend a social gathering of the best society. let a young woman step aside from the path of right and she is hurled to the depths of the low-land of vices. some years ago a young man died in our city whose family name was honored and whose father was wealthy. the young man went the pace that kills and in the very morning of life died a victim to his vices. a long line of carriages followed him to our beautiful cemetery, his pall bearers were from the leading families of the city; flowers covered his grave and the daily papers paid a tribute to the young man cut down before the river of life was half run. soon after, a poor girl died in one of the wicked dens of the city. she had been left an orphan in early life without a mother's love to guard and guide her, she went astray. two carriages followed her to the stranger's burying ground. in one were two of her kind; in the other the pastor of the church of which i am a member. he afterward said to me: "we had to get two negro men at work near by to help lower her body into the grave." no wonder woman cries out against these standards, these peculiar constructions of human sentiment. public sentiment demands of a man that he shall be physically brave. if a woman appeals to him for protection, his bosom must heave with courage like the billows of the ocean, though he quake in his boots. yet the woman he defends will endure pain without a murmur, which would make the man groan for an hour. when my wife is ill it takes about two days to find it out; she does not seem so cheerful the first day, and the second, she will admit she is not so well. let me get sick, and the whole family will know it in half an hour. i know a woman will scream if a mouse runs across the floor, but give her a loved one to defend, let supreme danger come and she's no coward. john temple graves tells of a georgia girl so timid she was afraid to cross the hall at night to mother's room. she married a worthy young man and by industry and economy they paid for a cottage home. he began to cough, and the hectic flush told his lungs were involved. the doctor advised a change of climate. "we'll sell the home," said the little wife, "and go where the doctor advises, for the home will be nothing to me if you are gone." they went to florida and knowing they must husband their small means, she took in sewing. a few months later the doctor advised a higher altitude. they went to a little city in the ozark mountains. here again she plied her needle, wearing upon her face by day a smile to cheer her husband, while at night her pillow was wet with tears as she heard him coughing his life away. after several months she was informed by physicians that but one chance in a hundred remained, and that was still further west. "i'll take the hundredth chance," she said, and on west they went. soon after, in the far-away city he died; she pawned her wedding ring to make up the price of tickets back to georgia. there the little widow buried her dead by the side of his mother, and after planting her favorite flowers about the grave, she turned away to face the duties of life, and though a dead wall seemed lifted before her, she met each day with a smile and hid her sorrow beneath the soul's altar of hope. man has won his title to courage upon battlefield, and yet the battlefield is not the place to test true courage. "the wife who girds her husband's sword, 'mid little ones who weep or wonder, and bravely speaks the cheering word, e'en though her heart be rent asunder: doomed nightly in her dreams to hear the bolts of death around him rattle, hath shed as sacred blood as ere was poured upon the field of battle." when elbows touch, ten thousand feet keep step together, martial music fills the air, the shout of battle is on, bayonets glitter in the sunlight, the flag flutters in the breeze, and the general commands, men will shout and rush into battle who without these stimulating influences would be going the other way. i remember when a boy how whistling kept up my courage in the dark. it is told of general zeb vance of the confederate army, that while leading his forces across a field into an engagement he met a rabbit going the other way. as the hare dodged around the command, general vance lifting his hat said: "go it, mollie; go it, mollie cotton-tail; if i didn't have a reputation to sustain i would be right there with you." for christine bradley, the eighteen-year-old daughter of the governor of kentucky, to stand on the dock at newport news, against the customs of centuries and facing the jeers of prejudice, baptize the battleship kentucky with water, required as blood-born bravery as coursed the veins of the ensign who cut the wires in cardenas bay, or the lieutenant who sunk the merrimac in the entrance to santiago harbor. because she dared to violate a long-established custom by refusing to use what had blighted the hopes of many daughters, sent to drunkards' graves so many sons, and buried crafts and crews in watery graves, the woman's christian temperance union presented her with a handsome silver service. i was chosen to make the presentation speech, which i closed by saying: "heaven bless christine bradley, who by her example said: i christen thee kentucky, with water from the spring, which enriched the blood of lincoln, whose praise the sailors sing. i christen thee kentucky, with prayers of woman true, that wine, the curse of sailors, may never curse your crew. i christen thee kentucky, and may this christening be, a lesson of safety ever to sailors on the sea." now if public sentiment has made such a mistake in the allotment of virtues, why may it not have made a greater mistake in the allotment of spheres? it has been well said: "god made woman a free moral agent, capable of the highest development of brain, heart and conscience; with these are interwoven interests that involve issues for time and eternity, and god expects of woman the best she can do in whatever field she is best fitted for the accomplishment of results for the world's good." if a young woman is fitted to preside over a home, and some young man desires to crown her queen of that realm, she can find no higher calling in this world. there is nothing on this earth more like heaven than a happy home. i can give to a young woman no better wish than that the future may find her presiding over a home made beautiful by her character and culture, and safe through her influence. but if a young woman is qualified like frances e. willard to better the world by public life-work, or like florence nightingale or jane addams to relieve the suffering of thousands, then she should not confine herself to the limited sphere of one household. i believe in the call of capacity for usefulness in both sexes. there are men who are called to be cooks; they know the art of the caterer. there are men fitted to be dressmakers; they know the colors that blend and the styles which give beauty to dress. there are women who are fitted for science, literature and medicine. some of the best cooks we have are men; some of the best writers and speakers are women. abraham lincoln never did more by his proclamation to free the slave, than did harriet beecher stowe with "uncle tom's cabin." william e. gladstone never did more to endear himself to the people of ireland by his advocacy of the home-rule, than has lady henry somerset endeared herself to the common people of the "united kingdom," by turning away from the wealth, nobility and aristocracy of england to devote her great heart, gifted brain and abundant means to the elevation of the masses, the reformation of the wayward, and the relief of the poor. there is a fitness that must not be ignored. frances e. willard would never have made a dressmaker. it is said she did not know when her own dress fit, or whether becoming; she depended upon anna gordon to decide for her. but by the music of her eloquence and the rhythm of her rhetoric, she could send the truth echoing through the hearts of her hearers like the strain of a sweet melody. worth, of paris, france, would not have made an orator, but he could design a robe to please a princess and make a dress to fit "to the queen's taste." then let worths make dresses, and frances e. willards charm the world by their eloquence. yonder is a boy. his soul is full of music; his fingers are as much at home on the key-board of a piano as a mocking-bird in its own native orange grove. his sister is a mathematician; she solves a problem in mathematics as easily as her brother plays a piece of music. because one is a boy and the other a girl, don't make the girl teach music and the boy mathematics. what god has joined together in fitness, let not false education put asunder. recently i read of a man whose father left him a large business. though an exemplary man he could not make ends meet in a business out of which his father had made a fortune. the man worried himself into nervous prostration. while he remained at home for rest, his wife took charge of the business and made of it a great success. i say let that woman run the business and the man take care of his nerves. i know a minister who is a good man, but his strength is in his limbs. he's an athlete, but turn him loose in a field as full of ideas as a clover field of blossoms, and he can't preach a good sermon. let dr. anna shaw enter the same field and she will gather blossoms of thought faster than you can store them away in your mind. some one in my presence may believe the man should keep on preaching and anna shaw go to the sewing-room and run a sewing machine; but i say if the man's strength is in his limbs, and doctor shaw's in her head, let the preacher run the sewing machine and doctor shaw preach the gospel of righteousness, temperance and judgment to come. if god fitted anna shaw's brain and tongue for the platform, it would be unwomanly in her to make herself the pedal power of a sewing machine. we want successful, useful men and women; and in fields for which god has fitted woman, don't be afraid to give her the freest, broadest liberty, or be uneasy about her unsexing herself. she has entered two hundred fields in the last one hundred years. yes, i guess one more field must be added, for i saw a woman a few years ago in an occupation i had never seen one engaged in before. in a city where i lectured a beautiful, intelligent young lady was running the elevator of a hotel, and i was completely "taken up" by her. of all the new fields entered by woman you cannot point to one where she has degraded her womanhood, or one that has not been blessed by the touch of her influence. it is true there are fanatics among women as there are among men, but if the extreme woman goes too far, the average woman will call a halt every time. fifteen years ago i could stand on michigan avenue, chicago, in the evening and within a half hour count twenty young women, dressed in bloomers, riding bicycles. now one may go to chicago, spend a year and not see one. woman is safe enough. some are uneasy lest woman will go beyond her sphere, but i am not so much disturbed about the future of woman as i am of man. upon virtue and intelligence depends the future of this republic. have men all the virtue? go to the saloons; are they frequented by women? no; _men_. go to the gambling halls; are they crowded with women? no; _men_. go to the jails and penitentiaries; are they full of women? no; _men_. go to the churches; are they crowded with men? no; mostly by women. what about intelligence? have men all the intelligence? two girls graduate from high schools to one boy. i am glad to be living now; one hundred years hence, if i were to be born again, i would want to be a girl. woman goes to the door of death to give life to man and man should be willing to let her seek out her own sphere for usefulness. not long since i read a book called "the new woman." it was a novel by an englishman. in it the author takes a beautiful young girl, about eighteen years of age, through a "gretna-green" experience with a young man of twenty. she is the daughter of a widow; he, the only son of a wealthy london merchant. they run away and after a month's search are found by the father of the young man in southern france. the girl is sent home to her mother; the young man sent to india in order to get him far away from his wife. the novelist makes the young man a noble character, who is determined to prove himself worthy of his wife, and he toils to send her means for support. the young wife becomes a mother, and the young husband toils the harder to care for his wife and babe. when time hangs heavy on the hands of the young mother, she is invited to join a woman's club. here she imbibes the spirit of the new woman. she soon neglects her child and appears before the public for a lecture. she wears a low neck dress, paints her cheeks, blondines her hair, smokes cigarettes and drinks wine. a millionaire in india, who loses his own son, adopts the hero of the novel, dies and leaves him the great estate. then the young man hurries back to his wife. he arrives in the evening, but finds she is not at home; she is delivering a lecture in the opera-house. he awaits her return; a storm rages outside; at a late hour she enters the door, throws off her wraps and stands before her husband, with blondined hair, painted cheeks, and eyes red with wine. he stares, then starts toward her, when she brings him to a halt by her strange manner. he asks, "is not this my wife?" she answers, "no, i am the new woman." she refuses to let him see their child, drives him out into the storm, then goes to her room, disrobes and lies down to dream of great audiences and applause. it is an insult to any intelligent reader. where is the woman, who was a sweet, modest young mother, and who today is a public speaker, who has neglected her child, driven her husband without cause into the street, blondines her hair, paints her cheeks, drinks wine and smokes cigarettes? she would be hissed from the platform. the author simply shows his extreme prejudice in an abstract attempt to prove that to be a new woman means the surrender of all womanly graces. let me give you, not fiction but real history, that i may present to you the kind of new woman i indorse. she was born in the state of new york, was well educated, and at proper age married a young physician. they moved to a western city, where for a while the young physician did well; but in an evil hour he commenced to drink. like many a noble young man, he was too weak to resist the power of appetite, and soon his practice left him. his wife, the mother of two boys, secured a position in the public schools and by her ability, won her way to a principalship. the husband wandered away, while the brave wife and mother remained with her children, but followed her husband with letters of loving appeal. after long separation he was taken seriously ill in the far southwest. she left children, home and school work to go to his bedside. her watchful care brought him back from the very door of death, and her prayers were answered in seeing him forsake the cup and hide for safety in the cleft of the rock of ages. he returned with her to their home, but soon after passed away. she buried him beneath the green missouri sod, planted flowers about the grave, paid him tribute of her tears, and returned to her work. in the course of these years she had joined the woman's christian temperance union and was recognized as one of its greatest leaders. several years ago i gave an address in hot springs, ark. a card was presented at my door, which bore the name of the heroine of my story. going to the parlor i said: "what are you doing here?" "my boy has been very ill with rheumatism and i have been here with him for several weeks. he is better now and i return to my work tomorrow." months later she was called again to the bedside of this son, and with all the tenderness of mother-love, he was cared for until he too passed over the river. again she took up her work on the platform, where she inspired many young women to do their best in life, and called many to righteousness. she was the salt of the earth, the embodiment of nobility, the soul of truth; and not only her own state but the whole country is better because she lived. ask the author of the novel for the _real_ to his story; he cannot name her; she does not live in england or america. ask me for mine and i answer clara c. hoffman, for years the associate of frances e. willard as national officer of the woman's christian temperance union, and state president of the white ribboners of missouri. in a magazine article an author said: "out of one hundred and forty-five graduates of a certain female college, only fifteen have married." a chicago editor quoted the statement and asked: "is it possible education breeds in woman a distaste for matrimony and home life?" in the first place, i would answer: "you never can know how many are going to marry until they are all dead." another explanation is that the average school girl goes out of school at that impulsive age when "love acts independent of all law, and is subject to nothing but its own sweet will," no matter how many years father has toiled to give her the comforts of life, nor how many sleepless nights mother has spent to give her rest. she meets a young man; he is handsome, dresses well and talks fluently. she falls in love, and sees in "love at first sight," the "inspiration of all wisdom." in a week, though she knows nothing of the young man's character or disposition, she is ready to say to her parents: "i appreciate all you have done for me: i love you devotedly, but i have met such a nice fellow; he has asked me to marry him, and i have accepted; ta-ta!" she's gone. if her parents ask about the prospect for a living, she answers as did the young girl whose father said: "mary, are you determined to marry that young man?" "i am, father." "why, my child, he has no trade, no money, and very little education; what are you going to do for a living?" she replied: "aunt is going to give me a hen for a wedding present. you know, father, it is said one hen will raise twenty chickens in a season. the second season, twenty each, you see, will be four hundred; the third season, eight thousand; the fourth season, one hundred and sixty thousand; and the fifth season, only five years, twenty each will be three million, two hundred thousand chickens. at twenty-five cents each they will bring eight hundred thousand dollars. we will then let you have money enough to pay off the mortgage on the farm and we will move to the city." to a girl in love, every hen egg will hatch; not a chicken will ever die with the gapes; they will all live on love, like herself, and everything will be profit. the college girl cannot marry at this impulsive, air-castle age. she must wait until she gets through college. by that time she is old enough for her heart to consult her head, and her head inquires into the character and capacity of the young man. beside this, it has been the custom for women to look up to man, and when the college woman looks up, quite often she doesn't see anybody. young man, if you want the college girl you must "get up" in good qualities to where she will see you without looking down. i believe this higher education for women will tend to arrest the recklessness by which life is linked with life at the marriage altar. there is a legend among the jews that man and woman were once one being; an angel was sent down from heaven to cleave them into two. ever since, each half has been running around looking for the other, and the misfits have been many at the marriage altar. these misfits remind me of an experience when i lectured for the colfax, iowa, chautauqua, some years ago. frank beard, the famous chalk talker, was there and on grand army day he was on the program for a short talk. i was seated by mr. beard while the speaker who preceded him was telling war stories of his regiment and himself. frank beard said to me: "well! i guess i can exaggerate a little myself." it was evident he intended to measure up to the occasion. after getting his audience into proper spirit for the manufactured war story, he said: "i was in the war myself and had a few experiences. at the battle of shiloh, i was lying behind a log, when i saw about forty confederates come dashing down toward me. my first impulse was to rise, make a charge and capture the whole forty. but i knew that would not be strategy; generals did not manage a battle that way with such odds against them, so i determined to make a detour. perhaps some of you young people do not know what a detour means. it means, when in such a position as i was, to get up and go the other way. so i detoured. the chaplain of our regiment detoured also; he could detour a little faster than i, and was directly in front of me when a shell caught up with me and took my leg off just above the knee. you may notice i walk very lame." (which he did just then for effect). "well, the same shell took off the chaplain's leg, and we tumbled into a heap. the surgeon came up, and having a little too much booze, he got things mixed; he put the chaplain's leg on me and my leg on the chaplain. we were in good health, and the legs grew on all right. when i recovered, i concluded to celebrate my restoration to usefulness, so i went into a saloon and said to the bartender, 'give me some good old brandy.' he set out the bottle, and i began to fill the glass, when that chaplain's leg began to kick. the chaplain was a very ardent temperance man, and the first thing i knew, that temperance leg was making for the door, and i followed. but what do you think? as i went out, i met my leg bringing the chaplain in." that's a very absurd story, a rather ridiculous one, but if the surgeon had made the mistake mr. beard charged, he would not have made any greater than is made every day at the marriage altar. young women, i would not silence the love songs in your hopeful hearts, but i would have every betrothed girl demand of her lover not only a loving heart, but a well rounded character and a reasonable store of useful knowledge. a writer on this question said: "this progress of woman lessens mother love in our country." is that true? before the opening of a southern exposition, a mother of four boys applied for and was engaged as chime bell ringer. perhaps some saw in the selection a woman as brazen as the bells she would ring. on opening day she played, "he who watches over israel neither slumbers nor sleeps"; on new york day she played, "yankee doodle" and "hail columbia;" on pennsylvania day, "the star spangled banner;" on kentucky day, "my old kentucky home;" on maryland day, "maryland, my maryland;" on georgia day, "the girl i left behind me;" on colored people's day, the airs of the old plantation; on newsboy's day, "the bowery" and "sunshine of paradise alley;" then "nearer, my god, to thee," "rock of ages, cleft for me," soothed the tired christian heart. one afternoon she took two of her boys into the belfry-tower; one seven, the other about three years of age. when they tired of the confinement, the older boy said: "mother, can we go out for a walk?" "yes, son, but don't let go little brother's hand." she was so absorbed by the music of her bells she did not notice the passing of time until the night shadows began to gather. then her older boy came running up in the tower crying, "mother, i've lost little brother!" she quit her bells and running through the grounds set every policeman looking for her boy; then she hurried back to her bells and began to play "home, sweet home." it is said the bells never rang so clear and sweet. over and over again she played, "home, sweet home;" some wondered why the tune did not change. at last, while trembling with dread and eyes filled with tears, she heard a sweet voice say, "mama, i hear de bells and i tome to you." the mother, turning from the bells, clasped the child to her bosom and thanked god for its safety. it is said everything is undergoing a constant change, but until the chime bells ring in the eternal morning mother love will live on, the same unchanging devotion. several years ago i stood on portland heights, oregon, in the evening, and saw mount hood in its snow-capped majesty, when the stars seemed to be set as jewels in its crown. if you ask me by what force that giant was lifted from the level of the sea till its dome touched the sky, i cannot answer you, but i know it stands there, a towering sentinel to traveler on land and sailor on the sea. so mother love, which no one can solve, exists as unchanging as the love of god; broad enough and strong enough to meet all the changing conditions of time. while i did not make this lecture to include the suffrage question, i cannot turn away from the new woman without a word about the ballot for women. it is no longer a question of right, but whether or not men will grant the right. this i believe men will do when the sentiment of women is strong enough to force the issue. "taxation without representation" is no less a tyranny to women than to men. i was the guest of a wealthy widow, who paid more taxes than any man in the county, yet a foreigner, who had been in this country less than three years, who had not a dollar of property nor a patriotic impulse, laid down the hoe in the garden, and going to the polls, voted additional tax upon the woman he worked for; and the saloon influence upon her two boys, while she had no voice in what taxes her property, or what might tax her heart by the ruin of a son. there being no question about woman's right to the ballot, there should be no hesitation on man's part in bestowing the right. i now turn from the new woman to the old man. i do not mean the man old in years; for him i have only words of honor and praise. i mean the man set in old ways and habits that neutralizes the progress and wastes the forces of the republic. at the door of this old man lie the causes of commercial disturbances, depression in trade and recurring panics more than in the causes stressed by partisans for political effect. we should never have hard times in this country. we live in the best land beneath the sky. it has been well said: "this is god's last best effort for man." we have soil rich enough to grass and grain the world. our vast domain is inlaid with gold, silver, iron and lead of boundless worth. deep in the bosom of columbia are fountains of gas and oil, sufficient to light and heat our homes for a century to come. within these healthful lines of latitude is room enough not only to house all the peoples of the earth, but to sty all the pigs, stable all the horses, and corral all the cattle of the world. to have all these gifts crowned with sunshine and shower, free from pestilence and famine, we are the most prosperous and should be the best contented people on the earth. in such a land there should be perpetual peace and plentiful prosperity. yet we have hard times after hard times, and panic after panic. why is this? if i could tell you why, it would repay for the time and money spent to hear this lecture. during the great panic in the nineties mr. w.c. whitney of new york, wrote a letter to a leading new york daily in which he said: "there are just two causes for this panic; too much silver and too much tariff." i do not disparage these two problems, but i do say mr. whitney had a very narrow view of a panic. like many another man, he had a thorough knowledge of certain things and was totally ignorant of others. a chief justice of the united states was riding in a carriage with his family when a shaft broke. it was not broken short off, but shivered by contact with a post. the chief justice had no strings and was in a dilemma. a negro boy passed by, dressed in rags, whistling a merry tune. the great jurist hailed the boy, saying, "boy, have you a string?" "no, boss, what's de matter?" "i have broken the shaft of my carriage," said the justice. "yas, sir, i guess you is, boss. is you got a knife? if you is, i think i can fix it for you." taking the knife, he jumped the fence and cut withes from a sapling, with which he lashed a lath to the shaft. "i guess da'll git you home, boss." "that's a good job," said the judge; "why didn't i think of that?" the boy replied: "i don't know, sir, 'cept some folks know more than others." that boy did know more than the chief justice of the united states about mending a broken shaft. i think i know a thing or two about panics which mr. whitney did not seem to have learned. let me give you two causes for panics. they are not all but they rank with mr. whitney's. first, the extravagance of the people. when times are good and money plentiful, people are extravagant. they buy everything and pay enormous prices. a horse, axtell, brings his owner one hundred and five thousand dollars; a two-year-old colt, arion, one hundred and twenty-five thousand. a town site is located in a barren waste and lots sell at ten to one hundred dollars a front foot. all kinds of wildcat schemes are promoted, and the people bite at the bait. an era of extravagance is on and "sight unseen" investments are made. several years ago my brother said to me: "are you going west soon, as far as kansas city?" when i replied that i was he said: "i have never been in that city but i have two lots there i wish you would look at and ascertain their value." he advised me to call on a certain real estate agent, who would show me the lots. when i called on the agent a little while later, he informed me the lots could not be seen until a dry spell took off the water. two lots my brother never saw and never sold; decidedly "watered stock." a man with a thousand dollars buys a five thousand dollar lot. he knows he can't pay for it, but there's a boom and he expects to sell for six thousand before the second payment is due. he doesn't sell. when he can't sell he goes to the bank to borrow money to make the payment; he finds there many more in the same condition as himself. the banks see the trouble coming and will not loan. when the banks refuse to loan the depositors get scared and take their money out of the bank. during that great panic in the nineties three hundred millions of dollars were taken out of circulation within four months by depositors who were scared. then the country gets flat on its back with a panic. a friend said to me, during the great depression: "don't you think it will be over soon?" i replied: "let a man have typhoid fever until reduced to a skeleton; let the doctor call some morning toward the close of the long siege and say, 'the fever is broken, get up and go to work.' can the man obey the doctor? no; he must have chicken-broth and gruel, and slowly regain his strength." so when a panic comes we must creep out, and we were so deep in the nineties it took a long time to recover. when a panic comes however, the extravagance ceases; everybody gets stingy. a man with five thousand dollars doesn't buy a five thousand dollar lot. he doesn't buy anything; his wife must wear the old bonnet, and his church assessment is reduced. then the tide turns and the country recovers from its extravagance. but when times get good, crops are fine and money plentiful, the people begin again; women spending their money for dry goods, men for wet goods; another era of extravagance is on and another panic coming. mr. whitney said: "too much silver and too much tariff." all the gold and all the silver money in this country would not pay the old man's drink and tobacco bill for five years. we drink, smoke and chew up all the money in this country, gold, silver, and paper, every seven years. last year we spent about six millions for missions; one hundred and fifty millions for churches; two hundred and seventy-five millions for schools; and eighteen hundred millions for intoxicating liquors and tobacco. awake, o conscience! and pour out thy saving influence for the healing of the nation. we live in a marvelous country. what this republic has accomplished in one hundred and thirty-eight years, is the wonder of the world. at the close of the revolutionary war those who survived were poor, wounded, bleeding people, occupying only the eastern rim of a wilderness waste, while wild beast and wilder indians roamed the mighty expanse to the western ocean. from the penniless poverty of then, has come the wonderful wealth of now. where the tangled wilderness choked the earth, now fields of golden grain dot the plains, carpets of clover cover the hillsides, cities hum with the music of commerce, while rivers and railroads carry rich harvests to the harbors of every land. emerson wrote better than he knew when he wrote: "so i uncover the land, which of old time i hid in the west, as the sculptor uncovers his statue, when he has wrought his best." yet grand as this country has grown to be, "the eagle of liberty can never reach the pinion heights its wings were made to measure," while the shell of wasted resources to which i have referred bows low its head. money won't save us. babylon had her gold standard; her images were made of gold. media, persia, had her free silver standard; her images were made of silver. rome had her gold, her silver, brass and iron; yet they were all dashed to pieces on the world's highway. "in the hollow of the hand of god is the destiny of this republic," and we cannot buy him with money. the wealth that satisfies the ruler of nations is character. some one said a few years ago, and it went the rounds of the press: "the question during the civil war was, shall we have two governments or one; now the question is, shall we have any?" i quote to you with as much confidence as any mortal ever proclaimed a truth: "this republic will never fail or fall until god deserts it, and god will not desert it until we desert him." "come the world in arms, we'll defeat, and then pursue; nothing can our flag destroy, while to god and self we're true." i am not one of those who believe our war with spain was an accident. for dewey to cross that dead line at midnight; when morning dawned to find mines of death behind him, an enemy's fleet of eleven ships before him, these supported by shores belted with batteries; and yet within six hours sink or disable every ship in the fleet, silence the forts, lift the star spangled banner in triumph to wave, and not have a warship sunk, nor a sailor killed, means more than the mere skill of a commodore. some one may say we had a better navy. spain didn't think so. before the war the spanish papers said: "the united states is bluffing. she can't go to war with us. she has only twenty-five thousand soldiers, and they are kept out west to control cowboys and indians. then the south is waiting for an opportunity to break out in rebellion." columbus discovered america in ; spain didn't discover the united states until . do you ask what we are to do with the philippine islands? i cannot tell you what is best, but i do know we didn't want them. the day dewey sailed from hong kong to manila bay, if spain had said to the united states: "here are the philippine islands, we would like to make you a present of them," the united states would have replied, "we thank you, but decline the offer." not one man in ten in this country would have voted to take them. but the next day we had them, had fought to get them; and i believe the same superhuman power that took from spain, the netherlands, flanders, malacca, ceylon, java, portugal, holland, san domingo, louisiana, florida, trinidad, mexico, venezuela, columbia, ecuador, peru, bolivia, chili, argentina, uruguay, paraguay, patagonia, guatemala, honduras, san salvador, nicaragua, porto rico, cuba, and "then some," took away from spain the philippine islands and gave them to us, that the home, the church and the school might be established in the islands. perhaps some of you think i am getting off my subject. i am not; i am talking now about the _old man_, uncle sam, and his mission in the world. it is the opinion of many that we are under no obligation to the islands of the sea, but these conservative souls should not forget that we are not only citizens of the united states, but of the globe on which we dwell and of the universe of god. the world in which we live, lives because of the light and heat it receives from other worlds. if the rolling sun in the heavens is under obligation to furnish light for our pathway, heat for our soil and warmth for our blood, are we not under obligation to carry the light of civilization to the people whose shores and ours are washed by the same waters? if the full orbed moon is under obligation to pour its silver into our nights, and lift the tides until our rivers are full, are not we under obligation to lift the tide of hope in the heart of oppressed humanity, and pour the light of intelligence into the night of ignorance? did god give us this grand country, with its boundless resources, for us to draw our ocean skirts about our greatness and pass by our bruised and bleeding neighbor, lying half dead on life's jericho road? if so, then call back our proud eagle of liberty from its pinion flight through the skies of national achievement, and make our national emblem the barnyard fowl that crows in the day dawn as if creating light instead of noise, and then runs for his roost when the shadows fall. the bible says we are fellow workers with god. what does this fellowship imply? it means there are some things we can't do, which god must do for us, and some things we can do he won't do for us. he puts the coal in the earth; we must dig and blast it out. he puts oil beneath the soil; we must bore into its wells and pump it out. he gives us the earth and "the fullness thereof;" we must do the sowing and reaping. he puts electricity in the air; we must bridle, saddle and harness it. he empties the clouds into the basins of the earth and gives us oceans, gulfs and lakes; but we must build boats to ride them. he puts humanity on the earth and bids us love our neighbor as ourselves. who is my neighbor? some seem to think only those who live in our immediate community. i read of a minister of a city church who called upon one of his country members for a contribution for foreign missionary work. the country brother said: "i don't believe in foreign missions, and i must say, 'no'." "brother," the pastor said, "the bible says you should love your neighbor as yourself." "i do love my neighbors." "who are your neighbors?" "those whose farms adjoin mine, and perhaps, those whose farms adjoin theirs." "how far do you own eastward?" "to the third fence yonder." "how far do you own toward the west?" "about a half mile?" "how deep do you own into the earth?" "well, i never thought of that, but about half-way, i guess." "well, my brother, i am asking you to help your neighbor china, who joins your line below." * * * * * i have a friend with plenty of this world's goods, and not a child. when approached by the ladies of the foreign mission society he said: "i do not give to foreign missions; when you want anything for home missions i'll help you." perhaps he would; but many of that class are represented by a colored man of whom i heard a methodist bishop tell. he said to a friend: "dat wife of mine is got money on de brain; it's money, money all the time. i can't go whar she is, but she's axing me for money. she's jest sho'ly gwine to run me to the lunatic 'sylum ef she don't quit her beggin' me for money." the friend asked: "what does she do with so much money?" the colored brother hesitated a minute, and said: "she don't do nuffin wid it, caze i ain't never _give_ her none yet." * * * * * my friend who opposes foreign missions said: "so much you give never gets there." yes; and so many seed the farmer puts into the ground never grow, and so the farmer says, "put five grains in every hill: one for the cut-worm, one for the crow, one to blight, and two to grow." and you cannot tell which will grow. a weed grew by the wayside in the old world. all it did was to furnish seed for the wind, and worry for the farmer. but one blustering day, the wind carried a seed from the wayside weed into a florist's garden; it sprouted, rooted and bloomed. the gardener was impressed by the beautiful coloring of the blossom, so he nurtured, transplanted and cultivated it into a beautiful flower. it was from this bush, once a weed, queen victoria selected the flower she carried when she entered the crystal palace to meet the world's representatives. when delia laughlin went astray, her father drove her from his door. she was of that temperament that must either go to the heights or to the depths, and to the depths she went. down the rapids of a sinful life her steps were swift. along the bowery she made her way to five points, where thieves and drunkards dwelt. it was said she could drink deeper, curse louder, and fight fiercer than any inmate of the most wicked spot in new york city. mrs. whittemore went one day on her mission of mercy through the slums. she sought some one to accompany her who knew the deepest haunts of the wicked. delia laughlin was recommended to her. mrs. whittemore, with her bible in one hand and a fragrant rose in the other, made her rounds. she was deeply impressed with the intellect and culture, as well as the beauty of the wayward girl who had been her guide through the slums. "dear girl," she said; "you are too bright and beautiful to be down here. i wish you would come to see me at the door of hope mission," and slipping a coin and the white rose into the soiled fingers she said, "good-bye." the girl loved flowers, so she took the white rose to her room and put it in water. then with the coin she went to drown her misery in drink. forty-eight hours later she had slept off the debauch, and taking the flower from the vase she said: "ah! that represents my life. once i was as pure as the rose when the good woman gave it to me. those withered petals represent the withered graces of my life." from out that little flower an arrow went to the heart of delia laughlin. she took the street car and went to the door of hope mission. mrs. whittemore met her and they talked together. while the girl wept mrs. whittemore prayed; she said: "o god, this poor girl has no other friend than you. her father's home is closed against her. you have promised, when father and mother forsake, you will take the deserted one. won't you take her now?" and god did take her; from that hour she was safe in the cleft of the rock of ages. when she addressed twelve hundred inmates of auburn prison, a reporter said: "never did john wesley, john knox, or martin luther do greater work for the master." when laid in her casket in the door of hope mission a few years later, a new york paper said: "never did a fairer face or more eloquent tongue do work in slum life than delia laughlin." "the stone o'er which you trample, may be a diamond in the rough. it may never never sparkle, though made of diamond stuff. "because someone must find it, if it's ever found; and then someone must grind it, if it's ever ground. "but when it's found, and when it's ground, and when it's burnished bright; then henceforth a diamond crowned 'twill shine with lustrous light." you can't tell what seed will grow. after the civil war i lived for two years in richmond, kentucky. during that time the klu klux movement broke out in fury. men were hanged, others whipped and driven from the county. on my way to market one morning i saw a man hanging from a limb of a tree in the court-house yard. on his sleeve was pinned a piece of paper, on which was written, "let no one touch this body until the sun goes down." all day that body hung there and not an officer of the law dared to cut the rope. such was the reign of terror no one offered a protest. one saturday night a young man named byron was hanged in the same court-house yard. he was the only son of a widowed mother, and he begged the mob to let him live for his mother's sake. sunday morning several empty bottles lay about the tree, indicating that the men were drinking who did the deed. the evening after the hanging i gave an address in the methodist church for the good templars. i had no thought of referring to the hanging of young byron, but in showing up the evils of drink, those empty bottles came to my mind, and i could imagine the old mother then weeping over her dead boy. without considering the consequences i denounced the klu klux and the cowardice that permitted such lawlessness. after the lecture a young man of influence advised me to leave at once and not dare spend the night in the town. i felt sure the klan could not be called together that night, so i ventured to spend the night at home. about eleven o'clock that night the front gate was opened, and tramp, tramp, tramp, came the sound of feet toward the cottage, which was about forty feet from the street. it seemed as if all was over with me, when the "pluck" of a string introduced a serenade from the string band of the little city. since the daughters of judah hung their harps upon the willows, no sweeter music has ever fallen upon mortal ears than i heard that night from the string band of richmond, kentucky. i do not know how much my speaking out against klu klux had to do with arresting the outlawry that made the roads rattle with the clatter of the hoofs of horses at midnight raids, but i do know young byron was the last man hanged by the klu klux in madison county, and may i not hope the unpremeditated protest made in that sunday evening address, helped in some measure to bring about the transformation, and contribute a mite to the public sentiment that has made richmond a saloonless place in which to live. you cannot tell what seed will grow. already out of the new woman movement has come a host led by such women as frances e. willard, mary a. livermore, clara hoffman, dr. anna shaw, jane addams, maude ballington booth, susan b. anthony, and in our own state, frances e. beauchamp. these and many more have been springing the bolts that have barred woman from spheres of great usefulness. allow me to say, i have no patience with the mannish woman (and about as little use for a feminine man); but if this old world is ever to be redeemed it is because he who sitteth on the throne has said: "behold i make all things new." oh! for a new man, who will stop the waste of wealth and destruction of morals to which i have referred. oh! for the day when "each sex will be the equal of the other in the average, each above the other in specialties; when each can see in the other a source of inspiration," and both worthy to have been created in the beginning a "little lower than the angels" and in the end to be crowned with glory and honor. v the safe side of life for young men. a plea for total abstinence and a better life. i do not assert that everyone who drinks intoxicating liquor as a beverage will become a drunkard, but i do come before this audience to hold up total-abstinence as safer and better for practice. drunkards are made of moderate drinkers; drunkards are never made of total abstainers. one _may_ drink and never get drunk; one cannot get drunk who never drinks. take away every drunkard from the earth today and moderate drinking will soon create another supply; but sweep all drunkenness from the world, let total-abstinence be the absolute rule and the last drunkard will have debased his body, ruined his character, and doomed his soul. since running the risk of being a moderate drinker is so great, i commend to the young people before me the caution of the scotch minister, who, when called upon to marry a couple, said: "my young friends, marriage is a blessing to a great many persons; it's a curse to some; it's a risk for everybody; will you take the venture?" i presume they did. i do not believe the use of intoxicating liquor as a beverage is a benefit to anyone, yet for argument's sake i will permit one who drinks to say: "moderate drinking is a benefit to a few persons; it's a curse to a great many; it's a risk for everybody; let's take a drink!" against this i affirm that total abstinence is a blessing to millions; it's a curse to nobody; it's safe and right for everybody; then let's take the pledge and god helping us, let's keep it. a very comforting reply to the infidel who claims there will be no hereafter is the inscription on the tomb of a faithful christian: "if there's another world, he's in bliss; if not, he's made the best of this." if there is no hereafter, to say the least the christian is even with the infidel, while if there is a hereafter it's bad for the infidel. if a moderate drinker has sufficient self-control to escape being a drunkard, the total abstainer is equally safe; but if the moderate drinker loses his self-control and becomes a drunkard his doom is sealed. the safe definition of temperance is: "moderation in regard to things useful and right, total-abstinence in regard to things hurtful and wrong." is alcoholic liquor as a beverage hurtful and wrong? it's the source of more misery, cruelty and crime than any other evil of the world! some years ago after a lecture along this line, a doubting thomas said to me: "what answer have you for the scholar who claims your very word 'temperance' is the offspring of a word that signifies moderation?" i said: "the same i would give to a darwinian if he were to tell me i am a descendant of the ape; and that is, i rejoice to know i'm an improvement on my ancestor. to one who charges me with being a distant relative of the chimpanzee, i give the reply of henry ward beecher: 'i don't care how _far distant_.'" i acknowledge my ignorance of the derivation of the word temperance, but i do know drunkenness comes from drinking intoxicating liquor, therefore i favor total-abstinence and recommend it as the safe side of life for young men. while, by quoting isolated passages of the bible, advocates of moderation have succeeded in filling the air with dust of doubt about the teaching of the scriptures on the wine question, there is one thing about which there is no question, and that is the consent of the bible to total-abstinence for anyone who desires and "dares to be a daniel." i would rather search my bible for permission to give up that over which my brother may stumble into ruin, than to see how far i can go in the use of it without committing sin. marriage feasts in cana of galilee two thousand years ago do not concern me so much as the social feasts of the present age where "wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging," and many are "deceived thereby." a noted bible scholar says: "the bible is not simply a schedule of sins and duties catalogued and labeled, but a revelation of immutable principles, in the application of which god tests the sincerity of our profession." to drink intoxicating liquor in this enlightened age, with all the woes of intemperance about us and responsibilities of life upon us, is a violation of every immutable principle laid down in the bible. first, it's against the law of prudence, which says of two possible paths one should take the safer. which is the safer, moderation or total-abstinence? next, it's against the law of humility, which teaches where mightier than we have fallen, we must distrust ourselves. have mightier than we fallen through strong drink? next, it's against the law of human brotherhood, which makes it imperative upon the strong to bear the infirmities of the weak. is the drinker weak? next, it's against the law of expediency; "it is good neither to eat flesh nor drink wine nor anything whereby thy brother stumbleth." do our brothers stumble over strong drink? last, it's against the law of self-denial; "if meat make my brother to offend, i will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest i make my brother to offend." does strong drink make our brother to offend? on these immutable principles the cause of sobriety is built, and the gates of the devil of drink shall not prevail against it. young man, let me give you a bit of advice and assurance. never take a drink of intoxicating liquor as a beverage, and when you are as old as i am you will not regret it. you cannot find me in all the world, one man between forty and eighty years of age, an abstainer all his life, who would change that record if he could. boys, that's a very safe rule that has not a single exception. but how many are there who regret they ever put the bottle to their lips? "if i had only let strong drink alone" is the bitter wail of millions of men and women. from pauper poverty and prison cells, electric chairs and dying drunkard's lips comes the cry: "drink has been my curse!" does some young man in this audience say, "i can quit if i please?" then i beg you to _please_, ere you reach the time when you will strive to quit, but in vain. i know you don't intend to go beyond your power of control; neither did the drunkards who have gone before you. do you suppose edgar allen poe dreamt when he took his first drink in the social gathering of an old virginia gentleman's home that it would bring from his brilliant brain the weird strain: "take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!" quoth the raven, "nevermore." do you suppose thomas f. marshall, our gifted kentucky orator, dreamt when he stood at the foot of the ladder of fame and all kentucky pointed him to the golden glory of its summit, that his last words would be: "and this is the end. tom marshall dying; dying in a borrowed bed, under a borrowed sheet, and without a decent suit of clothes in which to be buried!" i well remember the first time i saw thomas marshall. he had returned from washington, where he had thrilled congress by his eloquence. he was announced to speak in lexington on court day afternoon. i went with my father from our country home to hear the then golden mouthed orator. for nearly two hours he swayed that audience as the storm king sways the mountain pine. on unseen wings of eloquence he soared to heights i had never imagined within the reach of mortal tongue. i also remember the last time i saw this brilliant kentuckian. he was standing on a street corner in lexington, kentucky. his hair hung a tangled mass about his forehead, his eagle eyes were dimmed by debauch, and a thin, worn coat was buttoned over soiled linen. as he straightened himself and started to the bar-room, i could see traces of greatness lingering about his brow like sheet lightning about the bosom of a summer storm cloud. not long after he was telling political stories in a drinking tavern. when he tired of the tumult of the bar-room and a sense of his better self came over him, some one said: "give us another, tom." rising to his feet he said: "you remind me of a set of bantam chickens, picking the sore head of an eagle when his wings are broken." at one time in a temperance revival in washington he took the pledge and kept it for months. during this time in a temperance meeting he was called upon to speak. the following brief extract shows the charm of his eloquence: "i would not exchange my conscious being as a strictly sober man, the glad play with which my pulse now beats healthful music through my veins, the bounding vivacity with which my life blood courses its exultant way through every fiber of my frame, the communion high which my now healthful eye and ear hold with the universe around me, the splendors of the morning, the softness of the evening sky, the beauty, the verdure of the earth, the music of winds and waters. no, sir! with all these grand associations of external nature re-opened to the avenues of sense, though poverty dogged me, though scorn pointed its slow finger at me as i passed, though want, destitution and every element of early misery, save only crime, met my waking eye from day to day: not for the brightest wreath that ever encircled a statesman's brow; not if some angel commissioned by heaven, or rather some demon sent from hell to test the resisting power of my virtuous resolution, were to tempt me back to the blighting bowl; not for the honors a world could bestow, would i cast from me this pledge of a liberated mind, this talisman against temptation, and plunge again into the horrors that once beset my path. so help me heaven, i would spurn beneath my feet all the gifts a universe could offer, and live and die as i am--poor but sober." drinking young man, thomas f. marshall once stood where you now stand. he said then what you say now, yet after that beautiful tribute to sobriety and the pledge of total-abstinence, he stood at a blacksmith shop door, and as the smith drew the red hot iron from the forge, mr. marshall said to some friends: "gentlemen, i would seize that rod of heated iron and hold it in my hand till it cools, if it would cure me of my terrible appetite for strong drink." this is but one of the many fallen stars the demon of drink has snatched from the galaxy of kentucky's greatness and hurled into the darkness of eternal night. a man who could drink and not get drunk said to me: "i have no patience with, nor sympathy for a drunkard. if i couldn't eat what i want and quit when i choose, i wouldn't claim to be a man." whether he could or not, depends on conditions. let my arm represent the scale of life, with will on one side and appetite on the other. when a man is healthy his will stands at eighty, his appetite at fifty. that man eats when he likes, or lets it alone as he chooses. but let this healthy, strong man take typhoid fever, and after six or eight weeks be reduced to almost a skeleton. at this stage, the fever having subsided, let the doctor say to the once strong man: "the fever is broken; be careful about your diet, no solid food, only chicken broth and gruel." place by the bed of this once strong man a table and on this table a roast turkey, stuffed with oysters. on the floor place a coffin and say to the patient: "you see that turkey and that coffin. if you eat the turkey today, you'll be in the coffin tomorrow." go out and leave the man alone with the turkey. will he eat it? i don't care if he's a preacher or a doctor he will, regardless of the advice of doctor or terror of the waiting coffin. why will he eat when he knows it means death? because his will has gone down to twenty and his appetite up to one hundred. my father had typhoid fever and when the time of convalescing came my mother left him alone while she was in the yard with her flowers. i went into the house and found father had left his bed, crawled to the cupboard and had hold of what was left of a chicken. i called to mother; she came running, and taking the chicken from him said: "don't you know to eat solid food will kill you?" father replied: "i know if you hadn't come in i would have had one square meal." did i say too much when i said the preacher would eat the turkey? years ago saint john's pulpit in louisville, kentucky, was filled by a preacher so gifted that strangers in the city were attracted by his fame as an orator. he had an invalid mother, who in her wheel chair would attend every service, and was made happy in her affliction by the sermons of her eloquent son. he married a wealthy widow and had everything wealth and refinement could suggest. he saw no wrong in the wine glass and kept a supply in his cellar. gradually appetite demanded stronger drinks and one morning his wife said: "husband, you were drunk last night." a few months later he resigned his position and went west, hoping to break the spell of his habit. but no mountain was high enough, nor cavern dark enough for him to hide from his mad pursuer. he returned to louisville and gave himself up to the maddening bowl. his wife left him and went to a country home which she had saved out of her wealth. one night when he was sleeping drunk in one room, his old mother in another said: "oh god, is my cup of sorrow not yet full?" the pitying angel pushed ajar the golden gates and the broken heart entered into rest. time and again this man took the pledge, but only to fail. when the "blue ribbon" wave swept the country he again took the pledge, and this time went on the platform as a temperance advocate. he drew great audiences, and when he had kept his pledge for months we invited him to louisville. it was my privilege to introduce him, or rather to present him to the great audience. before going on the platform he said: "i have made a mistake in coming here. it was here i lost everything a man could ask to make him happy. the memory of my sainted mother comes over me, and my wife is so near and yet so far from me." to bring him back to himself i said: "these things will help you to give the greatest lecture of your life. come, a great audience of old friends are waiting." when introduced he said: "my friends, if i ever did a dishonorable act before i fell from the pulpit through drink, rise and tell me." soon he had his audience in tears and lifting his eyes heavenward he said: "o my sainted mother, look down from your home in glory and see your poor drunken boy. he has staggered all the way back, his feet upon the up-hillward way, and will travel it with a martyr's step." he further said: "will i ever drink again? no; this brow was not made to wear the brand of a vassal, nor these hands the chains of a drunkard. here in louisville, where i fell in my manhood's might, i vow i will never drink again." manhood's might is too weak to win alone in the battle against sin. poor j.j. talbott went down to rise no more, and on his dying bed, when a minister quoted passage after passage of promise from god's word, the answer came: "not for me! not for me!" peace to his ashes. young man, will you tamper and trifle with strong drink? do you say you can drink or let it alone? i admit you can drink but are you sure you can let it alone? if you can _now_, are you sure you can two years hence? i saw a giant oak tree lying in the track of the wind. it had been called "the monarch of the sierras." under the very nests where tempests hatch out their young, it grew to its greatness. it had seen many a storm, clad in thunder, armed with lightning, leap from its rocky bed and go bellowing down the world. but the storms that shook it only sent its roots down and out that it might fasten itself the more firmly to the earth. for long years this old tree stood there, bowing its head in courtesy to the passing storm, while its branches were but harp strings for the music of the winds. one evening as the sun went down over the mountain's brow, not a storm cloud on the sky, a little wind went hurrying round the mountain's base, struck the great oak and down it went with a crash that made the forest ring. young men, why was it a tree that had withstood the storms of ages, should, before such a little gust of wind bow its head and die? years before, when in the zenith of its strength and glory, a pioneer with an axe on his shoulder, went blazing his way through the wooded wilderness that he might not be lost on his return. seeing the great tree he said: "that's a good one to mark," and taking his axe in hand, he sent the blade deep into the oak. time passed with seemingly no effect from the stroke given by the axeman. but steadily the sun smote the wound, rain soaked into the scar, worms burrowed in the bark around it, birds pecked into the decayed wood and finally foxes made their home in the hollow trunk, and the day came when resisting force had weakened, boasted strength had departed and the giant monarch of the sierras stood at the mercy of the winds that have no respect for weakness. there are young men before me today, who can drink or let it alone. temptation to them is no more than the gentle breeze in the branches of the oak in the zenith of its strength. true, temptation has been along their way blazing, here a glass of wine, there a glass of beer and yonder a glass of whiskey. they can quit when they please, but the less they please the more they drink, the more they drink the less they please. they don't quit because they _can_, if they couldn't quit they would, because they can, they won't. thus they reason, while appetite eats its way into their wills, birds of ill omen peck into their characters and finally they will go down to drunkards' graves, as thousands before them have gone. young men, in the morning of life, while the dew of youth is yet upon your brow, i beg you to bind the pledge of total-abstinence as a garland about your character and pray god to keep you away from the tempter's path. i wonder that young men will trifle with this great "deceiver." i wonder too at so much ignorance on the question among intelligent people. some years ago after a temperance address a gentleman was introduced to me as the finest scholar in the city. next morning we were on the same train, and referring to the lecture of the evening before, he said: "i heard your address and was pleased with your kindly spirit, but i beg to differ with you, believing as i do, that when properly used, alcoholic liquor as a beverage is good for health and strength." i felt disappointed to hear a great scholar make such a statement, but i ventured the reply: "if that is true god made a mistake, since he made the whole phenomena of animal life to run by water power. he made it in such abundance it takes oceans to hold it, rivers and rivulets to carry it to man, bird and beast, while in all the wide world he never made a spring of alcohol. if it's good for strength, why not give it to the ox, the mule and the horse?" it takes a good deal of faith to trust a sober mule; i'm sure i wouldn't want to trust a drunken one. there is not a man in my presence who would buy a moderate drinking horse, and no one would wilfully go through a lot where a drunken dog had right of way. yet we license saloons to turn drunken men loose in the street, some of them as vicious as mad dogs. good for strength? when samson had slain the regiment of philistines and was exhausted and athirst; when in his extremity he cried to the lord: "thou hast given this great deliverance into the hand of thy servant, and now shall i die from thirst." what was done to revive him and renew his strength? was strong drink recommended as a stimulant? the bible account informs us god "clave an hollow place in the jaw, and water came thereout." don't you think if alcoholic liquor had been intended as a beverage for mankind, the great creator would have made a few springs of it somewhere? bore into the earth you can strike oil, but you can't strike whiskey. you can find sparkling springs of water almost everywhere, but nowhere a beer brewery in nature. it's water, blessed water all the time. on your right it bubbles in the brook; on your left it leaps and laughs in the cascade; above you it rides in rain clouds upon the wings of the wind; beneath you it hangs in diamond dew upon the bending blade; behind you it comes galloping down the gorge "from out the mountain's broken heart;" before you it goes gliding down the glen, kissing wayside flowers into fragrance and singing, as rippling o'er the rocks it runs: "men may come and men may go, but i go on forever." oh, bright beautiful water! may it soon be the beverage of all mankind. i know some say: "this is a free country; if a man wants to drink and be a brute, let him do so." the trouble about that is, while strong drink will degrade some men to the level of the brute, drunkards are not made of brutes. some thirty or more years ago a grandson of one of the greatest statesman this country ever produced, was shot in a saloon while intoxicated. while that young man was dying, but a few blocks away a grandson of one of the greatest men that ever honored kentucky in the senate of the united states, was in jail to be tried for murder committed while drunk; and in the same city at the same hour in the station-house from drink was a great grandson of the author of "give me liberty or give me death." whom did daniel webster leave his seat in the senate that he might hear his eloquence? s.s. prentice went down under the cloud of drink. a gifted family gave to a southern state a gifted son. his state sent him to the halls of national legislation, but drink wrought his ruin. horace greeley was his friend, and finding him drunk in a washington hotel said to him: "why don't you give up what you know is bringing shame upon you and sorrow to your family?" he replied: "mr. greeley, ask me to take my knife and sever my arm from my shoulder and i can do it, but ask me to give up an appetite that has come down upon me for generations, i _can't_ do it." he threw his cane upon the floor to emphasize his utterance. a few days later in the old saint charles hotel, he pierced his brain with a bullet and was sent home to his family in his coffin. bring me the men who are drunkards in this city, strip them of their appetite for strong drink, and they are husbands, brothers, fathers, sons, and as a rule, generous in disposition. thank god, while drunkenness will drag down the gifted and noble, temperance will build up the humblest and lowest. bring me the poorest boy in this audience, let him pledge me he will never take a drink of intoxicating liquor as a beverage, let him keep that pledge, be industrious and honest; my word for it, in twenty years from now he will walk the streets of the city in which he dwells, honored, respected, loved, and the world can't keep him down. i rejoice we live in a land where i can encourage a boy, a land where rank belongs to the boy who earns it, whether he hails from the mansion of a millionaire or the "old log cabin in the lane;" a land where a boy can go from a rail cut, a tan yard, or a toe-path, to the presidency of the united states; a land where i can look the humblest boy in the face and say: "never ye mind the crowd, my boy, or think that life won't tell; the work is the work for aye that, to him that doeth it well. fancy the world a hill, my boy; look where the millions stop; you'll find the crowd at the base, my boy; there's always room at the top." have you a trade? go learn one. do you know how to do things? go try; you may make mistakes, but do the best you can like the boy who joined the church. at his uncle's table soon after he was asked to say grace. he didn't know what kind of a blessing to ask, but he did know he was very hungry, so bowing his head he said: "lord, have mercy on these victuals." i have faith in the boy who will try to do a thing. i believe in a boy like that one in a mission sabbath school in new york, who though he had but little knowledge of the bible, had a way of reasoning about bible lessons. the teacher of his class said to him: "james, who was the strongest man of whom we have any account?" he quickly replied: "jonah." "how do you make that out?" said the teacher. promptly the answer came: "the whale couldn't hold him after he got him down." boys, are you poor? columbus was a weaver; arkright was a barber; esop, a slave; bloomfield, a shoemaker; lincoln, a rail-splitter; garfield tramped a toe-path with no company but an honest mule; and franklin, whose name will never die while lightning blazes through the clouds, went from the humble position of a printer's devil to that height where he looked down upon other men. if you would win in the battle of life, take the right side of life and build a righteous character. the saddest scene on the streets at night is the young man, whose clothes are finest in quality and fittest in fashion, but whose principles sadly need "patching." i dare say there are young men before me now who would not go into refined company indecently dressed for any consideration, but who will rush into the presence of their god before they sleep with a dozen oaths upon their lips. will carleton puts it this way: "boys flying kites, haul in their white plumed birds; you can't do that when flying words; thoughts unexpressed, may sometimes fall back dead, but god himself can't kill them when they're said." will carleton puts it in poetry, let's have it in prose. boys, pay more attention to your manners than to your moustache; keep your conduct as neat as your neck-tie, polish your language as well as your boots; remember, moustache grows grey, clothes get seedy, and boots wear out, but honor, virtue and integrity will be as bright and fresh when you totter with old age as when your mother first looked love into your eyes. little lucy rome was taken up for vagrancy in a great city. when brought before the court an austere judge said: "who claims this child?" a boy arose and walking down near the judge, said: "please, sir; i do. she's my sister; we are orphans, but i can take care of her if you'll let her go." "who are you?" asked the judge. "i'm jimmy rome, and i have been taking care of my sister; but two weeks ago the man for whom i worked died and while i was out looking for another place, lucy begged some bread and they took her up. but now i've a good place to work, judge, and i'm going to put little sister in school. please let me have her, sir." the judge said: "stand aside. officer, take the child to the children's home." the boy with tears streaming down his cheeks, as he heard his sister sobbing, said: "judge, please don't take her from me." the judge, moved by the pleading of the brother, said: "well, my boy, if you can find some reliable person to go your security you may have her." "judge, i don't know anyone to give you; my good friend is dead, but i told you the truth. i don't drink, nor smoke nor swear oaths; i try to be a good boy; i work hard, but i can't give you any security. judge, will you please let me kiss my little sister before you take her from me?" with this the boy put his arms about his weeping sister and printed, as he thought, the last kiss upon her cheek. the judge, with a lump in his throat, said: "take her, my boy; i'll go your security. i'll give lucy to the care of such a brother." hand in hand the homeless orphan pair walked out of the court room together, jimmy rome to make his mark in the business world and his sister to be the wife of a merchant prince. boys, be industrious, be honest, be sober. "i will" fluttered from the worm-eaten ships of columbus; "i will" blazed upon the banners of washington and grant; "i will" stamped the walls of hudson river tunnel, and dug the canal of panama. young man, write "i will" upon your brow, give your heart to god and hope will herald your way to victory as the reward of a well spent life. keep your eye upon the star of ambition. don't be like the owl, who when daylight comes hides himself within the shadows of the ivy-bound oak and moans and moans the days of his life away; but rather be like the proud eagle that leaves its craggy summit, starts on its pinion flight through the clouds, rides upon the face of the storm, then on beyond bathes its plumage in the "sunlight of the day god, and laughs in the face of the coming morrow." some one said, and trifled with the secret of success and happiness when he said it: "there's only a dollar's difference between the man who works and the man who pays, and the man who pays, gets that." there is an old superstition that somewhere on the earth, under the earth or in the sea, there is a stone called the "philosopher's stone" and whoever finds it will be "chiefest among ten thousand." the same superstition prevails with many today; only the name of the stone is turned to "luck," and thousands of young men are waiting for luck to come along and turn up something for them. there is a rule of life, young men, more reliable than luck. it is called an ancient law and runs thus: "by the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." it is the foundation of more sweet bread and pure enjoyment than all your luck. on it the feet of abraham lincoln rested, while he wedged his way to the highest office in the gift of the american people. on it shakespeare stood, driving a shuttle through the warp and woof of a weaver's loom and wove out for himself a name and fame immortal. on it elihu burrett wielded a sledge hammer, while developing a mind that mastered many different languages. on it henry clay made his way from the mill-sloshes of virginia to the united states senate, and on it james a. garfield tramped his toe-pathway from driving a mule, to presiding over the destinies of seventy-five millions of people. boys, don't be idle. i know a man to-day who always looks so lazy it really rests me to look at him. a boy working for a farmer was asked by his employer if he ever saw a snail. the boy answered that he had. "you must have met it, for you surely did not overtake it," said the farmer. i know an old man who seems to take pride in saying he never worked. the first time i saw this man was in my youth. while his father was husking corn in a field, he was seated by a fire reading a novel. often after that, when i would go to the postoffice in the winter, he would be there by the fire. he moved to the city thirty years ago, where he spends his winters sitting around a fire. he doesn't drink or gamble. i don't think he will have many sins of commission for which to answer; he never commits anything; he sits by the fire. when he dies an appropriate epitaph for his tomb will be: "he was never much on stirrin' round, sich wasn't his desire; when weather cool, he was always found, a sittin' round the fire. "when the frost was comin' down, and the wind a creepin' higher, he spent his time just that way, a sittin' round the fire. "same old habit every day, he never seemed to tire; while others worked and got their pay, he sat there by the fire. "when he died, by slow degrees, some said, 'he's gone up higher;' but if he's doin' what he did, he's sittin' round the fire." the man or woman who lives in this age of the world and lives in idleness, should have lived in some other age. when ox-teams crept across the plains, and stage coaches went six miles an hour, idleness may have been in some kind of harmony with the age, but now, when horses pace a mile in two minutes, express trains make fifty miles an hour, and aeroplanes fly a mile in a minute; when telephone and telegraph send news faster than light flies, the idler is out of place. carlisle said: "the race of life has become intense; the runners are tramping on each other's heels; woe to the man who stops to tie his shoestrings!" young man, if you would keep step with the energy of the age in which you are living, and be ever found on the safe side of life, you must not only be equipped with education, stability and ambition, but to make sure you should start right. if you are going to california tomorrow, which way would you start, east or west? you say: "we would start west." a man riding along a highway said to a farmer by the wayside: "how far to baltimore?" the farmer answered: "about twenty-five thousand miles the way you're going; if you'll face about and go the other way, it's fourteen miles." young man, which way are you going? does someone in my presence say: "i have started wrong; i take a glass of beer now and then; occasionally utter an oath, and am sowing wild oats in a few other fields; but i'll come out right in the end." two diverging roads keep on widening; they don't come together at the other ends. if you would make sure of the safe side of life in the end of the journey, then start right. luke howard graduated from a fine college and went to a large city to practice his profession. he boarded in a fine hotel and frequented fine saloons. he became dissipated and one morning after a drunken debauch the landlord said: "sir, you disturbed my boarders last night and i must ask you to leave." young men, did luke howard go to a better hotel? no, but to a grade lower; he started wrong. in this hotel a few months later, he was asked to move on. did he go to a better? no, still lower, until at last he went to board in the low tavern on the river front. the landlord said: "i remember when you graduated from college. i was present, saw the flowers and heard the applause that greeted your success. i feel honored to have you as a boarder." a few months later, on christmas night, luke howard lay drunk on the bar-room floor. the landlord had borne all he could and, with a kick, he said: "get up and get out, you brute; i will not keep you another hour." the drunkard with help arose and said: "where am i? why, this is my boarding place, my home, and you are my landlord. you said you felt honored to have me board here. what's the matter?" "luke howard, you're not the man you once were, and i want you to leave here at once." the poor fellow started for the door muttering: "i am not the man i was. i'm not the man i was." missing the step as he went out, he fell, striking his head against the stone curbing. a physician was summoned and recognizing the injured man as an old friend said: "luke, speak to your old college chum; i'm here to help you." the poor drunkard, looking through the blood that flowed from the gaping wound said: "listen to me, tom, i'm not the man i was, i'm not the man i was." and thus died the poor fellow. young man, start wrong and end right? no, start wrong and you may expect in the autumn of life a penniless, friendless old age; opportunity gone, health shattered, and the "long fingers of memory" reaching out and dragging into its chambers thoughts that will "bite like a serpent and sting like an adder." bad as this is, it is even worse when your depravity involves another life. what if that other life is your mother, who went to the door of death to give you life, and whose every breath is another thread of sorrow woven into her wasting heart while her boy is bound like mazeppa to the wild steed of passion. there are some things i cannot understand about this drink question. i can understand how a young woman with jeweled fingers can tempt a young man to drink wine. i had a bit of experience some years ago down in texas, that helped me to appreciate how young men are tempted. i gave an address in a y.m.c.a. lecture course in a city, and at the close of my address a prominent citizen said to me: "kentucky has a reputation for beautiful women, but we think texas has the handsomest women in the world. at the hotel where you are stopping, there is a leap year ball tonight and the most beautiful women for a hundred miles around are gathered there. i will call for you at your room in a little while and you must take a look at our texas girls." a little later i stood in a hallway where i could see down the long ball room, and i declare they were as pretty women as i have ever seen, and i live in kentucky. i was invited to step inside the door, where between dances i was introduced to couple after couple. it being leap year the ladies were soliciting their partners for the dance, and a very handsome young lady invited me to be her partner. having never danced and being a methodist steward, i declined. another and another asked me to dance, and again and again i declined, giving as an excuse my utter ignorance of the function. finally a very beautiful, blue-eyed, charming young lady said: "since you do not dance, may i engage you for a promenade around the ball room?" boys, if i had been a young man the chances are i would have started down the "turkey-trot" road that evening. i can appreciate how young men are tempted. there is one thing, however, about the drink habit that is difficult for me to understand, and that is how a young man, who loves his mother, whose mother loves him as only a mother can love, loved him first, loved him best and will love him to the last, can go from home and mother to the impure, degrading vileness of a liquor saloon. if we enter that young man's home what do we find? perhaps on one of the side-walls, "what is home without a mother," on the altar the family bible, every picture on the walls suggestive of home life and purity, every chair and piece of bric-a-brac linked with the sweet association of childhood, the conversation as pure as the sunlight on which the young man lives; yet he will kiss his mother, leave this home, and down the street make his way to a liquor saloon, where often vile pictures hang on the walls, cards lie on the table instead of the family bible and the air is freighted with oaths and obscenities. boys, have any of you done this within the past month, or six months? promise me now you will never do this again. oh what a grand meeting this would be if every young man and boy in my presence would make the promise! i plead with you, young man, by the sleepless nights your mother spent to give you rest; by the shadow you have hung over her pathway; by the bleeding heart you've wounded but which loves you still: "come back, my boy, come back, i say, and walk now in thy mother's way." i would that every boy in our land were as grateful to his mother as was that southern girl to her father, who stood years ago in front of an open fire, her back to the fire, her face toward the door, her bare arms full of flowers, waiting for her brother to call with a carriage to take her to a party. while standing there a flame caught her dress; she gave a scream, dropped the flowers and ran through the door to where her father was standing in the yard. when the father saw his child coming with flame following, he ran toward her. as he ran he took off his coat and wrapping it about her face, arms and shoulders, threw her to the ground. with his left hand he kept the flame from the body, while with his right hand he fought the fire. he saved his daughter but burned his right arm to the elbow. day after day when the doctor would unwrap the arm to dress it, the girl, though burned herself, would go to her father's bed, gently lift the burned arm and caress it. when the father recovered his hand was so maimed and scarred, that when introduced to strangers, he would hold his right hand behind him and shake hands with the left. one day his daughter, seeing him do this, went to his side and reaching for the scarred hand, held it to her lips and kissed it. she was not ashamed, for that hand had been burned for her. when the father died and lay in his casket ready for burial, the family came to take their last look. first came the mother of the girl, then a brother and sister, and then the girl herself. she kissed the cold brow of her father, then kneeling she took up the disfigured hand and kissed it over and over again. my boy, your mother has suffered more for you than that father did for his daughter. i beg you, go home and kiss your mother. if she is dead or far from you, kiss her memory. go to your bed room, kneel there, and pray god to help you to live worthy the love of your mother. i now turn from young men to parents and say, use every means possible to make safe the way of your boys. some years ago in one of our cities, after a lecture in which i appealed to parents, a leading merchant of the city said: "i wish i had heard that lecture years ago." "you never used liquor?" i said. "no, but i am responsible for its use in my family. i am a methodist, and a total abstainer. in my employ i had a number of clerks, and let it be known i would not allow any of them to drink even moderately. one day a man came to my store with a paper in his hand and said: 'i want to set up a saloon on the next block and i am getting signers to my petition. i am one of your customers; you know me and know i will keep an orderly place.' i said to myself, 'if he doesn't sell others will and we need the revenue anyway,' so i signed the petition. a few months later i chanced to see my youngest boy and one of my clerks coming out of the door of that saloon. soon after when they entered the store i called them into my office and said: 'young men, did i see you coming out of a saloon, and had you been taking a drink in there?' when they admitted they had, i said to my son: 'did i ever set such an example for you to follow?' he answered: 'no, father, but you signed that man's petition to set up the saloon; whom did you expect him to sell to? did you sign it for him to sell to other fathers' sons and not yours?' i realized as never before the wrong i had done, not only to my own son, but to every father's son to whom that saloon-keeper would sell if they had the money to pay for liquor. i said: "forgive me, my boy. promise me you will never enter a saloon again and i promise never to sign a petition or vote to have a saloon-keeper sell to anybody's boy!" but it was too late; that boy went to ruin and carried his old father to financial ruin with him. the store was sold and the father went on to a little farm in missouri, where he died a disappointed, grief-stricken man. he was a good man and a kind father, but he did not realize the full meaning of the warning, "whatsoever ye sow, that shall ye also reap." fathers, be careful of your example. your sons think they can safely follow where you lead. could the turf break above the drunken dead; could they come back to earth in their bony whiteness to testify to the cause of their ruin, how many would point to the old sideboard filled with all kinds of liquors, to father's moderate use of strong drink, or his vote for the saloon at the ballot box. too often the careless indulgence of mothers is responsible for the ruin of their sons. if mothers were as watchful of their sons as of their daughters, the magic chain of mother love would be far more binding to their boys. there are homes in this city where at night you can hear the mothers say to servants: "are the clothes in off the line; did you bring the broom and the pitcher from the porch; are the blinds all down; are the girls in bed; is everything in order for the night?" no, mothers, everything is not in order. your girls are safe, the windows and doors are locked, but your boys are on the outside with night keys in their pockets, to come in at midnight from god only knows where. the double standard reaches too often back into the home. "mother, watch the little feet, climbing o'er the garden wall, bounding through the busy street, ranging garret shed and hall: never count the time it cost, never think the moments lost; little feet will go astray, watch them, mother, while you may. "mother, watch the little tongue, prattling, innocent and wild, what is said and what is sung by the joyous, happy child; stop the word while yet unspoken; seal the vow while yet unbroken, that same tongue may yet proclaim, blessings in a savior's name. "mother, watch the little heart, beating soft and warm for you; wholesome lessons now impart, keep, o keep, that young heart pure. extricating every weed, sowing good and precious seed; harvests rich you then shall see, ripening for eternity." once more i turn to the young men to say, if you would make life safe take the bible as the man of your counsel and the guide of your life; love god and keep his commandments. in this age of glittering literature, many consider the bible dull reading. sir william jones, one of england's greatest jurists and scholars, said: "i have carefully perused the bible, and independent of its divine origin, i believe it contains more true sublimity, more exquisite beauty, purer morality, more important history and finer strains of poetry and eloquence than could be contained within the same compass, from all the books ever published in any age or any idiom." a passionate lover of poetry has said: "the bible is a mass of beautiful figures. it has pressed into its service the animals of the forest, the flowers of the fields and the stars of heaven; the lion, spurning the sands of the desert; the wild roe, leaping the mountains; the lamb led to the slaughter; the goat, fleeing to the wilderness; the rose of sharon; the lily of the valley; the great rock in a weary land; carmel by the sea; tabor in the mountains; the rain and mown grass; the sun and moon and morning stars. thus hath the bible swept creation to lay its trophies upon the altar of jehovah." patrick henry continually sought the bible for gems of expression, while today the politician on the rostrum and the lawyer at the bar, quote the bible to give force and effect to their speeches. some say: "there is so much in the bible we cannot comprehend." yes, there's very much in there doubtless god did not intend you should understand. one wades in the ocean knee deep, waist deep, neck deep, and gives it up that he can't wade the ocean. if god had intended one should wade the ocean he would have made it shallow enough to wade. so, one finds he can climb to the mountain's top, or sail thousands of feet above the mountain in an air ship, but he can't sail to the skies. two good women went to sam jones and said: "mr. jones, here are several passages of scripture we don't understand. we have been to several ministers and they cannot explain them satisfactorily; perhaps you can." the great evangelist said: "sisters, you haven't as much good hard sense as my cow. we keep a cow and through the winter we give her hay to eat. now georgia hay has a considerable mixture of briars. when we give the cow an arm full of hay she has sense enough to eat the hay and let the briars alone. but with the blessed bible full of good hay, you are 'chawing' away on the briars." young people, there is enough in god's word you can understand to serve you if you live a thousand years, enough in there to save you if you die tonight, so don't worry over what you can't understand. during the civil war a terrible battle raged all day between the armies of grant and lee. when the night shadows shut out the light, dead and dying were strewn for miles. surgeons were busy and the chaplains going their rounds. a chaplain heard a voice say, in clarion tone: "here." going to the spot from whence came the voice and bending over the prostrate form of a dying soldier, the chaplain asked: "what can i do for you?" "nothing, sir; they were just calling the roll in heaven, and i was answering to my name." blessed book, in which there is enough a wounded soldier, dying far away from home and loved ones, can so understand as to fit him to answer the roll call in heaven. we may not comprehend the full meaning of faith, but we can grasp sufficient to be to our souls what the force of nature is to the trees, by which they stand with their branches reaching skyward and their roots drawing earth-centerward. take from me this faith and you take away the best friend i ever had, the friend that stood by me in the darkest hour of my life, when a daughter in the bloom of womanhood said, "good-bye," and went away to live with the angels; that stands by me now pointing to where my child is waiting for me in the bowers that kiss the very porch of heaven. without this faith how awful would be the dirge, "earth to earth, dust to dust." blessed book that tells us we shall meet "beyond the river, where the surges cease to roll;" that death is but the doorway to a better land, "the grave a subway to a sweeter clime." my dear young friends, accept this faith and you will find in it a sweet companion up the hillward way of life, and down the sunset slope to the valley of death, where it will not leave nor forsake you, but will wait till you throw off your "burden of clay," then "bear you away on its balmy wings to your eternal home." young men, may you so follow the safe side of life, that when its great trials come, you can with the wings of faith cleave the clouds and soar safely above the thunders that roll at your feet. my closing advice is, "walk not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stand in the way of sinners; but delight in the law of the lord; and in his law meditate day and night. in due season your life will fruit and whatsoever you do will prosper." vi platform experiences. though announced to lecture on platform experiences, it is my purpose to give you a kind of platform analysis, to tell you what i know about lecturing, lectures, oratory and orators, using personal experiences for illustration. we have about eight thousand chautauqua days, and fifteen thousand lecture courses in this country every year, and yet comparatively few persons know the history of the platform. many have an idea that free speech, like free air, has ever been a boon to mankind. they have no conception of what it has cost, in imprisonment, exile, blood and tears. i am indebted to "pond's history of the platform" for facts and illustrations in the early history of the platform in england. two hundred years ago in our mother land, the word platform meant no more than a resting place for boxes and barrels. a religious service was simply a routine of ritual, while such a thing as a public man addressing the masses was unknown. sir william pitt, one of england's greatest statesman and orators, in all his public life uttered only two sentences to the public outside of parliament. if william jennings bryan had lived in pitt's day, he would have been ignored by the prime minister of england. the first leaders of thought to come in contact with the people and thrill them by the power of speech were john wesley and george whitefield. "on a mount called rose hill, near bristol, england, george whitefield laid the foundation of the modern platform." from rose hill his audiences grew until on kensington commons thirty thousand people tried to get within reach of his captivating voice. it has been truthfully said: "at the feet of john wesley and george whitefield the people of england learned their first lessons in popular government." this innovation, however, met with sneers, jeers and persecution from the established conservatism of church and state, and when the platform attempted to enter the arena of politics, parliament decided the "public clamor must end." a bill was framed forbidding any public gatherings except such as should be called by the magistrates. in advocating this bill a member of parliament said: "the art of political discussion does not belong outside of parliament. men who are simply merchants, mechanics and farmers must not be allowed to publicly criticise the constitution." to this the platform made reply: "from such as we the master selected those who were to sow the seed of living bread in the wilds of galilee." the bill passed by an overwhelming majority. punishment ran from fine and imprisonment to years of exile from the country, and from this time on, the battle raged between parliament and platform. later on we shall note the results. i am often interviewed by men, and sometimes by women, who desire to reach the platform. they say to me: "what steps did you take?" my answer is, i never took any; i stumbled, was picked up by circumstances and pitched upon the platform. at a picnic in a grove near winchester, ky., in , a noted temperance orator was to give an address. he failed to reach the grove on time, and i was prevailed upon to act as time-killer until his arrival. i was not entirely without experience, having belonged to a debating society in a country school. when i had spoken about thirty minutes, to my great relief, the orator of the day made his appearance. the flattering comments upon my talk induced me to accept other invitations to address temperance meetings, and before i knew what had happened, the platform was under my feet, calls were numerous and my life work was established. i suppose those who consult me are encouraged to know a mere stumble directed my course, and if so, by purpose and preparation they can surely succeed. some persons seem to think lecturing a very simple occupation, requiring only a glib tongue, and a good pair of lungs. several years ago, i received a letter from a young man in which he wrote: "i heard you lecture last week. i would like to become a lecturer myself. i have no experience and very little education, but i have a very strong voice and am sure i could be heard by a large audience. i have been working in a horse-barn but am now out of a job. if i had a lecture, i think i could make a living; besides i would get to see the country. if you will write me one i will send you two dollars." i do not know whether the young man gauged the price by the estimate of the lecture he had heard me give, or his monetary condition, but if audacity is a requisite for the platform, this young man was not entirely without qualification. this is an extreme case, and yet there are those whose minds are storehouses of knowledge, who can no more become popular platform speakers, than could the young man, who was ready to set sail on the sea of oratory, with a lusty pair of lungs and a two dollar lecture. charles spurgeon, the great london preacher, said: "i have never yet learned the art of lecturing. if you have ever seen a goose fly, you have seen spurgeon trying to lecture." mr. spurgeon called lecturing an art, and why not? if the hand that paints a picture true to life and pleasing to the eye, is the hand of an artist, why is not the tongue that paints a picture true to life and pleasing to the mind's eye the tongue of an artist? it is an art to know how to get hold of an audience. there was an occasion in my experience when i had extreme necessity for the use of this art. when president cleveland wrote his venezuela message in which he threatened war with england, the threat was published in toronto, canada, on saturday and i was announced to lecture in the large pavilion on sunday afternoon. the message of president cleveland had aroused the patriotic spirit of canada. the hall was packed. it seemed to me i could see frost upon the eyebrows of every man and icicles in the ears of the women. when introduced there was a painful silence. i began by saying: "doubtless many of you have come to hear what an american has to say about venezuela. i must admit i am not acquainted with the merits of the question. i suppose, however, the message of our president is one of the arts of diplomacy. but i do know i speak the sentiment of the best people of my country when i say: 'may the day never dawn whose peace will be broken by signal guns of war between great britain and the united states.'" i said: "when john and jonathan forget, the scar of anger's wound to fret, and smile to think of an ancient feud, which the god of nations turned to good; then john and jonathan will be, abiding friends, o'er land and sea; in their one great purpose, the world will ken, peace on earth, goodwill to men." the great audience arose and cheered until all sense of chill had departed. it is not only an art to get hold of an audience, but equally a matter of good taste to know when to let go. this is a qualification some have not acquired. i followed a very distinguished man several years ago and the comment was: "he was fine the first hour and a half, but the last hour he grew tiresome." in this busy age, the world wants thoughts packed into small compass. the average audience wants a preacher to put his best thoughts into a thirty-minute package. the day was, when people would sit on backless board benches and listen to a sermon of two hours; now they won't swing in a hammock and endure one of more than fifty minutes. rev. dr. dewey, of brooklyn, new york, tells of a minister who was given to reading his sermons. on one occasion when he had read about twenty minutes, he halted and said: "i have a young dog at my house that is given to chewing paper. i find he has mutilated my manuscript, which is my excuse for this short sermon." a visiting lady after service said: "doctor, have you any more of the breed of that dog? i would like to get one for our pastor." in this age of crowded moments concentration means executation; energy means success. if you can't put fire into your sermon, put your sermon in the fire. a few years ago when in new york city, i went to see madame bernhardt in her famous play, joan of arc. she spoke in french, an unknown tongue to me; but when she came to her defense before the court, i realized as never before the power of speech and action. she had given one-fourth of that marvelous appeal, when the great audience arose and began to cheer. madame bernhardt folded her arms, bowed her head and waited for silence. when order was restored she sprang a step forward. it seemed to me every feature of her face, every finger on her hands, every gleam of eye and movement of body was an appeal to the stern tribunal. in the trembling, murmuring voice that ran like a strain of sad, sweet music through sunless gorges of grief, the great audience read her plea for mercy and wept. some who could not restrain their emotion sobbed aloud. when from the depths of solemn sound that same voice arose like the swell of a silver trumpet, and in clarion tones demanded justice, cheer after cheer testified to the power of the orator actress. never was there a sob of the sea more mournful, than the voice of sarah bernhardt as she played upon the harp strings of pity; and never did words rush in greater storm fury from human lips, than when she demanded justice. no stop nor note nor pedal nor key in the organ of speech was left untouched by this genius in tragic art. it would be well if every public speaker could hear sarah bernhardt give that defense of the maid of orleans. indeed i believe if the forensic eloquence of the stage could be transferred to the pulpit greater audiences and greater rewards would follow. if you doubt this, go read the sermons of george whitefield or the lectures of john b. gough and you will wonder at their success unless you take into consideration their mysterious power of delivery. i cannot give you one sentence madame bernhardt uttered, but i do know the influence of that address remains with me to this day and now and then i find myself reaching out after the secret of oratory. "it is not so much what you say as how you say it," has become a proverb. some years ago i lectured in an iowa village on a bitter cold evening. the rear of the hall was up on posts. when introduced there was only one inch between my shoe soles and zero, while a cold wind from a broken window struck the back of my head. it occurred to me that if i would play bernhardt i might save a spell of pneumonia. in a few moments i was pacing the platform, swinging my arms and stamping my feet to keep up circulation. i put all the intensity, activity and personality possible into one hour and left the platform. returning to the hotel a commercial traveler who had heard me a number of times said: "i congratulate you; you get younger. i never heard you put so much life into your lecture." i replied: "why man, i was trying to keep my feet from freezing." he said: "i advise you to go on the platform every evening with cold feet." john and charles wesley were going along a street in london when they came upon two market women engaged in a wordy war. john wesley said: "hold up, charles, and let's learn how to preach. see how these women put earnestness and even eloquence into their street quarrel. can't we be just as earnest and eloquent in dealing out the truth?" no wonder john wesley gave such impetus to the platform. it is said what john wesley and george whitefield were to the religious platform, fox and burke became later on to the political platform. they saw the platform was fast becoming the voice of public sentiment and dared to indorse it. when mr. fox made his first platform address he said: "this is the first time i ever had the privilege of addressing an uncorrupted assembly." going back into parliament he said: "let's put an end to a policy that separates us from the people. let's cut all cables, snap all chains that bind us to an unfriendly shore and enter the peaceful harbor of public confidence." when mr. burke made his platform debut, he was so inspired by the enthusiasm of the people, it is said, he made the greatest speech ever made in the english language up to that time. when he appeared in parliament next evening a leader of the government took occasion to denounce the platform as a disturber of public peace, directing his remarks to mr. burke. the great orator was ready with the reply: "yes, and the firebell at midnight disturbs public peace, but it keeps you from burning in your beds." it would seem after years of fruitless effort to silence the platform, parliament would accept it as a power for good and give it wise direction. yet we are informed that in face of its growing popularity when henry hunt attempted to address an audience in a grove in england, a regiment of cavalry charged the grove. eleven were killed and several hundred wounded. henry hunt was thrown into prison, but when released later one hundred thousand people welcomed him to the streets of london. as well now had parliament attempted to prevent a london fog as to prohibit platform meetings. john bright said: "when i consider these meetings of the people, so sublime in their vastness and resolution, i see coming over the hilltops of time the dawning of a nobler and better day for my country." it is our privilege to live in the good day of which john bright spoke. yet while a public speaker today is in no dread of arrest or imprisonment for any decent expression of opinion, the platform is not without its hindrances; and some of these will never be cured, while babies cry, architects sacrifice acoustics to style, young people do their courting in public, janitors smother thoughts in foul air, and milliners persist in building up artistic barriers between speaker and audience. here let me give a bit of advice to my own sex. gentlemen, when you purchase a new hat, no matter if a ten dollar silk, or a twenty dollar panama, do not attend a lecture, and taking a seat in front of some intelligent lady forget to remove your hat. the lady may want to see the speaker's face, and he may need the inspiration of her countenance, while you are interfering with both. "a hint to the wise is sufficient." this hint may not be in accord with the advice of paul, but paul never saw a twentieth century "merry widow" hat. then too, paul was already inspired and didn't need the inspiration of human countenances. i am speaking for the uninspired, to whom an audience of hatless heads is an inspiration. but few persons realize how a public speaker is affected by little influences. the flitting of a blind bat over a church audience on a summer evening, will mar the most fascinating flight of eloquence ever plumed from a pulpit. when nancy hanks broke the world's trotting record at independence, iowa, some years ago, her former owner, mr. hart boswell, of lexington, who raised and trained her, was asked if nancy would ever lower that record. he replied: "well, if the time comes that the track is just right, the atmosphere just right, the driver just right and nancy just right, i believe she will." see the combination. break it anywhere and the brave little mare would fail. just so speakers are affected by conditions, by acoustics, atmosphere, size and temper of the audience, and the speaker's own mental and physical condition. many a good sermon has been killed by a poor sexton. many a grand thought has perished in foul air. charles spurgeon was preaching to a large audience in a mission church in london, when want of ventilation affected speaker and audience. mr. spurgeon said to a member of the church: "brother, lift that window near you." "it won't lift," replied the brother. "then smash the glass and i'll pay the bill to-morrow," said spurgeon. suppose the great horse uhlan should be announced to trot against his record; suppose at the appointed time, with the grandstand crowded and every condition favorable, as the great trotting wonder reached the first quarter pole, some one were to run across the track just ahead of the horse, then another and another; what kind of a record would be made? what management would allow a horse to be thus handicapped? where is the man who would be so inconsiderate as to thus hinder a horse? yet when a minister has worked while the world slept, that he not only might sustain his record but gather souls into the kingdom; when the opening exercises have given sufficient time for all to be present; when the text is announced and the preacher is reaching out after the attention and sympathy of his audience some one enters the door, walks nearly the full length of the aisle; then another and then two more, each one crossing the track of the preacher and yet he is expected to keep up his record and make good. if you are a friend of your pastor be present when he announces his text; give him your attention and thus cheer him on as you would your favorite horse. an eminent minister said: "there, i had a good thought for you, but the creaking of the new boots of that brother coming down the aisle knocked it quite out of my head." one who had heard me many times said: "why do you do better at ocean grove than anywhere else i hear you?" my answer was: "because of conditions. the great auditorium seats ten thousand, the atmosphere is invigorated by salt sea breezes; a choir of five hundred sing the audience into a receptive mood and the speaker is borne from climax to climax on wings of applause." i would not have you infer from this that a large audience is always necessary to success. indeed the most successful and satisfactory address i ever made was to an audience of one. if i can make as favorable an impression upon you as i did upon that young lady i shall be gratified. in pauling, new york, chauncey m. depew by his attention and applause inspired me more than the whole audience beside; while time and again have i been helped to do my best by the presence of that matchless queen of the platform, frances e. willard. the very opposite of greatness has had the same effect upon me. at the pontiac, illinois, chautauqua after lecturing to a great audience, i was invited by the superintendent of the state reformatory to address the inmates of the prison. at the close of a thirty minutes' talk the superintendent said: "your address to my boys exceeded the one you gave at the chautauqua." why was it better? at the chautauqua i was trying to entertain and instruct an intelligent audience. within the grey walls of that prison i was reaching down to the very depths, endeavoring to lift up human beings, marred and scarred by sin and crime, but dear to the mothers who bore them and the savior who died for them. if i were a preacher in new york city and were announced to preach a sermon on home missionary work i would not go to the church by way of the mansions of the rich where children, shod in satin slippers dance and play over velvet tapestry, but by way of the slums where i would meet the children of misery, where, "to stand at night 'mid the city's throng, and scan the faces that pass along, is to read a book whose every leaf is a history of woe and want and grief. as in tears of sorrow and sin and shame, you read a story of blight and blame, your heart goes further than hand can reach and you feel a sermon you cannot preach." whoever would prove worthy of the platform must have a message and give to it the devotion of mind, heart and conscience, no matter whether his purpose is to convince by reasoning, convert by appeal, delight by rhetoric, or cure melancholy by humor. each has its useful influence on the platform. some persons have an impression that the student deals in logic, while the orator simply starts his tongue to running, and goes off and leaves it to work automatically. bishop robert mcintyre was one of the greatest pulpit orators of his age, yet i dare say this gifted man gave as much time and thought to his famous word painting of the chicago fire, as joseph cook ever gave to mining any treasure of thought he laid upon the altar of education. i know many teachers of oratory say: "study your subject, analyze it well, and leave words to the inspiration of the occasion." but suppose when the occasion comes, instead of inspiration one has indigestion, then what? while a speaker should not be so confined to composition that he cannot reach out after, and cage any passing bird of thought, yet as the leaf of the mulberry tree must go through the stomach of a silk-worm, before it can become silk, so climaxes should be warped and woofed into language before they can be forceful and beautiful. at the lincoln, nebraska, assembly some years ago a noted humorist gave an address on the "philosophy of wit." he called oratory a lost art, and to prove his contention he quoted from william jennings bryan's famous chicago convention speech. he said: "what would a young woman think of her lover who would say 'my darling, the crown of thorns shall never be pressed down upon your fair brow?'" the humorist expected applause but it failed to materialize, for mr. bryan is highly respected in his state and his oratory is a charm wherever he is heard. the speaker not only exhibited poor taste, but his wit was pointless, for when a man can go before a convention of fourteen hundred delegates and by one burst of eloquence capture the convention, secure the nomination for the presidency, and then with the press and the leaders of his party against him go up and down the country, and from the rear of a railroad train, almost capture the white house, the day of oratory is not gone by. schriner, the great animal painter, painted the picture of a bony mule eating a tuft of hay. that picture sold in petersburg, russia, for fifteen thousand dollars, while the original mule sold for one dollar and thirty cents. if the painting of schriner made in the price of that mule, a difference of fourteen thousand, nine hundred, ninety-eight dollars and seventy cents why is not word painting worth something? listen, while i give you a short extract from the address of james g. blaine at the memorial service of our martyr president garfield. with the audience wrought up to the greatest sympathy by his tribute he said: "surely if happiness can come from robust health, ideal domestic life and honors of the world james a. garfield was a happy man that july morning. one moment strong, erect with promise of peaceful, useful years of life before him: the next moment wounded, bleeding, helpless. "through the days and weeks of agony that followed, he saw his sun slowly sinking, the plans and purposes of his life broken and the sweetest of household ties soon to be severed. "masterful in mortal weakness he became the center of a nation's love, and enshrined in the prayers of the christian world. "as the end drew near, his youthful yearning for the sea returned. the white house palace of power became a hospital of pain. he begged to be taken from its prison walls and stifling air. "silently, tenderly the love of a great people bore the pale sufferer to the longed-for healing of the sea. there with wan face lifted to the cooling breeze, he looked wistfully out upon the changing wonders of the ocean; its far-off sails white in the morning light; its restless waves rolling shoreward to break in the noon-day sun; the red clouds of evening arching low, kissing the blue lips of the sea, and above the serene, silent pathway to the stars. "let us believe his dying eyes read a mystic meaning only the parting soul can know; that he heard the waves of the ebbing tide of life breaking on the far-off shore, and felt already upon his wasted brow the calm, sweet breath of heaven's morning." place behind these utterances the rich voice and magnetic manner of the "plumed knight" of the platform, and you can realize what oratory means. if you will here pardon me for going from the sublime to the ridiculous, i will show you how a bit of a school boy rhetoric may win its way over solid argument. in the country school i attended, there was a debating society. parents as well as their sons were admitted to the society and the public was invited to the debates. on one occasion the question for debate was: "which is the more attractive, the works of nature or the works of art?" there had been an appeal from a general debate and this time one speaker was chosen from each side. my father was chosen to represent the negative and i the affirmative. my father was a good speaker but so fond of facts he had no use for rhetoric. i had the opening address of thirty minutes, my father had forty-five minutes and i had fifteen minutes to close the debate. as father talked i wondered how he ever got hold of so many facts. he piled them up until my first address was swept away by the triumphs of art. the only hope i had for the affirmative was in the closing fifteen minutes. fortunately for me, the judge was a bachelor and very much in love with a golden-haired, accomplished young woman who lived in a country home very near the schoolhouse, and was then in the audience. in closing the debate i referred to father's address in a complimentary manner, and then asked the judge to be seated in imagination on a knoll nearby. on one side of that knoll i placed all my father had claimed for art, withholding nothing. on the other side was the home of this blue grass belle. i began a description of her home and personality. i pictured "the orchard, the meadow, the deep tangled wild-wood and every loved spot" the judge well knew. i pictured the brook that ran through the meadow into the woodland and on down the valley, singing as it ran, "i wind about and in and out, with here a blossom sailing; here and there a lusty trout, and here and there a grey-ling." when my time was half gone i felt i was gone too unless i could get a little nearer the heart of the judge. opening the door art had made to shut in the flowers of a lovely family i brought out the golden-haired girl. taking off the sun-bonnet of art, that the good-night kisses of the sinking sun might enrich her rosy cheeks and golden tresses, i sent her strolling down the winding walk hedged in by hawthorn and hyacinth to the water's brink. here i gave her a cushion of blue-grass, and with the rising moon pouring its shimmering sheen upon the ripples at her feet, i sent her voice floating away on the evening air singing: "roll on silver moon, guide the traveler on his way." here the audience cheered, the judge smiled and i felt encouraged. with but two minutes left i had the shapely fingers of nature, take out the hair-pins of art and the golden tresses fall about the snowy neck of nature. then came the untying of the shoe-strings of art; off came the shoes and stockings of art, and the pretty feet of nature were dipping in the limpid stream. i said, "judge, the question is, which is the more attractive, the works of nature or the works of art? with my father's picture of steam engines, stage coaches, reapers, binders, mowing machines and every known triumph of art on one side; on the other the highest type of the world's creation, a beautiful woman, the stars of nature stooping to kiss her brow, and laughing waters of nature leaping to kiss her feet; where your eyes would rest there let your decision be given." after the debate a friend said to me: "it was that last home picture that saved you." my father who heard the remark said, "yes, a picture of a red-headed girl washing her feet in a goose branch." i may add, i was careful after the contest not to get very near the young lady with whom i had taken such platform liberty. reason, rhetoric, pathos, poetry, diction, gesture, wit and humor, each has its place on the platform. while logic sounds the depths of thought, humor ripples its surface with laughing wavelets. while reason cultivates the cornfields of the mind, rhetoric beautifies the pleasure gardens. john b. gough was the most popular platform orator of his day. he began lecturing at from two to five dollars an evening. he grew in popularity until he was in demand at five hundred dollars a lecture, and no one before or since more successfully used all the arts of the platform, from the comic that drew the very rabble of the streets, to flights of eloquence that captured college culture. it has been well said: "while gough was a great preacher of righteousness, he was a whole theatre in dramatic delivery." lecturers, like preachers, are fishers of men, and there are as many kinds of people in an average audience as there are kinds of fish in the sea. it requires variety of bait for humanity as well as for fish. sam jones used slang as one kind of bait and he used to say: "it beats all how it draws." i saw this verified at ottawa, kansas, chautauqua. giving a saturday evening lecture he baited the platform with slang, satire and humor. sunday afternoon an hour before time for his lecture the people were hurrying to the auditorium. when presented to the great audience he said: "record! record! record!" i remember the sermon as one of the sweetest and most powerful i ever heard. its influence will not cease this side the eternal morning. rowland hill, the popular london preacher, used quaint humor to draw the people, and powerful appeal to sweep them into the kingdom. it is said the fountain of laughter and fountain of tears lie very close together. my experience has been, that often the best way to the fountain of tears is by the way of the fountain of laughter. some years ago at ocean grove, new jersey, i was to lecture on the subject, "boys and girls, nice and naughty." a wealthy widow and her only son were there from new york, where the young boy had been leading a "gay life." ocean grove with its quiet, moral atmosphere was a dull place for this young man. he happened to read the subject for the lecture on the bulletin board, and thinking it suggestive of humor he went to hear the lecture. he had what he went for, as the lecture did deal with the fountain of laughter, but it also dealt with the fountain of tears. it swung the red lantern of danger athwart the pathway of the wayward young man. following a story of mother love, i said: "young man, let the cares and burdens of life press you down to the very earth, let the great waves of sorrow roll over your soul, but let no act of yours ever roll a clod upon the coffin of her, whose image, enshrined upon the inner walls of your memory, white winters and long bright summers can never wash away." a minister told me after, that in a young people's meeting this young man arose and said: "i attended a lecture at ocean grove, thinking i would have a humorous entertainment. i left the auditorium the saddest soul in the great audience. going down to the beach i tried to drive away the spell, but it grew upon me. i could see how i had grieved my mother, and the past came rolling up like the waves of the ocean. i shuddered as they broke on my awakened conscience and quickened memory. behind me was an unhallowed past, and before me the brink of an awful eternity. there and then i resolved to change my course. alone under the stars i made my resolve and then started to my mother. she was waiting for me, and said: 'my son, i wished for you at the lecture this evening. i think you would have enjoyed it.' i then told her i was determined to lead a new life and had come to seal my vow with her kiss." that young man went to the lecture to laugh, he left to walk alone with god under the stars by the ocean deep, there to decide to lead a righteous life, and seal the vow with a loving mother's kiss. so while in my humble way i have endeavored to use the arts that entertain i have cherished the purpose to better human lives. i have referred to the platform as being baited for humanity. have you ever considered how it is baited to resist the forces of evil? the day was when satan had an attraction trust that controlled about the whole output of entertainment. the platform now is a picture gallery where is to be had all beauty in nature, from our own land to the land of the midnight sun. in moving pictures it presents to those who never saw ship, sail or sea, the landing of a great steamer, with splashing of spray as real as if seen from the dock. to those who enjoy music it furnishes band concerts, orchestra, bell-ringing, quartettes, solos, plantation melodies, rag-time tunes and women whistlers. the platform today beats the devil in output of entertainment. it has scoured field and forest, trained birds and dogs to round out the program of a chautauqua. its breadth takes in all creeds and kinds. while it greets with waving lilies bishop vincent, leader of the great chautauqua movement, it cordially welcomes the priest, the jew, the chinaman, the negro, republican, democrat, progressive, prohibitionist, socialist and suffragist. the platform has grown to be a great university, a musical festival, a zoological garden, an art institute, an agricultural college and a domestic science school. do you ask has the platform any blemishes? i answer yes. all enterprises have their blemishes. the press is a potent power for good and yet many bad things get into print. sometimes from the platform come voices without the ring of sincerity, entertainments without uplifting influence and anecdotes without respect to public decency. when attending platform entertainments one should discriminate as when eating fish, enjoy the meat and discard the bones. with good taste in selection one rarely ever need go away hungry. i am often asked: "where do you find the most appreciative audiences?" first, i would reply, in rural communities where the people are not surfeited with entertainment. second, i would say, applause does not always mean appreciation. it is said "still water runs deep." in chickering hall, new york, one sunday afternoon a lady sat before me whose diamonds and dress indicated wealth. a lad sat by her side. my subject was, "the safe side of life for young men." it was a temperance address and the thought came to me; that lady is a wine drinker and she is disappointed that i am to talk temperance. she did not cheer with the audience, nor did she give any expression of face that would indicate her interest, except that she kept her eyes fixed upon the speaker. at the close she came to the platform and said: "i brought my son with me and you said what i wanted him to hear; i thank you," and with this she took my hand saying, "again i thank you," and turning away, left a coin in my hand. i put it in my pocket, and on returning to the hotel found she had given me a twenty dollar gold piece. that was gold standard appreciation. i am frequently asked: "what do you recall as the best introduction you ever had?" i have had all kinds, some amusing, but the one i cherish most was given by ferd schumacher, the deceased oatmeal king of akron, ohio. he came to this country from germany. by industry and economy he accumulated enough money to engage in making oatmeal. when he had rounded up more than a million of dollars in wealth, the insurance ran out on his great "jumbo mills" in akron. the insurance company raised the rate and while he was dickering with the company, the great plant was swept away in a midnight fire. mr. schumacher was a very earnest temperance man and was to introduce me for the w.c.t.u. in the large armory the sunday after the fire. it was supposed he would not be present because of the severe strain and his great loss. but prompt to the minute he entered the door, and 'mid the applause of sympathetic friends he took the platform. in presenting the speaker he said: "ladies and schentlemen, i must be personal for a moment while i thank the people of akron for their sympathy. i did not know i had so many good friends. but the mill vot vos burned vos made of stone and vood and nails and paint. we come to talk to you about a fire vot is burning up the homes, the hopes, the peace of vimen and children and the immortal souls of men; vill you please take your sympathy off of ferd schumacher and give it to mr. bain while he talks about the great fire of intemperance." i am opposed to indiscriminate immigration to this country, but if the old world has any more ferd schumachers desiring to come to america, may he who rules winds and waves, fill with harmless pressure the billows on which they ride and give them safe entrance into our country's haven. many inquire of me about the lyceum platform as a profession. my answer is: "like the famed shield it has two sides." one who has a lovely home and rarely leaves it said to me: "i envy you your life-work. you get to see the country, visit the great cities, meet the best people and get fat fees for your lectures." how distance does lend enchantment to the view sometimes! a few years ago we notified the bureaus not to make engagements away from the railroads in the northwest during the blizzard months. a letter came saying: "enter wessington college, outside of woonsocket." we supposed outside meant adjacent. arriving at woonsocket in a blizzard i found wessington seventeen miles away. wrapped in robes i made the drive, arriving about six o'clock in the evening. on arrival i was informed that smallpox had broken out in the village. the hotel had been quarantined but a room had been engaged for me in a private home. while taking my supper my hostess said: "would you know smallpox if you were to see the symptoms?" "know what? why do you ask that?" i asked. she called attention to the face of her daughter who was serving the supper. one glance and my appetite fled, as i said: "excuse me, please. i must get ready for my lecture," and i left the room. one hour later i stood before a vaccinated audience with visions of smallpox floating before me, and for days after i imagined i could feel it coming. add to this experience midnight rides on freight trains, long drives in rain, mud and storm, ten minutes for lunch at sandwich counter, eight months of the year away from home--the only heaven one who loves his family has on earth, and you have a taste of the side my neighbor did not see. there is, however, a bright side. whoever can get the ear of the public from the platform, has an opportunity to sow seed, the fruit of which will be gathered by angels when he has gone to his reward. one so long on the platform as i have been, cannot fail in having experiences that gladden the heart, if he has done faithful service. out of hundreds i select one experience that should encourage all who labor in the master's vineyard. i had traveled two hundred miles in a day to reach an engagement, and the last seven miles in a buggy over a miserable road. i did not reach the village until nine o'clock. without supper and chilled by the ride, i threw off my wraps and wearily made my way through the lecture. a little later in my room at the hotel, while i was taking a lunch of bread and milk, a minister entered and said: "you seem to be very tired." when i answered, "never more so," he replied: "i have a story to tell you which will perhaps rest you." continuing he said: "some twenty years ago, you lectured in a village where there was a state normal school. it was sunday evening. at the hotel were three young men, and to see the girls of the college, these young men went to the lecture. one was the only son of a wealthy widow. he had not seen his mother for months. she had begged him to come home, but he was sowing his wild oats and ashamed to face his mother. that evening you made an earnest appeal to young men in the name of home and mother. the arrow went to the heart of the wild young fellow. on returning to the hotel he said to his companions: 'come up to my room, let's have a talk.' on entering the room he closed the door and said: 'boys, i want to open my heart to you. i am overwhelmed with a sense of wrong-doing. i am done with the saloon, done with the gambling table, done with evil associations. i am going home to-morrow and make mother happy. boys, let's join hands and swear off from drink and evil habits; let's honor our manhood and our mothers.' "now for the sequel that i think will rest you. that wild boy is now a wealthy man. i give you his name, though i would not have you call it in public. he is a christian philanthropist, and has never broken his pledge. the second boy holds the highest office in the gift of this government in a western territory, and the third stands before you now, an humble minister of the gospel." it did rest me. i would rather have been the humble instrument in turning those three young men to a righteous life, than to wear the brightest wreath that ever encircled a stateman's brow. for such men as sylvester long, roland a. nichols, robert parker miles and bishop robert mcintyre to tell me my lectures helped to shape their lives, fills my soul with joy as i face the setting sun. chance, the noted english engineer, built a thousand sea-lights, shore-lights and harbor-lights. when in old age he lay dying, a wild storm on the sea seemed to revive him by its association with his life-work. he said to the watchers: "lift me up and let me see once more the ocean in a storm." as he looked out, the red lightning ripped open the black wardrobe of the firmament, and he saw the salted sea driven by the fury of the hurricane into great billows of foam. sinking back upon his pillows his last words were: "thank god, i have been a lighthouse builder, and though the light of my life is fast fading, the beams of my lighthouse are brightening the darkness of many a sailor's night." when my life-work closes, and my platform experiences are ended, i would ask no better name than that of an humble lighthouse builder, who here and there from the shore-points of life's ocean, has sent out a friendly beam, to brighten the darkness of some brother's night. vii the defeat of the nation's dragon. joseph cook said in one of his boston lectures: "whenever the temperance cause has attempted to fly with one wing, whether moral suasion or legal suasion, its course has been a spiral one. it will never accomplish its mission in this world, until it strikes the air with equal vans, each wing keeping time with the other, both together winnowing the earth of the tempter and the tempted." i congratulate the friends of temperance upon the progress both wings have made since the beginning of their flight. the first temperance pledge we have any record of ran thus: "i solemnly promise upon my word of honor i will abstain from everything that will intoxicate, except at public dinners, on public holidays and other important occasions." the first prohibitory law was a local law in a village on long island and ran thus: "any man engaged in the sale of intoxicating liquors, who sells more than one quart of rum, whiskey or brandy to four boys at one time shall be fined one dollar and two pence." a sideboard without brandy or rum was an exception, while the jug was imperative at every log-raising and in the harvest field. it was said of even a puritan community, "their only wish and only prayer, in the present world or world to come, is a string of eels and a jug of rum." when doctor leonard bacon was installed pastor of the first congregational church in new haven, conn., in , free drinks were ordered at the bar of the hotel, for all visiting members, to be paid for by the church. today all protestant churches declare against the drink habit and the drink sale. pulpits are thundering away against the saloon. children are studying the effects of alcohol upon the human system in nearly every state in the union. train loads of literature are pouring into the homes of the people. a mighty army of as godly women as ever espoused a cause is battling for the home, against the saloon. the business world is demanding total-abstainers, and fifty millions of people in the united states are living under prohibitory laws. not only in this but in every civilized land the cause of temperance is growing. recently in france it was found there were more deaths than births, which meant france was dying. a commission was appointed to look into the causes. when the report was made, alcohol headed the list. now by order of the government linen posters are put up in public buildings, and on these in blood red letters are these warnings: "alcohol dangerous; alcohol chronic poison; alcohol leads to the following diseases; alcohol is the enemy of labor; alcohol disrupts the home!" who would have thought an emperor of germany would ever "go back" on beer? emperor william in an address to the sailors recommended total-abstinence and forbid under penalty the giving of liquor to soldiers in the world's greatest war. the czar of russia has put an end to the government's connection with the manufacture of intoxicating liquors, and our secretary of the navy has banished it from the ships and navy yards. the new york sun says: "the business world is getting to be one great temperance league." for many years it was confined to the realm of morals, but today it is recognized as a great economic question and the business world is joining the church world in solving the liquor problem. while the temperance cause has been going up in character, the drink has been going down in quality. the old time distiller used to select his site along some crystal stream, that had its fountain-head in the mountains and ran over beds of limestone. with sound grain and pure water, he made several hundred barrels of whiskey a year, and after five to ten years of ripening, it was sent out with the makers' brand upon it. now the north american of philadelphia, one of our leading dailies says, rectifiers (and i would prefix one letter and make it w-r-e-c-k-t-i-f-i-e-r-s) take one barrel from the distillery and by a pernicious, poisonous process, make one hundred barrels from one barrel. it is true the sting of the adder and the bite of the serpent were in the old-time whiskey, but it was as pure as it could be made. doctor wiley, ex-chief of the bureau of chemistry, says: "eighty-five per cent. of all the whiskey sold in the saloons, hotels and club-rooms is not whiskey at all but a cheap base imitation." in the different concoctions made are found aconite, acquiamonia, angelica root, arsenic, alum, benzine, belladonna, beet-root juice, bitter almond, coculus-indicus, sulphuric acid, prussic acid, wood alcohol, boot soles and tobacco stems. no wonder we have more murders in this republic than in any civilized land beneath the sky in proportion to population. along with this adulteration of the drink has gone the degeneracy of the saloon and the seller. the day was when officers in churches could sell liquor and retain their membership. today the saloonkeeper is barred from the protestant churches, barred from masons, odd fellows, knights of pythias, red men, woodmen, maccabees and nearly every other fraternal organization of the world. the saloon itself has become such a vicious resort, that when the police look for a murderer they go to the saloon. when any vile character is sought for, the saloon is searched. when anarchists meet to plan for a hay-market murder in chicago, they meet in the saloon. when an assassin plans to shoot down our president at an exposition, he goes from the saloon. when a fire breaks out in chicago or boston the first order is, close the saloons. don't close any other business house, but close the saloon. if a mob threatens pittsburg, cincinnati, or atlanta, close the saloons. if an earthquake strikes san francisco, close the saloons. in our large cities gambling rooms are attached to the saloons with wine rooms above for women, and while our boys are being ruined downstairs, girls are destroyed upstairs. there are many thousands of women in painted shame, who would now be safe inside life's eden of purity but for the saloon. the south side club of chicago said in : "the back rooms of four hundred and forty-five saloons on only three streets of this city contribute to the delinquency of fourteen thousand girls every twenty-four hours." is it any wonder the saloons hide behind green blinds or stained glass windows? there is a fish in the sea known as the "devil fish." it lies on its back with open mouth and covers itself with sea moss. over its open mouth is a bait. when an unsuspecting fish nibbles at the bait, with a quick snap it is caught and devoured. do you see any analogy between this fish and a certain business that hides itself behind painted windows or green blinds and hangs out a bait of "free lunch" or "turtle soup"? a fish that sets a trap for its kind is called a "devil fish;" a business that does the like is recognized as a legitimate trade and permitted for the sake of revenue. every other recognized business has improved in quality with the years. the saloon has grown worse and worse, until it is bad and only bad; bad in the beginning, bad in the middle, bad in the end, bad inside, outside, upside, downside. it is so bad, the liquor dealers are the only business men who are ashamed to put on exhibition their finished products. in great expositions other trades present finished wares. they do not display the tools used in making what they present for exhibition but the finished goods. not so with the liquor dealers; they put on exhibition the tools with which they work, but not a single specimen of the finished product of their trade do they present for inspection. "that's a fine fit of clothes you have, sir." "yes," says the tailor, "i put up that job; glad you like my work." "that's a fine building across the way." "yes," says the architect, "that's my job and i am quite proud of it." "that's a handsome bonnet you wear, madam." "yes," says the milliner, "that's my creation of style and i am rather proud of my work." yonder is a man intoxicated. he staggers and falls; his head strikes the curb-stone; the blood besmears his face; the police lift him up and start with him to the station house. did you hear a saloon keeper say: "that's my creation; i put up that job and i'm proud of my work." some one said recently in defense of the business: "the saloon keeper deserves more consideration." this writer should know that consideration has been the source of its undoing. lord chesterfield considered it and said: "drink sellers are artists in human slaughter." senator morrill, of maine, considered and pronounced it "the gigantic crime of all crimes." senator long, of massachusetts considered it and called it "the dynamite of modern civilization." henry w. grady, our brilliant southerner, considered it and said: "it is the destroyer of men, the terror of women and the shadow on the face of childhood. it has dug more graves and sent more souls to judgment than all the pestilences since egypt's plague, or all the wars since joshua stood before the walls of jericho." the new york tribune considered it and said: "it's the clog upon the wheels of american progress." the bible considered it and compares its influence to the bite of serpents, the sting of adders, the poison of asps, and heaps the woes of god's will upon it. sam jones said: "when the bible says _woe_, you better stop," and as certain as seed time brings harvest it will stop, not because of the woman's christian temperance union, or the anti-saloon league, or the prohibition party, but because afar back in the blue haze of the past the seed of prohibition was planted in the soil of divine truth. ever since god declared woe against the evils of mankind, the batteries of the holy bible have been trained upon the "wine that gives its color in the cup," and the man who "giveth his neighbor drink and maketh him drunken also." it _will_ stop, because error cannot stand agitation. whoever espouses the cause of error must evade facts, falsify figures, libel logic, tangle his tongue or pen with contradictions and wind up in confusion. the able editor of the courier journal of kentucky came to the defense of this error, and with all his brilliancy and culture, he resorted to personal abuse of temperance workers, _because he could not occupy a higher plane in defense of the saloon_. he made up what he called an "ominum gatherum," of "bigots," "hay-seed politicians," "fake philosophers," "cranks," "scamps," "professional sharps," "mad caps of destruction," "preachers who would sell corner lots in heaven," "a riff-raff of moral idiots and red-nosed angels." i could hardly believe my own eyes when i read this frantic phillipic from one i had esteemed so highly for his intellect; one whose element is up where eagles soar, and not down where baser birds feast upon rotten spots in a world of beauty. only a few days before i had read his beautiful tribute to lincoln, delivered at the unveiling in hodgenville, in which he said of the great emancipator: "he never lost his balance or tore a passion to tatters," yet the finished orator who paid the tribute, when he espouses the cause of error, flies into a paroxysm of passion and tears the dignity of his own self-control into shreds. knowing as i do the culture, refinement and polished manners of the great journalist, i wondered what aggravating force could have so unbalanced his mental scales and led him to so bitterly denounce those, whose only offense is, trying to do what lincoln did, abolish an evil. if this resourceful writer were only converted to the truth on this question, what an "ominum gatherum" he could make from the work of the saloon curse. the clergymen, called "canting, diabolical preachers," deserve more respectful consideration from one who well knows their sincerity. they are men of brains, heart and conscience; men who believe that righteousness rather than revenue exalts a nation, and that sin, no matter how much money invested in it, is a reproach to any people. these ministers believe it to be morally wrong to convert god's golden grain into what debases mankind. they preach that what is morally wrong can never be made politically right. with them it is a matter of deep, permanent conviction. such attacks are made to divert attention from the accused at the bar of public opinion. it is the saloon that is on trial, not cranks, or moral idiots, or ministers. the saloon is charged with being the enemy of every virtue and ally of every vice, that it injures public health, public peace and public morals. the supreme court says: "no legislature has the right to barter away public health, public peace or the public morals; the people themselves cannot do so, much less their servants." in face of this declaration of the supreme court, legislators do barter away public health, public peace and public morals to the organized liquor traffic. all along the cruel career of this enemy of peace, health and morals, it has been pampered and petted by politicians who have been as much charmed by its promise of votes, as was eve in the garden of eden by the serpent's assurance. deceived by the serpent of the still, they have not only disregarded the decision of the supreme court but defied god's plan of dealing with sin. they have persisted in trying to regulate an irregularity in morals by licensing the greatest sin of the century, and have done so to their shame and failure in any regulation effort ever made. the only way to cure chills is to kill the malaria. the only way to cure the cursed liquor traffic is to cast it out of our civilization by a universal, everlasting prohibition of the manufacture, importation and sale of intoxicating liquor. rev. howard crosby, of new york, in advocating high license as a means of reducing the number of saloons, said in an address: "suppose a tiger were to get loose in the city, would you not confine him to a few blocks rather than let him roam the city at large?" some one in the audience answered aloud: "no doctor, we would kill the tiger." how does regulation regulate? take the city of louisville, ky., where i resided a number of years, and where i observed the practical working of the license system. go there any monday morning and you will see from twenty to forty men and women in the cage next to the police court room. a marshal stands at the door of the cage and takes them out one at a time. you will hear the judge say: "ten dollars and cost," which means thirty days in the workhouse. forty days pass and here is the same man in the police court: thirty days to serve his time, ten days to get a little money and then another drunk. some do not know how many times they have been before the court. i was there one day when an irishman was arraigned. the judge said: "pat, how many times have you been before this court?" "faith, and your books will tell ye," replied the irishman. judge price, the police judge at the time, said to me: "there are a number of men, and several women i know in this city, who pass through the courtroom on their way to the workhouse so regularly, i can guess within a few days of the time they will appear." they pass like buckets at a fire, going up full and returning empty. there is an asylum in this country where, i am told, they test a man's insanity in this way. they have a trough which holds one hundred gallons of water. above is an open tap through which the water pours constantly, and of course the trough keeps on running over. the patient is brought to the trough, given a bucket and told to dip out the water. if he dips all day and has not mind enough to turn off the tap, he is considered a very serious case. if this test were put to our license lawmakers, i fear they would have to go to the incurable ward. they have for many years been picking up drunkards from the gutters and opening taps for them to keep on pouring into the streets. under this system the saloon keepers are playing ten-pins. you know in playing ten-pins there is a long alley, at one end of which stand the pins, while at the other stands the player with a ball in his hand. he rolls the ball down the alley and knocks down the pins. some one sets them up, and to that some one, who is often a boy, the player will toss a dime and say: "set them up quick." does he let them stand? no! he rolls the ball down the alley and down go the pins. the saloon keeper has the ball of law in his hands. no matter whether a high or low license ball, he paid the price for the use of the ball. when temperance workers set up drunkards and they get a little money in their pockets away goes the ball and they are down again. when a church revival picks up a few drunkards the saloon keeper will say: "here's a dollar to help in your meeting." then in his mind he says: "set up the drunkards who are out of employment and money, get them positions, and when they can earn money again, again i'll bowl them down." under the license system the saloon is playing ten-pins with temperance associations, ten-pins with the church and ten-pins with society. i have faith to believe the time is drawing near when the balls will be confiscated and the pins can stand when we do set them up. i know many have not this faith because they believe prohibitory laws are failures. they base their belief on the violation of the law. by that rule everything is a failure. married life is a failure; its laws are grossly violated. home life is a failure; there are many miserable homes. the school is a failure; many a father has put thousands of dollars into the education of his son and found it wasted in riotous living. the church is a failure; many of its members are christians only in name and not a few are hypocrites. but we know by the loyal, loving husbands and wives of every community that married life is not a failure. we know by the happy homes about us, with sweetest of household ties binding the family circle, that home life is not a failure. we know by the education that has refined our civilization, that the school is not a failure. we know by the redeemed of earth and saved in heaven the church is not a failure, and we are convinced by the organized opposition to prohibitory laws by distillers, brewers, saloon keepers, gamblers and harlots that prohibition is not a failure. if prohibition is a failure in kansas as license advocates charge, then governors, ex-governors, attorney generals, jailers, mayors and judges of kansas are falsifiers. if prohibition is a failure in kansas why has the state grown to be the richest per capita in the union, why are so many jails empty, so many counties without a pauper and why, according to the brewers' year book of , was the consumption of liquor in kansas one dollar and sixty cent per capita and in a neighbor license state twenty-two dollars per capita? along with the absurd statement that prohibition is a failure, comes the warning of the president of the model license league to the business men of the country, that unless the tide of prohibition is arrested it will "kill our cities." "blessed are the dead that die in the lord." in a local option contest a prominent business man said to me: "i do not use liquor but i am in doubt about how i should vote on the question." when i asked; "what's your trouble?" he answered: "we have six saloons in this little city and the license fee is one thousand dollars; how are we to run the city without the six thousand dollars?" when i informed him that the six saloons took from the people eighty thousand dollars a year, he agreed it was a reasonable estimate. i said: "don't you know those who spend their money for drink, if they did not spend it over the saloon bars, would spend it over the counters of merchants who sell clothing, food, fuel and furniture?" if you merchants could take in eighty thousand dollars, couldn't you pay out six thousand and not get hurt? if you can't see that you are no better business man than was horace greeley a farmer. he purchased a pig for one dollar, kept it two years, fed it forty dollars worth of corn and sold it for nine dollars. he said: "i lost money on the corn but made money on the hog." so, many business men see the revenue from the license fee but can't see the cost. suppose on one side of a street the business houses are all bad, in that they consume money and give worse than nothing in return; and on the other side they are all good, in that they give an honest equivalent for the money they receive; can't you see if the bad side is closed, the money that went to the bad side goes to the good, and can you not see only good can come of such a change? there are three things prohibition of the saloon does that are illustrated by the story told of an irishman who said: "i did three good things today." "what did you do, pat?" "i saw a woman crying in front of a cathedral. she had a baby in her arms, and i said: 'madam, what are you crying about?' "she said: 'i had two dollars in me handkerchief and came to have me baby christened but i lost the money.' "i said: 'don't cry, madam, here is a ten dollar bill; go get the baby christened and bring me the change.' she went, and soon after returned and handed me eight silver dollars." "well," said the friend, "i don't see any three good things in that." "ye don't! didn't i dry the woman's tears, didn't i save the baby's soul, and didn't i get rid of a ten dollar counterfeit bill and get eight good silver dollars in return?" that is what prohibition of the saloon does for a community. it dries woman's tears, saves human souls, gets rid of a counterfeit business and puts good business instead. is it a counterfeit business? it has been well said, "go into the butcher stall and you get meat for money, into the shoe store and you get shoes for money, but go into the saloon and the bargain is all on one side. it's bar-gain on one side and bar-loss on the other; ill-gotten gains on one side, mis-spent wages on the other, a mess of pottage on one side and the birthright of some mother's boy on the other." a great wail is going up from the advocates of the liquor traffic that statewide prohibition means the destruction of immense vested interests and dire results will follow. "this our craft is in danger," has ever been the cry against reforms or changes in civilization since the "shrine makers of ephesus." when slavery was abolished it was said: "this means ruin to the south! such a confiscation of property, with every slave set free to beg at the white man's gate, crushes every vestige of hope, and five hundred years will not bring relief." only fifty years have passed and the south is richer than ever in her history. justice grier of the supreme court said: "if loss of revenue should accrue to the united states from a diminished consumption of ardent spirits, she will be the gainer a thousandfold in health, wealth and happiness of the people." if this is true, then this question is not only a great moral question but also a tremendous economic problem. if production should be for use and not for abuse, the existence of breweries and distilleries are without excuse. if one should be rewarded on the basis of service, the saloon keeper has no claim for even tolerance, much less reward. if labor is the basis of value, men who live by selling liquor to their fellowmen are leaches on the body politic, and ishmaels in the commercial world. the claim that the liquor business is a benefit to a community or to the country is in harmony with the assertion that war is a "biological necessity" and a "stimulating source of development." general sherman said: "war is hell." certainly the one now raging between the leading nations of the old world is a hell of carnage. and yet intemperance has destroyed more lives than all the wars of the world since time began. it has added to the death of the body the eternal death of the soul and then the sum of its ravages is not complete until is added more broken hearts, more blasted hopes, desolate homes, more misery and shame than from any source of evil in the world. if what sherman said of war is true, and the liquor curse is worse than war, how can this government hope to escape punishment for raising revenue from a business so abominable and wicked? a heathen emperor when appealed to for a tax on opium as a source of revenue said: "i will not consent to raise the revenue of my country upon the vices of its people." yet this christian republic, claiming the noblest civilization of the earth, is found turning the dogs of appetite and avarice loose upon the home life of the republic that gold may clink in its treasury. the politician's excuse for this compromise with earth's greatest destroyer is, it can never be prohibited and therefore regulation and revenue is the best policy. i can well remember when the same was said of slavery. with billions of dollars invested in slaves, with a united south behind it and the north divided, it could never be abolished. at that time the prospect for the overthrow of slavery was far less than the prospect of national prohibition today. i own i was among those who said "slavery cannot be destroyed." now i am one of the reconstructed. i'm like the pig i used to read of, "when i lived i lived in clover, and when i died i died all over." during the civil war union soldiers arrested several of my neighbors and took them to a northern prison. my southern blood was aroused. i said: "let a yankee soldier come to take me and he will never take another kentuckian." then my mother was alarmed. she knew how brave her boy was. a few days later i met a squad of yankee cavalry on the road near our home. they said "halt!" and i halted. they said "surrender!" i did so, and mother did not hear of any blood being shed. again a half-drunk union soldier rode up to our gate and said: "who lives here?" when i answered, he asked: "can your mother get supper for fourteen soldiers in thirty minutes?" "no, sir, she cannot," i replied. drawing a pistol, the mouth of which looked like a cannon's mouth to me, he said: "maybe you have changed your mind." i had, and that supper was ready with several minutes to spare. we can, and we _will_ stop the liquor business. i am amazed, however, to find so many intelligent men of the north advocating the same policy on this liquor problem the south adopted on the slavery question, which cost her so severely. i find the same effect revenue in slaves had upon the consciences of the tax-payers of the south, high-license revenue from saloons is having upon the consciences of tax-payers in the north. in the early days of slavery, when wealth in the institution was very limited, the conscience of the south was against slavery. old virginia, when a colony, appealed to king george to remove the threatening danger from her borders. it was the voice of a general lee of virginia that was lifted against slavery in the house of burgesses. but with the passing of time slaves grew in value, until a slave in the south reached about the price of a saloon license now in the north. then the conscience of the south quieted and slavery was justified by press, politics and pulpit. there is a remarkable analogy between the effect of a thousand dollar slave upon the conscience of south carolina and a thousand dollar saloon upon the conscience of massachusetts. the south paid the penalty of her mistaken policy; the north will reap its reward in retribution, if it persists in making the price of a saloon in the north the same as the price of a slave in the south. when the value of a world is profitless compared with the worth of a soul then even if every saloon were a klondyke of gold this republic could not afford to legalize the liquor business for revenue. i believe my northern friends will permit me to press home a little further the lesson of southern slavery. the phase i would impress is that any question that has a great moral principle involved is never settled until it is settled right. we tried to regulate slavery but it wouldn't regulate. first it was decided that the importation of slaves should cease in twenty years. did that settle it? next came the missouri compromise, "thus far shalt thou go and no farther." politicians said: "now it's settled." but a fanatic in boston name garrison said: "it is not settled." daniel webster, as intellectual as some of our high license advocates of today said to lloyd garrison: "stop the agitation of this question or you will bring trouble on the country; the compromise is made and the question is settled." lloyd garrison replied: "i don't care what compromise you've made; you may pull down my office, pitch my type into the sea, and hound me through the streets of boston, but you will never settle the slavery question until you settle it right." it kept breaking out despite all legislative restrictions. at last columbia with one hand on her head, and the other on her heart, began to reel on her throne, and abraham lincoln seized his pen and signed the proclamation, "universal emancipation." then the whole world said: "it's forever settled." so the liquor question will be settled as was the slavery question, by the universal, everlasting abolition of the manufacture, sale and importation of intoxicating liquor in this country. high license is another missouri compromise. if you have the drink you'll have the drunkenness. if you have the cause you will have the effect. if you have the positive you will have the superlative: positive drink, comparative drinking, superlative drunkenness. you may try high-tax and low-tax but all the time you will have sin-tax and more sin than tax. you do not change the nature of the drink by the price of a license, the kind of a place in which it is sold or the character of the man who sells it. put a pig in a parlor; feed him on the best the marflet affords, give him a feather bed in which to sleep, keep him there till he's grown and he'll be a hog. you don't change the nature of the pig by the elegant surroundings; you may change the condition of the parlor. there is but one solution of the liquor problem and that is a nation-wide prohibitory law and behind the law a political power in sympathy with the law and pledged to its enforcement. many admit the principle is correct but insist we should wait until public sentiment is powerful enough to enforce the law. if grand ideas had waited for public sentiment moses would never have given the commandments to the world. if grand ideas had waited for public sentiment, we would still be back in the realm of the dark ages, instead of in the light of our present civilization; back in the dim twilight of the tallow-dip instead of the brightness of the electric light; back with the ox team instead of the speed of the steam engine, automobile and aeroplane; and on the temperance question back to where a liquor dealer could advertise his business on gravestones. on a tomb in england are these words: "here lies below in hope of zion, the landlord of the golden lion, his son keeps up the business still, obedient to his country's will." years ago a friend said to me: "i admire your zeal, but i wonder at your faith when you are in such a miserable minority." my reply was: "are minorities always wrong or hopeless? how would you have enjoyed being with the majority at the time of the flood? it seems to me you would have been safer with noah in the ark." as to license and prohibition, that has always been the question since man was created. it was the question in the garden of eden when the devil stood for license, "go eat," and god stood for prohibition, "thou shalt not." that is the question today and i am quite sure god and the devil stand now as then, and while the adams are divided, the eves are nearly all on one side. another said: "after all the work done for temperance the people drink as much or more than ever." my answer is: how much more would they drink if we had not done what has been done? yonder on the ocean a vessel springs a leak and soon the water stands thirty inches deep in the hold. the captain says: "to the pumps!" and the sailors leap to their places. at the end of one hour the captain measures and says: "thirty inches; you are holding it down." hour after hour the pumping goes on, with changing hands at the pumps, and hour after hour the captain says: "you are doing well; she can't go down at thirty inches. hold it there and we'll make the harbor." twenty hours and the captain shouts: "thirty inches; and land is in sight. pump on, my boys, you'll save the ship." suppose one of our croakers who says, "prohibition won't prohibit," had been on board. he would have said: "don't you see you are doing no good; there's just as much water as when you began." what would have become of the ship? at the close of the civil war intemperance was pouring in upon the ship of state. men returned from war enthralled in chains worse than african slavery, for rum slavery means ruin to body and soul. men, women and children ran to the pumps, and thank god, state after state is going dry. soon we'll see the land of promise, and the ship of state will be saved from a leak as dangerous as ever sprung in a vessel, and from as cruel a crew of buccaneers as ever scuttled a ship. when i began the work as a "good templar" forty years ago, kentucky was soaked in rum. bourbon county, where i was reared, had twenty-three distilleries, and a dead wall lifted itself against my hopes of ever seeing the sky clear of distillery smoke above old bourbon county, a name on more barrels and bottles, on more bar-room windows, and on the memories of more drunkards in ruin than any other county in the world. yet i have lived to see the last distillery fire go out, and bourbon county dry. while i had faith in the ultimate triumph of the cause i never dreamt it would come to bourbon county in my lifetime. when i began saloons were at almost every crossroads village, and the bottle on sideboards was the rule in thousands of leading homes. time and again my life was threatened. on one occasion twelve armed men guarded me from a mob, and once my wife placed herself between my body and a desperate mountaineer. those were perilous times for an advocate of temperance in my native state. now out of one hundred and twenty counties, one hundred and seven are dry. in georgia the licensed saloon is gone; in north carolina the saloon is gone; in west virginia, old virginia, mississippi and tennessee the saloon is gone, while oklahoma was born sober. "that which made milwaukee famous doesn't foam in tennessee; the sunday lid in old missouri was governor folk's decree. brewers, distillers and their cronies well may sigh; the saloon is panic-stricken, and the south's going dry. "soon the hill-side by the rill-side of kentucky will be still; men will take their toddies from the ripples of the rill; boys will grow up sober, mothers cease to cry; glory hallelujah! the south's going dry." already seventeen states are dry, and there are many arid spots in the wet states. while i cannot hope to live to see the final triumph, i have faith to believe my children and my children's children will live in a saloonless land, a land redeemed from a curse that has soaked its social life in more blood and tears than all other sources of sorrow; a land where liberty will no longer be shorn of its locks of strength by licensed delilahs; where manhood will no more be stripped of its possibilities by the claws of the demon drink; where fore-doomed generations will not reach the dawning of life's morning, to be bound like mazeppa to the wild, mad steed of passion and borne down the blood lines of inheritance to the awful abuse of drunkenness. to this end i appeal to every minister of the gospel, stir the consciences of your hearers on this question. i appeal to the press, that potent power for the enlightenment of the people. "pulpit and press with tongue and pen, set to new music this message to men: let the great work of destruction begin, and rid our loved land of this shelter to sin. as before the sun's brightness, the darkness must fly, so by power of the ballot the rum curse must die, then cover the earth as the wide waves the sea, with the sound of the axe at the root of the tree!" viii if i could live life over. now and then i hear an old man or an old woman say, "even if i could i would not live life over." well, i own i would, provided i could begin the journey with the knowledge i now have of what it means to live. while mistakes have been many there are some things i would not change. i would be brought up in the country as i was. i would play over the same blue-grass carpet, along the same turnpike aisle, swing on the branches of the same old trees and listen to the concert chorus of the same song birds. indeed i sympathize with the boy who exchanges the music of birds, melody of streams, lowing of herds, driving of teams, diamond dew on bending blade, morning sun and evening shade, with all other sweet associations of country life for a lodging room in a city, where church doors and home doors are closed against him in the evening hours of the week, and all evil places wide open for his ruin. it has been well said: "the street fair of evil associations in our large cities begins with the night shadows and grows with the darkness." i dare say if i could draw aside the veil that will shut in the night scenes of this city, the revelation would make some godly fathers tremble for their boys, and pious mothers long to gather their children about them when the sun goes down, as moor birds gather their helpless young when hawks are screaming in the sky. all hail to the young men's christian association, with its open doors for young men in the evening hours! all hail to its gymnasium, its swimming pool, basketball and other sports that develop strength and furnish entertainment! away with the idea that all the pleasures of the world belong to the devil. a distinguished divine was brought up in new england by a staid old aunt, who never let him go anywhere except to church, sunday school and prayer meeting. when quite a lad she let him go to new york city to visit a cousin. that cousin took him to see barnum's circus. it was his first circus, and the wild animals, the bareback riding, trapeze performance, clowns and chariot races bewildered the country boy. next morning he wrote his aunt, saying: "dear aunt, if you'll go to one circus you'll never go to another prayer meeting as long as you live." but he did go to prayer meeting and became a grand good man. there are many innocent springs of pleasure, where youth can drink and not be harmed. it may surprise some for me to say, if i could live life over i would be brought up in the same old state of kentucky. "with all her faults i love her still," _but not her stills_. it has been my privilege to visit every state in the union and i find all the good is not in any one state, nor all the bad. while kentucky has had her night riders, missouri has had her boodlers, california her grafters, illinois her anarchists, pennsylvania her machine politics, new york her tammany tiger, and washington city her blizzards on inauguration days. god doesn't grow all the daisies in one field nor confine thorns to one thicket. it's been my lot this land to roam, o'er every state twixt ocean's foam, but still my heart clings to its home, kentucky. i've traveled the prairies of the west, i've seen each section at its best, there's nothing like my native nest, kentucky. no matter through what state i pass, no matter how the people class, to me there's only one blue grass, kentucky. when my wanderings here are o'er, and my spirit seeks the golden shore, then keep my dust for evermore, kentucky. not only would i be brought up in kentucky and in the country, but i would go to the same yankee schoolmaster, have the same sweethearts and marry the same girl, provided she would consent to make another journey with the same companion. by the way, we were married in bourbon county, kentucky, when she was nineteen and i twenty. about four years ago we celebrated our golden wedding, and the morning after the celebration, she put on "her old grey bonnet, with the blue ribbon on it." we didn't "hitch dobbin to the shay" but along the interurban we rode down to bourbon, where we started for our golden wedding day. if i could live life over surely i could ask no better age than the one in which i have lived. we no longer toil over a mountain, but glide through it on ribbons of steel; telegraphy dives the deep and brings us the news of the old world every morning before breakfast; we talk with tongues of lightning through telephones and send messages on ether waves over the sea; we ride horse-cycles that run, never walk and live without eating; we travel in carriages drawn by electric steeds that never tire; the signal service gives us a geography of the weather, so the farmer may know whether or not to prepare to plow, and the sunday school whether to arrange or to postpone its picnic tomorrow; airships mount the heavens, steamships plough the ocean's bosom, submarine torpedo boats undermine the deep with missiles of death, while photography turns one inside out, and doctors no longer guess at the location of a bullet. all these things have come to pass within my life-time. what may the young before me expect in the next fifty years? recently i read an imaginary letter, supposed to have been written by a wellsley college girl. it was dated one hundred years in the future. she wrote: "father gave me a new airship a few weeks ago. i leave my home in baltimore every morning after breakfast and reach wellsley in time for classes. we have only thirty minutes in school in the morning and fifteen in the afternoon. our teachers are in telepathic touch with all knowledge and we get it in condensed form. a few days ago, just after lunch at noon i took a spin up into canada; the machine got a little out of fix, so i jumped on a gyroscope and returned in time for dinner at six. "yesterday i sailed over to new york city and took dinner at the waldorf-astoria; had two capsules for dinner and they were delicious. i read how the people used to sit around tables and eat all kinds of things. it must have been funny to see their mouths all going at one time. then they had stomach trouble--indigestion they called it. now we have everything necessary for the human system put up in capsules; we get up a thousand feet above the earth where the air is pure, so we ought to live to be two hundred years old. "last week my classmate and i took a flying trip to see the panama canal, and while there we decided to take in the exposition at san francisco next day. there we saw many antiquated machines called automobiles; they used to run around the streets in rubber stockings, honking horns to warn the poor, then turning turtle they killed or maimed the rich. in one department we saw an animal with long tail, and a mane on its neck. they called it a horse and told us that years ago horses were harnessed and driven about the streets, while the fast ones were raced for money." that young woman may be all right about her capsule dinners and condensed instruction, but one hundred years from now, when on her way from the west to wellsley if she will stop in lexington, ky., she will see a horse sale in progress; horses selling from five hundred to ten thousand dollars that will trot or pace a mile in less than two minutes, while slow ones will be hitched to dead wagons, used to gather up those who have fallen from airships and gyroscopes. it may be that one hundred years in the future airships will be seen soaring over the cities, delivering packages in parachutes at the back doors of residences, but the day will never dawn when there will be an airship, gyroscope, or an automobile that will supplant the fleet-footed, sleek-coated, handsome kentucky horse. now i come to the more practical, for i do not bring you this talk, challenging your criticism or inviting your praise of it as a literary production, but with the purpose of helping some one live as i would wish to live if i had my life to live over. first, to the boys before me. if i had life to live over one of my first purposes would be to seek my calling in life. do you know half the failures of life come from misfits of occupation? there are lawyers starving for want of clients, doctors with patients under monuments, and preachers talking to empty pews, who might have been successful in factories or furrows. cowper was a failure as a lawyer, he was a success as a poet; goldsmith was a bungling surgeon, he was a power with his pen; horace greely was a success in the tribune office, he was a failure as a farmer and a slow candidate for president. when u.s. grant was a very young man his father sent him to sell a horse to a buyer and instructed him to ask one hundred dollars, but if he could not get that amount to take eighty-five. the buyer looked the horse over and said: "young man, what is your price?" young grant replied: "father told me to ask you one hundred dollars, but if you would not give that to take eighty-five." it is needless to say the calling of u.s. grant was not horse trading. this same young man afterwards tried the grocery business and bought potatoes far and wide to corner the market, but the price went down, the potatoes rotted in grant's bins and his grocery effort was on a par with his horse trading. he then tried the ice market but that became watered stock on his hands and again he was a failure. later on in life 'mid roar of cannon and rattle of musketry the misfit found his element. here he was so sure of his calling he made his motto, "i'll fight it out on this line if it takes all summer," and to the general, who could not drive a horse trade, or corner the potato market, or deal in ice, one of the greatest generals the world ever knew surrendered his sword, and from the highest military position grant was called to be president of the united states. if it is true that "ever since creation shot its first shuttle through chaos design has marked the course of every golden thread," then every human being is designed to fill a certain place in life. there are young women teaching school, getting to be old maids, who should be the wives of good husbands, and there are some wives who ought to be old maid "schoolmarms." we have born architects, born orators, born bookkeepers, born musicians, born poets, born preachers, born teachers, born surgeons, born bankers, born blacksmiths, born merchants, born farmers. two farmers live side by side; one doesn't seem to work hard, yet everything is neatness from one end of the farm to the other; his neighbor works hard, yet the cattle are in his corn, the fences are broken, gates off the hinges and everything seems out of order. that man was not made to be a farmer. he should rent out, or sell out, and go to the legislature, or find some other place he can fill. matthew arnold said: "better be a napoleon of book-blacks, or an alexander of chimney-sweeps, than an attorney, who, like necessity, knows no law." there are born shoemakers cobbling in congress, while statesmen are pegging away on a shoe-last because their brains have not been capitalized by education and opportunity. there are born preachers at work in machine shops, and born mechanics rattling around in pulpits like a mustard seed in an empty gourd; born surgeons are carving beef in butcher stalls, while here and there butchers are operating for appendicitis. god planted the hardy pine on the hills of new england, and the magnolia down in the sunny south-land. let some horticulturist compel the magnolia to climb the cold hills of new england, and the northern tree to come down and take its place in the "land of cotton, cinnamon seed and sandy bottom," and everything in both will protest against the mistake. lowell said: "every baby boy is born with a calling." with some this calling is very definite. it was definite with george stevenson when in childhood he made engines of mud with sticks for smoke-stacks. it was definite with thomas a. edison, who, instead of selling newspapers, went to experimenting with acids, and charged a steel stirrup that lifted him into the electric saddle of the world. with others it is very indefinite. patrick henry failed at everything he undertook until he began talking, when he soon became the golden mouthed orator of his age. peter cooper failed until he took to making glue, then his business "stuck" to everybody and he made a fortune out of which he built cooper union for the education of poor boys. i have a grandson whose calling was indefinite. he was named for his grandfather, to whom fishing is a fad. during my rest season i go fishing almost every day. while i make an exception of sunday i can appreciate the minister who was a great fisherman. on his way to an appointment sunday morning he came upon a lad fishing in a wayside stream. halting he said: "my boy, this is the sabbath day and the good book says you should remember to keep it holy." just then a fish seized the boy's bait and drew the float under, when the good minister excitedly said: "pull, pull. ah! that's a good one. i'll try that place myself _some other day_." fishing is my favorite sport. my grandson was a baseball fiend and a football player. he was hurt in a football game and i wrote him, warning him against his recklessness, and to the admonition i added: "twenty-five boys have been killed already this season playing football; it's a brutal game anyway." he replied: "dear grandfather, i am sorry so many boys have been killed playing football, but i read recently that last summer two hundred and fifty men were drowned while out fishing; would it not be well for you to keep off lake ellerslie? you say football is a brutal game; i submit to you, grandpa, that the man who takes an innocent worm or a minnow, strings it on a steel hook, and sinking it into the water, jerks the gills out of an innocent fish, is more cruel than the boy who kicks another around for exercise. i need a pair of baseball shoes, number six and a half; send them by express." he got the shoes, and i decided _he_ was called to be a lawyer. young man, if you get to be a preacher and cannot put force into your sermon, the world doesn't want to hear you preach, but if you are a good cobbler it will wear your shoes, if a good baker it will eat your bread, or if a good barber it will let you put your razor to its throat. remember in making your choice, "honor and fame from no condition rise, act well your part; there the honor lies." if i could live life over, i would not be content with a common school education. in my youth circumstances lifted a dead wall against my hopes, but if given another chance i would somehow press my way to where higher education scatters its trophies at the feet of youth, for while it is true some of the most successful men of our country graduated from the high school of "hard knocks" and universities of adversity, yet the humblest toil is more easily accomplished and better done where college education guides. to college education, however, i would add the education which comes from rubbing against the world. some one has said: "for every ounce of book knowledge one needs a half dozen ounces of common sense with which to apply it." douglas jerrold said: "i have a friend who can speak fluently a dozen different languages but has not a practical idea to express in any one of them." an old woman suffering from rheumatism was asked by a friend: "did you ever try electricity?" she answered: "yes, i was struck by lightning once but it didn't do me any good." in this many sided age one needs to educate muscle, nerves, heart and conscience as well as brain. that man who is all brain and no heart, goes through the world with his intellect shining above his bosom like an electric light over a graveyard. young people, do you know you live in a testing world, a world in which all buds and blossoms are tested? the bud that stands the test of wind and frost goes on to flower and fruitage; the bud that can't stand the test goes with the dust to be trampled under foot. every cannon made by the government is tested; the cannon that can stand the test goes into battleship or land fort, the cannon that can't stand the test goes into the junk pile. yonder in virginia a few years ago, there was a young man who had everything an indulgent father could give him, but in school his character could not stand the test, and he exchanged his books for wine and cards. he married a beautiful young woman, shot her to death in his automobile and died himself in the electric chair, leaving his old father in a desolate home with harrowing memories tearing his heart; while over the life of an innocent babe he hung a cloud as dark as was ever woven out of the world's misfortune, and sent another life to wander in painted shame outside life's eden of purity, the barb of conscious guilt to be driven deeper and deeper into her soul by the scorn of a pitiless world. all because young beatty could not stand the test! harry thaw had everything wealth and refinement could bring into a young life, but he sacrificed all upon unhallowed altars, and with the brand of cain upon his brow, he was cast into a madman's cell. he could not stand the test. lord byron was britain's brilliant bard. he could have lived in england's glory and then slept with england's buried greatness in westminster abbey, if he had stood the test; but at the age of thirty-seven, when he should have been on an upward flight to greater fame, he drew the "strings of his discordant harp" about him and over them sent the bitter wail: "my days are in the yellow leaf; the flowers and fruits of love are gone; the worm, the canker, and the grief are mine alone!" younder in a cabin a babe was born. when eleven years of age he helped his mother clear out a patch and raise a garden. later on he lay in front of a wood fire, studying lessons for the morrow. later in life he went to college, with only a few cents in his pocket. he went to church and there gave part of his little all in a collection for missionary work. the next saturday he earned a dollar with a jack-plane; at the end of his college term he had paid his way and had seven dollars left. at twenty-eight this young man was in the senate of his state, at thirty-six he was in congress, and twenty-seven years from the time james a. garfield rang the bell of hiram college for his board he went into the white house as president of the united states. he could stand the test. boys, can you stand the test? during the spanish american war there was a regiment called the "rough riders." it was made up of picked young men from different states of the union. it was this regiment that made the famous charge up san juan hill. at the close of the war, the regiment was mustered out of service. the colonel, giving his farewell address, said: "you have made an honorable record in war, now go back to your homes and make honorable record in peace." sixteen years of that record is made. the colonel has been president of the united states for seven years of that time. general leonard wood has gone to the front of the army, and others of the regiment have become successful professional and business men; but some have gone to jails and penitentiaries, one died not long since in the streets of new york city and was buried in a pauper's grave; some are fugitives from justice. what is true of that regiment, is in some measure true of every body of young men and boys i meet. in my presence are boys who will be leaders of thought and action twenty years from now in whatever community they dwell. there is a boy before me who will be a successful merchant, there's one who will be a banker, another will be a lawyer, others will lead in other lines. but alas! in my presence now, looking me in the face this minute, there may be a boy, or boys, who will stain with blood the stony path to despair. do you say that no such ignominious possibility hangs over any boy in this audience? i tell you it is not always the first, but sometimes the fairest born. i know a man who in his youth drove his father's fine horses, romped and rested on the richest blue-grass lawn, ate from spotless linen and lived in luxury, who now eats from the bare tables of low saloons, and is often given shelter by an old colored "mammy," who was once his father's slave. i have in mind a schoolmate, whose father lived in a fine country home two miles from the schoolhouse. the influence of my schoolmate's mother was pure as the diamond dew he brushed from the bending grass in barefoot days. but he left the country home and the last time i saw him he was a vagabond, begging bread from negro cabin doors. ah! mother, you can't tell _which_ boy. in a large city a few years ago a man stood at the side door of a saloon at two o'clock in the morning. his clothes were worn and the matted hair hung about his face. he waited, hoping some one would come along and give him the price of a drink. two young men, one of them a reporter on a leading daily, came down the street. as they neared the poor fellow, one said to the other: "did you ever see such an appeal for a drink? here, hobo, take this dime and buy you one." seizing his hand his friend said: "no, let's do the job like good samaritans. come in, tramp, and have a drink with us." the three entered the saloon, the glasses were filled and the tramp took his and draining it, said: "young men, i'm very thirsty, may i have another?" "yes, help yourself," was the reply, and the tramp took the second drink. then lifting his hat he said: "young men, you call me a hobo, but i see in you a picture of my lost manhood. once i had a face as fair as yours, and wore as good clothes as you have now. i had a home where love lit the flame on the altar, but i put out the fire and to-night i'm a wanderer without a home. i had a wife as beautiful as an artist's dream, but i took the pearl of her love, dropped it in the wine glass, cleopatra-like i saw it dissolve and i quaffed it down. i had a sweet child i fondly loved, and still love, though i have not seen her for twelve years; a young woman now in her grandfather's home, she is deprived of the heritage of a father's good name. young men, i once had aspirations and ambitions that soared as high as the morning star, but i clipped their wings, i strangled them and they died. call me a tramp, do you? i'm a preacher without a charge, a lawyer without a brief, a husband without a wife, a father without a child, a man without a friend. i thank you for the drinks. go to your homes and on soft beds may you sleep well; i'll go out and sleep on yonder bench in the night wind. a few more drinks, a few more drunkard's dreams, and i'll go out into the moonless, starless night of a hopeless forever." oh! how i would like to help some boy in this audience stand on his two feet and with clear brain, manly muscle, and moral courage fight and win the battle of life. how it would rejoice my soul if i could, with earnest appeal, throw about some mother's boy an armor of celestial atmosphere against which the arrows of evil would beat in vain, and fall harmless at his feet. hear me, boys; never was there a day when character counted for so much as now; never a day when a young man, equipped with education and stability of character, filled with energy and ambition, was in such demand as he is today; while on the other hand, never was there a day when a young man with bad habits was in so little demand as now. the industrial world is closing its doors against young men who are not sober, industrious and competent. even a saloon-keeper advertised thus: "wanted--a man to tend bar, who does not drink intoxicating liquors." how would this read: "wanted--a young man to sell shoes, who goes bare-footed." young women, just here i have a question for you. if the railroad company does not want the drinking man, if the merchant discriminates against him, and even the saloon-keeper does not want him for bar-tender, do you want him for a husband? can you afford to wrap up your hopes of happiness in him and to him swear away your young life and love? some young woman may say: "if i taboo the drinking man, i may be an old maid." then be an old maid, get some "bloom of youth," paint up and love yourself. john b. gough said: "you better be laughed at for not being married, than never to laugh any more because you are married." if i could live life over there are some things i would not do. i would not stop smoking as i did thirty-five years ago, because i never would begin and therefore would not need to stop. i am not a fanatic on the question, but i believe every father in my presence, who uses tobacco, will be glad to have me say that which i will now say to the boys who are dulling their brains, poisoning their blood and weakening their hearts by the use of cigarettes. boys, i believe a cigar made me tell my first falsehood. when i was fifteen years of age i felt i must smoke if i ever expected to be a man. father smoked, our pastor smoked, and so did almost every man in our neighborhood. my mother opposed the habit, but i thought mother did not know what it took to make a man. i heard her make an engagement to spend a whole day ten miles from home the following week, and that day i set apart for learning to smoke cigars. i laid in some fine ones, six for five cents, and when mother went out the gate on her visit, i started for the barn. in a shed back of the barn i took out my cigars, determined to learn that day if it required the six cigars for my graduation. the first cigar was lighted and with every puff i felt the manhood coming; but in about five minutes i felt the manhood _going_. just then my uncle called: "george, where are you?" when i answered he said: "come here and hold this colt while i knock out a blind tooth." horsemen before me know some colts have blind teeth and to save the eyes these must be removed. i staggered to the colt, held the halter rein and when the tooth was removed my uncle, looking at me, said: "what's the matter with you? you are pale as death." "nothing, only it always did make me sick to see a blind tooth knocked out of a horse's mouth," i replied. my uncle said: "you better lie down on the grass until it passes off," and i did. but i kept on after that until i learned to smoke like a man. when years had passed and i became editor of a paper it seemed to me i could write better editorials with the smoke curling about my face. one morning i finished my breakfast before mrs. bain had half finished hers. lighting my cigar i stood by the fire chatting and smoking until the stub was all that remained. then, as was my custom, i walked up to kiss her good-bye when she said: "good-bye. but, i would like to ask you a question. how would you like to have me finish my breakfast before you are half through yours, light a cigar, smoke it to the stub, and with tobacco on my lips and breath offer to kiss you good morning?" i said: "you don't have to kiss me," and with this i left for my work. on the way her question seemed to be waiting my answer, and i gave it in a resolve that she should never again have cause to repeat that question, and with my resolve went the cigar. about this time a co-worker joined me in the same resolution, which helped me to keep mine. after tea that evening mrs. bain said: "i did not know you were so sensitive, or i should not have said what i did." i did not tell her then of my promise, lest i should fail to keep it. thirty-five years have passed and not a single cigar have i had between my lips since that morning. boys, take one five-cent cigar after each meal, add up the nickels for one year, put the money at interest, next year, and every year do the same, compounding the interest, and in thirty-five years you will have thirty-five hundred dollars--the price of a home for your old age. i do not hope to convert old smokers, but if i can persuade one young man in this audience to throw away the cigarette, never to smoke one again, then i will have honored this hour's service. if i could live life over i would take the same total-abstinence pledge i took fifty years ago and have kept inviolate to this day. i would take it, not only because of its personal benefit to me, but because of what it has led me to do for others. it is said reformers never expect to see the bread they cast upon the waters; inventors may, but not reformers. yet i have lived to see my bread come back "buttered" in my old age. i have lived to see thousands of men and women to whom i gave the pledge in their youth, wearing it still as a garland about their brows, and their children, by precept and example of parents, keep step with the onward march of the temperance army. i have lived to see more than one hundred counties of kentucky, in which i established good templar lodges, when bottles were on sideboards in the homes, and barrooms in almost every crossroad village, now in the dry column. i have lived to see seventeen states under prohibition, fifty millions of people of the united states living under prohibitory laws, the congress of the united states giving a majority vote for submitting national prohibition to the people, and the great empire of russia going dry in a day. sweet is the "buttered bread" that is coming to me after these many years since i cast my bread upon the waters, when days were dark, discouragements many and faith weak. i am waiting now for another slice of this "buttered bread" about the size of old kentucky dry. if i could live life over i would put a better bit to my tongue, and a better bridle on my temper. an englishman said: "my wife has a temper; if she could get rid of it i would not exchange her for any woman in the world." two men meet and have a misunderstanding; one flies into a passion, shoots or stabs, while the other stands placid and self-contained, preserving his dignity. the world calls the first a brave man and the latter a coward; but solomon declared the man who rules himself to be "greater than he that taketh a city." oh! the tragedies that lie in the wake of the tempest of temper. on the dueling field such men as alexander hamilton went down to death for want of self-control. andrew jackson killed dickerson; benton of missouri killed lucas; general marmaduke killed general walker. pettus and biddle, one a congressman, the other a paymaster in the army, had a war of words, a challenge followed; one being near-sighted selected five feet as the distance for the duel, and there educated men, with pistols almost touching, stood, fired and both were killed. senator carmack of tennessee, criticised colonel cooper as a machine politician. cooper said: "put my name in your paper again, and i'll kill you." young cooper felt in his rage that he must settle the trouble. did he settle it? the bullet that went through the heart of carmack went through the heart of his wife, threw a shadow over the life of his child, and draped tennessee in mourning. did he settle it? he started a tempest that will howl through his life while memory lasts and echo through his soul to all eternity. oh! that men would realize that to walk honorably and deal justly insures in time vindication from all calumny. abraham lincoln was called the "illinois baboon" by a leading journal, but mr. lincoln placidly read the charge, and told a joke as a safety valve for whatever anger he may have felt. one hundred years go by and the president leaves washington and goes on a long journey to stand at a cabin door in kentucky, there to pay tribute to a man who "never lost his balance or tore a passion to tatters." i stood in front of the great krupp gun at the world's fair, and as the soldier in charge told me that one discharge cost one thousand dollars, and it could send a shell sixteen miles and pierce iron plated ships, its lips seemed loaded with death and it spoke of war and bloodshed and hate. a little later i entered the hall of fine arts and looked upon that impressive picture entitled, "breaking home ties." the lad is about to go out from the roof that has sheltered him from babyhood, to be his own guide in the big wide world. his mother holds his hand as she looks love into his eyes, and gives him her warnings and blessing; the father, with his boy's valise in his hand, has turned away with a lump in his throat, while even the dog seems to be joining in the loving farewell. turning away from that picture, the thought came: ah! that means more than krupp guns. it means the coming of a day when love shall rule and war shall cease, when reason and righteousness shall be the arbitrators for differences between nations, when owls and bats will nest in the portholes of battleships, and each nation will vie with the other in warring against the kingdoms of want and wickedness. when a man requested bishop mcintyre to preach his wife's funeral sermon, and told him of her many beautiful traits, bishop mcintyre said: "brother, did you ever tell her all these sweet things before she died?" just here sam jones would say: "husbands, go home and kiss your wives. tell them they are the dearest, sweetest things on the earth; you may have to stretch the truth a little, but say it anyway." a few years ago, just before the christmas holidays, i wrote my daughter, saying: "i wish you would find out from your mother what she would like for a christmas gift. however, don't tell her i wrote you to do this. also suggest something for the grandchildren that i may bring each some little remembrance that will please them." i closed by saying: "the sands of my life are growing less and less, soon i'll reach the end of my years, then you'll lay me away with tenderness and pay me the tribute of tears. "don't carve on my tomb any word of fame, nor a wheel with its missing spokes, simply let the marble tell my name, then add, 'he was good to his folks.'" boys and girls, don't speak back to mother. you love her and don't mean to offend, but it hurts her. she was patient with you in your infancy; be patient with her in her old age. from her birth she has been your loyal, loving slave. she will go away and leave you after a little while, and oh! how you will miss her when she's gone. deal gently with her now; speak kindly to her and when she's gone memories of your love and kindness to mother will come to you like sweet perfume from wooded blossoms. young lady graduate of high school or college, do you realize what your father has done for you, and the sacrifices he has made that you might have what he has never had--a diploma? go, put your fair tender cheek against the weather-beaten face of your father, print with rosy lips a kiss of gratitude upon his furrowed brow, and tell him you appreciate all he has done for you. i have been talking to you an hour about what i would do if i could live life over. if i had life to live over would i do any better than i have done? if i am no better now, than i was five years ago, if i am to be no better five years hence than i am now, then i would do no better if i had another trial. however, i cannot live life over. the sand in the hour-glass is running low and when gone can never be replaced, and i am not much struck on old age. it is said to have its compensations, in that the "aches and asthmas of old age are no worse than the measles, mumps, whooping-coughs and appendicitis pains of youth." righteous old age should be better than youth. the ocean of time with its breakers and perils face the young, while for the righteous old the storms are past, and they are "waiting to enter the haven wide, see his face, and be satisfied." i cannot help these grey hairs or the wrinkles on my brow, but i can keep my heart young, and i _do_. i enjoy the company of old people, but delight more in associating with the young. dr. a.a. willetts lectured on "sunshine" sixty years ago. in his ninetieth year he was still lecturing; had he lectured on shadows he would doubtless have died many years before, and never been known as the "apostle of sunshine." solomon said: "a merry heart doeth good like a medicine." never lock the door of your heart against the sunshine of cheerfulness, and remember it is not the exclusive blessing of youth but blooms in the heart of any age. with some it seems to be an inheritance. it kisses some babies in the cradle, and the radiance of that kiss lingers through three-score years and ten; while others are born cross, live cross and die cross. a babe of this latter kind came into a home and kept up its wailing for several days. the little six-year old boy of the home said: "mother, did you say little brother came from heaven?" "yes, dear; why do you ask?" "well, no wonder the angels bounced him," the boy replied. i know a woman who is forever telling her trials. if you do not listen to her story you must read it on her countenance. nearby is another who has lost her parents; indeed all her near relatives are gone; not a flower left to bloom on the desert of old age. yet, she hides her sorrows beneath the soul's altar of hope and meets the world with a smile. doubtless the first woman wonders why she is so slighted and the company of the other courted. she should know it is for the same reason that honey-bees and humming birds light on sweet flowers instead of dry mullien stalks, and mocking-birds and canaries are caged instead of owls and rain-crows. some persons seem to relish the "cold soup of retrospect" and persist in picking the "bones of regret," without any appetite for the present or promises of the future. beside one of these i would place a happy-hearted soul, who laughs through the window of the eye and on whose face you can read, "let those who will, repine at fate, and droop their heads in sorrow, i'll laugh when cares upon me wait, i know they'll leave to-morrow. "my purse is light, but what of that? my heart is light to match it; and if i tear my only coat, i'll laugh the while i patch it." i know a millionaire, who controls numerous industries, whose wife must apply cold cloths to his head at night to induce sleep. i know another man not so well off in this world's goods, whose wife must apply the cold water to get him awake. care is often pillowed in a palace, while contentment is asleep in a cottage. at the close of my lecture at a chautauqua several years ago, a gentleman said to me: "sir, we live in a very humble cottage in this town, but there is a big welcome over the door for you and we want you to take tea with us." i accepted the invitation and soon was seated on the porch of the small cottage home. while my host was inside getting a pitcher of ice water, i looked across the way and there was the home of a railroad king, his wealth numbered by millions, and the grounds surrounding his home were rich in flower beds, fountains and forest trees. my host, pouring the water, said: "you see we are very fortunately situated here. our little home is inexpensive and our taxes very light. our rich neighbor across the way employs three gardeners to care for those grounds; he pays all the taxes, has all the care; they do not cost us a cent, yet we sit here on our little porch and drink in their beauty." there was a philosopher. john wanamaker can pay $ , for a picture, which he did some years ago, and hang it on the walls of his mansion home, but you go out in the country in the springtime, get up in the early morning while the cattle are still sleeping in the barnyard and the birds silent in the trees, watch the rich glow of the day god as it comes peeping through the windows of the morning, then see the birds leave their bowers, the larks to fly away to the fields, the mocking-bird to sing in the cedar at the garden gate, the robin to chirp to its mate, and you will see a picture which will pale that of the merchant prince. or go out on a summer evening just after a rain storm, when nature hangs itself out to dry; when the golden slipper of the god of day hangs upon the topmost bough of the tallest tree. you will see a picture no artist's brush can paint. and god does not hang these pictures on a wall twenty feet by ten, but on the blue tapestry of the sky for the world's poor to admire "without money and without price." abraham lincoln well said: "god must have loved the common people, else he wouldn't have made so many of them." let me illustrate the two classes of people to which i have referred. an old man who dwelt in the shadows of life said: "my life has been one continual drudgery and disappointment; for fifty years i have had to get up at o'clock every morning while others enjoyed their sleep, then all day in the harness of oppression i have had to work with bad luck dogging my footsteps." his daughter, thinking to cheer him, said, "father, don't get discouraged. you have one comfort anyway; it won't be long till the end of toil will come, when you will have a good long rest in the grave where no misfortune can reach you." "i don't know about that," replied the father; "it will be about my luck for the next morning to be resurrection day and i'll have to be up at daylight as usual." another man, who always looked on the bright side of life, and when anything went wrong always looked up something good to match it, happened to lose a fine horse. when friends expressed sympathy he said: "i can't complain; i never lost a horse before." then his crop failed and he said: "after ten years of good crops i have no kick coming because of one failure." finally, poor fellow, a railroad train ran over him and both feet had to be amputated at the ankles. a friend called to see him and said: "jim, what have you to say after this misfortune?" his reply was: "well, i always did suffer with cold feet." look on the bright side of life, remembering that very often, "the trouble that makes us fume and fret, and the burdens that make us groan and sweat are the things that haven't happened yet." when our two boys were babies our home was a country cottage and our land possession one acre. nearby lived a young man whose father left him a blue-grass farm. his home was a handsome brick house; he had servants and drove fine horses. often when seated on the little porch of our humble home, he would pass by, when the feet of his horses and wheels of his fine carriage would dash the dust into our faces. one evening when he passed i said: "never mind, anna, some day we'll live in a fine house, we'll have servants and horses and we'll be 'somebodies'." i thought money would bring happiness, and the more money the more happiness. we now live in a good home, have servants and horse and carriage; we've traveled several times together from ocean to ocean, yet i have never seen a train of pullman palace cars that can compare in memory with the two trains that used to leave that little cottage home every evening for dreamland. "the first train started at seven p.m., over the dreamland road, the mother dear was the engineer, the passenger laughed and crowed. the palace car was the mother's arms, the whistle a low sweet strain; the passenger winked, nodded and blinked and fell asleep on the train. the next train started at eight p.m., for the slumberland afar, the summons clear, fell on the ear, 'all aboard for the sleeping car.' and what was the fare to slumberland? i assure you not very dear; only this, a hug and a kiss, they were paid to the engineer." and i said: "take charge of the passengers, lord, i pray, to me they are very dear; and special ward, o gracious lord, give the faithful engineer." have some of you had sorrows you could not harmonize with the logic of life? leave them with him who "notes the sparrow's fall." some one has said: "there are angels in the quarries of life only the blasts of misfortune and chisels of adversity can carve into beauty." doctor theodore cuyler said: "god washes the eyes of his children with tears that they may better see his providences." doctor gutherie said: "because i am seventy, my hair white and crows' feet around my eyes, they tell me i'm growing old. that's not i, that's the house in which i live; i'm on the inside; the house may go to pieces but i shall live on eternally young." "this body is my house, it is not i; herein i sojourn, till in some far off sky, i lease a fairer dwelling, built to last, till all the carpentry of time is past. "when from heaven high, i view this lone star, what need i care where these poor timbers are; what if these crumbling walls do go back to dust and loam, i will have exchanged them for a broader better home. this body is my house, it is not i; triumphant in this faith, i shall live and die." since i cannot live life over, since the gate at the end of life's journey swings but one way, and of all the millions who have passed through, not one but the crucified son of god has returned, why should i select such a subject for a lecture? when one is on a journey he has never made before it is well to consult one who has traveled the road and from him learn the things best to be done, and the places to shun. for more than three-score years and ten i have been making life's journey, and for more than forty years have been mingling with the masses and meeting with varied experiences. to those who are climbing the hill toward the noon of the journey my advice should be of value. with those who with me are facing the sinking sun, and the lengthening shadows falling behind, i thank god for that faith which comes from a diviner source than human science, that tells us, "there's a place, called the land of beginning again, where all our mistakes and all our heartaches, and all our griefs and pain, will be left in the boat, like a shabby old coat, and never put on again. "i'm glad there's a place for the redeemed of the race, in the land of beginning again, where there'll be no sighing, there'll be no dying, and where sorrows that seemed so sore, will vanish away like the night into day, and never come back any more." it is said "if wishes were horses, beggars would ride." it is useless for me to wish to live life over or expect an extension of many more years of borrowed time, but i hope yet that along the shortening path i may open up here and there a spring that will refresh some thirsty soul and plant a flower that will brighten the path of some weary one. it is my desire that i may close the life i cannot live over in the city where it began, surrounded by loved ones in whose lives i have lived. i can think of no more fitting close to this lecture than to use a thought borrowed from another, in paying a tribute to my old kentucky home: on her blue-grass bed in youth i rolled and romped and rested; at the altars of her church i learned in whom i trusted. 'tis here my honored parents sleep, a dear sweet babe reposes, and o'er my darling daughter's grave blossom the summer roses. 'tis here my marriage vows were given, 'tis here my children found me; my heart is here, and here may heaven fold angel wings around me. may sacred memories hold me here, and when life's dream closes, may i the plaudit "well done" wear, then sleep beneath her roses. the world's best orations, vol. (of ) the advisory council the right hon. sir charles wentworth dilke. bart., member of parliament--author of 'greater britain,' etc., london, england. william draper lewis, ph. d., dean of the department of law, university of pennsylvania, philadelphia. william p. trent, m.a., professor of english and history, colombia university, in the city of new york. w. stuart symington, jr., ph. d., professor of the romance languages, amherst college, amherst, mass. alcee fortier, lit.d., professor of the romance languages, tulane university, new orleans, la. william vincent byars, journalist, st louis, mo. richard gottheil, ph. d., professor of oriental languages, columbia university, in the city of new york. austin h. merrill, a.m., professor of elocution, vanderbilt university, nashville, tenn. sheldon jackson. d. d., ll. d., bureau of education, washington, d. c. a. marshall elliott, ph.d. ll. d., professor of the romance languages, johns hopkins university, baltimore, md. john w. million, a.m., president of hardin college, mexico, mo. j. raymond brackett. ph. d., dean of the college of liberal arts, and professor of comparative literature, university of colorado, boulder, colo. w. f. peirce. m.a., ll. d., president of kenyox college, gambier, ohio. s. plantz, ph.d., d. d., president of lawrence university, appleton, wis. george tayloe winston, ll.d., president of the university of texas, austin, texas. table of contents vol. i preface: justice david j. brewer the oratory of anglo-saxon countries: prof. edward a. allen abelard, pierre - the resurrection of lazarus the last entry into jerusalem the divine tragedy adams, charles francis - the states and the union adams, charles francis, junior - the battle of gettysburg adams, john - inaugural address the boston massacre adams, john quincy - oration at plymouth lafayette the jubilee of the constitution adams, samuel - american independence aelred - a farewell a sermon after absence on manliness aeschines - b. c. against crowning demosthenes aiken, frederick a. - defense of mrs. mary e, surratt albert the great (albertus magnus) - the meaning of the crucifixion the blessed dead allen, ethan a call to arms ames, fisher - on the british treaty anselm, saint - the sea of life arnold, thomas - the realities of life and death arthur, chester alan - inaugural address athanasius - the divinity of christ augustine, saint - the lord's prayer bacon, francis - speech against dueling barbour, james - treaties as supreme laws barnave, antoine pierre joseph marie - representative democracy against majority absolutism commercial politics barrow, isaac - slander basil the great - on a recreant nan baxter, richard - unwillingness to improve bayard. james a. - the federal judiciary commerce and naval power bayard, thomas f. - a plea for conciliation in beaconsfield, lord - the assassination of lincoln against democracy for england the meaning of "conservatism" bede, the venerable - the meeting of mercy and justice a sermon for any day the torments of hell beecher. henry ward - raising the flag over fort sumter effect of the death of lincoln belhaven, lord - a plea for the national life of scotland bell, john - against extremists, north and south transcontinental railroads benjamin, judah p. - farewell to the union slavery as established by law preface oratory is the masterful art. poetry, painting, music, sculpture, architecture please, thrill, inspire; but oratory rules. the orator dominates those who hear him, convinces their reason, controls their judgment, compels their action. for the time being he is master. through the clearness of his logic, the keenness of his wit, the power of his appeal, or that magnetic something which is felt and yet cannot be defined, or through all together, he sways his audience as the storm bends the branches of the forest. hence it is that in all times this wonderful power has been something longed for and striven for. demosthenes, on the beach, struggling with the pebbles in his mouth to perfect his articulation, has been the great example. yet it is often true of the orator, as of the poet; _nascitur_ _non_ _fit_. patrick henry seemed to be inspired as "give me liberty or give me death" rolled from his lips. the untutored savage has shown himself an orator. who does not delight in oratory? how we gather to hear even an ordinary speaker! how often is a jury swayed and controlled by the appeals of counsel! do we not all feel the magic of the power, and when occasionally we are permitted to listen to a great orator how completely we lose ourselves and yield in willing submission to the imperious and impetuous flow of his speech! it is said that after webster's great reply to hayne every massachusetts man walking down pennsylvania avenue seemed a foot taller. this marvelous power is incapable of complete preservation on the printed page. the presence, the eye, the voice, the magnetic touch, are beyond record. the phonograph and kinetoscope may some day seize and perpetuate all save the magnetic touch, but that weird, illusive, indefinable yet wonderfully real power by which the orator subdues may never be caught by science or preserved for the cruel dissecting knife of the critic. it is the marvelous light flashing out in the intellectual heavens which no franklin has yet or may ever draw and tie to earth by string of kite. but while there is a living something which no human art has yet been able to grasp and preserve, there is a wonderful joy and comfort in the record of that which the orator said. as we read we see the very picture, though inarticulate, of the living orator. we may never know all the marvelous power of demosthenes, yet _proton_, _meg_, _o_ _andres_ _athenaioi_, suggests something of it. cicero's silver speech may never reach our ears, and yet who does not love to read _quousque_ _tandem_ _abutere_, _o_ _catilina_, _patientia_ _nostra_? so if on the printed page we may not see the living orator, we may look upon his picture--the photograph of his power. and it is this which it is the thought and purpose of this work to present. we mean to photograph the orators of the world, reproducing the words which they spake, and trusting to the vivid imagination of the thoughtful reader to put behind the recorded words the living force and power. in this we shall fill a vacant place in literature. there are countless books of poetry in which the gems of the great poets of the world have been preserved, but oratory has not been thus favored. we have many volumes which record the speeches of different orators, sometimes connected with a biography of their lives and sometimes as independent gatherings of speeches. we have also single books, like goodrich's 'british eloquence,' which give us partial selections of the great orations. but this is intended to be universal in its reach, a complete encyclopedia of oratory. the purpose is to present the best efforts of the world's greatest orators in all ages; and with this purpose kept in view as the matter of primary importance, to supplement the great orations with others that are representative and historically important--especially with those having a fundamental connection with the most important events in the development of anglo-saxon civilization. the greatest attention has been given to the representative orators of england and america, so that the work includes all that is most famous or most necessary to be known in the oratory of the anglo-saxon race. wherever possible, addresses have been published in extenso. this has been the rule followed in giving the great orations. in dealing with minor orators, the selections made are considerable enough to show the style, method, and spirit. where it has been necessary to choose between two orations of equal merit, the one having the greater historical significance has been selected. of course it would not be possible, keeping within reasonable limits, to give every speech of every one worthy to be called an orator. indeed, the greatest of orators sometimes failed. so we have carefully selected only those speeches which manifest the power of eloquence; and this selection, we take pleasure in assuring our readers, has been made by the most competent critics of the country. we have not confined ourselves to any one profession or field of eloquence. the pulpit, the bar, the halls of legislation, and the popular assembly have each and all been called upon for their best contributions. the single test has been, is it oratory? the single question, is there eloquence? the reader and student of every class will therefore find within these pages that which will satisfy his particular taste and desire in the matter of oratory. as this work is designed especially for the american reader, we have deemed it proper to give prominence to anglo-saxon orators; and yet this prominence has not been carried so far as to make the work a one-sided collection. it is not a mere presentation of american or even of english-speaking orators. we submit the work to the american public in the belief that all will find pleasure, interest, and instruction in its pages, and in the hope that it will prove an inspiration to the growing generation to see to it that oratory be not classed among the "lost arts," but that it shall remain an ever-present and increasing power and blessing to the world. david j. brewer the oratory of anglo-saxon countries by edward a. allen, professor of anglo-saxon and english literature in the university of missouri english-speaking people have always been the freest people, the greatest lovers of liberty, the world has ever seen. long before english history properly begins, the pen of tacitus reveals to us our forefathers in their old home-land in north germany beating back the roman legions under varus, and staying the progress of rome's triumphant car whose mighty wheels had crushed hannibal, jugurtha, vercingetorix, and countless thousands in every land. the germanic ancestors of the english nation were the only people who did not bend the neck to these lords of all the world besides. in the year , when the founder of christianity was playing about his humble home at nazareth, or watching his father at work in his shop, our forefathers dealt rome a blow from which she never recovered. as freeman, late professor of history at oxford, said in one of his lectures: "in the blow by the teutoburg wood was the germ of the declaration of independence, the germ of the surrender of yorktown." arminius was our first washington, "_haud_ _dubie_ _liberator_," as tacitus calls him,--the savior of his country. when the time came for expansion, and our forefathers in the fifth century began the conquest and settlement of the island that was to become their new england, they pushed out the celts, the native inhabitants of the island, just as their descendants, about twelve hundred years later, were to push out the indigenous people of this continent, to make way for a higher civilization, a larger destiny. no englishman ever saw an armed roman in england, and though traces of the roman conquest may be seen everywhere in that country to-day, it is sometimes forgotten that it was the britain of the celts, not the england of the english, which was held for so many centuries as a province of rome. the same love of freedom that resisted the roman invasion in the first home of the english was no less strong in their second home, when alfred with his brave yeomen withstood the invading danes at ashdown and edington, and saved england from becoming a danish province. it is true that the normans, by one decisive battle, placed a french king on the throne of england, but the english spirit of freedom was never subdued; it rose superior to the conquerors of hastings, and in the end english speech and english freedom gained the mastery. the sacred flame of freedom has burned in the hearts of the anglo-saxon race through all the centuries of our history, and this spirit of freedom is reflected in our language and in our oratory. there never have been wanting english orators when english liberty seemed to be imperiled; indeed, it may be said that the highest oratory has always been coincident with the deepest aspirations of freedom. it is said of pitt,--the younger, i believe,--that he was fired to oratory by reading the speeches in milton's 'paradise lost.' these speeches--especially those of satan, the most human of the characters in this noble epic,--when analyzed and traced to their source, are neither hebrew nor greek, but english to the core. they are imbued with the english spirit, with the spirit of cromwell, with the spirit that beat down oppression at marston moor, and ushered in a freer england at naseby. in the earlier milton of a thousand years before, whether the work of caedmon or of some other english muse, the same spirit is reflected in anglo-saxon words. milton's satan is more polished, better educated, thanks to oxford and cambridge, but the spirit is essentially one with that of the ruder poet; and this spirit, i maintain, is english. the dry annals of the anglo-saxon chronicle are occasionally lighted up with a gleam of true eloquence, as in the description of the battle of brunanburh, which breaks forth into a pean of victory. under the year , there is mention of a battle at maldon, between the english and the danes, in which great heroism must have been displayed, for it inspired at the time one of the most patriotic outbursts of song to be found in the whole range of english literature. during an enforced truce, because of a swollen stream that separated the two armies, a messenger is sent from the danes to byrhtnoth, leader of the english forces, with a proposition to purchase peace with english gold. byrhtnoth, angry and resolute, gave him this answer:-- "hearest thou, pirate, what this folk sayeth? they will give you spears for tribute, weapons that will avail you nought in battle. messenger of the vikings, get thee back. take to thy people a sterner message, that here stands a fearless earl, who with his band wilt defend this land, the home of aethelred, my prince, folk and fold. too base it seems to me that ye go without battle to your ships with our money, now that ye have come thus far into our country. ye shall not so easily obtain treasure. spear and sword, grim battle-play, shall decide between us ere we pay tribute." though the battle was lost and byrhtnoth slain, the spirit of the man is an english inheritance. it is the same spirit that refused ship-money to charles i., and tea-money to george iii. the encroachments of tyranny and the stealthier step of royal prerogative have shrunk before this spirit which through the centuries has inspired the noblest oratory of england and america. it not only inspired the great orators of the mother country, it served at the same time as a bond of sympathy with the american colonies in their struggle for freedom. burke, throughout his great speech on conciliation, never lost sight of this idea:-- "this fierce spirit of liberty is stronger in the english colonies probably than in any other people of the earth. the people of the colonies are descendants of englishmen. england, sir, is a nation which still, i hope, respects, and formerly adored, her freedom. the colonists emigrated from you when this part of your character was most predominant; and they took this bias and direction the moment they parted from your bands. they are therefore not only devoted to liberty, but to liberty according to english ideas and our english principles. ... the temper and character which prevail in our colonies are, i am afraid, unalterable by any human art. we cannot, i fear, falsify the pedigree of this fierce people, and persuade them that they are not sprung from a nation in whose veins the blood of freedom circulates. the language in which they would hear you tell them this tale would detect the imposition; your speech would betray you. ... in order to prove that americans have no right to their liberties, we are every day endeavoring to subvert the maxims which preserve the whole spirit of our own. to prove that the americans ought not to be free, we are obliged to depreciate the value of freedom itself; and we never gain a paltry advantage over them in debate without attacking some of those principles, or deriding some of those feelings, for which our ancestors have shed their blood. . . . as long as you have the wisdom to keep the sovereign authority of this country as the sanctuary of liberty, the sacred temple consecrated to our common faith, wherever the chosen race and sons of england worship freedom they will turn their faces towards you. the more ardently they love liberty the more perfect will be their obedience. slavery they can have anywhere--it is a weed that grows in every soil. they can have it from spain; they may have it from prussia. but until you become lost to all feeling of your true interest and your natural dignity, freedom they can have from none but you." so, too, in the speeches of chatham, the great commoner, whose eloquence has never been surpassed, an intense spirit of liberty, the animating principle of his life, shines out above all things else. though opposed to the independence of the colonies, he could not restrain his admiration for the spirit they manifested:-- "the americans contending for their rights against arbitrary exactions i love and admire. it is the struggle of free and virtuous patriots. ... my lords, you cannot conquer america. you may swell every expense and every effort still more extravagantly; pile and accumulate every assistance you can buy or borrow; traffic and barter with every pitiful little german prince that sells and sends his subjects to the shambles of a foreign prince; your efforts are forever vain and impotent if i were an american as i am an englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country i would never lay down my arms--never--never--never!" wherever the principle of anglo-saxon freedom and the rights of man have been at stake, the all-animating voice of the orator has kept alive the sacred flame. in the witenagemote of the earlier tongs, in the parliament of the later kings, in the massachusetts town-meeting and in the virginia house of burgesses, in the legislature of every state, and in the congress of the united states, wherever in anglo-saxon countries the torch of liberty seemed to burn low, the breath of the orator has fanned it into flame. it fired the eloquence of sheridan pleading against warren hastings for the down-trodden natives of india in words that have not lost their magnetic charm:-- "my lords, do you, the judges of this land and the expounders of its rightful laws, do you approve of this mockery and call that the character of justice which takes the form of right to execute wrong? no. my lords, justice is not this halt and miserable object; it is not the ineffective bauble of an indian pagoda; it is not the portentous phantom of despair; it is not like any fabled monster, formed in the eclipse of reason and found in some unhallowed grove of superstitious darkness and political dismay. no, my lords! in the happy reverse of all this i turn from the disgusting caricature to the real image. justice i have now before me, august and pure, the abstract ideal of all that would be perfect in the spirits and aspirings of men--where the mind rises; where the heart expands; where the countenance is ever placid and benign; where the favorite attitude is to stoop to the unfortunate, to hear their cry, and help them; to rescue and relieve, to succor and save; majestic from its mercy, venerable from its utility, uplifted without pride, firm without obduracy, beneficent in each preference, lovely though in her frown." this same spirit fired the enthusiasm of samuel adams and james otis to such a pitch of eloquence that "every man who heard them went away ready to take up arms." it inspired patrick henry to hurl his defiant alternative of "liberty or death" in the face of unyielding despotism. it inspired that great-hearted patriot and orator, henry clay, in the first quarter of this century, to plead, single-handed and alone, in the congress of the united states, session after session before the final victory was won, for the recognition of the provinces of south america in their struggle for independence. "i may be accused of an imprudent utterance of my feelings on this occasion. i care not: when the independence, the happiness, the liberty of a whole people is at stake, and that people our neighbors, our brethren, occupying a portion of the same continent, imitating our example, and participating in the same sympathies with ourselves. i will boldly avow my feelings and my wishes in their behalf, even at the hazard of such an imputation. i maintain that an oppressed people are authorized, whenever they can, to rise and break their fetters. this was the great principle of the english revolution. it was the great principle of our own. spanish-america has been doomed for centuries to the practical effects of an odious tyranny. if we were justified, she is more than justified. i am no propagandist. i would not seek to force upon other nations our principles and our liberty, if they do not want them. but if an abused and oppressed people will their freedom; if they seek to establish it; if, in truth, they have established it, we have a right, as a sovereign power, to notice the fact, and to act as circumstances and our interest require. i will say in the language of the venerated father of my country, 'born in a land of liberty, my anxious recollections, my sympathetic feelings, and my best wishes, are irresistibly excited, whensoever, in any country, i see an oppressed nation unfurl the banners of freedom.'" this same spirit loosed the tongue of wendell phillips to plead the cause of the enslaved african in words that burned into the hearts of his countrymen. it emboldened george william curtis to assert the right to break the shackles of party politics and follow the dictates of conscience:-- "i know,--no man better,--how hard it is for earnest men to separate their country from their party, or their religion from their sect. but, nevertheless, the welfare of the country is dearer than the mere victory of party, as truth is more precious than the interest of any sect. you will hear this patriotism scorned as an impracticable theory, as the dream of a cloister, as the whim of a fool. but such was the folly of the spartan leonidas, staying with his three hundred the persian horde, and teaching greece the self-reliance that saved her. such was the folly of the swiss arnold von winkelried, gathering into his own breast the points of austrian spears, making his dead body the bridge of victory for his countrymen. such was the folly of the american nathan hale, gladly risking the seeming disgrace of his name, and grieving that be had but one life to give for his country. such are the beacon-lights of a pure patriotism that burn forever in men's memories and answer each other through the illuminated ages." so long as there are wrongs to be redressed, so long as the strong oppress the weak, so long as injustice sits in high places, the voice of the orator will be needed to plead for the rights of man. he may not, at this stage of the republic, be called upon to sound a battle cry to arms, but there are bloodless victories to be won as essential to the stability of a great nation and the uplifting of its millions of people as the victories of the battlefield. when the greatest of modern political philosophers, the author of the declaration of independence, urged that, if men were left free to declare the truth the effect of its great positive forces would overcome the negative forces of error, he seems to have hit the central fact of civilization. without freedom of thought and absolute freedom to speak out the truth as one sees it, there can be no advancement, no high civilization. to the orator who has heard the call of humanity, what nobler aspiration than to enlarge and extend the freedom we have inherited from our anglo-saxon forefathers, and to defend the hope of the world? edward a. allen pierre abelard ( - ) abelard's reputation for oratory and for scholarship was so great that he attracted hearers and disciples from all quarters. they encamped around him like an army and listened to him with such eagerness that the jealousy of some and the honest apprehension of others were excited by the boldness with which he handled religious subjects. he has been called the originator of modern rationalism, and though he was apparently worsted in his contest with his great rival, st. bernard, he remains the most real and living personality among the great pulpit orators of the middle ages. this is due in large part, no doubt, to his connection with the unfortunate heloise. that story, one of the most romantic, as it is one of the saddest of human history, must be passed over with a mere mention of the fact that it gave occasion for a number of the sermons of abelard which have come down to us. several of those were preached in the convent of the paraclete of which heloise became abbess,-- where, in his old age, her former lover, broken with the load of a life of most extraordinary sorrows, went to die. these sermons do not suggest the fire and force with which young abelard appealed to france, compelling its admiration even in exciting its alarm, but they prevent him from being a mere name as an orator. he was born near nantes, a. d. . at his death in , he was buried in the convent of the paraclete, where the body of heloise was afterwards buried at his side. the extracts from his sermons here given were translated by rev. j. m. neale, of sackville college, from the first collected edition of the works of abelard, published at paris in . there are thirty-two such sermons extant. they were preached in latin, or, at least, they have come down to us in that language. the resurrection of lazarus the lord performed that miracle once for all in the body which much more blessedly he performs every day in the souls of penitents. he restored life to lazarus, but it was a temporal life, one that would die again. he bestows life on the penitent; life, but it is life that will remain, world without end. the one is wonderful in the eyes of men; the other is far more wonderful in the judgment of the faithful; and in that it is so much the greater, by so much the more is it to be sought. this is written of lazarus, not for lazarus himself, but for us and to us. "whatsoever things," saith the apostle, "were written of old, were written for our learning." the lord called lazarus once, and he was raised from temporal death. he calls us often, that we may rise from the death of the soul. he said to him once, "come forth!" and immediately he came forth at one command of the lord. the lord every day invites us by scripture to confession, exhorts us to amendment, promises the life which is prepared for us by him who willeth not the death of a sinner. we neglect his call, we despise his invitation, we contemn his promise. placed between god and the devil, as between a father and a foe, we prefer the enticement of the enemy to a father's warning. "we are not ignorant," says the apostle, "of the devices of satan,"--the devices, i say, by which he induces us to sin, and keeps us back from repentance. suggesting sin, he deprives us of two things by which the best assistance might be offered to us, namely, shame and fear. for that which we avoid, we avoid either through fear of some loss, or through the reverence of shame.... when, therefore, satan impels any one to sin, he easily accomplishes the object, if, as we have said, he first deprives him of fear and shame. and when he has effected that, he restores the same things, but in another sense, which he has taken away; that so he may keep back the sinner from confession, and make him die in his sin. then he secretly whispers into his soul: "priests are light-minded, and it is a difficult thing to check the tongue. if you tell this or that to them, it cannot remain a secret; and when it shall have been published abroad, you will incur the danger of losing your good character, or bearing some injury, and being confounded from your own vileness." thus the devil deceives that wretched man; he first takes from him that by which he ought to avoid sin, and then restores the same thing, and by it retains him in sin. his captive fears temporal, and not spiritual, evil; he is ashamed before men and he despises god. he is ashamed that things should come to the knowledge of men which he was not ashamed to commit in the sight of god, and of the whole heavenly host. he trembles at the judgment of man, and he has no respect to that of god. of which the apostle says: "it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living god"; and the truth saith himself, "fear not them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do; but fear him rather who can cast body and soul into hell." there are diseases of the soul, as there are of the body; and therefore the divine mercy has provided beforehand physicians for both. our lord jesus christ saith, "i came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." his priests now hold his place in the church, to whom, as unto physicians of the soul, we ought to confess our sins, that we may receive from them the plaister of satisfaction. he that fears the death of the body, in whatever part of the body he may suffer, however much he may be ashamed of the disease, makes no delay in revealing it to the physician, and setting it forth, so that it may be cured. however rough, however hard may be the remedy, he avoids it not, so that he may escape death. whatever he has that is most precious, he makes no hesitation in giving it, if only for a little while he may put off the death of the body. what, then, ought we to do for the death of the soul? for this, however terrible, may be forever prevented, without such great labor, without such great expense. the lord seeks us ourselves, and not what is ours. he stands in no need of our wealth who bestows all things. for it is he to whom it is said, "my goods are nothing unto thee." with him a man is by so much the greater, as, in his own judgment, he is less. with him a man is as much the more righteous, as in his own opinion he is the more guilty. in his eyes we hide our faults all the more, the more that here by confession we manifest them. the last entry into jerusalem "he came unto his own, and his own received him not." that is, he entered jerusalem. yet now he entered, not jerusalem, which by interpretation is "the vision of peace," but the home of tyranny. for now the elders of the city have so manifestly conspired against him, that he can no longer find a place of refuge within it. this is not to be attributed to his helplessness but to his patience. he could be harbored there securely, seeing that no one can do him harm by violence, and that he has the power to incline the hearts of men whither he wills. for in that same city he freely did whatever he willed to do; and when he sent his disciples thither, and commanded them that they should loose the ass and the colt, and bring them to him, and said that no man would forbid them, he accomplished that which he said, although he was not ignorant of the conspiracy against himself. of which he saith to his disciples whom he sends, "go ye into the castle over against you"; that is, to the place which is equally opposed to god and to you; no longer to be called a city, an assembly of men living under the law, but a castle of tyrannical fortification. go confidently, saith he, into the place, though such it is, and though it is therefore opposed to you, and do with all security that which i command you. whence he adds, also: "and if any man say aught unto you, say that the lord hath need of them, and he will straightway send them away." a wonderful confidence of power! as if the lord, using his own right of command, lays his own injunction on those whom he knows already to have conspired for his death. thus he commands, thus he enjoins, thus he compels obedience. nor do they who are sent hesitate in accomplishing that which is laid upon them, confident as they are in the strength of the power of him who sends them. by that power they who were chiefly concerned in this conspiracy had been more than once ejected from the temple, where many were not able to resist one. and they, too, after this ejection and conspiracy, as we have said, when he was daily teaching in the temple, knew how intrepid he showed himself to be, into whose hands the father had given all things. and last of all, when he desired to celebrate the passover in the same night in which he had foreordained to be betrayed, he again sent his disciples whither he willed, and prepared a home for himself in the city itself, wherein he might keep the feast. he, then, who so often showed his power in such things as these, now also, if he had desired it, could have prepared a home wherever he would, and had no need to return to bethany. therefore, he did these two things intentionally: he showed that they whom he avoided were unworthy of his dwelling among them; and he gave himself, in the last hours of his life, to his beloved hosts, that they might have their own reception of him as the reward of their hospitality. the divine tragedy whether, therefore, christ is spoken of as about to be crowned or about to be crucified, it is said that he "went forth"; to signify that the jews, who were guilty of so great wickedness against him, were given over to reprobation, and that his grace would now pass to the vast extent of the gentiles, where the salvation of the cross, and his own exaltation by the gain of many peoples, in the place of the one nation of the jews, has extended itself. whence, also, to-day we rightly go forth to adore the cross in the open plain; showing mystically that both glory and salvation had departed from the jews, and had spread themselves among the gentiles. but in that we afterwards returned (in procession) to the place whence we had set forth, we signify that in the end of the world the grace of god will return to the jews; namely, when, by the preaching of enoch and elijah, they shall be converted to him. whence the apostle: "i would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, that blindness in part has fallen upon israel, until the fullness of the gentiles shall be come, and so all israel shall be saved." whence the place itself of calvary, where the lord was crucified, is now, as we know, contained in the city; whereas formerly it was without the walls. "the crown wherewith his mother crowned him in the day of his espousals, and in the day of the gladness of his heart." for thus kings are wont to exhibit their glory when they betroth queens to themselves, and celebrate the solemnities of their nuptials. now the day of the lord's crucifixion was, as it were, the day of his betrothal; because it was then that he associated the church to himself as his bride, and on the same day descended into hell, and, setting free the souls of the faithful, accomplished in them that which he had promised to the thief: "verily i say unto thee, to-day shalt thou be with me in paradise." "to-day," he says, of the gladness of his heart; because in his body he suffered the torture of pain; but while the flesh inflicted on him torments through the outward violence of men, his soul was filled with joy on account of our salvation, which he thus brought to pass. whence, also, when he went forth to his crucifixion, he stilled the women that were lamenting him, and said, "daughters of jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and your children." as if he said, "grieve not for me in these my sufferings, as if by their means i should fall into any real destruction; but rather lament for that heavy vengeance which hangs over you and your children, because of that which they have committed against me." so we, also, brethren, should rather weep for ourselves than for him; and for the faults which we have committed, not for the punishments which he bore. let us so rejoice with him and for him, as to grieve for our own offenses, and for that the guilty servant committed the transgression, while the innocent lord bore the punishment. he taught us to weep who is never said to have wept for himself, though he wept for lazarus when about to raise him from the dead. charles francis adams ( - ) the son of one president of the united states and the grand-son of another, charles francis adams won for himself in his own right a position of prominence in the history of his times. he studied law in the office of daniel webster, and after beginning practice was drawn into public life by his election to the massachusetts legislature in which he served from to . a whig in politics until the slavery issue became prominent, he was nominated for vice-president on the free soil ticket with van buren in . the republican party which grew out of the free soil movement elected him to congress as a representative of the third massachusetts district in and re-elected him in . in president lincoln appointed him minister to england, and he filled with credit that place which had been filled by his father and grandfather before him. he died november st, , leaving besides his own speeches and essays an edition of the works of john and john quincy adams in twenty-two volumes octavo. the states and the union (delivered in the house of representatives, january st, ) i confess, mr. speaker, that i should be very jealous, as a citizen of massachusetts, of any attempt on the part of virginia, for example, to propose an amendment to the constitution designed to rescind or abolish the bill of rights prefixed to our own form of government. yet i cannot see why such a proposition would be more unjustifiable than any counter proposition to abolish slavery in virginia, as coming from massachusetts. if i have in any way succeeded in mastering the primary elements of our forms of government, the first and fundamental idea is, the reservation to the people of the respective states of every power of regulating their own affairs not specifically surrendered in the constitution. the security of the state governments depends upon the fidelity with which this principle is observed. even the intimation of any such interference as i have mentioned by way of example could not be made in earnest without at once shaking the entire foundation of the whole confederated union. no man shall exceed me in jealousy of affection for the state rights of massachusetts. so far as i remember, nothing of this kind was ever thought of heretofore; and i see no reason to apprehend that what has not happened thus far will be more likely to happen hereafter. but if the time ever come when it does occur, i shall believe the dissolution of the system to be much more certain than i do at this moment. for these reasons, i cannot imagine that there is the smallest foundation for uneasiness about the intentions of any considerable number of men in the free states to interfere in any manner whatever with slavery in the states, much less by the hopeless mode of amending the constitution. to me it looks like panic, pure panic. how, then, is it to be treated? is it to be neglected or ridiculed? not at all. if a child in the nursery be frightened by the idea of a spectre, common humanity would prompt an effort by kindness to assuage the alarm. but in cases where the same feeling pervades the bosoms of multitudes of men, this imaginary evil grows up at once into a gigantic reality, and must be dealt with as such. it is at all times difficult to legislate against a possibility. the committee have reported a proposition intended to meet this case. it is a form of amendment of the constitution which, in substance, takes away no rights whatever which the free states ever should attempt to use, whilst it vests exclusively in the slave states the right to use them or not, as they shall think proper, the whole treatment of the subject to which they relate being conceded to be a matter of common interest to them, exclusively within their jurisdiction, and subject to their control. a time may arrive, in the course of years, when they will themselves desire some act of interference in a friendly and beneficent spirit. if so, they have the power reserved to them of initiating the very form in which it would be most welcome. if not, they have a security, so long as this government shall endure, that no sister state shall dictate any change against their will. i have now considered all the alleged grievances which have thus far been brought to our attention, . the personal liberty laws, which never freed a slave. . exclusion from a territory which slaveholders will never desire to occupy. . apprehension of an event which will never take place. for the sake of these three causes of complaint, all of them utterly without practical result, the slaveholding states, unquestionably the weakest section of this great confederacy, are voluntarily and precipitately surrendering the realities of solid power woven into the very texture of a government that now keeps nineteen million freemen, willing to tolerate, and, in one sense, to shelter, institutions which, but for that, would meet with no more sympathy among them than they now do in the remainder of the civilized world. for my own part, i must declare that, even supposing these alleged grievances to be more real than i represent them, i think the measures of the committee dispose of them effectually and forever. they contribute directly all that can be legitimately done by congress, and they recommend it to the legislatures of the states to accomplish the remainder. why, then, is it that harmony is not restored? the answer is, that you are not satisfied with this settlement, however complete. you must have more guarantees in the constitution. you must make the protection and extension of slavery in the territories now existing, and hereafter to be acquired, a cardinal doctrine of our great charter. without that, you are determined to dissolve the union. how stands the case, then? we offer to settle the question finally in all of the present territory that you claim, by giving you every chance of establishing slavery that you have any right to require of us. you decline to take the offer, because you fear it will do you no good. slavery will not go there. but, if that be true, what is the use of asking for the protection anyhow, much less in the constitution? why require protection where you will have nothing to protect? all you appear to desire it for is new mexico. nothing else is left. yet, you will not accept new mexico at once, because ten years of experience have proved to you that protection has been of no use thus far. but, if so, how can you expect that it will be of so much more use hereafter as to make it worth dissolving the union? but, if we pass to the other condition, is it any more reasonable? are we going to fight because we cannot agree upon the mode of disposing of our neighbor's lands? are we to break up the union of these states, cemented by so many years of common sufferings, and resplendent with so many years of common glory, because it is insisted that we should incorporate into what we regard as the charter of our freedom a proclamation to the civilized world that we intend to grasp the territory of other nations whenever we can do it, for the purpose of putting into it certain institutions which some of us disapprove, and that, too, whether the people inhabiting that territory themselves approve of it or not? i am almost inclined to believe that they who first contrived this demand must have done so for the sake of presenting a condition which they knew beforehand must be rejected, or which, if accepted, must humiliate us in the dust forever. in point of fact, this proposal covers no question of immediate moment which may not be settled by another and less obnoxious one. why is it, then, persevered in, and the other rejected? the answer is obvious. you want the union dissolved. you want to make it impossible for honorable men to become reconciled. if it be, indeed, so, then on you, and you alone, shall rest the responsibility of what may follow. if the union be broken up, the reason why it happened shall remain on record forever. it was because you rejected one form of settling a question which might be offered and accepted with honor, in order to insist upon another which you knew we could not accept without disgrace. i answer for myself only when i say that, if the alternative to the salvation of the union be only that the people of the united states shall, before the christian nations of the earth, print in broad letters upon the front of their charter of republican government the dogma of slave propagandism over the remainder of the countries of the world, i will not consent to brand myself with what i deem such disgrace, let the consequences be what they may. but it is said that this answer closes the door of reconciliation. the slaveholding states will secede, and what then? this brings me to the last point which i desire to touch today, the proper course for the government to pursue in the face of these difficulties. some of the friends with whom i act have not hesitated to express themselves in favor of coercion; and they have drawn very gloomy pictures of the fatal consequences to the prosperity and security of the whole union that must ensue. for my own sake, i am glad that i do not partake so largely in these fears. i see no obstacle to the regular continuance of the government in not less than twenty states, and perhaps more, the inhabitants of which have not in a moment been deprived of that peculiar practical wisdom in the management of their affairs which is the secret of their past success. several new states will, before long, be ready to take their places with us and make good, in part, the loss of the old ones. the mission of furnishing a great example of free government to the nations of the earth will still be in our hands, impaired, i admit, but not destroyed; and i doubt not our power to accomplish it yet in spite of the temporary drawback. even the problem of coercion will go on to solve itself without our aid. for if the sentiment of disunion become so far universal and permanent in the dissatisfied states as to show no prospect of good from resistance, and there be no acts of aggression attempted on their part, i will not say that i may not favor the idea of some arrangement of a peaceful character, though i do not now see the authority under which it can be originated. the new confederacy can scarcely be other than a secondary power. it can never be a maritime state. it will begin with the necessity of keeping eight millions of its population to watch four millions, and with the duty of guarding, against the egress of the latter, several thousand miles of an exposed border, beyond which there will be no right of reclamation. of the ultimate result of a similar experiment, i cannot, in my own mind, have a moment's doubt. at the last session i ventured to place on record, in this house, a prediction by which i must abide, let the effect of the future on my sagacity be what it may. i have not yet seen any reason to doubt its accuracy. i now repeat it. the experiment will ignominiously fail. but there are exceptions to the adoption of this peaceful policy which it will not be wise to overlook. if there be violent and wanton attacks upon the persons or the property of the citizens of the united states or of their government, i see not how demands for immediate redress can be avoided. if any interruptions should be attempted of the regular channels of trade on the great water-courses or on the ocean, they cannot long be permitted. and if any considerable minorities of citizens should be persecuted or proscribed on account of their attachment to the union, and should call for protection, i cannot deny the obligation of this government to afford it. there are persons in many of the states whose patriotic declarations and honorable pledges of support of the union may bring down upon them more than the ill-will of their infatuated fellow-citizens. it would be impossible for the people of the united states to look upon any proscription of them with indifference. these are times which should bring together all men, by whatever party name they may have been heretofore distinguished, upon common ground. when i heard the gentlemen from virginia the other day so bravely and so forcibly urging their manly arguments in support of the union, the constitution, and the enforcement of the laws, my heart involuntarily bounded towards them as brethren sacredly engaged in a common cause. let them, said i to myself, accept the offered settlement of the differences that remain between us, on some fair basis like that proposed by the committee, and then, what is to prevent us all, who yet believe that the union must be preserved, from joining heart and hand our common forces to effect it? when the cry goes out that the ship is in danger of sinking, the first duty of every man on board, no matter what his particular vocation, is to lend all the strength he has to the work of keeping her afloat. what! shall it be said that we waver in the view of those who begin by trying to expunge the sacred memory of the fourth of july? shall we help them to obliterate the associations that cluster around the glorious struggle for independence, or stultify the labors of the patriots who erected this magnificent political edifice upon the adamantine base of human liberty? shall we surrender the fame of washington and laurens, of gadsden and the lees, of jefferson and madison, and of the myriads of heroes whose names are imperishably connected with the memory of a united people? never, never! charles francis adams, junior charles francis adams, jr. son of charles francis adams, keeps up the tradition of his family so well that, unless it is john adams himself, no other member of the family surpasses him as an orator. he was born in boston, may th, ; graduating at harvard and studying law in the office of r. h. dana, jr. his peaceful pursuits were interrupted by the civil war which he entered a first lieutenant, coming out a brevet-brigadier general. he was a chief of squadron in the gettysburg campaign and served in virginia afterwards. he was for six years president of the union pacific railroad and is well known both as a financier and as an author. the address on the battle of gettysburg is generally given as his masterpiece, but he has delivered a number of other orations of high and well-sustained eloquence. the battle of gettysburg (delivered at quincy, mass., july th, ) six years ago this anniversary, we, and not only we who stood upon the sacred and furrowed field of battle, but you and our whole country, were drawing breath after the struggle of gettysburg. for three long days we had stood the strain of conflict, and now, at last, when the nation's birthday dawned, the shattered rebel columns had suddenly withdrawn from our front, and we drew that long breath of deep relief which none have ever drawn who have not passed in safety through the shock of doubtful battle. nor was our country gladdened then by news from gettysburg alone. the army that day twined noble laurel garlands round the proud brow of the motherland. vicksburg was, thereafter, to be forever associated with the declaration of independence, and the glad anniversary rejoicings, as they rose from every town and village and city of the loyal north, mingled with the last sullen echoes that died away from our cannon over cemetery ridge, and were answered by glad shouts of victory from the far southwest. to all of us of this generation, --and especially to such of us as were ourselves part of those great events,--this celebration, therefore, now has and must ever retain a special significance. it belonged to us, as well as to our fathers. as upon this day ninety-three years ago this nation was brought into existence through the efforts of others, so upon this day six years ago i am disposed to believe through our own efforts, it dramatically touched the climax of its great argument. the time that has since elapsed enables us now to look back and to see things in their true proportions. we begin to realize that the years we have so recently passed through, though we did not appreciate it at the time, were the heroic years of american history. now that their passionate excitement is over, it is pleasant to dwell upon them; to recall the rising of a great people; the call to arms as it boomed from our hilltops and clashed from our steeples; the eager patriotism of that fierce april which kindled new sympathies in every bosom, which caused the miser to give freely of his wealth, the wife with eager hands to pack the knapsack of her husband, and mothers with eyes glistening with tears of pride, to look out upon the shining bayonets of their boys; then came the frenzy of impatience and the defeat entailed upon us by rashness and inexperience, before our nation settled down, solidly and patiently, to its work, determined to save itself from destruction; and then followed the long weary years of doubt and mingled fear and hope, until at last that day came six years ago which we now celebrate-- the day which saw the flood, tide of rebellion reach the high-water mark, whence it never after ceased to recede. at the moment, probably, none of us, either at home or at the seat of war, realized the grandeur of the situation, the dramatic power of the incidents, or the titanic nature of the conflict. to you who were at home, mothers, fathers, wives, sisters, brothers, citizens of the common country, if nothing else, the agony of suspense, the anxiety, the joy, and, too often, the grief which was to know no end, which marked the passage of those days, left little either of time or inclination to dwell upon aught save the horrid reality of the drama. to others who more immediately participated in those great events, the daily vexations and annoyances--the hot and dusty day --the sleepless, anxious night--the rain upon the unsheltered bivouac--the dead lassitude which succeeded the excitement of action --the cruel orders which recognized no fatigue and made no allowance for labors undergone--all these small trials of the soldier's life made it possible to but few to realize the grandeur of the drama to which they were playing a part. yet we were not wholly oblivious of it. now and then i come across strange evidences of this in turning over the leaves of the few weather-stained, dogeared volumes which were the companions of my life in camp. the title page of one bears witness to the fact that it was my companion at gettysburg, and in it i recently found some lines of browning's noble poem of 'saul' marked and altered to express my sense of our situation, and bearing date upon this very fifth of july. the poet had described in them the fall of snow in the springtime from a mountain, under which nestled a valley; the altering of a few words made them well describe the approach of our army to gettysburg. "fold on fold, all at once, we crowded thundrously down to your feet; and there fronts yon, stark black but alive yet, your army of old with its rents, the successive bequeathing of conflicts untold. yea, each harm got in fighting your battles, each furrow and scar of its head thrust twixt you and the tempest--all hail, here we are." and there we were, indeed, and then and there was enacted such a celebration as i hope may never again be witnessed there or elsewhere on another fourth of july. even as i stand here before you, through the lapse of years and the shifting experiences of the recent past, visions and memories of those days rise thick and fast before me. we did, indeed, crowd thundrously down to their feet. of the events of those three terrible days i may speak with feeling and yet with modesty, for small, indeed, was the part which those with whom i served were called upon to play. when those great bodies of infantry drove together in the crash of battle, the clouds of cavalry which had hitherto covered up their movements were swept aside to the flanks. our work for the time was done, nor had it been an easy or a pleasant work. the road to gettysburg had been paved with our bodies and watered with our blood. three weeks before, in the middle days of june, i, a captain of cavalry, had taken the field at the head of one hundred mounted men, the joy and pride of my life. through twenty days of almost incessant conflict the hand of death had been heavy upon us, and now, upon the eve of gettysburg, thirty-four of the hundred only remained, and our comrades were dead on the field of battle, or languishing in hospitals, or prisoners in the hands of the enemy. six brave young fellows we had buried in one grave where they fell on the heights of aldie. it was late on the evening of the first of july, that there came to us rumors of heavy fighting at gettysburg, nearly forty miles away. the regiment happened then to be detached, and its orders for the second were to move in the rear of sedgwick's corps and see that no man left the column. all that day we marched to the sound of the cannon. sedgwick, very grim and stern, was pressing forward his tired men, and we soon saw that for once there would be no stragglers from the ranks. as the day grew old and as we passed rapidly up from the rear to the head of the hurrying column, the roar of battle grew more distinct, until at last we crowned a hill, and the contest broke upon us. across the deep valley, some two miles away, we could see the white smoke of the bursting shells, while below the sharp incessant rattle of the musketry told of the fierce struggle that was going on. before us ran the straight, white, dusty road, choked with artillery, ambulances, caissons, ammunition trains, all pressing forward to the field of battle, while mixed among them, their bayonets gleaming through the dust like wavelets on a river of steel, tired, foot-sore, hungry, thirsty, begrimed with sweat and dust, the gallant infantry of sedgwick's corps hurried to the sound of the cannon as men might have flocked to a feast. moving rapidly forward, we crossed the brook which ran so prominently across the map of the field of battle, and halted on its further side to await our orders. hardly had i dismounted from my horse when, looking back, i saw that the head of the column had reached the brook and deployed and halted on its other bank, and already the stream was filled with naked men shouting with pleasure as they washed off the sweat of their long day's march. even as i looked, the noise of the battle grew louder, and soon the symptoms of movement were evident. the rappel was heard, the bathers hurriedly clad themselves, the ranks were formed, and the sharp, quick snap of the percussion caps told us the men were preparing their weapons for action. almost immediately a general officer rode rapidly to the front of the line, addressed to it a few brief, energetic words, the short sharp order to move by the flank was given, followed immediately by the "double-quick"; the officer placed himself at the head of the column, and that brave infantry which had marched almost forty miles since the setting of yesterday's sun,--which during that day had hardly known either sleep, or food, or rest, or shelter from the july heat,--now, as the shadows grew long, hurried forward on the run to take its place in the front of battle and to bear up the reeling fortunes of the day. it is said that at the crisis of solferino, marshal mcmahon appeared with his corps upon the field of battle, his men having run for seven miles. we need not go abroad for examples of endurance and soldierly bearing. the achievement of sedgwick and the brave sixth corps, as they marched upon the field of gettysburg on that second day of july, far excels the vaunted efforts of the french zouaves. twenty-four hours later we stood on that same ground. many dear friends had yielded up their young lives during the hours which had elapsed, but, though twenty thousand fellow-creatures were wounded or dead around us, though the flood gates of heaven seemed opened and the torrents fell upon the quick and the dead, yet the elements seemed electrified with a certain magic influence of victory, and as the great army sank down over-wearied in its tracks it felt that the crisis and danger was passed,--that gettysburg was immortal. may i not, then, well express the hope that never again may we or ours be called upon so to celebrate this anniversary? and yet now that the passionate hopes and fears of those days are all over,-- now that the grief which can never be forgotten is softened and modified by the soothing hand of time,--now that the distracting doubts and untold anxieties are buried and almost forgotten,--we love to remember the gathering of the hosts, to bear again in memory the shock of battle, and to wonder at the magnificence of the drama. the passion and the excitement are gone, and we can look at the work we have done and pronounce upon it. i do not fear the sober second judgment. our work was a great work,--it was well done, and it was done thoroughly. some one has said, "happy is the people which has no history." not so! as it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, so it is better to have lived greatly, even though we have suffered greatly, than to have passed a long life of inglorious ease. our generation,--yes, we ourselves have been a part of great things. we have suffered greatly and greatly rejoiced; we have drunk deep of the cup of joy and of sorrow; we have tasted the agony of defeat, and we have supped full with the pleasures of victory. we have proved ourselves equal to great deeds, and have learnt what qualities were in us, which in more peaceful times we ourselves did not suspect. and, indeed, i would here in closing fain address a few words to such of you, if any such are here, who like myself may nave been soldiers during the war of the rebellion. we should never more be partisans. we have been a part of great events in the service of the common country, we have worn her uniform, we have received her pay and devoted ourselves to the death, if need be, in her service. when we were blackened by the smoke of antietam, we did not ask or care whether those who stood shoulder to shoulder beside us, whether he who led us, whether those who sustained us, were democrats or republicans, conservatives or radicals; we asked only that they might prove as true as was the steel we grasped, and as brave as we ourselves would fain have been. when we stood like a wall of stone vomiting fire from the heights of gettysburg,--nailed to our position through three long days of mortal hell,--did we ask each other whether that brave officer who fell while gallantly leading the counter-charge--whether that cool gunner steadily serving his piece before us amid the storm of shot and shell--whether the poor wounded, mangled, gasping comrades, crushed and torn, and dying in agony around us--had voted for lincoln or douglas, for breckenridge or bell? we then were full of other thoughts. we prized men for what they were worth to the common country of us all, and recked not of empty words. was the man true, was he brave, was he earnest, was all we thought of then;--not, did he vote or think with us, or label himself with our party name? this lesson let us try to remember. we cannot give to party all that we once offered to country, but our duty is not yet done. we are no longer, what we have been, the young guard of the republic; we have earned an exemption from the dangers of the field and camp, and the old musket or the crossed sabres hang harmless over our winter fires, never more to be grasped in these hands henceforth devoted to more peaceful labors; but the duties of the citizen, and of the citizen who has received his baptism in fire, are still incumbent upon us. though young in years, we should remember that henceforth, and as long as we live in the land, we are the ancients,--the veterans of the republic. as such, it is for us to protect in peace what we preserved in war; it is for us to look at all things with a view to the common country and not to the exigencies of party politics; it is for us ever to bear in mind the higher allegiance we have sworn, and to remember that he who has once been a soldier of the motherland degrades himself forever when he becomes the slave of faction. then at last, if through life we ever bear these lessons freshly in mind will it be well for us, will it be well for our country, will it be well for those whose names we bear, that our bones also do not molder with those of our brave comrades beneath the sods of gettysburg, or that our graves do not look down on the swift-flowing mississippi from the historic heights of vicksburg? john adams ( - ) john adams, second president of the united states, was not a man of the strong emotional temperament which so often characterizes the great orator. he was fitted by nature for a student and scholar rather than to lead men by the direct appeal the orator makes to their emotions, their passions, or their judgment his inclinations were towards the church; but after graduating from harvard college, which he entered at the age of sixteen, he had a brief experience as a school-teacher and found it so distasteful to him that he adopted the law as a relief, without waiting to consult his inclinations further. "necessity drove me to this determination," he writes, "but my inclination was to preach." he began the practice of law in his native village of braintree, massachusetts, and took no prominent part in public affairs until , when he appeared as counsel for the town of boston in proceedings growing out of the stamp act difficulties. from this time on, his name is constantly associated with the great events of the revolution. that be never allowed his prejudices as a patriot to blind him to his duties as a lawyer, he showed by appearing as counsel for the british soldiers who killed crispus attucks, samuel gray, and others, in the boston riot of . he was associated in this case with josiah quincy, and the two distinguished patriots conducted the case with such ability that the soldiers were acquitted--as no doubt they should have been. elected a member of the continental congress, mr. adams did work in it which identified him in an enduring way with the formative period of republican institutions in america. this must be remembered in passing upon his acts when as president, succeeding washington, he is brought into strong contrast with the extreme republicans of the french school. in the continental congress, contrasted with english royalists and conservatives mr. adams himself appeared an extremist, as later on, under the same law of contrast, he appeared conservative when those who were sometimes denounced as "jacobins" and "levellers" were fond of denouncing him as a disguised royalist. prior to his administration as president, he had served as commissioner to the court of france, "minister plenipotentiary for the purpose of negotiating a treaty of peace and commerce with great britain"; commissioner to conclude a treaty with the states-general of holland; minister to england after the conclusion of peace, and finally as vice-president under washington. his services in every capacity in which he was engaged for his country showed his great ability and zeal: but in the struggle over the alien and sedition laws his opponents gave him no quarter and when he retired from the presidency it was with the feeling, shared to some extent by his great opponent jefferson, that republics never have a proper regard for the services and sacrifices of statesmen, though they are only too ready to reward military heroes beyond their deserts. the author of 'familiar letters on public affairs' writes of mr. adams:-- "he was a man of strong mind, great learning, and eminent ability to use knowledge both in speech and writing. he was ever a firm believer in christianity, not from habit and example but from a diligent investigation of its proofs. he had an uncompromising regard for his own opinion and was strongly contrasted with washington in this respect. he seemed to have supposed that his opinions could not have been corrected by those of other men or bettered by any comparison." it might be inferred from this that mr. adams was as obstinate in prejudice as in opinion, but as he had demonstrated to the contrary in taking the unpopular cause of the british soldiers at the beginning of his public career, he showed it still more strikingly by renewing and continuing until his death a friendship with jefferson which had been interrupted by the fierce struggle over the alien and sedition act. inaugural address (march th. ) when it was first perceived, in early times, that no middle course for america remained, between unlimited submission to a foreign legislature and a total independence of its claims, men of reflection were less apprehensive of danger from the formidable powers of fleets and armies they must determine to resist, than from those contests and dissensions which would certainly arise concerning the forms of government to be instituted over the whole and over the parts of this extensive country. relying, however, on the purity of their attentions, the justice of their cause, and the integrity and intelgence of the people, under an over-ruling providence, which had so signally protected this country from the first, the representatives of this nation, then consisting of little more than half its present numbers, not only broke to pieces the chains which were forging, and the rod of iron that was lifted up, but frankly cut asunder the ties which had bound them, and launched into an ocean of uncertainty. the zeal and ardor of the people during the revolutionary war, supplying the place of government, commanded a degree of order, sufficient, at least, for the temporary preservation of society. the confederation, which was early felt to be necessary, was prepared from the models of the bavarian and helvetic confederacies, the only examples which remain, with any detail and precision, in history, and certainly the only ones which the people at large had ever considered. but, reflecting on the striking difference, in so many particulars, between this country and those where a courier may go from the seat of government to the frontier in a single day, it was then certainly foreseen by some who assisted in congress at the formation of it, that it could not be durable. negligence of its regulations, inattention to its recommendations, if not disobedience to its authority, not only in individuals but in states, soon appeared with their melancholy consequences-- universal languor, jealousies, rivalries of states, decline of navigation and commerce, discouragement of necessary manufactures, universal fall in the value of lands and their produce, contempt of public and private faith, loss of consideration and credit with foreign nations; and, at length, in discontents, animosities, combinations, partial conventions, and insurrection, threatening some great national calamity. in this dangerous crisis, the people of america were not abandoned by their usual good sense, presence of mind, resolution, or integrity. measures were pursued to concert a plan to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty. the public disquisitions, discussions, and deliberations issued in the present happy constitution of government. employed in the service of my country abroad during the whole course of these transactions, i first saw the constitution of the united states in a foreign country. irritated by no literary altercation, animated by no public debate, heated by no party animosity, i read it with great satisfaction, as the result of good heads, prompted by good hearts; as an experiment better adapted to the genius, character, situation, and relations of this nation and country than any which had ever been proposed or suggested. in its general principles and great outlines, it was conformable to such a system of government as i had ever most esteemed, and in some states, my own native state in particular, had contributed to establish. claiming a right of suffrage common with my fellow-citizens in the adoption or rejection of a constitution, which was to rule me and my posterity, as well as them and theirs, i did not hesitate to express my approbation of it on all occasions, in public and in private. it was not then, nor has been since, any objection to it, in my mind, that the executive and senate were not more permanent. nor have i entertained a thought of promoting any alteration in it, but such as the people themselves, in the course of their experience, should see and feel to be necessary or expedient, and by their representatives in congress and the state legislature, according to the constitution itself, adopt and ordain. returning to the bosom of my country, after a painful separation from it for ten years, i had the honor to be elected to a station under the new order of things; and i have repeatedly laid myself under the most serious obligations to support the constitution. the operation of it has equaled the most sanguine expectations of its friends; and from an habitual attention to it, satisfaction in its administration, and delight in its effects upon the peace, order, prosperity, and happiness of the nation, i have acquired an habitual attachment to it, and veneration for it. what other form of government, indeed, can so well deserve our esteem and love? there may be little solidity in an ancient idea that congregations of men into cities and nations are the most pleasing objects in the sight of superior intelligences; but this is very certain, that to a benevolent human mind there can be no spectacle presented by any nation more pleasing, more noble, majestic, or august, than an assembly like that which has so often been seen in this and the other chamber of congress--of a government in which the executive authority, as well as that of all the branches of the legislature, are exercised by citizens selected at regular periods by their neighbors, to make and execute laws for the general good. can any thing essential, any thing more, than mere ornament and decoration be added to this by robes or diamonds? can authority be more amiable or respectable when it descends from accident or institutions established in remote antiquity than when it springs fresh from the hearts and judgments of an honest and enlightened people? for it is the people that are represented; it is their power and majesty that is reflected, and only for their good, in every legitimate government, under whatever form it may appear. the existence of such a government as ours for any length of time is a full proof of a general dissemination of knowledge and virtue throughout the whole body of the people. and what object of consideration more pleasing than this can be presented to the human mind? if natural pride is ever justifiable or excusable, it is when it springs, not from power or riches, grandeur or glory, but from conviction of national innocence, information, and benevolence. in the midst of these pleasing ideas, we should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties--if anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, fair, virtuous, and independent elections. if an election is to be determined by a majority of a single vote, and that can be procured by a party through artifice or corruption, the government may be the choice of a party, for its own ends, not of the nation for the national good. if that solitary suffrage can be obtained by foreign nations by flattery or menaces, by fraud or violence, by terror, intrigue, or venality, the government may not be the choice of the american people, but of foreign nations. it may be foreign nations who govern us, and not we, the people, who govern ourselves; and candid men will acknowledge that, in such cases, choice would have little advantage to boast of over lot or chance. such is the amiable and interesting system of government (and such are some of the abuses to which it may be exposed) which the people of america have exhibited to the admiration and anxiety of the wise and virtuous of all nations for eight years, under the administration of a citizen, who, by a long course of great actions, regulated by prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude, conducting a people inspired with the same virtues, and animated with the same ardent patriotism and love of liberty, to independence and peace, to increasing wealth and unexampled prosperity, has merited the gratitude of his fellow-citizens, commanded the highest praises of foreign nations, and secured immortal glory with posterity. in that retirement, which is his voluntary choice, may he long live to enjoy the delicious recollection of his services--the gratitude of mankind; the happy fruits of them to himself and the world, which are daily increasing, and that splendid prospect of the future fortunes of his country, which is opening from year to year. his name may be still a rampart and the knowledge that he lives a bulwark against all open or secret enemies of his country's peace. this example has been recommended to the imitation of his successors, by both houses of congress, and by the voice of the legislatures and the people, throughout the nation. on this subject it might become me better to be silent, or to speak with diffidence; but as something may be expected, the occasion, i hope, will be admitted as an apology, if i venture to say, that if a preference upon principle, of a free republican government, formed upon long and serious reflection, after a diligent and impartial inquiry after truth; if an attachment to the constitution of the united states, and a conscientious determination to support it, until it shall be altered by the judgments and wishes of the people, expressed in the mode prescribed in it; if a respectful attention to the constitution of the individual states, and a constant caution and delicacy towards the state governments; if an equal and impartial regard to the rights, interests, honor, and happiness of all the states in the union, without preference or regard to a northern or southern, eastern or western position, their various political opinions on essential points, or their personal attachments; if a love of virtuous men, of all parties and denominations; if a love of science or letters and a wish to patronize every rational effort to encourage schools, colleges, universities, academies, and every institution of propagating knowledge, virtue, and religion among all classes of people, not only for their benign influence on the happiness of life, in all its stages and classes, and of society in all its forms, but as the only means of preserving our constitution from its natural enemies, the spirit of sophistry, the spirit of party, the spirit of intrigue, profligacy, and corruption, and the pestilence of foreign influence, which is the angel of destruction to elective governments, if a love of equal laws, of justice and humanity, in the interior administration; if an inclination to improve agriculture, commerce, and manufactures for necessity, convenience, and defense; if a spirit of equity and humanity towards the aboriginal nations of america, and a disposition to ameliorate their condition by inclining them to be more friendly to us, and our citizens to be more friendly to them; if an inflexible determination to maintain peace and inviolable faith with all nations, and the system of neutrality and impartiality among the belligerent powers of europe which has been adopted by the government, and so solemnly sanctioned by both houses of congress, and applauded by the legislatures of the states and by public opinion, until it shall be otherwise ordained by congress; if a personal esteem for the french nation, formed in a residence of seven years chiefly among them, and a sincere desire to preserve the friendship, which has been so much for the honor and interest of both nations; if, while the conscious honor and integrity of the people of america and the internal sentiment of their own power and energies must be preserved, an earnest endeavor to investigate every just cause, and remove every colorable pretense of complaint; if an intention to pursue, by amicable negotiation, a reparation for the injuries that have been committed on the commerce of our fellow-citizens, by whatever nation; and, if success cannot be obtained, to lay the facts before the legislature, that they may consider what further measures the honor and interest of the government and its constituents demand; if a resolution to do justice, as far as may depend upon me, at all times and to all nations, and maintain peace, friendship, and benevolence with all the world; if an unshaken confidence in the honor, spirit, and resources of the american people, on which i have so often hazarded my all, and never been deceived; if elevated ideas of the high destinies of this country, and of my own duties towards it, founded on a knowledge of the moral principles and intellectual improvements of the people, deeply engraven on my mind in early life, and not obscured, but exalted, by experience and age; and with humble reverence, i feel it my duty to add, if a veneration for the religion of the people who profess and call themselves christians, and a fixed resolution to consider a decent respect for christianity among the best recommendations for the public service, can enable me, in any degree, to comply with your wishes, it shall be my strenuous endeavor that this sagacious injunction of the two houses shall not be without effect. with this great example before me--with the sense and spirit, the faith and honor, the duty and interest of the same american people, pledged to support the constitution of the united states, i entertain no doubt of its continuance in all its energy; and my mind is prepared, without hesitation, to lay myself under the most solemn obligations to support it to the utmost of my power. and may that being who is supreme over all, the patron of order, the fountain of justice, and the protector, in all ages of the world, of virtuous liberty, continue his blessing upon this nation and its government, and give it all possible success and duration, consistent with the ends of his providence! the boston massacre (first day's speech in defense of the british soldiers accused of murdering attucks, gray and others, in the boston riot of ) _may_ _if_ _please_ _your_ _honor_,_ and_ _you_,_ gentlemen_ _of_ _the_ _jury_:-- i am for the prisoners at the bar, and shall apologize for it only in the words of the marquis beccaria:-- "if i can but be the instrument of preserving one life, his blessings and tears of transport shall be a sufficient consolation for me for the contempt of all mankind." as the prisoners stand before you for their lives, it may be proper to recollect with what temper the law requires we should proceed to this trial. the form of proceeding at their arraignment has discovered that the spirit of the law upon such occasions is conformable to humanity, to common sense and feeling; that it is all benignity and candor. and the trial commences with the prayer of the court, expressed by the clerk, to the supreme judge of judges, empires, and worlds, "god send you a good deliverance." we find in the rules laid down by the greatest english judges, who have been the brightest of mankind: we are to look upon it as more beneficial that many guilty persons should escape unpunished than one innocent should suffer. the reason is, because it is of more importance to the community that innocence should be protected than it is that guilt should be punished; for guilt and crimes are so frequent in the world that all of them cannot be punished; and many times they happen in such a manner that it is not of much consequence to the public whether they are punished or not. but when innocence itself is brought to the bar and condemned, especially to die, the subject will exclaim, "it is immaterial to me whether i behave well or ill, for virtue itself is no security." and if such a sentiment as this should take place in the mind of the subject, there would be an end to all security whatsoever, i will read the words of the law itself. the rules i shall produce to you from lord chief-justice hale, whose character as a lawyer, a man of learning and philosophy, and a christian, will be disputed by nobody living; one of the greatest and best characters the english nation ever produced. his words are these:-- ( h. h. p. c.): _tutius_ _semper_ _est_ _errare_, _in_ _acquietando_ _quam_ _in_ _puniendo_, _ex_ _parte_ _misericordiae_ _quam_ _ex_ _parte_ _justitiae_.--"it is always safer to err in acquitting than punishing, on the part of mercy than the part of justice." the next is from the same authority, :-- _tutius_ _erratur_ _ex_ _parte_ _mitiori_,--"it is always safer to err on the milder side, the side of mercy." (h. h. p. c. ): "the best rule in doubtful cases is rather to incline to acquittal than conviction." and on page :-- _quod_ _dubitas_, _ne_ _feceris_.--"where you are doubtful, never act; that is, if you doubt of the prisoner's guilt, never declare him guilty." this is always the rule, especially in cases of life. another rule from the same author, , where he says:-- "in some cases presumptive evidences go far to prove a person guilty, though there is no express proof of the fact to be committed by him; but then it must be very warily expressed, for it is better five guilty persons should escape unpunished than one innocent person should die." the next authority shall be from another judge of equal character, considering the age wherein he lived; that is, chancellor fortescue in 'praise of the laws of england,' page . this is a very ancient writer on the english law. his words are:-- "indeed, one would rather, much rather, that twenty guilty persons escape punishment of death, than one innocent person be condemned and suffer capitally." lord chief-justice hale says:-- "it is better five guilty persons escape, than one innocent person suffer." lord chancellor fortescue, you see, carries the matter further, and says:-- "indeed, one had rather, much rather, that twenty guilty persons should escape than one innocent person suffer capitally." indeed, this rule is not peculiar to the english law; there never was a system of laws in the world in which this rule did not prevail. it prevailed in the ancient roman law, and, which is more remarkable, it prevails in the modern roman law. even the judges in the courts of inquisition, who with racks, burnings, and scourges examine criminals,--even there they preserve it as a maxim, that it is better the guilty should escape punishment than the innocent suffer. _satius_ _esse_ _nocentem_ _absolvi_ _quam_ _innocentem_ _damnari_. this is the temper we ought to set out with, and these the rules we are to be governed by. and i shall take it for granted, as a first principle, that the eight prisoners at the bar had better be all acquitted, though we should admit them all to be guilty, than that any one of them should, by your verdict, be found guilty, being innocent. i shall now consider the several divisions of law under which the evidence will arrange itself. the action now before you is homicide; that is, the killing of one man by another. the law calls it homicide; but it is not criminal in all cases for one man to slay another. had the prisoners been on the plains of abraham and slain a hundred frenchmen apiece, the english law would have considered it as a commendable action, virtuous and praiseworthy; so that every instance of killing a man is not a crime in the eye of the law. there are many other instances which i cannot enumerate--an officer that executes a person under sentence of death, etc. so that, gentlemen, every instance of one man's killing another is not a crime, much less a crime to be punished with death. but to descend to more particulars. the law divides homicide into three branches; the first is "justifiable," the second "excusable," and the third "felonious." felonious homicide is subdivided into two branches; the first is murder, which is killing with malice aforethought; the second is manslaughter, which is killing a man on a sudden provocation. here, gentlemen, are four sorts of homicide; and you are to consider whether all the evidence amounts to the first, second, third or fourth of these heads. the fact was the slaying five unhappy persons that night. you are to consider whether it was justifiable, excusable, or felonious; and if felonious, whether it was murder or manslaughter. one of these four it must be. you need not divide your attention to any more particulars. i shall, however, before i come to the evidence, show you several authorities which will assist you and me in contemplating the evidence before us. i shall begin with justifiable homicide. if an officer, a sheriff, execute a man on the gallows, draw and quarter him, as in case of high treason, and cut off his head, this is justifiable homicide. it is his duty. so also, gentlemen, the law has planted fences and barriers around every individual; it is a castle round every man's person, as well as his house. as the love of god and our neighbor comprehends the whole duty of man, so self-love and social comprehend all the duties we owe to mankind; and the first branch is self-love, which is not only our indisputable right, but our clearest duty. by the laws of nature, this is interwoven in the heart of every individual. god almighty, whose law we cannot alter, has implanted it there, and we can annihilate ourselves as easily as root out this affection for ourselves. it is the first and strongest principle in our nature. justice blackstone calls it "the primary canon in the law of nature." that precept of our holy religion which commands us to love our neighbor as ourselves does not command us to love our neighbor better than ourselves, or so well. no christian divine has given this interpretation. the precept enjoins that our benevolence to our fellow-men should be as real and sincere as our affection to ourselves, not that it should be as great in degree. a man is authorized, therefore, by common sense and the laws of england, as well as those of nature, to love himself better than his fellow-subject. if two persons are cast away at sea, and get on a plank (a case put by sir francis bacon), and the plank is insufficient to hold them both, the one has a right to push the other off to save himself. the rules of the common law, therefore which authorize a man to preserve his own life at the expense of another's, are not contradicted by any divine or moral law. we talk of liberty and property, but if we cut up the law of self-defense, we cut up the foundations of both; and if we give up this, the rest is of very little value, and therefore this principle must be strictly attended to; for whatsoever the law pronounces in the case of these eight soldiers will be the law to other persons and after ages. all the persons that have slain mankind in this country from the beginning to this day had better have been acquitted than that a wrong rule and precedent should be established. i shall now read to you a few authorities on this subject of self-defense. foster, (in the case of justifiable self-defense): "the injured party may repel force with force in defense of person, habitation, or property, against one who manifestly intendeth and endeavoreth with violence or surprise to commit a known felony upon either. in these cases he is not obliged to retreat, but pursue his adversary till he finds himself out of danger; and a conflict between them he happeneth to kill, such killing is fiable." i must entreat you to consider the words of this authority. the injured person may repel force by force against any who endeavoreth to commit any kind of felony on him or his. here the rule is, i have a right to stand on my own defense, if you intend to commit felony. if any of the persons made an attack on these soldiers, with an intention to rob them, if it was but to take their hats feloniously, they had a right to kill them on the spot, and had no business to retreat. if a robber meet me in the street and command me to surrender my purse, i have a right to kill him without asking any questions. if a person commit a bare assault on me, this will not justify killing; but if he assault me in such a manner as to discover an intention to kill me, i have a right to destroy him, that i may put it out of his power to kill me. in the case you will have to consider, i do not know there was any attempt to steal from these persons; however, there were some persons concerned who would, probably enough, have stolen, if there had been anything to steal, and many were there who had no such disposition. but this is not the point we aim at. the question is, are you satisfied the people made the attack in order to kill the soldiers? if you are satisfied that the people, whoever they were, made that assault with a design to kill or maim the soldiers, this was such an assault as will justify the soldiers killing in their own defense. further, it seems to me, we may make another question, whether you are satisfied that their real intention was to kill or maim, or not? if any reasonable man in the situation of one of these soldiers would have had reason to believe in the time of it, that the people came with an intention to kill him, whether you have this satisfaction now or not in your own minds, they were justifiable, at least excusable, in firing. you and i may be suspicious that the people who made this assault on the soldiers did it to put them to flight, on purpose that they might go exulting about the town afterwards in triumph; but this will not do. you must place yourselves in the situation of weems and killroy--consider yourselves as knowing that the prejudice of the world about you thought you came to dragoon them into obedience, to statutes, instructions, mandates, and edicts, which they thoroughly detested--that many of these people were thoughtless and inconsiderate, old and young, sailors and landsmen, negroes and mulattoes--that they, the soldiers, had no friends about them, the rest were in opposition to them; with all the bells ringing to call the town together to assist the people in king street, for they knew by that time that there was no fire; the people shouting, huzzaing, and making the mob whistle, as they call it, which, when a boy makes it in the street is no formidable thing, but when made by a multitude is a most hideous shriek, almost as terrible as an indian yell; the people crying, "kill them, kill them. knock them over," heaving snowballs, oyster shells, clubs, white-birch sticks three inches and a half in diameter; consider yourselves in this situation, and then judge whether a reasonable man in the soldiers' situation would not have concluded they were going to kill him. i believe if i were to reverse the scene, i should bring it home to our own bosoms. suppose colonel marshall when he came out of his own door and saw these grenadiers coming down with swords, etc., had thought it proper to have appointed a military watch; suppose he had assembled gray and attucks that were killed, or any other person in town, and appointed them in that situation as a military watch, and there had come from murray's barracks thirty or forty soldiers with no other arms than snowballs, cakes of ice, oyster shells, cinders, and clubs, and attacked this military watch in this manner, what do you suppose would have been the feelings and reasonings of any of our householders? i confess, i believe they would not have borne one-half of what the witnesses have sworn the soldiers bore, till they had shot down as many as were necessary to intimidate and disperse the rest; because the law does not oblige us to bear insults to the danger of our lives, to stand still with such a number of people around us, throwing such things at us, and threatening our lives, until we are disabled to defend ourselves. (foster, ): "where a known felony is attempted upon the person, be it to rob or murder, here the party assaulted may repel force with force, and even his own servant, then attendant on him, or any other person present, may interpose for preventing mischief, and if death ensue, the party so interposing will be justified. in this case nature and social duty co-operate." hawkins, p. c., chapter , section , towards the end:--"yet it seems that a private person, _a_ _fortiori_, an officer of justice, who happens unavoidably to kill another in endeavoring to defend himself from or suppress dangerous rioters, may justify the fact in as much as he only does his duty in aid of the public justice." section :--"and i can see no reason why a person, who, without provocation, is assaulted by another, in any place whatsoever, in such a manner as plainly shows an intent to murder him, as by discharging a pistol, or pushing at him with a drawn sword, etc., may not justify killing such an assailant, as much as if he had attempted to rob him. for is not he who attempts to murder me more injurious than he who barely attempts to rob me? and can it be more justifiable to fight for my goods than for my life?" and it is not only highly agreeable to reason that a man in such circumstances may lawfully kill another, but it seems also to be confirmed by the general tenor of our books, which, speaking of homicide _se_ _defendo_, suppose it done in some quarrel or affray. (hawkins, p. . section ); "and so, perhaps, the killing of dangerous rioters may be justified by any private persons, who cannot otherwise suppress them or defend themselves from them, inasmuch as every private person seems to be authorized by the law to arm himself for the purposes aforesaid." here every private person is authorized to arm himself; and on the strength of this authority i do not deny the inhabitants had a right to arm themselves at that time for their defense, not for offense. that distinction is material, and must be attended to. (hawkins, p. , section ): "and not only he who on an assault retreats to the wall, or some such strait, beyond which he can go no further before he kills the other, is judged by the law to act upon unavoidable necessity; but also he who being assaulted in such a manner and in such a place that he cannot go back without manifestly endangering his life, kills the other without retreating at all." (section ); "and an officer who kills one that insults him in the execution of his office, and where a private person that kills one who feloniously assaults him in the highway, may justify the fact without ever giving back at all." there is no occasion for the magistrate to read the riot act. in the case before you, i suppose you will be satisfied when you come to examine the witnesses and compare it with the rules of the common law, abstracted from all mutiny acts and articles of war, that these soldiers were in such a situation that they could not help themselves. people were coming from royal exchange lane, and other parts of the town, with clubs and cord-wood sticks; the soldiers were planted by the wail of the customhouse; they could not retreat; they were surrounded on all sides, for there were people behind them as well as before them; there were a number of people in the royal exchange lane; the soldiers were so near to the customhouse that they could not retreat, unless they had gone into the brick wall of it. i shall show you presently that all the party concerned in this unlawful design were guilty of what any one of them did; if anybody threw a snowball it was the act of the whole party; if any struck with a club or threw a club, and the club had killed anybody, the whole party would have been guilty of murder in the law. lord chief-justice holt, in mawgrige's case (keyling, ), says:-- "now, it has been held, that if a of his malice prepense assaults b to kill him, and b draws his sword and attacks a and pursues him, then a, for his safety, gives back and retreats to a wall, and b still pursuing him with his drawn sword, a in his defense kills b; this is murder in a. for a having malice against b, and in pursuance thereof endeavoring to kill him, is answerable for all the consequences of which he was the original cause. it is not reasonable for any man that is dangerously assaulted, and when he perceives his life in danger from his adversary, but to have liberty for the security of his own life, to pursue him that maliciously assaulted him; for he that has manifested that he has malice against another is not at to be trusted with a dangerous weapon in his hand. and so resolved by all the judges when they met at seargeant's inn, in preparation for my lord morley's trial." in the case here we will take montgomery, if you please, when he was attacked by the stout man with a stick, who aimed it at his head, with a number of people round him crying out, "kill them, kill them." had he not a right to kill the man? if all the party were guilty of the assault made by the stout man, and all of them had discovered malice in their hearts, had not montgomery a right, according to lord chief-justice holt, to put it out of their power to wreak their malice upon him? i will not at present look for any more authorities in the point of self-defense; you will be able to judge from these how far the law goes in justifying or excusing any person in defense of himself, or taking away the life of another who threatens him in life or limb. the next point is this: that in case of an unlawful assembly, all and every one of the assembly is guilty of all and every unlawful act committed by any one of that assembly in prosecution of the unlawful design set out upon. rules of law should be universally known, whatever effect they may have on politics; they are rules of common law, the law of the land; and it is certainly true, that wherever there is an unlawful assembly, let it consist of many persons or of a few, every man in it is guilty of every unlawful act committed by any one of the whole party, be they more or be they less, in pursuance of their unlawful design. this is the policy of the law; to discourage and prevent riots, insurrections, turbulence, and tumults. in the continual vicissitudes of human things, amidst the shocks of fortune and the whirls of passion that take place at certain critical seasons, even in the mildest government, the people are liable to run into riots and tumults. there are church-quakes and state-quakes in the moral and political world, as well as earthquakes, storms, and tempests in the physical. thus much, however, must be said in favor of the people and of human nature, that it is a general, if not a universal truth, that the aptitude of the people to mutinies, seditions, tumults, and insurrections, is in direct proportion to the despotism of the government. in governments completely despotic,--that is, where the will of one man is the only law, this disposition is most prevalent. in aristocracies next; in mixed monarchies, less than either of the former; in complete republics the least of all, and under the same form of governments as in a limited monarchy, for example, the virtue and wisdom of the administrations may generally be measured by the peace and order that are seen among the people. however this may be, such is the imperfection of all things in this world, that no form of government, and perhaps no virtue or wisdom in the administration, can at all times avoid riots and disorders among the people. now, it is from this difficulty that the policy of the law has framed such strong discouragements to secure the people against tumults; because, when they once begin, there is danger of their running to such excesses as will overturn the whole system of government. there is the rule from the reverend sage of the law, so often quoted before:-- ( h. h. p. c. ): "all present, aiding and assisting, are equally principal with him that gave the stroke whereof the party died. for though one gave the stroke, yet in interpretation of law it is the stroke of every person that was present, aiding and assisting." ( h. h. p. c. ): "if divers come with one assent to do mischief, as to kill, to rob or beat, and one doeth it, they are all principals in the felony. if many be present and one only give the stroke whereof the party dies, they are all principal, if they came for that purpose." now, if the party at dock square came with an intention only to beat the soldiers, and began to affray with them, and any of them had been accidentally killed, it would have been murder, because it was an unlawful design they came upon. if but one does it they are all considered in the eye of the law guilty; if any one gives the mortal stroke, they are all principals here, therefore there is a reversal of the scene. if you are satisfied that these soldiers were there on a lawful design, and it should be proved any of them shot without provocation, and killed anybody, he only is answerable for it. (first kale's pleas of the crown, h. h. p. c. ): "although if many come upon an unlawful design, and one of the company till one of the adverse party in pursuance of that design, all are principals; yet if many be together upon a lawful account, and one of the company kill another of the adverse party, without any particular abetment of the rest to this fact of homicide, they are not all guilty that are of the company, but only those that gave the stroke or actually abetted him to do it." ( h. h. p. c. ): "in case of a riotous assembly to rob or steal deer, or to do any unlawful act of violence, there the offense of one is the offense of all the company." (in another place, h. h. p. c. ): "the lord dacre and divers others went to steal deer in the park of one pellham. raydon, one of the company, killed the keeper in the park, the lord dacre and the rest of the company being in the other part of the park. yet it was adjudged murder in them all, and they died for it." (and he quotes crompton , dalton . p. .) "so that in so strong a case as this, where this nobleman set out to hunt deer in the ground of another, he was in one part of the park and his company in another part, yet they were all guilty of murder." the next is:-- (kale's pleas of the crown, h. h. p. c. ): "the case of drayton bassit; divers persons doing an unlawful act, all are guilty of what is done by one." (foster , ): "a general resolution against all opposers, whether such resolution appears upon evidence to have been actually and implicitly entered into by the confederates, or may reasonably be collected from their number, arms or behavior, at or before the scene of action, such resolutions so proved have always been considered as strong ingredients in cases of this kind. and in cases of homicide committed in consequence of them, every person present, in the sense of the law, when the homicide has been involved in the guilt of him that gave the mortal blow." (foster): "the cases of lord dacre, mentioned by hale, and of pudsey, reported by crompton and cited by hale, turned upon this point. the offenses they respectively stood charged with, as principals, were committed far out of their sight and hearing, and yet both were held to be present. it was sufficient that at the instant the facts were committed, they were of the same party and upon the same pursuit, and under the same engagements and expectations of mutual defense and support with those that did the facts." thus far i have proceeded, and i believe it will not be hereafter disputed by anybody, that this law ought to be known to every one who has any disposition to be concerned in an unlawful assembly, whatever mischief happens in the prosecution of the design they set out upon, all are answerable for it. it is necessary we should consider the definitions of some other crimes as well as murder; sometimes one crime gives occasion to another. an assault is sometimes the occasion of manslaughter, sometimes of excusable homicide. it is necessary to consider what is a riot, ( hawkins, ch. , section ): i shall give you the definition of it:-- "wheresoever more than three persons use force or violence, for the accomplishment of any design whatever, all concerned are rioters." were there not more than three persons in dock square? did they not agree to go to king street, and attack the main guard? where, then, is the reason for hesitation at calling it a riot? if we cannot speak the law as it is, where is our liberty? and this is law, that wherever more than three persons are gathered together to accomplish anything with force, it is a riot. ( hawkins, ch. , section ): "wherever more than three persons use force and violence, all who are concerned therein are rioters. but in some cases wherein the law authorizes force, it is lawful and commendable to use it. as for a sheriff [ and. poph. ], or constable [ h. , , ], or perhaps even for a private person [poph. , moore ], to assemble a competent number of people, in order with force to oppose rebels or enemies or rioters, and afterwards, with such force actually to suppress them." i do not mean to apply the word rebel on this occasion; i have no reason to suppose that ever there was one in boston, at least among the natives of the country; but rioters are in the same situation, as far as my argument is concerned, and proper officers may suppress rioters, and so may even private persons. if we strip ourselves free from all military laws, mutiny acts, articles of war and soldiers' oaths, and consider these prisoners as neighbors, if any of their neighbors were attacked in king street, they had a right to collect together to suppress this riot and combination. if any number of persons meet together at a fair or market, and happen to fall together by the ears, they are not guilty of a riot, but of a sudden affray. here is another paragraph, which i must read to you:-- ( hawkins, ch. , section ): "if a number of persons being met together at a fair or market, or on any other lawful or innocent occasion, happen, on a sudden quarrel, to fall together by the ears, they are not guilty of a riot, but of a sudden affray only, of which none are guilty but those who actually began it," etc. it would be endless, as well as superfluous, to examine whether every particular person engaged in a riot were in truth one of the first assembly or actually had a previous knowledge of the design thereof. i have endeavored to produce the best authorities, and to give you the rules of law in their words, for i desire not to advance anything of my own. i choose to lay down the rules of law from authorities which cannot be disputed. another point is this, whether and how far a private person may aid another in distress? suppose a press-gang should come on shore in this town and assault any sailor or householder in king street, in order to carry him on board one of his majesty's ships, and impress him without any warrant as a seaman in his majesty's service; how far do you suppose the inhabitants would think themselves warranted by law to interpose against that lawless press-gang? i agree that such a press-gang would be as unlawful an assembly as that was in king street. if they were to press an inhabitant and carry him off for a sailor, would not the inhabitants think themselves warranted by law to interpose in behalf of their fellow-citizen? now, gentlemen, if the soldiers had no right to interpose in the relief of the sentry, the inhabitants would have no right to interpose with regard to the citizen, for whatever is law for a soldier is law for a sailor and for a citizen. they all stand upon an equal footing in this respect. i believe we shall not have it disputed that it would be lawful to go into king street and help an honest man there against the press-master. we have many instances in the books which authorize it. now, suppose you should have a jealousy in your minds that the people who made this attack upon the sentry had nothing in their intention more than to take him off his post, and that was threatened by some. suppose they intended to go a little further, and tar and feather him, or to ride him (as the phrase is in hudibras), he would have had a good right to have stood upon his defense--the defense of his liberty; and if he could not preserve that without the hazard of his own life, he would have been warranted in depriving those of life who were endeavoring to deprive him of his. that is a point i would not give up for my right hand--nay, for my life. well, i say, if the people did this, or if this was only their intention, surely the officers and soldiers had a right to go to his relief; and therefore they set out upon a lawful errand. they were, therefore, a lawful assembly, if we only consider them as private subjects and fellow-citizens, without regard to mutiny acts, articles of war, or soldiers' oaths. a private person, or any number of private persons, has a right to go to the assistance of a fellow-subject in distress or danger of his life, when assaulted and in danger from a few or a multitude. (keyl. ): "if a man perceives another by force to be injuriously treated, pressed, and restrained of his liberty, though the person abused doth not complain or call for aid or assistance, and others, out of compassion, shall come to his rescue, and kill any of those that shall so restrain him, that is manslaughter." keyl.: "a and others without any warrant impress b to serve the king at sea. b quietly submitted, and went off with the pressmaster. hugett and the others pursued them, and required a sight of their warrant; but they showing a piece of paper that was not a sufficient warrant, thereupon hugett with the others drew their swords, and the pressmasters theirs, and so there was a combat, and those who endeavored to rescue the pressed man killed one of the pretended pressmasters. this was but manslaughter; for when the liberty of one subject is invaded, it affects all the rest. it is a provocation to all people, as being of ill example and pernicious consequences." lord raymond, . the queen _versus_ tooley _et_ _al_. lord chief-justice holt says: "the prisoner (i.e. tooley) in this had sufficient provocation; for if one be impressed upon an unlawful authority, it is a sufficient provocation to all people out of compassion; and where the liberty of the subject is invaded, it is a provocation to all the subjects of england, etc.; and surely a man ought to be concerned for magna charta and the laws: and if any one, against the law, imprisons a man, he is an offender against magna charta." i am not insensible to sir michael foster's observations on these cases, but apprehend they do not invalidate the authority of them as far as i now apply them to the purposes of my argument. if a stranger, a mere fellow-subject, may interpose to defend the liberty, he may, too, defend the life of another individual. but, according to the evidence, some imprudent people, before the sentry, proposed to take him off his post; others threatened his life; and intelligence of this was carried to the main guard before any of the prisoners turned out. they were then ordered out to relieve the sentry; and any of our fellow-citizens might lawfully have gone upon the same errand. they were, therefore, a lawful assembly. i have but one point of law more to consider, and that is this: in the case before you i do not pretend to prove that every one of the unhappy persons slain was concerned in the riot. the authorities read to you just now say it would be endless to prove whether every person that was present and in a riot was concerned in planning the first enterprise or not. nay, i believe it but justice to say some were perfectly innocent of the occasion. i have reason to suppose that one of them was--mr. maverick. he was a very worthy young man, as he has been represented to me, and had no concern in the rioters' proceedings of that night; and i believe the same may be said in favor of one more at least, mr. caldwell, who was slain; and, therefore, many people may think that as he and perhaps another was innocent, therefore innocent blood having been shed, that must be expiated by the death of somebody or other. i take notice of this, because one gentleman was nominated by the sheriff for a juryman upon this trial, because he had said he believed captain preston was innocent, but innocent blood had been shed, and therefore somebody ought to be hanged for it, which he thought was indirectly giving his opinion in this cause. i am afraid many other persons have formed such an opinion. i do not take it to be a rule, that where innocent blood is shed the person must die. in the instance of the frenchmen on the plains of abraham, they were innocent, fighting for their king and country; their blood is as innocent as any. there may be multitudes killed, when innocent blood is shed on all sides; so that it is not an invariable rule. i will put a case in which, i dare say, all will agree with me. here are two persons, the father and the son, go out a-hunting. they take different roads. the father hears a rushing among the bushes, takes it to be game, fires, and kills his son, through a mistake. here is innocent blood shed, but yet nobody will say the father ought to die for it. so that the general rule of law is, that whenever one person has a right to do an act, and that act, by any accident takes away the life of another, it is excusable. it bears the same regard to the innocent as to the guilty. if two men are together, and attack me, and i have a right to kill them, i strike at them, and by mistake strike a third and kill him, as i had a right to kill the first, my killing the other will be excusable, as it happened by accident. if i, in the heat of passion, aim a blow at the person who has assaulted me, and aiming at him i kill another person, it is but manslaughter. (foster. . section ): "if an action unlawful in itself is done deliberately, and with intention of mischief, or great bodily harm to particulars, or of mischief indiscriminately, fall it where it may, and death ensues, against or beside the original intention of the party, it will be murder. but if such mischievous intention doth not appear, which is matter of fact, and to be collected from circumstances, and the act was done heedlessly and inconsiderately, it will be manslaughter, not accidental death; because the act upon which death ensued was unlawful." suppose, in this case, the mulatto man was the person who made the assault; suppose he was concerned in the unlawful assembly, and this party of soldiers, endeavoring to defend themselves against him, happened to kill another person, who was innocent--though the soldiers had no reason, that we know of, to think any person there, at least of that number who were crowding about them, innocent; they might, naturally enough, presume all to be guilty of the riot and assault, and to come with the same design--i say, if on firing on those who were guilty, they accidentally killed an innocent person, it was not their fault. they were obliged to defend themselves against those who were pressing upon them. they are not answerable for it with their lives; for on supposition it was justifiable or excusable to kill attucks, or any other person, it will be equally justifiable or excusable if in firing at him they killed another, who was innocent; or if the provocation was such as to mitigate the guilt of manslaughter, it will equally mitigate the guilt, if they killed an innocent man undesignedly, in aiming at him who gave the provocation, according to judge foster; and as this point is of such consequence, i must produce some more authorities for it: ( hawkins. ): "also, if a third person accidentally happen to be killed by one engaged in a combat, upon a sudden quarrel, it seems that he who killed him is guilty of manslaughter only," etc. (h. h p. c. , to the same point; and h. h. p. c. . and black, .) i shall now consider one question more, and that is concerning provocation. we have hitherto been considering self-defense, and how far persons may go in defending themselves against aggressors, even by taking away their lives, and now proceed to consider such provocations as the law allows to mitigate or extenuate the guilt of killing, where it is not justifiable or excusable. an assault and battery committed upon a man in such a manner as not to endanger his life is such a provocation as the law allows to reduce killing down to the crime of manslaughter. now, the law has been made on more considerations than we are capable of making at present; the law considers a man as capable of bearing anything and everything but blows. i may reproach a man as much as i please; i may call him a thief, robber, traitor, scoundrel, coward, lobster, bloody-back, etc., and if he kill me it will be murder, if nothing else but words precede; but if from giving him such kind of language i proceed to take him by the nose, or fillip him on the forehead, that is an assault; that is a blow. the law will not oblige a man to stand still and bear it; there is the distinction. hands off; touch me not. as soon as you touch me, if i run you through the heart, it is but manslaughter. the utility of this distinction, the more you think of it the more you will be satisfied with it. it is an assault whenever a blow is struck, let it be ever so slight, and sometimes even without a blow. the law considers man as frail and passionate. when his passions are touched, he will be thrown off his guard, and therefore the law makes allowance for this frailty --considers him as in a fit of passion, not having the possession of his intellectual faculties, and therefore does not oblige him to measure out his blows with a yard-stick, or weigh them in a scale. let him kill with a sword, gun, or hedge-stake, it is not murder, but only manslaughter. (keyling's report, . regina _versus_ mawgrige.) "rules supported by authority and general consent, showing what are always allowed to be sufficient provocations. first, if one man upon any words shall make an assault upon another, either by pulling him by the nose or filliping him on the forehead, and he that is so assaulted shall draw his sword and immediately run the other through, that is but manslaughter, for the peace is broken by the person killed and with an indignity to him that received the assault. besides, he that was so affronted might reasonably apprehend that he that treated him in that manner might have some further design upon him." so that here is the boundary, when a man is assaulted and kills in consequence of that assault, it is but manslaughter. i will just read as i go along the definition of assault:-- ( hawkins. ch. , section ): "an assault is an attempt or offer, with force or violence, to do a corporal hurt to another, as by striking at him with or without a weapon, or presenting a gun at him at such a distance to which the gun will carry, or pointing a pitchfork at him, or by any other such like act done in angry, threatening manner, etc.; but no words can amount to an assault," here is the definition of an assault, which is a sufficient provocation to soften killing down to manslaughter:-- ( hawkins, ch. , section ): "neither can he be thought guilty of a greater crime than manslaughter, who, finding a man in bed with his wife, or being actually struck by him, or pulled by the nose or filliped upon the forehead, immediately kills him, or in the defense of his person from an unlawful arrest, or in the defense of his house from those who, claiming a title to it, attempt forcibly to enter it, and to that purpose shoot at it," etc. every snowball, oyster shell, cake of ice, or bit of cinder, that was thrown that night at the sentinel, was an assault upon him; every one that was thrown at the party of soldiers was an assault upon them, whether it hit any of them or not. i am guilty of an assault if i present a gun at any person; and if i insult him in that manner and he shoots me, it is but manslaughter. (foster. , ): "to what i have offered with regard to sudden rencounters let me add, that the blood already too much heated, kindleth afresh at every pass or blow. and in the tumult of the passions, in which the mere instinct of self-preservation has no inconsiderable share, the voice of reason is not heard; and therefore the law, in condescension to the infirmities of flesh and blood, doth extenuate the offense." insolent, scurrilous, or slanderous language, when it precedes an assault, aggravates it. (foster, ): "we all know that words of reproach, how grating and offensive soever, are in the eye of the law no provocation in the case of voluntary homicide: and yet every man who hath considered the human frame, or but attended to the workings of his own heart knoweth that affronts of that kind pierce deeper and stimulate in the veins more effectually than a slight injury done to a third person, though under the color of justice, possibly can." i produce this to show the assault in this case was aggravated by the scurrilous language which preceded it. such words of reproach stimulate in the veins and exasperate the mind, and no doubt if an assault and battery succeeds them, killing under such provocation is softened to manslaughter, but killing without such provocation makes it murder. end of the first day's speech john quincy adams ( - ) no other american president, not even thomas jefferson, has equaled john quincy adams in literary accomplishments. his orations and public speeches will be found to stand for a tradition of painstaking, scholastic finish hardly to be found elsewhere in american orations, and certainly not among the speeches of any other president. as a result of the pains he took with them, they belong rather to literature than to politics, and it is possible that they will not be generally appreciated at their real worth for several generations still to come. if, as is sometimes alleged in such cases, they gain in literary finish at the expense of force, it is not to be forgotten that the forcible speech which, ignoring all rules, carries its point by assault, may buy immediate effect at the expense of permanent respectability. and if john quincy adams, who labored as cicero did to give his addresses the greatest possible literary finish, does not rank with cicero among orators, it is certain that respectability will always be willingly conceded him by every generation of his countrymen. some idea of the extent of his early studies may be gained from his father's letter to benjamin waterhouse, written from auteuil, france, in . john quincy adams being then only in his eighteenth year, the elder adams said of him:-- "if you were to examine him in english and french poetry, i know not where you would find anybody his superior; in roman and english history few persons of his age. it is rare to find a youth possessed of such knowledge. he has translated virgil's 'aeneid,' 'suetonius,' the whole of 'sallust'; 'tacitus,' 'agricola'; his 'germany' and several other books of his 'annals,' a great part of horace, some of ovid, and some of caesar's 'commentaries,' in writing, besides a number of tully's orations. ... in greek his progress has not been equal, yet he has studied morsels in aristotle's 'poetics,' in plutarch's 'lives,' and lucian's 'dialogues,' 'the choice of hercules,' in xenophon, and lately he has gone through several books of homer's 'iliad.'" the elder adams concludes the list of his son's accomplishments with a catalogue of his labors in mathematics hardly inferior in length to that cited in the classics. even if it were true, as has been urged by the political opponents of the adams family, that no one of its members has ever shown more than respectable natural talent, it would add overwhelming weight to the argument in favor of the laborious habits of study which have characterized them to the third and fourth generations, and, from the time of john adams until our own, have made them men of mark and far-reaching national influence. in national politics, john quincy adams, the last of the line of colonial gentlemen who achieved the presidency, stood for education, for rigid ideas of moral duty, for dignity, for patriotism, for all the virtues which are best cultivated through processes of segregation. he ended an epoch in which it was possible for a man who, as he did, wrote 'poems on religion and society' and paraphrased the psalms into english verse to be elected president. it has hardly been possible since his day. chosen as a democrat in , mr. adams was really the first whig president. his speeches are important, historically, because they define political tendencies as a result of which the whig party took the place of the federalist. oration at plymouth (delivered at plymouth on the twenty-second day of december, , in commemoration of the landing of the pilgrims) among the sentiments of most powerful operation upon the human heart, and most highly honorable to the human character, are those of veneration for our forefathers, and of love for our posterity. they form the connecting links between the selfish and the social passions. by the fundamental principle of christianity, the happiness of the individual is interwoven, by innumerable and imperceptible ties, with that of his contemporaries. by the power of filial reverence and parental affection, individual existence is extended beyond the limits of individual life, and the happiness of every age is chained in mutual dependence upon that of every other. respect for his ancestors excites, in the breast of man, interest in their history, attachment to their characters, concern for their errors, involuntary pride in their virtues. love for his posterity spurs him to exertion for their support, stimulates him to virtue for their example, and fills him with the tenderest solicitude for their welfare. man, therefore, was not made for himself alone. no, he was made for his country, by the obligations of the social compact; he was made for his species, by the christian duties of universal charity; he was made for all ages past, by the sentiment of reverence for his forefathers; and he was made for all future times, by the impulse of affection for his progeny. under the influence of these principles, "existence sees him spurn her bounded reign." they redeem his nature from the subjection of time and space; he is no longer a "puny insect shivering at a breeze"; he is the glory of creation, formed to occupy all time and all extent; bounded, during his residence upon earth, only to the boundaries of the world, and destined to life and immortality in brighter regions, when the fabric of nature itself shall dissolve and perish. the voice of history has not, in all its compass, a note but answers in unison with these sentiments. the barbarian chieftain, who defended his country against the roman invasion, driven to the remotest extremity of britain, and stimulating his followers to battle by all that has power of persuasion upon the human heart, concluded his persuasion by an appeal to these irresistible feelings: "think of your forefathers and of your posterity." the romans themselves, at the pinnacle of civilization, were actuated by the same impressions, and celebrated, in anniversary festivals, every great event which had signalized the annals of their forefathers. to multiply instances where it were impossible to adduce an exception would be to waste your time and abuse your patience; but in the sacred volume, which contains the substance of our firmest faith and of our most precious hopes, these passions not only maintain their highest efficacy, but are sanctioned by the express injunctions of the divine legislator to his chosen people. the revolutions of time furnish no previous example of a nation shooting up to maturity and expanding into greatness with the rapidity which has characterized the growth of the american people. in the luxuriance of youth, and in the vigor of manhood, it is pleasing and instructive to look backwards upon the helpless days of infancy; but in the continual and essential changes of a growing subject, the transactions of that early period would be soon obliterated from the memory but for some periodical call of attention to aid the silent records of the historian. such celebrations arouse and gratify the kindliest emotions of the bosom. they are faithful pledges of the respect we bear to the memory of our ancestors and of the tenderness with which we cherish the rising generation. they introduce the sages and heroes of ages past to the notice and emulation of succeeding times; they are at once testimonials of our gratitude, and schools of virtue to our children. these sentiments are wise; they are honorable; they are virtuous; their cultivation is not merely innocent pleasure, it is incumbent duty. obedient to their dictates, you, my fellow-citizens, have instituted and paid frequent observance to this annual solemnity. and what event of weightier intrinsic importance, or of more extensive consequences, was ever selected for this honorary distinction? in reverting to the period of our origin, other nations have generally been compelled to plunge into the chaos of impenetrable antiquity, or to trace a lawless ancestry into the caverns of ravishers and robbers. it is your peculiar privilege to commemorate, in this birthday of your nation, an event ascertained in its minutest details; an event of which the principal actors are known to you familiarly, as if belonging to your own age; an event of a magnitude before which imagination shrinks at the imperfection of her powers. it is your further happiness to behold, in those eminent characters, who were most conspicuous in accomplishing the settlement of your country, men upon whose virtue you can dwell with honest exultation. the founders of your race are not handed down to you, like the father of the roman people, as the sucklings of a wolf. you are not descended from a nauseous compound of fanaticism and sensuality, whose only argument was the sword, and whose only paradise was a brothel. no gothic scourge of god, no vandal pest of nations, no fabled fugitive from the flames of troy, no bastard norman tyrant, appears among the list of worthies who first landed on the rock, which your veneration has preserved as a lasting monument of their achievement. the great actors of the day we now solemnize were illustrious by their intrepid valor no less than by their christian graces, but the clarion of conquest has not blazoned forth their names to all the winds of heaven. their glory has not been wafted over oceans of blood to the remotest regions of the earth. they have not erected to themselves colossal statues upon pedestals of human bones, to provoke and insult the tardy hand of heavenly retribution. but theirs was "the better fortitude of patience and heroic martyrdom." theirs was the gentle temper of christian kindness; the rigorous observance of reciprocal justice; the unconquerable soul of conscious integrity. worldly fame has been parsimonious of her favor to the memory of those generous companions. their numbers were small; their stations in life obscure; the object of their enterprise unostentatious; the theatre of their exploits remote; how could they possibly be favorites of worldly fame--that common crier, whose existence is only known by the assemblage of multitudes; that pander of wealth and greatness, so eager to haunt the palaces of fortune, and so fastidious to the houseless dignity of virtue; that parasite of pride, ever scornful to meekness, and ever obsequious to insolent power; that heedless trumpeter, whose ears are deaf to modest merit, and whose eyes are blind to bloodless, distant excellence? when the persecuted companions of robinson, exiles from their native land, anxiously sued for the privilege of removing a thousand leagues more distant to an untried soil, a rigorous climate, and a savage wilderness, for the sake of reconciling their sense of religious duty with their affections for their country, few, perhaps none of them, formed a conception of what would be, within two centuries, the result of their undertaking. when the jealous and niggardly policy of their british sovereign denied them even that humblest of requests, and instead of liberty would barely consent to promise connivance, neither he nor they might be aware that they were laying the foundations of a power, and that he was sowing the seeds of a spirit, which, in less than two hundred years, would stagger the throne of his descendants, and shake his united kingdoms to the centre. so far is it from the ordinary habits of mankind to calculate the importance of events in their elementary principles, that had the first colonists of our country ever intimated as a part of their designs the project of founding a great and mighty nation, the finger of scorn would have pointed them to the cells of bedlam as an abode more suitable for hatching vain empires than the solitude of a transatlantic desert. these consequences, then so little foreseen, have unfolded themselves, in all their grandeur, to the eyes of the present age. it is a common amusement of speculative minds to contrast the magnitude of the most important events with the minuteness of their primeval causes, and the records of mankind are full of examples for such contemplations. it is, however, a more profitable employment to trace the constituent principles of future greatness in their kernel; to detect in the acorn at our feet the germ of that majestic oak, whose roots shoot down to the centre and whose branches aspire to the skies. let it be, then, our present occupation to inquire and endeavor to ascertain the causes first put in operation at the period of our commemoration, and already productive of such magnificent effects; to examine with reiterated care and minute attention the characters of those men who gave the first impulse to a new series of events in the history of the world; to applaud and emulate those qualities of their minds which we shall find deserving of our admiration; to recognize with candor those features which forbid approbation or even require censure, and, finally, to lay alike their frailties and their perfections to our own hearts, either as warning or as example. of the various european settlements upon this continent, which have finally merged in one independent nation, the first establishments were made at various times, by several nations, and under the influence of different motives. in many instances, the conviction of religious obligation formed one and a powerful inducement of the adventures; but in none, excepting the settlement at plymouth, did they constitute the sole and exclusive actuating cause. worldly interest and commercial speculation entered largely into the views of other settlers, but the commands of conscience were the only stimulus to the emigrants from leyden. previous to their expedition hither, they had endured a long banishment from their native country. under every species of discouragement, they undertook the vogage; they performed it in spite of numerous and almost insuperable obstacles; they arrived upon a wilderness bound with frost and hoary with snow, without the boundaries of their charter, outcasts from all human society, and coasted five weeks together, in the dead of winter, on this tempestuous shore, exposed at once to the fury of the elements, to the arrows of the native savage, and to the impending horrors of famine. courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air. these qualities have ever been displayed in their mightiest perfection, as attendants in the retinue of strong passions. from the first discovery of the western hemisphere by columbus until the settlement of virginia which immediately preceded that of plymouth, the various adventurers from the ancient world had exhibited upon innumerable occasions that ardor of enterprise and that stubbornness of pursuit which set all danger at defiance, and chained the violence of nature at their feet. but they were all instigated by personal interests. avarice and ambition had tuned their souls to that pitch of exaltation. selfish passions were the parents of their heroism. it was reserved for the first settlers of new england to perform achievements equally arduous, to trample down obstructions equally formidable, to dispel dangers equally terrific, under the single inspiration of conscience. to them even liberty herself was but a subordinate and secondary consideration. they claimed exemption from the mandates of human authority, as militating with their subjection to a superior power. before the voice of heaven they silenced even the calls of their country. yet, while so deeply impressed with the sense of religious obligation, they felt, in all its energy, the force of that tender tie which binds the heart of every virtuous man to his native land. it was to renew that connection with their country which had been severed by their compulsory expatriation, that they resolved to face all the hazards of a perilous navigation and all the labors of a toilsome distant settlement. under the mild protection of the batavian government, they enjoyed already that freedom of religious worship, for which they had resigned so many comforts and enjoyments at home; but their hearts panted for a restoration to the bosom of their country. invited and urged by the open-hearted and truly benevolent people who had given them an asylum from the persecution of their own kindred to form their settlement within the territories then under their jurisdiction, the love of their country predominated over every influence save that of conscience alone, and they preferred the precarious chance of relaxation from the bigoted rigor of the english government to the certain liberality and alluring offers of the hollanders. observe, my countrymen, the generous patriotism, the cordial union of soul, the conscious yet unaffected vigor which beam in their application to the british monarch:-- "they were well weaned from the delicate milk of their mother country, and inured to the difficulties of a strange land. they were knit together in a strict and sacred bond, to take care of the good of each other and of the whole. it was not with them as with other men, whom small things could discourage, or small discontents cause to wish themselves again at home." children of these exalted pilgrims! is there one among you who can hear the simple and pathetic energy of these expressions without tenderness and admiration? venerated shades of our forefathers! no, ye were, indeed, not ordinary men! that country which had ejected you so cruelly from her bosom you still delighted to contemplate in the character of an affectionate and beloved mother. the sacred bond which knit you together was indissoluble while you lived; and oh, may it be to your descendants the example and the pledge of harmony to the latest period of time! the difficulties and dangers, which so often had defeated attempts of similar establishments, were unable to subdue souls tempered like yours. you heard the rigid interdictions; you saw the menacing forms of toil and danger, forbidding your access to this land of promise; but you heard without dismay; you saw and disdained retreat. firm and undaunted in the confidence of that sacred bond; conscious of the purity, and convinced of the importance of your motives, you put your trust in the protecting shield of providence, and smiled defiance at the combining terrors of human malice and of elemental strife. these, in the accomplishment of your undertaking, you were summoned to encounter in their most hideous forms; these you met with that fortitude, and combatted with that perseverance, which you had promised in their anticipation; these you completely vanquished in establishing the foundations of new england, and the day which we now commemorate is the perpetual memorial of your triumph. it were an occupation peculiarly pleasing to cull from our early historians, and exhibit before you every detail of this transaction; to carry you in imagination on board their bark at the first moment of her arrival in the bay; to accompany carver, winslow, bradford, and standish, in all their excursions upon the desolate coast; to follow them into every rivulet and creek where they endeavored to find a firm footing, and to fix, with a pause of delight and exultation, the instant when the first of these heroic adventurers alighted on the spot where you, their descendants, now enjoy the glorious and happy reward of their labors. but in this grateful task, your former orators, on this anniversary, have anticipated all that the most ardent industry could collect, and gratified all that the most inquisitive curiosity could desire. to you, my friends, every occurrence of that momentous period is already familiar. a transient allusion to a few characteristic instances, which mark the peculiar history of the plymouth settlers, may properly supply the place of a narrative, which, to this auditory, must be superfluous. one of these remarkable incidents is the execution of that instrument of government by which they formed themselves into a body politic, the day after their arrival upon the coast, and previous to their first landing. this is, perhaps, the only instance in human history of that positive, original social compact, which speculative philosophers have imagined as the only legitimate source of government. here was a unanimous and personal assent, by all the individuals of the community, to the association by which they became a nation. it was the result of circumstances and discussions which had occurred during their passage from europe, and is a full demonstration that the nature of civil government, abstracted from the political institutions of their native country, had been an object of their serious meditation. the settlers of all the former european colonies had contented themselves with the powers conferred upon them by their respective charters, without looking beyond the seal of the royal parchment for the measure of their rights and the rule of their duties. the founders of plymouth had been impelled by the peculiarities of their situation to examine the subject with deeper and more comprehensive research. after twelve years of banishment from the land of their first allegiance, during which they had been under an adoptive and temporary subjection to another sovereign, they must naturally have been led to reflect upon the relative rights and duties of allegiance and subjection. they had resided in a city, the seat of a university, where the polemical and political controversies of the time were pursued with uncommon fervor. in this period they had witnessed the deadly struggle between the two parties, into which the people of the united provinces, after their separation from the crown of spain, had divided themselves. the contest embraced within its compass not only theological doctrines, but political principles, and maurice and barnevelt were the temporal leaders of the same rival factions, of which episcopius and polyander were the ecclesiastical champions. that the investigation of the fundamental principles of government was deeply implicated in these dissensions is evident from the immortal work of grotius, upon the rights of war and peace, which undoubtedly originated from them. grotius himself had been a most distinguished actor and sufferer in those important scenes of internal convulsion, and his work was first published very shortly after the departure of our forefathers from leyden. it is well known that in the course of the contest mr. robinson more than once appeared, with credit to himself, as a public disputant against episcopius; and from the manner in which the fact is related by governor bradford, it is apparent that the whole english church at leyden took a zealous interest in the religious part of the controversy. as strangers in the land, it is presumable that they wisely and honorably avoided entangling themselves in the political contentions involved with it. yet the theoretic principles, as they were drawn into discussion, could not fail to arrest their attention, and must have assisted them to form accurate ideas concerning the origin and extent of authority among men, independent of positive institutions. the importance of these circumstances will not be duly weighed without taking into consideration the state of opinion then prevalent in england. the general principles of government were there little understood and less examined. the whole substance of human authority was centred in the simple doctrine of royal prerogative, the origin of which was always traced in theory to divine institution. twenty years later, the subject was more industriously sifted, and for half a century became one of the principal topics of controversy between the ablest and most enlightened men in the nation. the instrument of voluntary association executed on board the mayflower testifies that the parties to it had anticipated the improvement of their nation. another incident, from which we may derive occasion for important reflections, was the attempt of these original settlers to establish among them that community of goods and of labor, which fanciful politicians, from the days of plato to those of rousseau, have recommended as the fundamental law of a perfect republic. this theory results, it must be acknowledged, from principles of reasoning most flattering to the human character. if industry, frugality, and disinterested integrity were alike the virtues of all, there would, apparently, be more of the social spirit, in making all property a common stock, and giving to each individual a proportional title to the wealth of the whole. such is the basis upon which plato forbids, in his republic, the division of property. such is the system upon which rousseau pronounces the first man who enclosed a field with a fence, and, said, "this is mine," a traitor to the human species. a wiser, and more useful philosophy, however, directs us to consider man according to the nature in which he was formed; subject to infirmities, which no wisdom can remedy; to weaknesses, which no institution can strengthen; to vices, which no legislation can correct. hence, it becomes obvious that separate property is the natural and indisputable right of separate exertion; that community of goods without community of toil is oppressive and unjust; that it counteracts the laws of nature, which prescribe that he only who sows the seed shall reap the harvest; that it discourages all energy, by destroying its rewards; and makes the most virtuous and active members of society the slaves and drudges of the worst. such was the issue of this experiment among our forefathers, and the same event demonstrated the error of the system in the elder settlement of virginia. let us cherish that spirit of harmony which prompted our forefathers to make the attempt, under circumstances more favorable to its success than, perhaps, ever occurred upon earth. let us no less admire the candor with which they relinquished it, upon discovering its irremediable inefficacy. to found principles of government upon too advantageous an estimate of the human character is an error of inexperience, the source of which is so amiable that it is impossible to censure it with severity. we have seen the same mistake, committed in our own age, and upon a larger theatre. happily for our ancestors, their situation allowed them to repair it before its effects had proved destructive. they had no pride of vain philosophy to support, no perfidious rage of faction to glut, by persevering in their mistakes until they should be extinguished in torrents of blood. as the attempt to establish among themselves the community of goods was a seal of that sacred bond which knit them so closely together, so the conduct they observed towards the natives of the country displays their steadfast adherence to the rules of justice and their faithful attachment to those of benevolence and charity. no european settlement ever formed upon this continent has been more distinguished for undeviating kindness and equity towards the savages. there are, indeed, moralists who have questioned the right of the europeans to intrude upon the possessions of the aboriginals in any case, and under any limitations whatsoever. but have they maturely considered the whole subject? the indian right of possession itself stands, with regard to the greatest part of the country, upon a questionable foundation. their cultivated fields; their constructed habitations; a space of ample sufficiency for their subsistence, and whatever they had annexed to themselves by personal labor, was undoubtedly, by the laws of nature, theirs. but what is the right of a huntsman to the forest of a thousand miles over which he has accidentally ranged in quest of prey? shall the liberal bounties of providence to the race of man be monopolized by one of ten thousand for whom they were created? shall the exuberant bosom of the common mother, amply adequate to the nourishment of millions, be claimed exclusively by a few hundreds of her offspring? shall the lordly savage not only disdain the virtues and enjoyments of civilization himself, but shall he control the civilization of a world? shall he forbid the wilderness to blossom like a rose? shall he forbid the oaks of the forest to fall before the ax of industry, and to rise again, transformed into the habitations of ease and elegance? shall he doom an immense region of the globe to perpetual desolation, and to hear the howlings of the tiger and the wolf silence forever the voice of human gladness? shall the fields and the valleys, which a beneficent god has formed to teem with the life of innumerable multitudes, be condemned to everlasting barrenness? shall the mighty rivers, poured out by the hand of nature, as channels of communication between numerous nations, roll their waters in sullen silence and eternal solitude to the deep? have hundreds of commodious harbors, a thousand leagues of coast, and a boundless ocean, been spread in the front of this land, and shall every purpose of utility to which they could apply be prohibited by the tenant of the woods? no, generous philanthropists! heaven has not been thus inconsistent in the works of its hands. heaven has not thus placed at irreconcilable strife its moral laws with its physical creation. the pilgrims of plymouth obtained their right of possession to the territory on which they settled, by titles as fair and unequivocal as any human property can be held. by their voluntary association they recognized their allegiance to the government of britain, and in process of time received whatever powers and authorities could be conferred upon them by a charter from their sovereign. the spot on which they fixed had belonged to an indian tribe, totally extirpated by that devouring pestilence which had swept the country shortly before their arrival. the territory, thus free from all exclusive possession, they might have taken by the natural right of occupancy. desirous, however, of giving ample satisfaction to every pretense of prior right, by formal and solemn conventions with the chiefs of the neighboring tribes, they acquired the further security of a purchase. at their hands the children of the desert had no cause of complaint. on the great day of retribution, what thousands, what millions of the american race will appear at the bar of judgment to arraign their european invading conquerors! let us humbly hope that the fathers of the plymouth colony will then appear in the whiteness of innocence. let us indulge in the belief that they will not only be free from all accusation of injustice to these unfortunate sons of nature, but that the testimonials of their acts of kindness and benevolence towards them will plead the cause of their virtues, as they are now authenticated by the record of history upon earth. religious discord has lost her sting; the cumbrous weapons of theological warfare are antiquated; the field of politics supplies the alchemists of our times with materials of more fatal explosion, and the butchers of mankind no longer travel to another world for instruments of cruelty and destruction. our age is too enlightened to contend upon topics which concern only the interests of eternity; the men who hold in proper contempt all controversies about trifles, except such as inflame their own passions, have made it a commonplace censure against your ancestors, that their zeal was enkindled by subjects of trivial importance; and that however aggrieved by the intolerance of others, they were alike intolerant themselves. against these objections, your candid judgment will not require an unqualified justification; but your respect and gratitude for the founders of the state may boldly claim an ample apology. the original grounds of their separation from the church of england were not objects of a magnitude to dissolve the bonds of communion, much less those of charity, between christian brethren of the same essential principles. some of them, however, were not inconsiderable, and numerous inducements concurred to give them an extraordinary interest in their eyes. when that portentous system of abuses, the papal dominion, was overturned, a great variety of religious sects arose in its stead in the several countries, which for many centuries before had been screwed beneath its subjection. the fabric of the reformation, first undertaken in england upon a contracted basis, by a capricious and sanguinary tyrant, had been successively overthrown and restored, renewed and altered, according to the varying humors and principles of four successive monarchs. to ascertain the precise point of division between the genuine institutions of christianity and the corruptions accumulated upon them in the progress of fifteen centuries, was found a task of extreme difficulty throughout the christian world. men of the profoundest learning, of the sublimest genius, and of the purest integrity, after devoting their lives to the research, finally differed in their ideas upon many great points, both of doctrine and discipline. the main question, it was admitted on all hands, most intimately concerned the highest interests of man, both temporal and eternal. can we wonder that men who felt their happiness here and their hopes of hereafter, their worldly welfare and the kingdom of heaven at stake, should sometimes attach an importance beyond their intrinsic weight to collateral points of controversy, connected with the all-involving object of the reformation? the changes in the forms and principles of religious worship were introduced and regulated in england by the hand of public authority. but that hand had not been uniform or steady in its operations. during the persecutions inflicted in the interval of popish restoration under the reign of mary, upon all who favored the reformation, many of the most zealous reformers had been compelled to fly their country. while residing on the continent of europe, they had adopted the principles of the most complete and rigorous reformation, as taught and established by calvin. on returning afterwards to their native country, they were dissatisfied with the partial reformation, at which, as they conceived, the english establishment had rested; and claiming the privilege of private conscience, upon which alone any departure from the church of rome could be justified, they insisted upon the right of adhering to the system of their own preference, and, of course, upon that of nonconformity to the establishment prescribed by the royal authority. the only means used to convince them of error and reclaim them from dissent was force, and force served but to confirm the opposition it was meant to suppress. by driving the founders of the plymouth colony into exile, it constrained them to absolute separation from the church of england; and by the refusal afterwards to allow them a positive toleration, even in this american wilderness, the council of james i. rendered that separation irreconcilable. viewing their religious liberties here, as held only by sufferance, yet bound to them by all the ties of conviction, and by all their sufferings for them, could they forbear to look upon every dissenter among themselves with a jealous eye? within two years after their landing, they beheld a rival settlement attempted in their immediate neighborhood; and not long after, the laws of self-preservation compelled them to break up a nest of revelers, who boasted of protection from the mother country, and who had recurred to the easy but pernicious resource of feeding their wanton idleness, by furnishing the savages with the means, the skill, and the instruments of european destruction. toleration, in that instance, would have been self-murder, and many other examples might be alleged, in which their necessary measures of self-defense have been exaggerated into cruelty, and their most indispensable precautions distorted into persecution. yet shall we not pretend that they were exempt from the common laws of mortality, or entirely free from all the errors of their age. their zeal might sometimes be too ardent, but it was always sincere. at this day, religious indulgence is one of our clearest duties, because it is one of our undisputed rights. while we rejoice that the principles of genuine christianity have so far triumphed over the prejudices of a former generation, let us fervently hope for the day when it will prove equally victorious over the malignant passions of our own. in thus calling your attention to some of the peculiar features in the principles, the character, and the history of our forefathers, it is as wide from my design, as i know it would be from your approbation, to adorn their memory with a chaplet plucked from the domain of others. the occasion and the day are more peculiarly devoted to them, and let it never be dishonored with a contracted and exclusive spirit. our affections as citizens embrace the whole extent of the union, and the names of raleigh, smith, winthrop, calvert, penn, and oglethorpe, excite in our minds recollections equally pleasing and gratitude equally fervent with those of carver and bradford. two centuries have not yet elapsed since the first european foot touched the soil which now constitutes the american union. two centuries more and our numbers must exceed those of europe itself. the destinies of this empire, as they appear in prospect before us, disdain the powers of human calculation. yet, as the original founder of the roman state is said once to have lifted upon his shoulders the fame and fortunes of all his posterity, so let us never forget that the glory and greatness of all our descendants is in our hands. preserve in all their purity, refine, if possible, from all their alloy, those virtues which we this day commemorate as the ornament of our forefathers. adhere to them with inflexible resolution, as to the horns of the altar; instill them with unwearied perseverance into the minds of your children; bind your souls and theirs to the national union as the chords of life are centred in the heart, and you shall soar with rapid and steady wing to the summit of human glory. nearly a century ago, one of those rare minds to whom it is given to discern future greatness in its seminal principles upon contemplating the situation of this continent, pronounced, in a vein of poetic inspiration, "westward the star of empire takes its way." let us unite in ardent supplication to the founder of nations and the builder of worlds, that what then was prophecy may continue unfolding into history,--that the dearest hopes of the human race may not be extinguished in disappointment, and that the last may prove the noblest empire of time. lafayette (delivered in congress, december st, ) on the sixth of september, , lafayette was born. the kings of prance and britain were seated upon their thrones by virtue of the principle of hereditary succession, variously modified and blended with different forms of religious faith, and they were waging war against each other, and exhausting the blood and treasure of their people for causes in which neither of the nations had any beneficial or lawful interest. in this war the father of lafayette fell in the cause of his king but not of his country. he was an officer of an invading army, the instrument of his sovereign's wanton ambition and lust of conquest. the people of the electorate of hanover had done no wrong to him or to his country. when his son came to an age capable of understanding the irreparable loss that he had suffered, and to reflect upon the causes of his father's fate, there was no drop of consolation mingled in the cup from the consideration that he had died for his country. and when the youthful mind was awakened to meditation upon the rights of mankind, the principles of freedom, and theories of government, it cannot be difficult to perceive in the illustrations of his own family records the source of that aversion to hereditary rule, perhaps the most distinguishing feature of his own political opinions and to which he adhered through all the vicissitudes of his life.... lafayette was born a subject of the most absolute and most splendid monarchy of europe, and in the highest rank of her proud and chivalrous nobility. he had been educated at a college of the university of paris, founded by the royal munificence of louis xiv., or cardinal richelieu. left an orphan in early childhood, with the inheritance of a princely fortune, he had been married, at sixteen years of age, to a daughter of the house of noailles, the most distinguished family of the kingdom, scarcely deemed in public consideration inferior to that which wore the crown. he came into active life, at the change from boy to man, a husband and a father, in the full enjoyment of everything that avarice could covet, with a certain prospect before him of all that ambition could crave. happy in his domestic affections, incapable, from the benignity of his nature, of envy, hatred, or revenge, a life of "ignoble ease and indolent repose" seemed to be that which nature and fortune had combined to prepare before him. to men of ordinary mold this condition would have led to a life of luxurious apathy and sensual indulgence. such was the life into which, from the operation of the same causes, louis xv. had sunk, with his household and court, while lafayette was rising to manhood surrounded by the contamination of their example. had his natural endowments been even of the higher and nobler order of such as adhere to virtue, even in the lap of prosperity, and in the bosom of temptation, he might have lived and died a pattern of the nobility of france, to be classed, in aftertimes, with the turennes and the montausiers of the age of louis xiv., or with the villars or the lamoignons of the age immediately preceding his own. but as, in the firmament of heaven that rolls over our heads, there is, among the stars of the first magnitude, one so pre-eminent in splendor as, in the opinion of astronomers, to constitute a class by itself, so in the fourteen hundred years of the french monarchy, among the multitudes of great and mighty men which it has evolved, the name of lafayette stands unrivaled in the solitude of glory. in entering upon the threshold of life, a career was to open before him. he had the option of the court and the camp. an office was tendered to him in the household of the king's brother, the count de provence, since successively a royal exile and a reinstated king. the servitude and inaction of a court had no charms for him; he preferred a commission in the army, and, at the time of the declaration of independence, was a captain of dragoons in garrison at metz. there, at an entertainment given by his relative, the marechal de broglie, the commandant of the place, to the duke of gloucester, brother to the british king, and then a transient traveler through that part of france, he learns, as an incident of intelligence received that morning by the english prince from london, that the congress of rebels at philadelphia had issued a declaration of independence. a conversation ensues upon the causes which have contributed to produce this event, and upon the consequences which may be expected to flow from it. the imagination of lafayette has caught across the atlantic tide the spark emitted from the declaration of independence; his heart has kindled at the shock, and, before he slumbers upon his pillow, he has resolved to devote his life and fortune to the cause. you have before you the cause and the man. the self-devotion of lafayette was twofold. first to the people, maintaining a bold and seemingly desperate struggle against oppression, and for national existence. secondly, and chiefly, to the principles of their declaration, which then first unfurled before his eyes the consecrated standard of human rights. to that standard, without an instant of hesitation, he repaired. where it would lead him, it is scarcely probable that he himself then foresaw. it was then identical with the stars and stripes of the american union, floating to the breeze from the hall of independence, at philadelphia. nor sordid avarice, nor vulgar ambition, could point his footsteps to the pathway leading to that banner. to the love of ease or pleasure nothing could be more repulsive. something may be allowed to the beatings of the youthful breast, which make ambition virtue, and something to the spirit of military adventure, imbibed from his profession, and which he felt in common with many others. france, germany, poland, furnished to the armies of this union, in our revolutionary struggle, no inconsiderable number of officers of high rank and distinguished merit. the names of pulaski and de kalb are numbered among the martyrs of our freedom, and their ashes repose in our soil side by side with the canonized bones of warren and of montgomery. to the virtues of lafayette, a more protracted career and happier earthly destinies were reserved. to the moral principle of political action, the sacrifices of no other man were comparable to his. youth, health, fortune; the favor of his king; the enjoyment of ease and pleasure; even the choicest blessings of domestic felicity--he gave them all for toil and danger in a distant land, and an almost hopeless cause; but it was the cause of justice, and of the rights of human kind. ... pronounce him one of the first men of his age, and you have not yet done him justice. try him by that test to which he sought in vain to stimulate the vulgar and selfish spirit of napoleon; class him among the men who, to compare and seat themselves, must take in the compass of all ages; turn back your eyes upon the records of time, summon from the creation of the world to this day the mighty dead of every age and every clime--and where, among the race of merely mortal men, shall one be found, who, as the benefactor of his kind, shall claim to take precedence of lafayette? there have doubtless been, in all ages, men whose discoveries or inventions, in the world of matter or of mind, have opened new avenues to the dominion of man over the material creation; have increased his means or his faculties of enjoyment; have raised him in nearer approximation to that higher and happier condition, the object of his hopes and aspirations in his present state of existence. lafayette discovered no new principle of politics or of morals. he invented nothing in science. he disclosed no new phenomenon in the laws of nature. born and educated in the highest order of feudal nobility, under the most absolute monarchy of europe, in possession of an affluent fortune, and master of himself and of all his capabilities, at the moment of attaining manhood the principle of republican justice and of social equality took possession of his heart and mind, as if by inspiration from above. he devoted himself, his life, his fortune, his hereditary honors, his towering ambition, his splendid hopes, all to the cause of liberty. he came to another hemisphere to defend her. he became one of the most effective champions of our independence; but, that once achieved, he returned to his own country, and thenceforward took no part in the controversies which have divided us. in the events of our revolution, and in the forms of policy which we have adopted for the establishment and perpetuation of our freedom, lafayette found the most perfect form of government. he wished to add nothing to it. he would gladly have abstracted nothing from it. instead of the imaginary republic of plato, or the utopia of sir thomas moore, he took a practical existing model, in actual operation here, and never attempted or wished more than to apply it faithfully to his own country. it was not given to moses to enter the promised land; but he saw it from the summit of pisgah. it was not given to lafayette to witness the consummation of his wishes in the establishment of a republic and the extinction of all hereditary rule in france. his principles were in advance of the age and hemisphere in which he lived. a bourbon still reigns on the throne of france, and it is not for us to scrutinize the title by which he reigns. the principles of elective and hereditary power, blended in reluctant union in his person, like the red and white roses of york and lancaster, may postpone to aftertime the last conflict to which they must ultimately come. the life of the patriarch was not long enough for the development of his whole political system. its final accomplishment is in the womb of time. the anticipation of this event is the more certain, from the consideration that all the principles for which lafayette contended were practical. he never indulged himself in wild and fanciful speculations. the principle of hereditary power was, in his opinion, the bane of all republican liberty in europe. unable to extinguish it in the revolution of , so far as concerned the chief magistracy of the nation, lafayette had the satisfaction of seeing it abolished with reference to the peerage. an hereditary crown, stript of the support which it may derive from an hereditary peerage, however compatible with asiatic despotism, is an anomaly in the history of the christian world, and in the theory of free government. there is no argument producible against the existence of an hereditary peerage but applies with aggravated weight against the transmission, from sire to son, of an hereditary crown. the prejudices and passions of the people of france rejected the principle of inherited power, in every station of public trust, excepting the first and highest of them all; but there they clung to it, as did the israelites of old to the savory deities of egypt. this is not the time nor the place for a disquisition upon the comparative merits, as a system of government, of a republic, and a monarchy surrounded by republican institutions. upon this subject there is among us no diversity of opinion; and if it should take the people of france another half century of internal and external war, of dazzling and delusive glories; of unparalleled triumphs, humiliating reverses, and bitter disappointments, to settle it to their satisfaction, the ultimate result can only bring them to the point where we have stood from the day of the declaration of independence--to the point where lafayette would have brought them, and to which he looked as a consummation devoutly to be wished. then, too, and then only, will be the time when the character of lafayette will be appreciated at its true value throughout the civilized world. when the principle of hereditary dominion shall be extinguished in all the institutions of france; when government shall no longer be considered as property transmissible from sire to son, but as a trust committed for a limited time, and then to return to the people whence it came; as a burdensome duty to be discharged, and not as a reward to be abused; when a claim, any claim, to political power by inheritance shall, in the estimation of the whole french people, be held as it now is by the whole people of the north american union--then will be the time for contemplating the character of lafayette, not merely in the events of his life, but in the full development of his intellectual conceptions, of his fervent aspirations, of the labors and perils and sacrifices of his long and eventful career upon earth; and thenceforward, till the hour when the trump of the archangel shall sound to announce that time shall be no more, the name of lafayette shall stand enrolled upon the annals of our race, high on the list of the pure and disinterested benefactors of mankind. the jubilee of the constitution (delivered at new york, april th, ) fellow-citizens and brethren, associates of the new york historical society:-- would it be an unlicensed trespass of the imagination to conceive that on the night preceding the day of which you now commemorate the fiftieth anniversary--on the night preceding that thirtieth of april, , when from the balcony of your city hall the chancellor of the state of new york administered to george washington the solemn oath faithfully to execute the office of president of the united states, and to the best of his ability to preserve, protect, and defend the constitution of the united states--that in the visions of the night the guardian angel of the father of our country had appeared before him, in the venerated form of his mother, and, to cheer and encourage him in the performance of the momentous and solemn duties that he was about to assume, had delivered to him a suit of celestial armor--a helmet, consisting of the principles of piety, of justice, of honor, of benevolence, with which from his earliest infancy he had hitherto walked through life, in the presence of all his brethren; a spear, studded with the self-evident truths of the declaration of independence; a sword, the same with which he had led the armies of his country through the war of freedom to the summit of the triumphal arch of independence; a corslet and cuishes of long experience and habitual intercourse in peace and war with the world of mankind, his contemporaries of the human race, in all their stages of civilization; and, last of all, the constitution of the united states, a shield, embossed by heavenly hands with the future history of his country. yes, gentlemen, on that shield the constitution of the united states was sculptured (by forms unseen, and in characters then invisible to mortal eye), the predestined and prophetic history of the one confederated people of the north american union. they had been the settlers of thirteen separate and distinct english colonies, along the margin of the shore of the north american continent; contiguously situated, but chartered by adventurers of characters variously diversified, including sectarians, religious and political, of all the classes which for the two preceding centuries had agitated and divided the people of the british islands --and with them were intermingled the descendants of hollanders, swedes, germans, and french fugitives from the persecution of the revoker of the edict of nantes. in the bosoms of this people, thus heterogeneously composed, there was burning, kindled at different furnaces, but all furnaces of affliction, one clear, steady flame of liberty. bold and daring enterprise, stubborn endurance of privation, unflinching intrepidity in facing danger, and inflexible adherence to conscientious principle, had steeled to energetic and unyielding hardihood the characters of the primitive settlers of all these colonies. since that time two or three generations of men had passed away, but they had increased and multiplied with unexampled rapidity; and the land itself had been the recent theatre of a ferocious and bloody seven-years' war between the two most powerful and most civilized nations of europe contending for the possession of this continent. of that strife the victorious combatant had been britain. she had conquered the provinces of france. she had expelled her rival totally from the continent, over which, bounding herself by the mississippi, she was thenceforth to hold divided empire only with spain. she had acquired undisputed control over the indian tribes still tenanting the forests unexplored by the european man. she had established an uncontested monopoly of the commerce of all her colonies. but forgetting all the warnings of preceding ages-- forgetting the lessons written in the blood of her own children, through centuries of departed time, she undertook to tax the people of the colonies without their consent. resistance, instantaneous, unconcerted, sympathetic, inflexible resistance, like an electric shock, startled and roused the people of all the english colonies on this continent. this was the first signal of the north american union, the struggle was for chartered rights--for english liberties--for the cause of algernon sidney and john hampden--for trial by jury--the habeas corpus and magna charta. but the english lawyers had decided that parliament was omnipotent--and parliament, in its omnipotence, instead of trial by jury and the habeas corpus, enacted admiralty courts in england to try americans for offenses charged against them as committed in america; instead of the privileges of magna charta, nullified the charter itself of massachusetts bay; shut up the port of boston; sent armies and navies to keep the peace and teach the colonies that john hampden was a rebel and algernon sidney a traitor. english liberties had failed them. from the omnipotence of parliament the colonists appealed to the rights of man and the omnipotence of the god of battles. union! union! was the instinctive and simultaneous cry throughout the land. their congress, assembled at philadelphia, once--twice--had petitioned the king; had remonstrated to parliament; had addressed the people of britain, for the rights of englishmen--in vain. fleets and armies, the blood of lexington, and the fires of charlestown and falmouth, had been the answer to petition, remonstrance, and address. ... the dissolution of allegiance to the british crown, the severance of the colonies from the british empire, and their actual existence as independent states, were definitively established in fact, by war and peace. the independence of each separate state had never been declared of right. it never existed in fact. upon the principles of the declaration of independence, the dissolution of the ties of allegiance, the assumption of sovereign power, and the institution of civil government, are all acts of transcendent authority, which the people alone are competent to perform; and, accordingly, it is in the name and by the authority of the people, that two of these acts--the dissolution of allegiance, with the severance from the british empire, and the declaration of the united colonies, as free and independent states, were performed by that instrument. but there still remained the last and crowning act, which the people of the union alone were competent to perform--the institution of civil government, for that compound nation, the united states of america. at this day it cannot but strike us as extraordinary, that it does not appear to have occurred to any one member of that assembly, which had laid down in terms so clear, so explicit, so unequivocal, the foundation of all just government, in the imprescriptible rights of man, and the transcendent sovereignty of the people, and who in those principles had set forth their only personal vindication from the charges of rebellion against their king, and of treason to their country, that their last crowning act was still to be performed upon the same principles. that is, the institution, by the people of the united states, of a civil government, to guard and protect and defend them all. on the contrary, that same assembly which issued the declaration of independence, instead of continuing to act in the name and by the authority of the good people of the united states, had, immediately after the appointment of the committee to prepare the declaration, appointed another committee, of one member from each colony, to prepare and digest the form of confederation to be entered into between the colonies. that committee reported on the twelfth of july, eight days after the declaration of independence had been issued, a draft of articles of confederation between the colonies. this draft was prepared by john dickinson, then a delegate from pennsylvania, who voted against the declaration of independence, and never signed it, having been superseded by a new election of delegates from that state, eight days after his draft was reported. there was thus no congeniality of principle between the declaration of independence and the articles of confederation. the foundation of the former was a superintending providence--the rights of man, and the constituent revolutionary power of the people. that of the latter was the sovereignty of organized power, and the independence of the separate or dis-united states. the fabric of the declaration and that of the confederation were each consistent with its own foundation, but they could not form one consistent, symmetrical edifice. they were the productions of different minds and of adverse passions; one, ascending for the foundation of human government to the laws of nature and of god, written upon the heart of man; the other, resting upon the basis of human institutions, and prescriptive law, and colonial charter. the corner stone of the one was right, that of the other was power. ... where, then, did each state get the sovereignty, freedom, and independence, which the articles of confederation declare it retains?--not from the whole people of the whole union--not from the declaration of independence--not from the people of the state itself. it was assumed by agreement between the legislatures of the several states, and their delegates in congress, without authority from or consultation of the people at all. in the declaration of independence, the enacting and constituent party dispensing and delegating sovereign power is the whole people of the united colonies. the recipient party, invested with power, is the united colonies, declared united states. in the articles of confederation, this order of agency is inverted. each state is the constituent and enacting party, and the united states in congress assembled the recipient of delegated power--and that power delegated with such a penurious and carking hand that it had more the aspect of a revocation of the declaration of independence than an instrument to carry it into effect. none of these indispensably necessary powers were ever conferred by the state legislatures upon the congress of the federation; and well was it that they never were. the system itself was radically defective. its incurable disease was an apostasy from the principles of the declaration of independence. a substitution of separate state sovereignties, in the place of the constituent sovereignty of the people, was the basis of the confederate union. in the congress of the confederation, the master minds of james madison and alexander hamilton were constantly engaged through the closing years of the revolutionary war and those of peace which immediately succeeded. that of john jay was associated with them shortly after the peace, in the capacity of secretary to the congress for foreign affairs. the incompetency of the articles of confederation for the management of the affairs of the union at home and abroad was demonstrated to them by the painful and mortifying experience of every day. washington, though in retirement, was brooding over the cruel injustice suffered by his associates in arms, the warriors of the revolution; over the prostration of the public credit and the faith of the nation, in the neglect to provide for the payment even of the interest upon the public debt; over the disappointed hopes of the friends of freedom; in the language of the address from congress to the states of the eighteenth of april, --"the pride and boast of america, that the rights for which she contended were the rights of human nature." at his residence at mount vernon, in march , the first idea was started of a revisal of the articles of confederation, by an organization, of means differing from that of a compact between the state legislatures and their own delegates in congress. a convention of delegates from the state legislatures, independent of the congress itself, was the expedient which presented itself for effecting the purpose, and an augmentation of the powers of congress for the regulation of commerce, as the object for which this assembly was to be convened. in january the proposal was made and adopted in the legislature of virginia, and communicated to the other state legislatures. the convention was held at annapolis, in september of that year. it was attended by delegates from only five of the central states, who, on comparing their restricted powers with the glaring and universally acknowledged defects of the confederation reported only a recommendation for the assemblage of another convention of delegates to meet at philadelphia, in may , from all the states, and with enlarged powers. the constitution of the united states was the work of this convention. but in its construction the convention immediately perceived that they must retrace their steps, and fall back from a league of friendship between sovereign states to the constituent sovereignty of the people; from power to right--from the irresponsible despotism of state sovereignty to the self-evident truths of the declaration of independence. in that instrument, the right to institute and to alter governments among men was ascribed exclusively to the people--the ends of government were declared to be to secure the natural rights of man; and that when the government degenerates from the promotion to the destruction of that end, the right and the duty accrues to the people to dissolve this degenerate government and to institute another. the signers of the declaration further averred, that the one people of the united colonies were then precisely in that situation--with a government degenerated into tyranny, and called upon by the laws of nature and of nature's god to dissolve that government and to institute another. then, in the name and by the authority of the good people of the colonies, they pronounced the dissolution of their allegiance to the king, and their eternal separation from the nation of great britain--and declared the united colonies independent states. and here as the representatives of the one people they had stopped. they did not require the confirmation of this act, for the power to make the declaration had already been conferred upon them by the people, delegating the power, indeed, separately in the separate colonies, not by colonial authority, but by the spontaneous revolutionary movement of the people in them all. from the day of that declaration, the constituent power of the people had never been called into action. a confederacy had been substituted in the place of a government, and state sovereignty had usurped the constituent sovereignty of the people. the convention assembled at philadelphia had themselves no direct authority from the people. their authority was all derived from the state legislatures. but they had the articles of confederation before them, and they saw and felt the wretched condition into which they had brought the whole people, and that the union itself was in the agonies of death. they soon perceived that the indispensably needed powers were such as no state government, no combination of them, was by the principles of the declaration of independence competent to bestow. they could emanate only from the people. a highly respectable portion of the assembly, still clinging to the confederacy of states, proposed, as a substitute for the constitution, a mere revival of the articles of confederation, with a grant of additional powers to the congress. their plan was respectfully and thoroughly discussed, but the want of a government and of the sanction of the people to the delegation of powers happily prevailed. a constitution for the people, and the distribution of legislative, executive, and judicial powers was prepared. it announced itself as the work of the people themselves; and as this was unquestionably a power assumed by the convention, not delegated to them by the people, they religiously confined it to a simple power to propose, and carefully provided that it should be no more than a proposal until sanctioned by the confederation congress, by the state legislatures, and by the people of the several states, in conventions specially assembled, by authority of their legislatures, for the single purpose of examining and passing upon it. and thus was consummated the work commenced by the declaration of independence--a work in which the people of the north american union, acting under the deepest sense of responsibility to the supreme ruler of the universe, had achieved the most transcendent act of power that social man in his mortal condition can perform-- even that of dissolving the ties of allegiance by which he is bound to his country; of renouncing that country itself; of demolishing its government; of instituting another government; and of making for himself another country in its stead. and on that day, of which you now commemorate the fiftieth anniversary,--on that thirtieth day of april, ,--was this mighty revolution, not only in the affairs of our own country, but in the principles of government over civilized man, accomplished. the revolution itself was a work of thirteen years--and had never been completed until that day. the declaration of independence and the constitution of the united states are parts of one consistent whole, founded upon one and the same theory of government, then new in practice, though not as a theory, for it had been working itself into the mind of man for many ages, and had been especially expounded in the writings of locke, though it had never before been adopted by a great nation in practice. there are yet, even at this day, many speculative objections to this theory. even in our own country, there are still philosophers who deny the principles asserted in the declaration, as self-evident truths--who deny the natural equality and inalienable rights of man --who deny that the people are the only legitimate source of power --who deny that all just powers of government are derived from the consent of the governed. neither your time, nor perphaps the cheerful nature of this occasion, permit me here to enter upon the examination of this anti-revolutionary theory, which arrays state sovereignty against the constituent sovereignty of the people, and distorts the constitution of the united states into a league of friendship between confederate corporations, i speak to matters of fact. there is the declaration of independence, and there is the constitution of the united states--let them speak for themselves. the grossly immoral and dishonest doctrine of despotic state sovereignty, the exclusive judge of its own obligations, and responsible to no power on earth or in heaven, for the violation of them, is not there. the declaration says, it is not in me. the constitution says, it is not in me. samuel adams ( - ) samuel adams, called by his contemporaries, "the father of the american revolution," drew up in the instructions of the people of boston to their representatives in the massachusetts general assembly, containing what is said to be the first official denial of the right of the british parliament to tax the colonists. deeply religious by nature, having what everett calls "a most angelic voice," studying sacred music as an avocation, and exhibiting through life the fineness of nerve and sensitiveness of temperament which gave him his early disposition to escape the storms of life by a career in the pulpit, circumstances, or rather his sense of fitness, dominating his physical weakness, imposed on him the work of leading in what results have shown to be the greatest revolution of history. so sensitive, physically, that he had "a tremulous motion of the head when speaking," his intellectual force was such that he easily became a leader of popular opposition to royal authority in new england. unlike jefferson in being a fluent public speaker, he resembled him in being the intellectual heir of sidney and locke. he showed very early in life the bent which afterwards forced him, as it did the naturally timid and retiring jefferson, to take the leadership of the uneducated masses of the people against the wealth, the culture, and the conservatism of the colonial aristocracy. after passing through the lovell school he graduated at harvard college, and on proposing a thesis for his second degree, as college custom required, he defended the proposition that "it is lawful to resist the supreme authority, if the commonwealth cannot otherwise be preserved." like questions had been debated during the middle ages from the time returning crusaders brought back with them copies of aristotle and other great greek philosophers whose authority was still reverenced at byzantium and bagdad when london and paris knew nothing of them. out of the denial of one set of schoolmen that a divine right to rule, greater than that derived from the people, could exist in kings, grew the political controversy which preceded the english revolution against the stuarts. our revolution grew out of the english as the french grew out of ours, and in putting on his seal cromwell's motto, "rebellion to tyrants is obedience to god," jefferson, the virginian, illustrated the same intellectual heredity which samuel adams, the new englander, showed in asserting the right of the people composing the commonwealth to resist the supreme authority when in their judgment its exercise had become prejudicial to their rights or their interests. from when he was chosen to present the denial made by the people of boston of the english parliament's right to tax them, until he joined jefferson in forcing on the then unprepared mind of the public the idea of a complete and final separation from the "mother country," his aggressive denunciations of the english government's attempts at absolutism made him so hated by the english administration and its colonial representatives that, with john hancock, he was specially exempted from general gage's amnesty proclamation of june , as "having committed offenses of too flagitious a nature to admit of any other consideration than that of condign punishment." joining with john adams, franklin, and jefferson in forcing issues for complete separation from england and for the formal declaration of independence, samuel adams was himself the author of the celebrated circular letter addressed by the assembly of massachusetts to the speakers of the several assemblies in other colonies. in he was chosen a member of the continental congress, where he took a prominent part in preventing the possibility of compromise with england. in he succeeded hancock as governor of massachusetts, retiring in because of "the increasing infirmities of age." like many other statesmen of his time he lived the greater part of his life in poverty, but his only son, dying before him, left him a property which supported him in his old age. it is said that his great oration on american independence, delivered at philadelphia in august , and published here, is the only complete address of his which has come down to us. it was translated into french and published in paris, and it is believed that napoleon borrowed from it the phrase, "a nation of shopkeepers," to characterize the english. american independence countrymen and brethren:-- i would gladly have declined an honor to which i find myself unequal. i have not the calmness and impartiality which the infinite importance of this occasion demands. i will not deny the charge of my enemies, that resentment for the accumulated injuries of our country, and an ardor for her glory, rising to enthusiasm, may deprive me of that accuracy of judgment and expression which men of cooler passions may possess. let me beseech you, then, to hear me with caution, to examine your prejudice, and to correct the mistakes into which i may be hurried by my zeal. truth loves an appeal to the common sense of mankind. your unperverted understandings can best determine on subjects of a practical nature. the positions and plans which are said to be above the comprehension of the multitude may be always suspected to be visionary and fruitless. he who made all men hath made the truths necessary to human happiness obvious to all. our forefathers threw off the yoke of popery in religion; for you is reserved the honor of leveling the popery of politics. they opened the bible to all, and maintained the capacity of every man to judge for himself in religion. are we sufficient for the comprehension of the sublimest spiritual truths, and unequal to material and temporal ones? heaven hath trusted us with the management of things for eternity, and man denies us ability to judge of the present, or to know from our feelings the experience that will make us happy. "you can discern," they say, "objects distant and remote, but cannot perceive those within your grasp. let us have the distribution of present goods, and cut out and manage as you please the interests of futurity." this day, i trust, the reign of political protestantism will commence. we have explored the temple of royalty, and found that the idol we have bowed down to has eyes which see not, ears that hear not our prayers, and a heart like the nether millstone. we have this day restored the sovereign to whom alone men ought to be obedient. he reigns in heaven, and with a propitious eye beholds his subjects assuming that freedom of thought and dignity of self-direction which he bestowed on them. from the rising to the setting sun, may his kingdom come! having been a slave to the influence of opinion early acquired, and distinctions generally received, i am ever inclined not to despise but pity those who are yet in darkness. but to the eye of reason what can be more clear than that all men have an equal right to happiness? nature made no other distinction than that of higher and lower degrees of power of mind and body. but what mysterious distribution of character has the craft of statesmen, more fatal than priestcraft, introduced? according to their doctrine, the offspring of perhaps the lewd embraces of a successful invader shall, from generation to generation, arrogate the right of lavishing on their pleasures a proportion of the fruits of the earth, more than sufficient to supply the wants of thousands of their fellow-creatures; claim authority to manage them like beasts of burthen, and, without superior industry, capacity, or virtue, nay, though disgraceful to humanity by their ignorance, intemperance, and brutality, shall be deemed best calculated to frame laws and to consult for the welfare of society. were the talents and virtues which heaven has bestowed on men given merely to make them more obedient drudges, to be sacrificed to the follies and ambition of a few? or, were not the noble gifts so equally dispensed with a divine purpose and law, that they should as nearly as possible be equally exerted, and the blessings of providence be equally enjoyed by all? away, then, with those absurd systems which to gratify the pride of a few debase the greater part of our species below the order of men. what an affront to the king of the universe, to maintain that the happiness of a monster, sunk in debauchery and spreading desolation and murder among men, of a caligula, a nero, or a charles, is more precious in his sight than that of millions of his suppliant creatures, who do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with their god! no, in the judgment of heaven there is no other superiority among men than a superiority in wisdom and virtue. and can we have a safer model in forming ours? the deity, then, has not given any order or family of men authority over others; and if any men have given it, they only could give it for themselves. our forefathers, 'tis said, consented to be subject to the laws of great britain. i will not, at present, dispute it, nor mark out the limits and conditions of their submission; but will it be denied that they contracted to pay obedience and to be under the control of great britain because it appeared to them most beneficial in their then present circumstances and situations? we, my countrymen, have the same right to consult and provide for our happiness which they had to promote theirs. if they had a view to posterity in their contracts, it must have been to advance the felicity of their descendants. if they erred in their expectations and prospects, we can never be condemned for a conduct which they would have recommended had they foreseen our present condition. ye darkeners of counsel, who would make the property, lives and religion of millions depend on the evasive interpretations of musty parchments; who would send us to antiquated charters of uncertain and contradictory meaning, to prove that the present generation are not bound to be victims to cruel and unforgiving despotism, tell us whether our pious and generous ancestors bequeathed to us the miserable privilege of having the rewards of our honesty, industry, the fruits of those fields which they purchased and bled for, wrested from us at the will of men over whom we have no check. did they contract for us that, with folded arms, we should expect that justice and mercy from brutal and inflamed invaders which have been denied to our supplications at the foot of the throne? were we to hear our character as a people ridiculed with indifference? did they promise for us that our meekness and patience should be insulted; our coasts harassed, our towns demolished and plundered, and our wives and offspring exposed to nakedness, hunger, and death, without our feeling the resentment of men, and exerting those powers of self-preservation which god has given us? no man had once a greater veneration for englishmen than i entertained. they were dear to me as branches of the same parental trunk, and partakers of the same religion and laws; i still view with respect the remains of the constitution as i would a lifeless body, which had once been animated by a great and heroic soul. but when i am aroused by the din of arms; when i behold legions of foreign assassins, paid by englishmen to imbrue their hands in our blood; when i tread over the uncoffined bodies of my countrymen, neighbors, and friends; when i see the locks of a venerable father torn by savage hands, and a feeble mother, clasping her infants to her bosom, and on her knees imploring their lives from her own slaves, whom englishmen have allured to treachery and murder; when i behold my country, once the seat of industry, peace, and plenty, changed by englishmen to a theatre of blood and misery, heaven forgive me, if i cannot root out those passions which it has implanted in my bosom, and detest submission to a people who have either ceased to be human, or have not virtue enough to feel their own wretchedness and servitude! men who content themselves with the semblance of truth, and a display of words, talk much of our obligations to great britain for protection. had she a single eye to our advantage? a nation of shopkeepers are very seldom so disinterested. let us not be so amused with words; the extension of her commerce was her object. when she defended our coasts, she fought for her customers, and convoyed our ships loaded with wealth, which we had acquired for her by our industry. she has treated us as beasts of burthen, whom the lordly masters cherish that they may carry a greater load. let us inquire also against whom she has protected us? against her own enemies with whom we had no quarrel, or only on her account, and against whom we always readily exerted our wealth and strength when they were required. were these colonies backward in giving assistance to great britain, when they were called upon in to aid the expedition against carthagena? they at that time sent three thousand men to join the british army, although the war commenced without their consent. but the last war, 'tis said, was purely american. this is a vulgar error, which, like many others, has gained credit by being confidently repeated. the dispute between the courts of great britain and france related to the limits of canada and nova scotia. the controverted territory was not claimed by any in the colonies, but by the crown of great britain. it was therefore their own quarrel. the infringement of a right which england had, by the treaty of utrecht, of trading in the indian country of ohio, was another cause of the war. the french seized large quantities of british manufacture and took possession of a fort which a company of british merchants and factors had erected for the security of their commerce. the war was therefore waged in defense of lands claimed by the crown, and for the protection of british property. the french at that time had no quarrel with america, and, as appears by letters sent from their commander-in-chief, to some of the colonies, wished to remain in peace with us. the part, therefore, which we then took, and the miseries to which we exposed ourselves, ought to be charged to our affection to britain. these colonies granted more than their proportion to the support of the war. they raised, clothed, and maintained nearly twenty-five thousand men, and so sensible were the people of england of our great exertions, that a message was annually sent to the house of commons purporting, "that his majesty, being highly satisfied with the zeal and vigor with which his faithful subjects in north america had exerted themselves in defense of his majesty's just rights and possessions, recommend it to the house to take the same into consideration, and enable him to give them a proper compensation." but what purpose can arguments of this kind answer? did the protection we received annul our rights as men, and lay us under an obligation of being miserable? who among you, my countrymen, that is a father, would claim authority to make your child a slave because you had nourished him in infancy? 'tis a strange species of generosity which requires a return infinitely more valuable than anything it could have bestowed that demands as a reward for a defense of our property a surrender of those inestimable privileges, to the arbitrary will of vindictive tyrants, which alone give value to that very property. political right and public happiness are different words for the same idea. they who wander into metaphysical labyrinths, or have recourse to original contracts, to determine the rights of men, either impose on themselves or mean to delude others. public utility is the only certain criterion. it is a test which brings disputes to a speedy decision, and makes its appeal to the feelings of mankind. the force of truth has obliged men to use arguments drawn from this principle who were combating it, in practice and speculation. the advocates for a despotic government and nonresistance to the magistrate employ reasons in favor of their systems drawn from a consideration of their tendency to promote public happiness. the author of nature directs all his operations to the production of the greatest good, and has made human virtue to consist in a disposition and conduct which tends to the common felicity of his creatures. an abridgement of the natural freedom of men, by the institutions of political societies, is vindicable only on this foot. how absurd, then, is it to draw arguments from the nature of civil society for the annihilation of those very ends which society was intended to procure! men associate for their mutual advantage. hence, the good and happiness of the members, that is, the majority of the members, of any state, is the great standard by which everything relating to that state must finally be determined; and though it may be supposed that a body of people may be bound by a voluntary resignation (which they have been so infatuated as to make) of all their interests to a single person, or to a few, it can never be conceived that the resignation is obligatory to their posterity; because it is manifestly contrary to the good of the whole that it should be so. these are the sentiments of the wisest and most virtuous champions of freedom. attend to a portion on this subject from a book in our own defense, written, i had almost said, by the pen of inspiration. "i lay no stress," says he, "on charters; they derive their rights from a higher source. it is inconsistent with common sense to imagine that any people would ever think of settling in a distant country on any such condition, or that the people from whom they withdrew should forever be masters of their property, and have power to subject them to any modes of government they pleased. and had there been expressed stipulations to this purpose in all the charters of the colonies, they would, in my opinion, be no more bound by them, than if it had been stipulated with them that they should go naked, or expose themselves to the incursions of wolves and tigers." such are the opinions of every virtuous and enlightened patriot in great britain. their petition to heaven is, "that there may be one free country left upon earth, to which they may fly, when venality, luxury, and vice shall have completed the ruin of liberty there." courage, then, my countrymen, our contest is not only whether we ourselves shall be free, but whether there shall be left to mankind an asylum on earth for civil and religious liberty. dismissing, therefore, the justice of our cause, as incontestable, the only question is, what is best for us to pursue in our present circumstances? the doctrine of dependence on great britain is, i believe, generally exploded; but as i would attend to the honest weakness of the simplest of men, you will pardon me if i offer a few words on that subject. we are now on this continent, to the astonishment of the world, three millions of souls united in one cause. we have large armies, well disciplined and appointed, with commanders inferior to none in military skill, and superior in activity and zeal. we are furnished with arsenals and stores beyond our most sanguine expectations, and foreign nations are waiting to crown our success by their alliances. there are instances of, i would say, an almost astonishing providence in our favor; our success has staggered our enemies, and almost given faith to infidels; so we may truly say it is not our own arm which has saved us. the hand of heaven appears to have led us on to be, perhaps humble instruments and means in the great providential dispensation which is completing. we have fled from the political sodom; let us not look back, lest we perish and become a monument of infamy and derision to the world. for can we ever expect more unanimity and a better preparation for defense; more infatuation of counsel among our enemies, and more valor and zeal among ourselves? the same force and resistance which are sufficient to procure us our liberties will secure us a glorious independence and support us in the dignity of free, imperial states. we cannot suppose that our opposition has made a corrupt and dissipated nation more friendly to america, or created in them a greater respect for the rights of mankind. we can therefore expect a restoration and establishment of our privileges, and a compensation for the injuries we have received from their want of power, from their fears, and not from their virtues. the unanimity and valor which will effect an honorable peace can render a future contest for our liberties unnecessary. he who has strength to chain down the wolf is a madman if he let him loose without drawing his teeth and paring his nails. from the day on which an accommodation takes place between england and america, on any other terms than as independent states, i shall date the ruin of this country. a politic minister will study to lull us into security, by granting us the full extent of our petitions. the warm sunshine of influence would melt down the virtue, which the violence of the storm rendered more firm and unyielding. in a state of tranquillity, wealth, and luxury, our descendants would forget the arts of war and the noble activity and zeal which made their ancestors invincible. every art of corruption would be employed to loosen the bond of union which renders our resistance formidable. when the spirit of liberty which now animates our hearts and gives success to our arms is extinct, our numbers will accelerate our ruin and render us easier victims to tyranny. ye abandoned minions of an infatuated ministry, if peradventure any should yet remain among us, remember that a warren and montgomery are numbered among the dead. contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say, what should be the reward of such sacrifices? bid us and our posterity bow the knee, supplicate the friendship, and plough, and sow, and reap, to glut the avarice of the men who have let loose on us the dogs of war to riot in our blood and hunt us from the face of the earth? if ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquillity of servitude than the animating contest of freedom,--go from us in peace. we ask not your counsels or arms. crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. may your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen! to unite the supremacy of great britain and the liberty of america is utterly impossible. so vast a continent, and of such a distance from the seat of empire, will every day grow more unmanageable. the motion of so unwieldy a body cannot be directed with any dispatch and uniformity without committing to the parliament of great britain powers inconsistent with our freedom. the authority and force which would be absolutely necessary for the preservation of the peace and good order of this continent would put all our valuable rights within the reach of that nation. as the administration of government requires firmer and more numerous supports in proportion to its extent, the burdens imposed on us would be excessive, and we should have the melancholy prospect of their increasing on our posterity. the scale of officers, from the rapacious and needy commissioner to the haughty governor, and from the governor, with his hungry train, to perhaps a licentious and prodigal viceroy, must be upheld by you and your children. the fleets and armies which will be employed to silence your murmurs and complaints must be supported by the fruits of your industry. and yet with all this enlargement of the expense and powers of government, the administration of it at such a distance, and over so extensive a territory, must necessarily fail of putting the laws into vigorous execution, removing private oppressions, and forming plans for the advancement of agriculture and commerce, and preserving the vast empire in any tolerable peace and security. if our posterity retain any spark of patriotism, they can never tamely submit to such burthens. this country will be made the field of bloody contention till it gain that independence for which nature formed it. it is, therefore, injustice and cruelty to our offspring, and would stamp us with the character of baseness and cowardice, to leave the salvation of this country to be worked out by them with accumulated difficulty and danger. prejudice, i confess, may warp our judgments. let us hear the decision of englishmen on this subject, who cannot be suspected of partiality. "the americans," they say, "are but little short of half our number. to this number they have grown from a small body of original settlers by a very rapid increase. the probability is that they will go on to increase, and that in fifty or sixty years they will be double our number, and form a mighty empire, consisting of a variety of states, all equal or superior to ourselves in all the arts and accomplishments which give dignity and happiness to human life. in that period will they be still bound to acknowledge that supremacy over them which we now claim? can there be any person who will assert this, or whose mind does not revolt at the idea of a vast continent holding all that is valuable to it at the discretion of a handful of people on the other side of the atlantic? but if at that period this would be unreasonable, what makes it otherwise now? draw the line if you can. but there is still a greater difficulty." britain is now, i will suppose, the seat of liberty and virtue, and its legislature consists of a body of able and independent men, who govern with wisdom and justice. the time may come when all will be reversed; when its excellent constitution of government will be subverted; when, pressed by debts and taxes, it will be greedy to draw to itself an increase of revenue from every distant province, in order to ease its own burdens; when the influence of the crown, strengthened by luxury and a universal profligacy of manners, will have tainted every heart, broken down every fence of liberty, and rendered us a nation of tame and contented vassals; when a general election will be nothing but a general auction of boroughs, and when the parliament, the grand council of the nation, and once the faithful guardian of the state, and a terror to evil ministers, will be degenerated into a body of sycophants, dependent and venal, always ready to confirm any measures, and little more than a public court for registering royal edicts. such, it is possible, may, some time or other, be the state of great britain. what will, at that period, be the duty of the colonies? will they be still bound to unconditional submission? must they always continue an appendage to our government and follow it implicitly through every change that can happen to it? wretched condition, indeed, of millions of freemen as good as ourselves! will you say that we now govern equitably, and that there is no danger of such revolution? would to god that this were true! but you will not always say the same. who shall judge whether we govern equitably or not? can you give the colonies any security that such a period will never come? no. the period, countrymen, is already come! the calamities were at our door. the rod of oppression was raised over us. we were roused from our slumbers, and may we never sink into repose until we can convey a clear and undisputed inheritance to our posterity! this day we are called upon to give a glorious example of what the wisest and best of men were rejoiced to view, only in speculation. this day presents the world with the most august spectacle that its annals ever unfolded,--millions of freemen, deliberately and voluntarily forming themselves into a society for their common defense and common happiness. immortal spirits of hampden, locke, and sidney, will it not add to your benevolent joys to behold your posterity rising to the dignity of men, and evincing to the world the reality and expediency of your systems, and in the actual enjoyment of that equal liberty, which you were happy, when on earth, in delineating and recommending to mankind? other nations have received their laws from conquerors; some are indebted for a constitution to the suffering of their ancestors through revolving centuries. the people of this country, alone, have formally and deliberately chosen a government for themselves, and with open and uninfluenced consent bound themselves into a social compact. here no man proclaims his birth or wealth as a title to honorable distinction, or to sanctify ignorance and vice with the name of hereditary authority. he who has most zeal and ability to promote public felicity, let him be the servant of the public. this is the only line of distinction drawn by nature. leave the bird of night to the obscurity for which nature intended him, and expect only from the eagle to brush the clouds with his wings and look boldly in the face of the sun. some who would persuade us that they have tender feelings for future generations, while they are insensible to the happiness of the present, are perpetually foreboding a train of dissensions under our popular system. such men's reasoning amounts to this: give up all that is valuable to great britain and then you will have no inducements to quarrel among yourselves; or, suffer yourselves to be chained down by your enemies that you may not be able to fight with your friends. this is an insult on your virtue as well as your common sense. your unanimity this day and through the course of the war is a decisive refutation of such invidious predictions. our enemies have already had evidence that our present constitution contains in it the justice and ardor of freedom and the wisdom and vigor of the most absolute system. when the law is the will of the people, it will be uniform and coherent; but fluctuation, contradiction, and inconsistency of councils must be expected under those governments where every revolution in the ministry of a court produces one in the state--such being the folly and pride of all ministers, that they ever pursue measures directly opposite to those of their predecessors. we shall neither be exposed to the necessary convulsions of elective monarchies, nor to the want of wisdom, fortitude, and virtue, to which hereditary succession is liable. in your hands it will be to perpetuate a prudent, active, and just legislature, and which will never expire until you yourselves loose the virtues which give it existence. and, brethren and fellow-countrymen, if it was ever granted to mortals to trace the designs of providence, and interpret its manifestations in favor of their cause, we may, with humility of soul, cry out, "not unto us, not unto us, but to thy name be the praise!" the confusion of the devices among our enemies, and the rage of the elements against them, have done almost as much towards our success as either our councils or our arms. the time at which this attempt on our liberty was made, when we were ripened into maturity, had acquired a knowledge of war, and were free from the incursions of enemies in this country; the gradual advances of our oppressors enabling us to prepare for our defense; the unusual fertility of our lands and clemency of the seasons; the success which at first attended our feeble arms, producing unanimity among our friends and reducing our internal foes to acquiescence-- these are all strong and palpable marks and assurances that providence is yet gracious unto zion, that it will turn away the captivity of jacob. our glorious reformers when they broke through the fetters of superstition effected more than could be expected from an age so darkened. but they left much to be done by their posterity. they lopped off, indeed, some of the branches of popery, but they left the root and stock when they left us under the domination of human systems and decisions, usurping the infallibility which can be attributed to revelation alone. they dethroned one usurper only to raise up another; they refused allegiance to the pope only to place the civil magistrate in the throne of christ, vested with authority to enact laws and inflict penalties in his kingdom. and if we now cast our eyes over the nations of the earth, we shall find that, instead of possessing the pure religion of the gospel, they may be divided either into infidels, who deny the truth; or politicians who make religion a stalking horse for their ambition; or professors, who walk in the trammels of orthodoxy, and are more attentive to traditions and ordinances of men than to the oracles of truth. the civil magistrate has everywhere contaminated religion by making it an engine of policy; and freedom of thought and the right of private judgment, in matters of conscience, driven from every other corner of the earth, direct their course to this happy country as their last asylum. let us cherish the noble guests, and shelter them under the wings of a universal toleration! be this the seat of unbounded religious freedom. she will bring with her in her train, industry, wisdom, and commerce. she thrives most when left to shoot forth in her natural luxuriance, and asks from human policy only not to be checked in her growth by artificial encouragements. thus, by the beneficence of providence, we shall behold our empire arising, founded on justice and the voluntary consent of the people, and giving full scope to the exercise of those faculties and rights which most ennoble our species. besides the advantages of liberty and the most equal constitution, heaven has given us a country with every variety of climate and soil, pouring forth in abundance whatever is necessary for the support, comfort, and strength of a nation. within our own borders we possess all the means of sustenance, defense, and commerce; at the same time, these advantages are so distributed among the different states of this continent, as if nature had in view to proclaim to us: be united among yourselves and you will want nothing from the rest of the world. the more northern states most amply supply us with every necessary, and many of the luxuries of life; with iron, timber, and masts for ships of commerce or of war; with flax for the manufacture of linen, and seed either for oil or exportation. so abundant are our harvests, that almost every part raises more than double the quantity of grain requisite for the support of the inhabitants. from georgia and the carolinas we have, as well for our own wants as for the purpose of supplying the wants of other powers, indigo, rice, hemp, naval stores, and lumber. virginia and maryland teem with wheat, indian corn, and tobacco. every nation whose harvest is precarious, or whose lands yield not those commodities which we cultivate, will gladly exchange their superfluities and manufactures for ours. we have already received many and large cargoes of clothing, military stores, etc., from our commerce with foreign powers, and, in spite of the efforts of the boasted navy of england, we shall continue to profit by this connection. the want of our naval stores has already increased the price of these articles to a great height, especially in britain. without our lumber, it will be impossible for those haughty islanders to convey the products of the west indies to their own ports; for a while they may with difficulty effect it, but, without our assistance, their resources soon must fail. indeed, the west india islands appear as the necessary appendages to this our empire. they must owe their support to it, and ere long, i doubt not, some of them will, from necessity, wish to enjoy the benefit of our protection. these natural advantages will enable us to remain independent of the world, or make it the interest of european powers to court our alliance, and aid in protecting us against the invasion of others. what argument, therefore, do we want to show the equity of our conduct; or motive of interest to recommend it to our prudence? nature points out the path, and our enemies have obliged us to pursue it. if there is any man so base or so weak as to prefer a dependence on great britain to the dignity and happiness of living a member of a free and independent nation, let me tell him that necessity now demands what the generous principle of patriotism should have dictated. we have no other alternative than independence, or the most ignominious and galling servitude. the legions of our enemies thicken on our plains; desolation and death mark their bloody career; whilst the mangled corpses of our countrymen seem to cry out to us as a voice from heaven:-- "will you permit our posterity to groan under the galling chains of our murderers? has our blood been expended in vain? is the only benefit which our constancy till death has obtained for our country, that it should be sunk into a deeper and more ignominious vassalage? recollect who are the men that demand your submission, to whose decrees you are invited to pay obedience. men who, unmindful of their relation to you as brethren; of your long implicit submission to their laws; of the sacrifice which you and your forefathers made of your natural advantages for commerce to their avarice; formed a deliberate plan to wrest from you the small pittance of property which they had permitted you to acquire. remember that the men who wish to rule over you are they who, in pursuit of this plan of despotism, annulled the sacred contracts which they had made with your ancestors; conveyed into your cities a mercenary soldiery to compel you to submission by insult and murder; who called your patience cowardice, your piety hypocrisy." countrymen, the men who now invite you to surrender your rights into their hands are the men who have let loose the merciless savages to riot in the blood of their brethren; who have dared to establish popery triumphant in our land; who have taught treachery to your slaves, and courted them to assassinate your wives and children. these are the men to whom we are exhorted to sacrifice the blessings which providence holds out to us; the happiness, the dignity, of uncontrolled freedom and independence. let not your generous indignation be directed against any among us who may advise so absurd and maddening a measure. their number is but few, and daily decreases; and the spirit which can render them patient of slavery will render them contemptible enemies. our union is now complete; our constitution composed, established, and approved. you are now the guardians of your own liberties. we may justly address you, as the _decemviri_ did the romans, and say, "nothing that we propose can pass into a law without your consent. be yourselves, o americans, the authors of those laws on which your happiness depends." you have now in the field armies sufficient to repel the whole force of your enemies and their base and mercenary auxiliaries. the hearts of your soldiers beat high with the spirit of freedom; they are animated with the justice of their cause, and while they grasp their swords can look up to heaven for assistance. your adversaries are composed of wretches who laugh at the rights of humanity, who turn religion into derision, and would, for higher wages, direct their swords against their leaders or their country. go on, then, in your generous enterprise with gratitude to heaven for past success, and confidence of it in the future. for my own part, i ask no greater blessing than to share with you the common danger and common glory. if i have a wish dearer to my soul than that my ashes may be mingled with those of a warren and montgomery, it is that these american states may never cease to be free and independent. aelred ( - ) saint aelred, ealred, or ethelred. was abbot of the cistercian monastery at rievaulx, yorkshire, in the twelfth century. thirty-two of his sermons, collected and published by richard gibbon, remain as examples of the pulpit eloquence of his age; but not very much is remembered of aelred himself except that he was virtuous enough to be canonized, and was held in high estimation as a preacher during the middle ages. he died in . his command of language is extraordinary, and he is remarkable for the cumulative power with which he adds clause to clause and sentence to sentence, in working towards a climax. a farewell it is time that i should begin the journey to which the law of our order compels me, desire incites me, and affection calls me. but how, even for so short a time, can i be separated from my beloved ones? separated, i say, in body, and not in spirit; and i know that in affection and spirit i shall be so much the more present by how much in body i am the more absent. i speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of my flesh; my wish is, that i may lay down among you the tabernacle of my flesh, that i may breathe forth my spirit in your hands, that ye may close the eyes of your father, and that all my bones should be buried in your sight! pray, therefore, o my beloved ones, that the lord may grant me the desire of my soul. call to mind, dearest brethren, that it is written of the lord jesus, when he was about to remove his presence from his disciples, that he, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from jerusalem. following, therefore, his example, since, after our sweet banquet, we have now risen from the table, i, who in a little while am about to go away, command you, beseech you, warn you, not to depart from jerusalem. for jerusalem signifies peace. therefore, we commend peace to you, we enjoin peace to you. now, christ himself, our peace, who hath united us, keep you in the unity of the spirit and in the bond of peace; to whose protection and consolation i commend you under the wings of the holy ghost; that he may return you to me, and me to you in peace and with safety. approach now, dearest sons, and in sign of the peace and love which i have commended to you, kiss your father; and let us all pray together that the lord may make our way prosperous, and grant us when we return to find you in the same peace, who liveth and reigneth one god, through all ages of ages. amen. a sermon after absence behold, i have returned, my beloved sons, my joy and my crown in the lord! behold! i have returned after many labors, after a dangerous journey; i am returned to you, i am returned to your love. this day is the day of exultation and joy, which, when i was in a foreign land, when i was struggling with the winds and with the sea, i so long desired to behold; and the lord hath heard the desire of the poor. o love, how sweetly thou inflamest those that are absent! how deliciously thou feedest those that are present; and yet dost not satisfy the hungry till thou makest jerusalem to have peace and fillest it with the flour of wheat! this is the peace which, as you remember, i commended to you when the law of our order compelled me for a time to be separated from you; the peace which, now i have returned, i find (thanks be to god!) among you; the peace of christ, which, with a certain foretaste of love, feeds you in the way that shall satisfy you with the plentitude of the same love in your country. well, beloved brethren, all that i am, all that i have, all that i know, i offer to your profit, i devote to your advantage. use me as you will; spare not my labor if it can in any way serve to your benefit. let us return, therefore, if you please, or rather because you please, to the work which we have intermitted; and let us examine the holy ghost enduing us with the light of truth, the heavenly treasures which holy isaiah has laid up under the guise of parables, when he writes that parable which the people, freed from his tyranny, shall take up against the king of babylon. "and it shall come to pass in the day that the lord shall give thee rest from thy sorrow, and from thy fear, and from the hard bondage wherein thou wast made to serve, that thou shalt take up this parable against the king of babylon." let us, therefore, understand the parable as a parable. not imagining that it was spoken against nebuchadnezzar, the prince of that earthly babylon, but rather against him who is from the north, the prince of confusion. ... if any one of us, then, who was once set in the confusion of vices, and oppressed by the yoke of iniquity, now rejoices that he rests from his labors, and is without confusion for that which is past, and has cast off the yoke of that worst of slaveries, let him take up this parable against the king of babylon. there is labor in vice, there is rest in virtue; there is confusion in lust, there is security in chastity; there is servitude in covetousness, there is liberty in charity. now, there is a labor in vice, and labor for vice, and labor against vice. a labor in vice, when, for the sake of fulfilling our evil desires, the ancient enemy inflicts hard labor upon us. there is a labor for vice, when any one is either afflicted against his will, for the evil which he has done, or of his will is troubled by the labor of penance. there is a labor against vice, when he that is converted to god is troubled with divers temptations. there is also a confusion in vice, when a man, distracted by most evil passions, is not ruled by reason, but hurried along confusedly by the tumult of vices; a confusion for vice, when a man is found out and convicted of any crime, and is therefore confounded, or when a man repenting and confessing what he has done is purified by healthful confusion and confession; and there is a confusion against vice, when a man, converted to god, resists the temptation from which he suffers, by the recollection of former confusion. wonder not if i have kept you longer to-day than my wont is, because desirous of you, after so long a hunger, i could not be easily satiated with your presence. think not, indeed, that even now i am satiated; i leave off speaking because i am weary, not because i am satisfied. but i shall be satisfied when the glory of christ shall appear, in whom i now embrace you with delight, you, with whom i hope that i shall be happily found in him, to whom is honor and glory to ages of ages. amen. on manliness fortitude comes next, which is necessary in temptation, since perfection of sanctity cannot be so uninterruptedly maintained in this life that its serenity will be disturbed by no temptations. but as our lord god seems to us, in times when everything appears peaceful and tranquil, to be merciful and loving and the giver of joy, thus when he exposes us either to the temptations of the flesh, or to the suggestions of demons, or when he afflicts us with the troubles, or wears us out with the persecutions of this world, he seems, as it were, a hard and angry master. and happy is he who becomes valiant in this his anger, now resisting, now fighting, now flying, so as to be found neither infirm through consenting, nor weak through despairing. therefore, brethren, whoever is not found valiant in his anger cannot exult in his glory. if we have passed through fire and water, so that neither did the fire consume us, nor the water drown us, whose is the glory? is it ours, so that we should exult in it as if it belonged to us? god forbid! how many exult, brethren, when they are praised by men, taking the glory of the gifts of god as if it were their own and not exulting in the honor of christ, who, while they seek that which is their own and not the things of jesus christ, both lose that which is their own and do not gain that which is christ's! he then exults in christ's glory, who seeks not his glory but christ's, and he understands that, in ourselves, there is nothing of which we can boast, since we have nothing that is our own. and this is the way in which, in individual men, the city of confusion is overthrown, when chastity expels luxury, fortitude overthrows temptations, humility excludes vanity. furthermore, we have sanctification from the faith and sacraments of christ, fortitude from the love of christ, exultation in the hope of the promises of christ. let us each do what we can, that faith may sanctify us, love strengthen us, and hope make us joyful in christ jesus our lord, to whom be honor and glory forever and forever. amen. aeschines ( - b.c.) professor r. c. jebe says of aeschines, the rival of demosthenes for supremacy at athens, that when the rhodians asked him to teach them oratory, he replied that he did not know it himself. he took pride in being looked upon as a representative of natural oratorical genius who had had little help from the traditions of the schools. "if, however, aeschines was no rhetorical artist," writes doctor jebb, "he brought to public speaking the twofold training of the actor and the scribe. he had a magnificent voice under perfect musical control. 'he compares me to the sirens,' says aeschines of his rival." first known as an actor, playing "tritagonist" in the tragedies of sophocles and the other great athenian dramatists, aeschines was afterwards clerk to one of the minor officials at athens; then secretary to aristophon and eubulos, well-known public men, and later still secretary of the _ekklesia_ or assembly. the greatest event of his life was his contest with demosthenes 'de corona' (over the crown). when ktesiphon proposed that athens should bestow a wreath of gold on demosthenes for his public services, aechines, after the bill proposing it had come before the assembly, challenged it and gave notice of his intention to proceed against ktesiphon for proposing an unconstitutional measure. one of the allegations in support of its unconstitutionally was that "to record a bill describing demosthenes as a public benefactor was to deposit a lying document among the public archives." the issues were thus joined between aeschines and demosthenes for one of the most celebrated forensic contests in history. losing the case aeschines went into banishment. he died at samos, b.c. , in his seventy-fifth year. he is generally ranked next to demosthenes among greek orators. for the following from the oration of aeschines, the reader is under obligations to professor jebb's admirable translation. against crowning demosthenes (against ktesiphon) our days have not fallen on the common chances of mortal life. we have been set to bequeath a story of marvels to posterity. is not the king of persia, he who cut through athos, and bridged the hellespont, he who demands earth and water from the greeks, he who in his letters presumes to style himself lord of all men from the sunrise to the sunset, is he not struggling at this hour, no longer for authority over others, but for his own life? do you not see the men who delivered the delphian temple invested not only with that glory but with the leadership against persia? while thebes-- thebes, our neighbor city--has been in one day swept from the face of greece--justly it may be in so far as her general policy was erroneous, yet in consequence of a folly which was no accident, but the judgment of heaven. the unfortunate lacedaemonians, though they did but touch this affair in its first phase by the occupation of the temple,--they who once claimed the leadership of greece,-- are now to be sent to alexander in asia to give hostages, to parade their disasters, and to hear their own and their country's doom from his lips, when they have been judged by the clemency of the master they provoked. our city, the common asylum of the greeks, from which, of old, embassies used to come from all greece to obtain deliverance for their several cities at our hands, is now battling, no more for the leadership of greece, but for the ground on which it stands. and these things have befallen us since demosthenes took the direction of our policy. the poet hesiod will interpret such a case. there is a passage meant to educate democracies and to counsel cities generally, in which he warns us not to accept dishonest leaders. i will recite the lines myself, the reason, i think, for our learning the maxims of the poets in boyhood being that we may use them as men:-- "oft hath the bad man been the city's bane; oft hath his sin brought to the sinless pain: oft hath all-seeing heaven sore vexed the town with dearth and death and brought the people down; cast down their walls and their most valiant slain, and on the seas made all their navies vain!" strip these lines of their poetic garb, look at them closely, and i think you will say these are no mere verses of hesiod--that they are a prophecy of the administration of demosthenes, for by the agency of that administration our ships, our armies, our cities have been swept from the earth. ... "o yes," it will be replied, "but then he is a friend of the constitution." if, indeed, you have a regard only to his delicacy you will be deceived as you were before, but not if you look at his character and at the facts. i will help you to estimate the characteristics which ought to be found in a friend of the constitution; in a sober-minded citizen. i will oppose to them the character that may be looked for in an unprincipled revolutionist. then you shall draw your comparison and consider on which part he stands--not in his language, remember, but in his life. now all, i think, will allow that these attributes should belong to a friend of the constitution: first, that he should be of free descent by both parents so that the disadvantage of birth may not embitter him against those laws which preserve the democracy. second, that he should be able to show that some benefit has been done to the people by his ancestors; or, at the worst, that there had been no enmity between them which would prompt him to revenge the misfortunes of his fathers on the state. third, he should be virtuous and temperate in his private life, so that no profligate expense may lead him into taking bribes to the hurt of the people. next, he should be sagacious and able to speak--since our ideal is that the best course should be chosen by the intelligence and then commended to his hearers by the trained eloquence of the orator, --though, if we cannot have both, sagacity must needs take rank before eloquence. lastly, he must have a stout heart or he may play the country false in the crisis of danger or of war. the friend of oligarchy must be the opposite of all this. i need not repeat the points. now, consider: how does demosthenes answer to these conditions? [after accusing demosthenes of being by parentage half a scythian, greek in nothing but language, the orator proceeds: ]-- in his private life, what is he? the tetrarch sank to rise a pettifogger, a spendthrift, ruined by his own follies. then having got a bad name in this trade, too, by showing his speeches to the other side, he bounded on the stage of public life, where his profits out of the city were as enormous as his savings were small. now, however, the flood of royal gold has floated his extravagance. but not even this will suffice. no wealth could ever hold out long against vice. in a word, he draws his livelihood not from his own resources but from your dangers. what, however, are his qualifications in respect to sagacity and to power of speech? a clever speaker, an evil liver! and what is the result to athens? the speeches are fair; the deeds are vile! then as to courage i have a word to say. if he denied his cowardice or if you were not aware of it, the topic might have called for discussion, but since he himself admits in the assemblies and you know it, it remains only to remind you of the laws on the subject. solon, our ancient lawgiver, thought the coward should be liable to the same penalties as the man who refuses to serve or who has quitted his post. cowardice, like other offenses, is indictable. some of you will, perhaps, ask in amazement: is a man to be indicted for his temperament? he is. and why? in order that every one of us fearing the penalties of the law more than the enemy may be the better champion of his country. accordingly, the lawgiver excludes alike the man who declines service, the coward, and the deserter of his post, from the lustral limits in the market place, and suffers no such person to receive a wreath of honor or to enter places of public worship. but you, ktesiphon, exhort us to set a crown on the head to which the laws refuse it. you by your private edict call a forbidden guest into the forefront of our solemn festival, and invite into the temple of dionysos that dastard by whom all temples have been betrayed. ... remember then, athenians, that the city whose fate rests with you is no alien city, but your own. give the prizes of ambition by merit, not by chance. reserve your rewards for those whose manhood is truer, whose characters are worthier. look at each other and judge not only with your ears but with your eyes who of your number are likely to support demosthenes. his young companions in the chase or the gymnasium? no, by the olympian zeus! he has not spent his life in hunting or in any healthful exercise, but in cultivating rhetoric to be used against men of property. think of his boastfulness when he claims by his embassy to have snatched byzantium out of the hands of philip, to have thrown the acharnians into revolt, to have astonished the thebans with his harangue! he thinks that you have reached the point of fatuity at which you can be made to believe even this--as if your citizen were the deity of persuasion instead of a pettifogging mortal! and when at the end of his speech, he calls as his advocates those who shared his bribes, imagine that you see upon this platform where i now speak before you, an array drawn up to confront their profligacy--the benefactors of athens: solon, who set in order the democracy by his glorious laws, the philosopher, the good legislator, entreating you with the gravity which so well became him never to set the rhetoric of demosthenes above your oaths and above the laws; aristides, who assessed the tribute of the confederacy, and whose daughters after his death were dowered by the state--indignant at the contumely threatened to justice and asking: are you not ashamed? when arthmios of zeleia brought persian gold to greece and visited athens, our fathers well-nigh put him to death, though he was our public guest, and proclaimed him expelled from athens and from all territory that the athenians rule; while demosthenes, who has not brought us persian gold but has taken bribes for himself and has kept them to this day, is about to receive a golden wreath from you! and themistokles, and they who died at marathon and plataea, aye, and the very graves of our forefathers--do you not think they will utter a voice of lamentation, if he who covenants with barbarians to work against greece shall be--crowned! frederick a. aiken ( - ) in defending the unpopular cause of the british soldiers who were engaged in the boston massacre, john adams said:-- "may it please your honor and you, gentlemen of the jury, i am for the prisoner at the bar, and shall apologize for it only in the words of the marquis of beccaria: 'if i can but be the instrument of preserving one life, his blessings and tears of transport shall be a sufficient compensation to me for the contempt of all mankind.'" something of the same idea inspires the fine opening of aiken's defense of mrs. surratt. it lacks the sinewy assertiveness of adams's terse and almost defiant apology for doing his duty as a lawyer in spite of public opinion, but it justifies itself and the plea it introduces. until within the recent past, political antagonisms have been too strong to allow fair consideration for such orations as that of aiken at the surratt trial. but this is no longer the case. it can now be considered on its merits as an oration, without the assumption that it is necessary in connection with it to pass on the evidence behind it. the assassins of president lincoln were tried by military commission under the war department's order of may th, . the prosecution was conducted by brigadier-general joseph holt, as judge advocate-general, with brevet-colonel h. l. burnett, of indiana, and hon. john a. bingham, of ohio, assisting him. the attorneys for the defense were reverdy johnson, of maryland; thomas ewing, of kansas; w. e. doster, of pennsylvania; frederick a. aiken, of the district of columbia; walter s. cox, john w. clampit, and f. stone, of maryland. the fault of the adams oration in the case of the boston massacre is one of excessive severity of logic. aiken errs in the direction of excessive ornament, but, considering the importance of the occasion and the great stress on all engaged in the trial as well as on the public, the florid style may have served better than the force of severe logic could have done. defense of mrs. mary e. surratt for the lawyer as well as the soldier, there is an equally pleasant duty--an equally imperative command. that duty is to shelter the innocent from injustice and wrong, to protect the weak from oppression, and to rally at all times and all occasions, when necessity demands it, to the special defense of those whom nature, custom, or circumstance may have placed in dependence upon our strength, honor, and cherishing regard. that command emanates and reaches each class from the same authoritative and omnipotent source. it comes from a superior whose right to command none dare question, and none dare disobey. in this command there is nothing of that _lex_ _talionis_ which nearly two thousand years ago nailed to the cross its divine author. "therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so unto them; for this is the law and the prophets." god has not only given us life, but he has filled the world with everything to make life desirable; and when we sit down to determine the taking away of that which we did not give, and which, when taken away, we cannot restore, we consider a subject the most solemn and momentous within the range of human thought and human action. profoundly impressed with the innocence of our client, we enter upon the last duty in her case with the heartfelt prayer that her honorable judges may enjoy the satisfaction of not having a single doubt left on their minds in granting her an acquittal, either as to the testimony affecting her, or by the surrounding circumstances of the case. the first point that naturally arises in the presentation of the defense of our client is that which concerns the plea that has been made to the jurisdiction of the commission to try her--a plea which by no means implies anything against the intelligence, fairness, or integrity of the brilliant and distinguished officers who compose the court, but merely touches the question of the right of this tribunal, under the authority by which it is convoked. this branch of her case is left to depend upon the argument already submitted by her senior counsel, the _grande_ _decus_ _columenque_ of his profession, and which is exhaustive of the subject on which it treats. therefore, in proceeding to the discussion of the merits of the case against her, the jurisdiction of the court, for the sake of argument, may be taken as conceded. but, if it be granted that the jurisdiction is complete, the next preliminary inquiry naturally is as to the principles of evidence by which the great mass of accumulated facts is to be analyzed and weighed in the scales of justice and made to bias the minds of her judges; and it may be here laid down as a _concessum_ in the case, that we are here in this forum, constrained and concluded by the same process, in this regard, that would bind and control us in any other court of civil origin having jurisdiction over a crime such as is here charged. for it is asserted in all the books that court-martial must proceed, so far as the acceptance and the analysis of evidence is concerned, upon precisely those reasonable rules of evidence which time and experience, _ab_ _antiquo_, surviving many ages of judicial wisdom, have unalterably fixed as unerring guides in the administration of the criminal law. upon this conceded proposition it is necessary to consume time by the multiplication of references. we are content with two brief citations from works of acknowledged authority. in greenleaf it is laid down:-- "that courts-martial are bound, in general, to observe the rules of the law of evidence by which the courts of criminal jurisdiction are governed." ( greenleaf, section .) this covers all the great general principles of evidence, the points of difference being wholly as to minor matters. and it is also affirmed in benet:-- "that it has been laid down as an indisputable principle, that whenever a legislative act erects a new jurisdiction, without prescribing any particular rules of evidence to it, the common law will supply its own rules, from which it will not allow such newly-erected court to depart. the rules of evidence, then, that obtain in the criminal courts of the country must be the guides for the courts-martial; the end sought for being the truth, these rules laid down for the attainment of that end must be intrinsically the same in both cases. these rules constitute the law of evidence, and involve the quality, admissibility, and effect of evidence and its application to the purposes of truth." (benet, pp. , .) therefore, all the facts that tend against the accused, and all those that mate for her, are to be weighed and are to operate upon her conviction or acquittal precisely as they would in a court of law. if they present a case such as would there convict her she may be found guilty here; and if, on the other hand, the rules of law upon these facts would raise any presumption or create any doubt, or force any conclusions that would acquit her in a court of law, then she must be discharged, upon the same principles by the commission. this is a point which, in our judgment, we cannot too strongly impress upon the minds of her judges. the extraordinary character of the crime--the assassination that removed from us the president of the united states--makes it most desirable that the findings of this tribunal shall be so well founded in reason as to satisfy and secure public confidence, and approval; for many of the most material objects of the prosecution, and some of the most important ends of justice, will be defeated and frustrated if convictions and acquittals, and more especially the former, shall be adjudged upon the grounds that are notoriously insufficient. such a course of action would have a tendency to draw sympathy and support to the parties thus adjudged guilty, and would rob the result of this investigation of the wholesome support of professional and public opinion. the jurisdiction of the commission, for example, is a matter that has already provoked considerable criticism and much warm disapproval; but in the case of persons clearly found to be guilty, the public mind would easily overlook any doubts that might exist as to the regularity of the court in the just sentence that would overtake acknowledged criminals. thus, if booth himself and a party of men clearly proved, by ocular evidence or confession, to have aided him, were here tried and condemned, and, as a consequence, executed, not much stress, we think, would be laid by many upon the irregularity of the mode by which they should reach that just death which all good citizens would affirm to be their deserts. but the case is far different when it affects persons who are only suspected, or against whom the evidence is weak and imperfect; for, if citizens may be arraigned and convicted for so grievous an offense as this upon insufficient evidence, every one will feel his own personal safety involved, and the tendency would be to intensify public feelings against the whole process of the trial. it would be felt and argued that they had been condemned upon evidence that would not have convicted them in a civil court, and that they had been deprived, therefore, of the advantage, which they would have had for their defense. reproach and contumely upon the government would be the natural result, and the first occasion would arise in all history for such demonstrations as would be sure to follow the condemnation of mere citizens, and particularly of a woman, upon evidence on which an acquittal would follow in a civil court. it is, therefore, not only a matter of the highest concern to the accused themselves, as a question of personal and private right, but also of great importance upon considerations of general public utility and policy, that the results of this trial, as affecting each of the accused, among them mrs. surratt, shall be rigidly held within the bounds and limitations that would control in the premises, if the parties were on trial in a civil court upon an indictment equivalent to the charges and specifications here. conceding, as we have said, the jurisdiction for the purpose of this branch of the argument, we hold to the principle first enunciated as the one great, all-important, and controlling rule that is to guide the commission in the findings they are now about to make. in order to apply this principle to the case of our client, we do not propose to range through the general rules of evidence with a view to seeing how they square with the facts as proven against her. in the examination of the evidence in detail, many of these must from necessity be briefly alluded to; but there is only one of them to which we propose in this place to advert specifically, and that is the principle that may be justly said to lie at the foundation of all the criminal law--a principle so just, that it seems to have sprung from the brain of wisdom herself, and so undoubted and universal as to stand upon the recognition of all the times and all the mighty intellects through and by which the common law has been built up. we allude, of course, to that principle which declares that "every man is held to be innocent until he shall be proven guilty"--a principle so natural that it has fastened itself upon the common reason of mankind, and been immemorially adopted as a cardinal doctrine in all courts of justice worthy of the name. it is by reason of this great underlying legal tenet that we are in possession of the rule of law, administered by all the courts, which, in mere technical expression, may be termed "the presumption of innocence in favor of the accused." and it is from hence that we derive that further application of the general principle, which has also become a rule of law, and of universal application wherever the common law is respected (and with which we have more particularly to deal), by which it is affirmed, in common language, that in any prosecution for crime "the accused must be acquitted where there is a reasonable doubt of his guilt." we hardly think it necessary to adduce authorities for this position before any tribunal. in a civil court we certainly should waive the citations, for the principle as stated would be assumed by any civil judge and would, indeed, be the starting point for any investigation whatever. though a maxim so common and conceded, it is fortified by the authority of all the great lights of the law. before reference is made to them, however, we wish to impress upon the minds of the court another and important rule to which we shall have occasion to refer:-- "the evidence in support of a conspiracy is generally circumstantial" (russell on crimes, vol. ii., .) in regard to circumstantial evidence, all the best and ablest writers, ancient and modern, agree in treating it as wholly inferior in cogency, force, and effect, to direct evidence. and now for the rule that must guide the jury in all cases of reasonable doubt:-- "if evidence leave reasonable ground for doubt, the conclusion cannot be morally certain, however great may be the preponderance of probability in its favor." (wills on circumstantial evidence. law library, vol. xli.) "the burden of proof in every criminal case is on the government to prove all the material allegations in the indictment; and if, on the whole evidence, the jury have a reasonable doubt whether the defendant is guilty of the crime charged, they are bound to acquit him. if the evidence lead to a reasonable doubt, that doubt will avail in favor of the prisoner." ( greenleaf, section --note.) perhaps one of the best and clearest definitions of the meaning of a "reasonable doubt" is found in an opinion given in dr. webster's case by the learned and accurate chief-justice of massachusetts. he said;-- "the evidence must establish the truth of the fact to a reasonable and moral certainty; a certainty that convinces and directs the understanding and satisfies the reason and judgment of those who are bound to act conscientiously upon it." (commonwealth versus webster, cush., .) far back in the early history of english jurisprudence we find that it was considered a most serious abuse of the common law, "that justices and their officers, who kill people by false judgment, be not destroyed as other murderers, which king alfred caused to be done, who caused forty-four justices in one year to be hanged for their false judgment. he hanged freburne because he judged harpin to die, whereas the jury were in doubt of their verdict; for in doubtful cases we ought rather to save than to condemn." the spirit of the roman law partook of the same care and caution in the condemnation of those charged with crime. the maxim was:-- "_satius_ _est_ _impunitum_ _relinqui_ _facinus_ _nocentis_, _quam_ _innocentem_ _damnare_." that there may be no mistake concerning the fact that this commission is bound as a jury by these rules, the same as juries in civil courts, we again quote from benet:-- "it is in the province of the court (court-martial) to decide all questions on the admissibility of evidence. whether there is any evidence is a question for the court as judges, but whether the evidence is sufficient is a question for the court as jury to determine, and this rule applies to the admissibility of every kind of evidence, written as well as oral." (benet, pp. , .) these citations may be indefinitely multiplied, for this principle is as true in the law as any physical fact in the exact sciences. it is not contended, indeed, that any degree of doubt must be of a reasonable nature, so as to overset the moral evidence of guilt. a mere possibility of innocence will not suffice, for, upon human testimony, no case is free from possible innocence. even the more direct evidence of crime may be possibly mistaken. but the doubt required by the law must be consonant with reason and of such a nature that in analogous circumstances it would affect the action of a reasonable creature concerning his own affairs. we may make the nature of such a doubt clearer to the court by alluding to a very common rule in the application of the general principle in certain cases, and the rule will readily appeal to the judgment of the court as a remarkable and singularly beautiful example of the inexorable logic with which the law applies its own unfailing reason. thus, in case of conspiracy, and some others, where many persons are charged with joint crime, and where the evidence against most of them must, of necessity, be circumstantial, the plea of "reasonable doubt" becomes peculiarly valuable to the separate accused, and the mode in which it is held it can best be applied is the test whether the facts as proved, circumstantial, as supposed, can be made to consist just as reasonably with a theory that is essentially different from the theory of guilt. if, therefore, in the developments of the whole facts of a conspiracy, all the particular facts against a particular person can be taken apart and shown to support a reasonable theory that excludes the theory of guilt, it cannot be denied that the moral proof of the latter is so shaken as to admit the rule concerning the presumption of innocence. for surely no man should be made to suffer because certain facts are proved against him, which are consistent with guilt, when it can be shown that they are also, and more reasonably, consistent with innocence. and, as touching the conspiracy here charged, we suppose there are hundreds of innocent persons, acquaintances of the actual assassin, against whom, on the social rule of _noscitur_ _a_ _sociis_, mercifully set aside in law, many facts might be elicited that would corroborate a suspicion of participation in his crime; but it would be monstrous that they should suffer from that theory when the same facts are rationally explainable on other theories. the distinguished assistant judge advocate, mr. bingham, who has brought to the aid of the prosecution, in this trial, such ready and trenchant astuteness in the law, has laid the following down as an invariable rule, and it will pass into the books as such:-- "a party who conspires to do a crime may approach the most upright man in the world with whom he had been, before the criminality was known to the world, on terms of intimacy, and whose position in the world was such that he might be on terms of intimacy with reputable gentlemen. it is the misfortune of a man that is approached in that way; it is not his crime, and it is not colorably his crime either." this rule of construction, we humbly submit, in connection with the question of doubt, has a direct and most weighty bearing upon the case of our client. some indication of the mode in which we propose to apply it may be properly stated here. now, in all the evidence, there is not a shadow of direct and positive proof which connects mrs. surratt with a participation in this conspiracy alleged, or with any knowledge of it. indeed, considering the active part she is charged with taking, and the natural communicativeness of her sex, the case is most singularly and wonderfully barren of even circumstantial facts concerning her. but all there is, is circumstantial. nothing is proved against her except some few detached facts and circumstances lying around the outer circle of the alleged conspiracy, and by no means necessarily connected with guilty intent or guilty knowledge. it becomes our duty to see:-- . what these facts are. . the character of the evidence in support of them, and of the witnesses by whom they are said to be proven. and, . whether they are consistent with a reasonable theory by which guilt is excluded. we assume, of course, as a matter that does not require argument, that she has committed no crime at all, even if these facts be proved, unless there is the necessary express or implied criminal intent, for guilty knowledge and guilty intent are the constituent elements, the principles of all crime. the intent and malice, too, in her case, must be express, for the facts proved against her, taken in themselves, are entirely and perfectly innocent, and are not such as give rise to a necessary implication of malice. this will not be denied. thus, when one commits a violent homicide, the law will presume the requisite malice; but when one only delivers a message, which is an innocent act in itself, the guilty knowledge, malice, and intent, that are absolutely necessary to make it criminal, must be expressly proven before any criminal consequences can attach to it. and, to quote:-- "knowledge and intent, when material, must be shown by the prosecutor." (wharton's american criminal law, section .) the intent to do a criminal act as defined by bouvier implies and means a preconceived purpose and resolve and determination to commit the crime alleged. to quote again:-- "but the intent or guilty knowledge must be brought directly home to the defendant." (wharton's american criminal law, ) "when an act, in itself indifferent, becomes criminal, if done with a particular intent, then the intent must be proved and found," ( greenleaf, section .) in the light of these principles, let us examine the evidence as it affects mrs. surratt. . what are the acts she has done? the specification against her, in the general charge, is as follows;-- "and in further prosecution of the said conspiracy, mary e. surratt did, at washington city, and within the military department and military lines aforesaid, on or before the sixth day of march, a.d. , and on divers other days and times between that day and the twentieth of april, a.d. , receive and entertain, harbor and conceal, aid and assist, the said john wilkes booth, david e. herold, lewis payne, john h. surratt, michael o'laughlin, george a. atzerodt, samuel arnold, and their confederates, with knowledge of the murderous and traitorous conspiracy aforesaid, and with intent to aid, abet, and assist them in the execution thereof, and in escaping from justice after the murder of the said abraham lincoln, as aforesaid." the first striking fact proved is her acquaintance with john wilkes booth--that he was an occasional visitor at her house. from the evidence, if it can be relied on, it distinctly appears that this acquaintance commenced the latter part of january, in the vicinage of three months only before the assassination of the president, and, with slight interruptions, it was continued down to the day of the assassination of the president. whether he was first invited to the house and introduced to the family by weichmann, john h. surratt, or some other person, the evidence does not disclose. when asked by the judge advocate, "whom did he call to see," the witness, weichmann, responded, "he generally called for mr. surratt--john h. surratt-- and, in the absence of john h. surratt, he would call for mrs. surratt." before calling the attention of the commission to the next evidence of importance against mrs. surratt, we desire to refresh the recollection of the court as to the time and manner, and by whom, according to the testimony of lloyd, the carbines were first brought to his (lloyd's) house. from the official record the following is taken:-- question.--will you state whether or not some five or six weeks before the assassination of the president, any or all of these men about whom i have inquired came to your house? answer.--they were there. q.--all three together? a.--yes; john h. surratt, herold, and atzerodt were there together. q.--what did they bring to your house, and what did they do there? a.--when they drove up there in the morning, john h. surratt and atzerodt came first; they went from my house and went toward t. b., a post office kept about five miles below there. they had not been gone more than half an hour when they returned with herold; then the three were together--herold, surratt, and atzerodt. q.--what did they bring to your house? a.--i saw nothing until they all three came into the bar-room, i noticed one of the buggies--the one i supposed herold was driving or went down in--standing at the front gate. all three of them, when they came into the bar-room, drank, i think, and then john surratt called me into the front parlor, and on the sofa were two carbines, with ammunition. i think he told me they were carbines. q,--anything besides the carbines and ammunition? a,--there was also a rope and a monkey-wrench. q.--how long a rope? a.--i cannot tell. it was a coil--a right smart bundle--probably sixteen to twenty feet. q.--were those articles left at your house? a.--yes, sir; surratt asked me to take care of them, to conceal the carbines. i told him that there was no place to conceal them, and i did not wish to keep such things in the house. q.--you say that he asked you to conceal those articles for him? a.--yes, sir; he asked me to conceal them. i told him there was no place to conceal them. he then carried me into a room that i had never been in, which was just immediately above the store room, as it were, in the back building of the house. i had never been in that room previous to that time. he showed me where i could put them, underneath the joists of the house--the joists of the second floor of the main building. this little unfinished room will admit of anything between the joists. q.--were they put in that place? a.--they were put in there according to his directions. q.--were they concealed in that condition? a.--yes, sir: i put them in there. i stated to colonel wells through mistake that surratt put them there; but i put them in there myself, i carried the arms up myself. q.--how much ammunition was there? a.--one cartridge box. q.--for what purpose, and for how long, did he ask you to keep these articles? a.--i am very positive that he said that he would call for them in a few days. he said that he just wanted them to stay for a few days and he would call for them. it also appears in evidence against mrs. surratt, if the testimony is to be relied on, that on the tuesday previous to the murder of the president, the eleventh of april, she met john m. lloyd, a witness for the prosecution, at uniontown, when, the following took place:-- question by the judge advocate:--did she say anything to you in regard to those carbines? answer.--when she first broached the subject to me, i did not know what she had reference to; then she came out plainer, and i am quite positive she asked me about the "shooting irons." i am quite positive about that, but not altogether positive. i think she named "shooting irons" or something to call my attention to those things, for i had almost forgot about their being there. i told her that they were hid away far back--that i was afraid that the house would be searched, and they were shoved far back. she told me to get them out ready; they would be wanted soon. q.--was her question to you first, whether they were still there, or what was it? a.--really, i cannot recollect the first question she put to me. i could not do it to save my life. on the afternoon of the fourteenth of april, at about half-past five lloyd again met mrs. surratt, at surrattsville, at which time, according to his version, she met him by the woodpile near the house and told him to have those shooting irons ready that night as there would be some parties calling for them, and that she gave him something wrapped in a piece of paper, and asked him to get two bottles of whisky ready also. this mesage to mr. lloyd is the second item of importance against mrs. surratt, and in support of the specification against her. the third and last fact that makes against her in the minds of the court is the one narrated by major h. w. smith, a witness for the prosecution, who states that while at the house of mrs. surratt, on the night of the seventeenth of april, assisting in making arrest of its inmates, the prisoner, payne, came in. he (smith) stepped to the door of the parlor and said, "mrs. surratt, will you step here a minute?" as mrs. surratt came forward, he asked her this question, "do you know this man?" she replied, quoting the witness's language, "before god, sir, i do not know this man, and i have never seen him." an addition to this is found in the testimony of the same witness, as he was drawn out by the judge advocate. the witness repeats the language of mrs. surratt, "before god, sir, i do not know this man, and i have never seen him, and did not hire him to dig a gutter for me." the fact of the photographs and card of the state arms of virginia have ceased to be of the slightest importance, since the explanations given in evidence concerning them, and need not be alluded to. if there is any doubt as to whom they all belonged, reference to the testimony of misses surratt and fitzpatrick will settle it. these three circumstances constitute the part played by the accused, mary e. surratt, in this great conspiracy. they are the acts she has done. they are all that two months of patient and unwearying investigation, and the most thorough search for evidence that was probably ever made, have been able to develop against her. the acquaintance with booth, the message to lloyd, the nonrecognition of payne, constitute the sum total of her receiving, entertaining, harboring and concealing, aiding and assisting those named as conspirators and their confederates, with knowledge of the murderous and traitorous conspiracy; and with intent to aid, abet, and assist them in the execution thereof, and in escaping from justice. the acts she has done, in and of themselves are perfectly innocent. of themselves they constitute no crime. they are what you or i or any of us might have done. she received and entertained booth, the assassin, and so did a hundred others. she may have delivered a message to lloyd--so have a hundred others. she might have said she did not know payne--and who within the sound of my voice can say they know him now? they are ordinary and commonplace transactions, such as occur every day and to almost everybody. but as all the case against her must consist in the guilty intent that will be attempted to be connected with these facts, we now propose to show that they are not so clearly proven as to free them from great doubt, and, therefore, we will inquire:-- . how are these acts proven? solely by the testimony of louis j. weichmann and john m. lloyd. here let us state that we have no malice toward either of them, but if in the analysis of their evidence we should seem to be severe, it is that error and duplicity may be exposed and innocence protected. we may start out with the proposition that a body of men banded together for the consummation of an unlawful act against the government, naturally would not disclose their purpose and hold suspicious consultations concerning it in the presence continually of an innocent party. in the light of this fair presumption let us look at the acts of weichmann, as disclosed by his own testimony. perhaps the most singular and astonishing fact that is made to appear is his omnipresence and co-action with those declared to be conspirators, and his professed and declared knowledge of all their plans and purposes. his acquaintance with john h. surratt commenced in the fall of , at st. charles, maryland. in january he renewed his acquaintance with him in this city. on the first of november, , he took board and lodging with mrs. surratt at her house, no. h. street, in this city. if this testimony is correct, he was introduced to booth on the fifteenth day of january, . at this first, very first meeting, he was invited to booth's room at the national, where he drank wine and took cigars at booth's expense. after consultation about something in an outer passage between booth and the party alleged to be with him by weichmann, they all came into the room, and for the first time business was proceeded with in his presence. after that he met booth in mrs. surratt's parlor and in his own room, and had conversations with him. as near as weichmann recollects, about three weeks after his introduction he met the prisoner, atzerodt, at mrs. surratt's. (how atzerodt was received at the house will be referred to.) about the time that booth played pescara in the 'apostate' at ford's theatre, weichmann attended the theatre in company with surratt and atzerodt. at the theatre they were joined by herold. john t. holohan, a gentleman not suspected of complicity in the great tragedy, also joined the company at the theatre. after the play was over, surratt, holohan, and himself went as far as the corner of tenth and e streets, when surratt, noticing that atzerodt and herold were not with them, sent weichmann back for them. he found them in a restaurant with booth, by whose invitation weichmann took a drink. after that the entire party went to kloman's, on seventh street, and had some oysters. the party there separated, surratt, weichmann, and holohan going home. in the month of march last the prisoner, payne, according to weichmann, went to mrs. surratt's house and inquired for john h. surratt. "i, myself," says weichmann, "went to open the door, and he inquired for mr. surratt i told him mr. surratt was not at home; but i would introduce him to the family, and did introduce him to mrs. surratt--under the name of wood." what more? by weichmann's request payne remained in the house all night. he had supper served him in the privacy of weichmann's own room. more than that, weichmann went down into the kitchen and got the supper and carried it up to him himself, and as nearly as he recollects, it was about eight weeks previous to the assassination; payne remained as weichmann's guest until the nest morning, when he left on the early train for baltimore. about three weeks after that payne called again. says weichmann, "i again went to the door, and i again ushered him into the parlor." but he adds that he had forgotten his name, and only recollected that he had given the name of wood on the former visit, when one of the ladies called payne by that name. he who had served supper to payne in his own room, and had spent a night with him, could not recollect for three weeks the common name of "wood," but recollects with such distinctness and particularity scenes and incidents of much greater age, and by which he is jeopardizing the lives of others. payne remained that time about three days, representing himself to the family as a baptist preacher; claiming that he had been in prison in baltimore for about a week; that he had taken the oath of allegiance and was going to become a good loyal citizen. to mrs. surratt this seemed eccentric, and she said "he was a great-looking baptist preacher." "they looked upon it as odd and laughed about it." it seemed from weichmann's testimony that he again shared his room with payne. returning from his office one day, and finding a false mustache on the table in his room, he took it and threw it into his toilet box, and afterward put it with a box of paints into his trunk. the mustache was subsequently found in weichmann's baggage. when payne, according to weichmann's testimony, inquired, "where is my mustache?" weichmann said nothing, but "thought it rather queer that a baptist preacher should wear a false mustache." he says that he did not want it about his room--"thought no honest person had any reason to wear a false mustache," and as no "honest person" should be in possession of it, he locked it up in his own trunk. weichmann professes throughout his testimony the greatest regard and friendship for mrs. surratt and her son. why did he not go to mrs. surratt and communicate his suspicions at once? she, an innocent and guileless woman, not knowing what was occurring in her own house; he, the friend, coming into possession of important facts, and not making them known to her, the head of the household, but claiming now, since this overwhelming misfortune has fallen upon mrs. surratt, that, while reposing in the very bosom of the family as a friend and confidant, he was a spy and an informer, and, that, we believe, is the best excuse the prosecution is able to make for him. his account and explanation of the mustache would be treated with contemptuous ridicule in a civil court. but this is not all. concede weichmann's account of the mustache to be true, and if it was not enough to rouse his suspicions that all was not right, he states that, on the same day, he went to surratt's room and found payne seated on the bed with surratt, playing with bowie knives, and surrounded with revolvers and spurs. miss honora fitzpatrick testifies that weichmann was treated by mrs. surratt "more like a son than a friend." poor return for motherly care! guilty knowledge and participation in crime or in wild schemes for the capture of the president would be a good excuse for not making all this known to mrs. surratt. in speaking of the spurs and pistols, weichmann knew that there were just eight spurs and two long navy revolvers. bear in mind, we ask you, gentlemen of the commission, that there is no evidence before you showing that mrs. surratt knew anything about these things. it seems farther on, about the nineteenth of march, that weichmann went to the herndon house with surratt to engage a room. he says that he afterwards learned from atzerodt that it was for payne, but contradicts himself in the same breath by stating that he inquired of atzerodt if he were going to see payne at the herndon house. his intimate knowledge of surratt's movements between richmond and washington, fixing the dates of the trips with great exactitude; of surratt's bringing gold back; of surratt's leaving on the evening of the third of april for canada, spending his last moments here with weichmann; of surratt's telling weichmann about his interview with davis and benjamin--in all this knowledge concerning himself and his associations with those named as conspirators he is no doubt truthful, as far as his statements extend; but when he comes to apply some of this knowledge to others, he at once shakes all faith in his testimony bearing upon the accused. "do you remember," the question was asked him, "early in the month of april, of mrs. surratt having sent for you and asking you to give mr. booth notice that she wished to see him?" weichmann stated in his reply that she did, that it was on the second of april, and that he found in mr. booth's room john mccullough, the actor, when he delivered the message. one of two things to which he swears in this statement cannot be true; . that he met john mccullough in booth's room, for we have mccullough's sworn statement that at that time he was not in the city of washington, and if, when he delivered the message to booth, mccullough was in the room, it could not have been the second of april. st. lawrence hall. montreal, june . . i am an actor by profession, at present fulfilling an engagement at mr. buckland's theatre, in this city. i arrived here on the twelfth of may. i performed two engagements at ford's theatre in washington, during the past winter, the last one closing on saturday evening, twenty-fifth of march. i left washington sunday evening, twenty-sixth of march, and have not been there since. i have no recollection of meeting any person by the name of weichmann. --john mccullough. sworn to and before me, at the united states consulate general's, in montreal, this third day of june, a.d. . c. h. powers, u. s. vice consul-general. if he can be so mistaken about those facts, may he not be in regard to that whole transaction? it is also proved by weichmann that before mrs. surratt started for the country, on the fourteenth of april, booth called; that he remained three or four minutes, and then weichmann and mrs. surratt started for the country. all this comes out on his first examination in chief. the following is also told in his first cross-examination: mrs. surratt keeps a boarding house in this city, and was in the habit of renting out her rooms, and that he was upon very intimate terms with surratt; that they occupied the same room; that when he and mrs. surratt went to surrattsville on the fourteenth, she took two packages, one of papers, the contents of the other were not known. that persons have been in the habit of going to mrs. surratt's and staying a day or two; that atzerodt stopped in the house only one night; that the first time payne came to the house he was dressed genteelly, like a gentleman; that he heard both mrs. surratt and her daughter say that they did not care about having atzerodt brought to the house; and at the conclusion, in swearing as to mrs. surratt's character, he said it was exemplary and lady-like in every respect, and apparently, as far as he could judge, she was all the time, from the first of november up to the fourteenth of april, "doing her duties to god and man." it also distinctly appears that weichmann never had any conversation with mrs. surratt touching any conspiracy. one thing is apparent to our minds, and it is forced upon us, as it must be upon every reasonable mind, that in order to have gained all this knowledge weichmann must have been within the inner circle of the conspiracy. he knows too much for an innocent man, and the conclusion is perfectly irresistible that if mrs. surratt had knowledge of what was going on, and had been, with others, a _particeps_ _criminis_ in the great conspiracy, she certainly would have done more than she did or has been shown against her, and weichmann would have known it. how does her nonrecognition of payne, her acquaintance with booth, and the delivery of the message to lloyd, compare with the long and startling array of facts proved against weichmann out of his own mouth? all the facts point strongly to him as a co-conspirator. is there a word on record of conversation between booth and mrs. surratt? that they did converse together, we know; but if anything treasonable had passed between them, would not the quick ears of weichmann have caught it, and would not he have recited it to this court? when weichmann went, on tuesday, the eleventh of april, to get booth's buggy, he was not asked by mrs. surratt to get ten dollars. it was proffered by booth, according to weichmann, and he took it. if mrs. surratt ever got money from booth she paid it back to him. it is not her character to be in anyone's debt. there was no intimacy with booth, as mrs. surratt has proved, but only common acquaintance, and such as would warrant only occasional calls on booth's part, and only intimacy would have excused mrs. surratt to herself in accepting such a favor, had it been made known to her. moreover, miss surratt has attested to remarks of her brother, which prove that intimacy of booth with his sister and mother were not considered desirable by him. the preceding facts are proven by statements made by weichmann during his first examination. but, as though the commission had not sufficiently exposed the character of one of its chief witnesses in the role of grand conspirator, weichmann is recalled and further attests to the genuineness of the following telegram: new york, march d, .--to weichmann, esq., h st.--tell john telegraph number and street at once. [signed] j. booth. what additional proof of confidential relations between weichmann and booth could the court desire? if there was a conspiracy planned and maintained among the persons named in the indictment, weichmann must have had entire knowledge of the same, else he had not been admitted to that degree of knowledge to which he testifies; and in such case, and in the alleged case of mrs. surratt's complicity, weichmann must have known the same by circumstances strong enough to exclude doubt, and in comparison with which all present facts of accusation would sink into insignificance. we proceed to the notice and review of the second chief witness of the prosecution against mrs. surratt, john m. lloyd. he testifies to the fact of a meeting with mrs. surratt at uniontown on the eleventh of april, , and to a conversation having occurred between mrs. surratt and himself in regard to which he states: "i am quite positive she asked me about the 'shooting irons'; i am quite positive about that, but not altogether positive. i think she named shooting irons, or something to call my attention to those things, for i had almost forgotten about their being there." question.-- "was her question to you first, whether they were there, or what was it?" answer.--"really, i cannot recollect the first question she put to me--i could not do it to save my life." the question was asked lloyd, during this conversation, was the word 'carbine' mentioned? he answered, "no. she finally came out (but i cannot be determined about it, that she said shooting irons), and asked me in relation to them." the question was then asked, "can you swear on your oath, that mrs. surratt mentioned the words 'shooting irons' to you at all?" a.--"i am very positive she did." q. __ "are you certain?" a.--"i am very positive that she named shooting irons on both occasions. not so positive as to the first as i am about the last." here comes in the plea of "reasonable doubt." if the witness himself is not absolutely positive as to what occurred, and as to the conversation that took place, how can the jury assume to act upon it as they would upon a matter personally concerning themselves? on this occasion of mrs. surratt's visit to uniontown, three days before the assassination, where she met lloyd, and where this conversation occurred between them, at a time when lloyd was, by presumption, sober and not intoxicated, he declares definitely before the commission that he is unable to recollect the conversation, or parts of it, with distinctness. but on the fourteenth of april, and at a time when, as testified by his sister-in-law, he was more than ordinarily affected by intoxicating drink,--and captain gwynn, james lusby, knott, the barkeeper, and others, corroborate the testimony as to his absolute inebriation-- he attests that he positively remembers that mrs. surratt said to him, "'mr. lloyd, i want you to have those shooting irons ready. that a person would call for them.' that was the language she made use of, and she gave me this other thing to give to whoever called." in connection with the fact that lloyd cannot swear positively that mrs. surratt mentioned "shooting irons" to him at uniontown, bear in mind the fact that weichmann sat in the buggy on the same seat with mrs. surratt, and he swears that he heard nothing about "shooting irons." would not the quick ears of weichmann have heard the remark had it been made? the gentlemen of the commission will please recollect that these statements were rendered by a man addicted to excessive use of intoxicating liquors; that he was even inordinately drunk at the time referred to; that he had voluntarily complicated himself in the concealment of the arms by john h. surratt and his friends; that he was in a state of maudlin terror when arrested and when forced to confess; that for two days he maintained denial of all knowledge that booth and herold had been at his house; and that at last, and in the condition referred to, he was coerced by threats to confess, and into a weak and common effort to exculpate himself by the accusation of another and by statements of conversation already cited. notwithstanding his utter denial of all knowledge of booth and herold having called at his house, it afterward appears, by his own testimony, that immediately herold commanded him (lloyd) "for god's sake, make haste and get those things," he comprehended what "things" were indicated, without definition, and brought forth both carbines and whisky. he testifies that john h. surratt had told him, when depositing the weapons in concealment in his house, that they would soon be called for, but did not instruct him, it seems, by whom they would be demanded. all facts connecting lloyd with the case tend to his implication and guilt, and to prove that he adopted the _dernier_ _ressort_ of guilt-- accusation and inculpation of another. in case lloyd were innocent and mrs. surratt the guilty coadjutrix and messenger of the conspirators, would not lloyd have been able to cite so many open and significant remarks and acts of mrs. surratt that he would not have been obliged to recall, in all perversion and weakness of uncertainty, deeds and speech so common and unmeaning as his testimony includes? it is upon these considerations that we feel ourselves safe and reasonable in the position that there are facts and circumstances, both external and internal, connected with the testimony of weichmann and lloyd, which, if they do not destroy, do certainly greatly shake their credibility, and which, under the rule that will give mrs. surratt the benefit of all reasonable doubts, seem to forbid that she should be convicted upon the unsupported evidence of these two witnesses. but even admitting the facts to be proven as above recited, it remains to be seen where is the guilty knowledge of the contemplated assassination; and this brings us to the inquiry whether these facts are not explainable so as to exclude guilt. from one of the most respected of legal authorities the following is taken:-- "whenever, therefore, the evidence leaves it indifferent which of several hypotheses is true, or merely establishes some finite probability in favor of one hypothesis rather than another, such evidence cannot amount to proof. the maxim of the law is that it is better that ninety-nine offenders should escape than that one innocent man should be condemned." (starkie on evidence.) the acts of mrs. surratt must have been accompanied with criminal intent in order to make them criminal. if any one supposes that any such intent existed, the supposition comes alone from inference. if disloyal acts and constant disloyal practices, if overt and open action against the government, on her part, had been shown down to the day of the murder of the president, it would do something toward establishing the inference of criminal intent. on the other hand, just the reverse is shown. the remarks here of the learned and honorable judge advocate are peculiarly appropriate to this branch of the discussion, and, with his authority, we waive all others. "if the court please, i will make a single remark. i think the testimony in this case has proved, what i believe history sufficiently attests, how kindred to each other are the crimes of treason against a nation and the assassination of its chief magistrate. as i think of those crimes, the one seems to be, if not the necessary consequence, certainly a logical sequence from the other. the murder of the president of the united states, as alleged and shown, was preeminently a political assassination. disloyalty to the government was its sole, its only inspiration. when, therefore, we shall show, on the part of the accused, acts of intense disloyalty, bearing arms in the field against that government, we show, with him, the presence of an animus toward the government which relieves this accusation of much, if not all, of its improbability. and this course of proof is constantly resorted to in criminal courts. i do not regard it as in the slightest degree a departure from the usages of the profession in the administration of public justice. the purpose is to show that the prisoner, in his mind and course of life, was prepared for the commission of this crime: that the tendencies of his life, as evidenced by open and overt acts, lead and point to this crime, if not as a necessary, certainly as a most probable, result, and it is with that view, and that only, that the testimony is offered." is there anything in mrs. surratt's mind and course of life to show that she was prepared for the commission of this crime? the business transaction by mrs. surratt at surrattsville, on the fourteenth, clearly discloses her only purpose in making this visit. calvert's letters, the package of papers relating to the estate, the business with nothe, would be sufficiently clear to most minds, when added to the fact that the other unknown package had been handed to mrs, offutt; that, while at surrattsville, she made an inquiry for, or an allusion to, mr. lloyd, and was ready to return to washington when lloyd drove up to the house. does not this open wide the door for the admission of the plea of "reasonable doubt"? had she really been engaged in assisting in the great crime, which makes an epoch in our country's history, her only object and most anxious wish would have been to see lloyd. it was no ruse to transact important business there to cover up what the uncharitable would call the real business. calvert's letter was received by her on the forenoon of the fourteenth, and long before she saw booth that day, or even before booth knew that the president would be at the theatre that night, mrs. surratt had disclosed her intention to go to surrattsville, and had she been one moment earlier in her start she would not have seen booth at all. all these things furnish powerful presumptions in favor of the theory that, if she delivered the message at all, it was done innocently. in regard to the nonrecognition of payne, the third fact adduced by the prosecution against mrs. surratt, we incline to the opinion that, to all minds not forejudging, the testimony of miss anna e. surratt, and various friends and servants of mrs. surratt, relative to physical causes, might fully explain and account for such ocular remissness and failure. in times and on occasions of casual meeting of intimate acquaintances on the street, and of common need for domestic uses, the eyesight of mrs. surratt had proved treacherous and failing. how much more liable to fail her was her imperfect vision on an occasion of excitement and anxiety, like the night of her arrest and the disturbance of her household by military officers, and when the person with whom she was confronted was transfigured by a disguise which varied from the one in which she had previously met him, with all the wide difference between a baptist parson and an earth-soiled, uncouthly-dressed digger of gutters! anna e. surratt, emma offutt, anna ward, elize holohan, honora fitzpatrick, and a servant, attest to all the visual incapacity of mrs. surratt, and the annoyance she experienced therefrom in passing friends without recognition in the daytime, and from inability to sew or read even on a dark day, as well as at night. the priests of her church, and gentlemen who have been friendly and neighborhood acquaintances of mrs. surratt for many years, bear witness to her untarnished name, to her discreet and christian character, to the absence of all imputation of disloyalty, to her character for patriotism. friends and servants attest to her voluntary and gratuitous beneficence to our soldiers stationed near her; and, "in charges for high treason, it is pertinent to inquire into the humanity of the prisoner toward those representing the government," is the maxim of the law; and, in addition, we invite your attention to the singular fact that of the two officers who bore testimony in this matter, one asserts that the hall wherein payne sat was illuminated with a full head of gas; the other, that the gaslight was purposely dimmed. the uncertainty of the witness who gave the testimony relative to the coat of payne may also be called to your notice. should not this valuable testimony of loyal and moral character shield a woman from the ready belief, on the part of judges who judge her worthiness in every way, that during the few moments booth detained mrs. surratt from her carriage, already waiting, when he approached and entered the house, she became so converted to diabolical evil as to hail with ready assistance his terrible plot, which must have been framed (if it were complete in his intent at that hour, half-past two o'clock), since the hour of eleven that day? if any part of lloyd's statements is true, and mrs. surratt did verily bear to his or mrs. offutt's hands the field glass, enveloped in paper, by the evidence itself we may believe she knew not the nature of the contents of the package; and had she known, what evil could she or any other have attached to a commission of so common a nature? no evidence of individual or personal intimacy with booth has been adduced against mrs. surratt; no long and apparently confidential interviews; no indications of a private comprehension mutual between them; only the natural and not frequent custom on the part of booth--as any other associate of her son might and doubtless did do--of inquiring through the mother, whom he would request to see, of the son, who, he would learn, was absent from home. no one has been found who could declare any appearance of the nursing or mysteriously discussing of anything like conspiracy within the walls of mrs. surratt's house. even if the son of mrs. surratt, from the significancies of associations, is to be classed with the conspirators, if such a body existed, it is monstrous to suppose that the son would weave a net of circumstantial evidences around the dwelling of his widowed mother, were he never so reckless and sin-determined; and that they (the mother and the son) joined hands in such dreadful pact, is a thought more monstrous still! a mother and son associate in crime, and such a crime as this, which half of the civilized world never saw matched in all its dreadful bearings! our judgments can have hardly recovered their unprejudiced poise since the shock of the late horror, if we can contemplate with credulity such a picture, conjured by the unjust spirits of indiscriminate accusation and revenge. a crime which, in its public magnitude, added to its private misery, would have driven even the atis-haunted heart of a medici, a borgia, or a madame bocarme to wild confession before its accomplishment, and daunted even that soul, of all the recorded world the most eager for novelty in license, and most unshrinking in sin--the indurated soul of christina of sweden; such a crime the profoundest plotters within padded walls would scarcely dare whisper; the words forming the expression of which, spoken aloud in the upper air, would convert all listening boughs to aspens, and all glad sounds of nature to shuddering wails. and this made known, even surmised, to a woman a _materfamilias_ the good genius, the _placens_ _uxor_ of a home where children had gathered all the influences of purity and the reminiscences of innocence, where religion watched, and the church was minister and teacher! who--were circumstantial evidence strong and conclusive, such as only time and the slow-weaving fates could elucidate and deny--who will believe, when the mists of uncertainty which cloud the present shall have dissolved, that a woman born and bred in respectability and competence--a christian mother, and a citizen who never offended the laws of civil propriety; whose unfailing attention to the most sacred duties of life has won for her the name of "a proper christian matron"; whose heart was ever warmed by charity; whose door unbarred to the poor; and whose penates had never cause to veil their faces--who will believe that she could so suddenly and so fully have learned the intricate arts of sin? a daughter of the south, her life associations confirming her natal predilections, her individual preferences inclined, without logic or question, to the southern people, but with no consciousness nor intent of disloyalty to her government, and causing no exclusion from her friendship and active favors of the people of the loyal north, nor repugnance in the distribution among our union soldiery of all needed comforts, and on all occasions. a strong but guileless-hearted woman, her maternal solicitude would have been the first denouncer, even the abrupt betrayer of a plotted crime in which one companion of her son could have been implicated, had cognizance of such reached her. her days would have been agonized, and her nights sleepless, till she might have exposed and counteracted that spirit of defiant hate which watched its moment of vantage to wreak an immortal wrong--till she might have sought the intercession and absolution of the church, her refuge, in behalf of those she loved. the brains which were bold and crafty and couchant enough to dare the world's opprobrium in the conception of a scheme which held as naught the lives of men in highest places, would never have imparted it to the intelligence, nor sought the aid nor sympathy, of any living woman who had not, like lady macbeth, "unsexed herself"--not though she were wise and discreet as maria theresa or the castilian isabella. this woman knew it not. this woman, who, on the morning preceding that blackest day in our country's annals, knelt in the performance of her most sincere and sacred duty at the confessional, and received the mystic rite of the eucharist, knew it not. not only would she have rejected it with horror, but such a proposition, presented by the guest who had sat at her hearth as the friend and convive of the son upon whose arm and integrity her widowed womanhood relied for solace and protection, would have roused her maternal wits to some sure cunning which would have contravened the crime and sheltered her son from the evil influences and miserable results of such companionship. the mothers of charles ix. and of nero could harbor underneath their terrible smiles schemes for the violent and unshriven deaths, or the moral vitiation and decadence which would painfully and gradually remove lives sprung from their own, were they obstacles to their demoniac ambition. but they wrought their awful romances of crime in lands where the sun of supreme civilization, through a gorgeous evening of sybaritic luxury, was sinking, with red tints of revolution, into the night of anarchy and national caducity. in our own young nation, strong in its morality, energy, freedom, and simplicity, assassination can never be indigenous. even among the desperadoes and imported lazzaroni of our largest cities, it is comparatively an infrequent cause of fear. the daughters of women to whom, in their yet preserved abodes, the noble mothers who adorned the days of our early independence are vividly remembered realities and not haunting shades--the descendants of earnest seekers for liberty, civil and religious, of rare races, grown great in heroic endurance, in purity which comes of trial borne, and in hope born of conscious right, whom the wheels of fortune sent hither to transmit such virtues--the descendants of these have no heart, no ear for the diabolisms born in hotbeds of tyranny and intolerance. no descendant of these--no woman of this temperate land--could have seen, much less joined, her son, descending the sanguinary and irrepassable ways of treason and murder to an ignominious death, or an expatriated and attainted life, worse than the punishing wheel and bloody pool of the poets' hell. in our country, where reason and moderation so easily quench the fires of insane hate, and where the vendetta is so easily overcome by the sublime grace of forgiveness, no woman could have been found so desperate as to sacrifice all spiritual, temporal, and social good, self, offspring, fame, honor, and all the desiderata of life, and time, and immortality, to the commission, or even countenance, of such a deed of horror, as we have been compelled to contemplate during the two months past. in a christian land, where all records and results of the world's intellectual, civil, and moral advancement mold the human heart and mind to highest impulses, the theory of old helvetius is more probable than desirable. the natures of all born in equal station are not so widely varied as to present extremes of vice and goodness, but by the effects of rarest and severest experience. beautiful fairies and terrible gnomes do not stand by each infant's cradle, sowing the nascent mind with tenderest graces or vilest errors. the slow attrition of vicious associations and law-defying indulgences, or the sudden impetus of some terribly multiplied and social disaster, must have worn away the susceptibility of conscience and self-respect, or dashed the mind from the height of these down to the depths of despair and recklessness, before one of ordinary life could take counsel with violence and crime. in no such manner was the life of our client marked. it was the parallel of nearly all the competent masses. surrounded by the scenes of her earliest recollections, independent in her condition she was satisfied with the _mundus_ of her daily pursuits, and the maintenance of her own and children's status in society and her church. remember your wives, mothers, sisters, and gentle friends whose graces, purity, and careful affection, ornament and cherish and strengthen your lives. not widely different from their natures and spheres have been the nature and sphere of the woman who sits in the prisoner's dock to-day, mourning with the heart of alcestis her children and her lot; by whose desolated hearthstone a solitary daughter wastes her uncomforted life away in tears and prayers and vigils for the dawn of hope; and this wretchedness and unpitied despair have closed like a shadow around one of earth's common pictures of domestic peace and social comfort, destroyed by the one sole cause--suspicion fastened and fed upon the facts of acquaintance and mere fortuitous intercourse with that man in whose name so many miseries gather, the assassin of the president. since the days when christian teachings first elevated woman to her present free, refined, and refining position, man's power and honoring regard have been the palladium of her sex. let no stain of injustice, eager for a sacrifice to revenge, rest upon the reputation of the men of our country and time! this woman, who, widowed of her natural protectors, who, in helplessness and painfully severe imprisonment, in sickness and in grief ineffable, sues for mercy and justice from your hands, may leave a legacy of blessings, sweet as fruition-hastening showers, for those you love and care for, in return for the happiness of fame and home restored, though life be abbreviated and darkened through this world by the miseries of this unmerited and woeful trial. but long and chilling is the shade which just retribution, slow creeping on, _ped_ _claudo_, casts around the fate of him whose heart is merciless to his fellows bowed low in misfortune. albertus magnus ( - ) albert the great (albertus magnus), teacher of st. thomas aquinas, was one of the most celebrated orators and theologians of the church in the thirteenth century. he was born at lauingen on the danube in (according to some in ), and, becoming a dominican at the age of twenty-nine, he taught in various german cities with continually increasing celebrity, until finally the pope called him to preach in rome. in he was made bishop of ratisbon, but after three years resigned the bishopric and returned to his work in the ranks of the clergy. while teaching at cologne he suddenly lost his memory, probably as a result of his excessive studies. he died november th, . he was placed on the calendar of saints in . his works, collected by peter jammy, and published at lyons in , make twenty-one volumes, folio. the meaning of the crucifixion it was surrounded by the thick wreath of thorns even to the tender brain. whence in the prophet,--the people hath surrounded me with the thorns of sin. and why was this, save that thine own head might not suffer--thine own conscience might not be wounded? his eyes grew dark in death; and those lights, which give light to the world, were for a time extinguished. and when they were clouded, there was darkness over all the earth, and with them the two great lights of the firmament were moved, to the end that thine eyes might be turned away, lest they should behold vanity; or, if they chance to behold it, might for his sake condemn it. those ears, which in heaven unceasingly hear "holy, holy, holy," vouchsafed on earth to be filled with: "thou hast a devil,--crucify him, crucify him!" to the intent that thine ears might not be deaf to the cry of the poor, nor, open to idle tales, should readily receive the poison of detraction or of adulation. that fair face of him that was fairer than the children of men, yea, than thousands of angels, was bedaubed with spitting, afflicted with blows, given up to mockery, to the end that thy face might be enlightened, and, being enlightened, might be strengthened, so that it might be said of thee, "his countenance is no more changed." that mouth, which teaches angels and instructs men "which spake and it was done," was fed with gall and vinegar, that thy mouth might speak the truth, and might be opened to the praise of the lord; and it was silent, lest thou shouldst lightly lend thy tongue to the expression of anger. those hands, which stretched abroad the heavens, were stretched out on the cross and pierced with most bitter nails; as saith isaiah, "i have stretched forth my hands all the day to an unbelieving people." and david, "they pierced my hands and my feet; i may tell all my bones." and saint jerome says, "we may, in the stretching forth of his hands, understand the liberality of the giver, who denieth nothing to them that ask lovingly; who restored health to the leper that requested it of him; enlightened him that was blind from his birth; fed the hungry multitude in the wilderness." and again he says, "the stretched-out hands denote the kindness of the parent, who desires to receive his children to his breast." and thus let thy hands be so stretched out to the poor that thou mayest be able to say, "my soul is always in my hand." for that which is held in the hand is not easily forgotten. so he may be said to call his soul to memory, who carries it, as it were, in his hands through the good opinion that men conceive of it. his hands were fixed, that they may instruct thee to hold back thy hands, with the nails of fear, from unlawful or harmful works. that glorious breast, in which are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, is pierced with the lance of a soldier, to the end that thy heart might be cleansed from evil thoughts, and being cleansed might be sanctified, and being sanctified might be preserved. the feet, whose footstool the prophets commanded to be sanctified, were bitterly nailed to the cross, lest thy feet should sustain evil, or be swift to shed blood; but, running in the way of the lord, stable in his path, and fixed in his road, might not turn aside to the right hand nor to the left. "what could have been done more?" why did christ bow his head on the cross? to teach us that by humility we must enter into heaven. also, to show that we must rest from our own work. also, that he might comply with the petition, "let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth"; also that he might ask permission of his bride to leave her. of great virtue is the memory of the lord's passion, which, if it be firmly held in the mind, every cloud of error and sin is dispersed. whence the blessed bernard says: "always having christ, and him crucified, in the heart." the blessed dead they who die in the lord are blessed, on account of two things which immediately follow. for they enter into most sweet rest, and enjoy most delicate refreshment. concerning their rest it immediately follows. "even so saith the spirit" (that is, says the gloss, the whole trinity), for they rest from their labors. "and it is a pleasant bed on which they take their rest, who, as is aforesaid, die in the lord." for this bed is none other than the sweet consolation of the creator. of this consolation he speaks himself by the prophet isaiah: "as one whom his mother comforteth, so will i comfort you, and ye shall be comforted in jerusalem." of the second,--that is, the delicate refreshment of those that die in christ,--it is immediately subjoined, and their works do follow them. for every virtue which a man has practiced by good works in this world will bring a special cup of recompense, and offer it to the soul that has entered into rest. thus, purity of body and mind will bring one cup, justice another, which also is to be said concerning truth, love, gentleness, humility, and the other virtues. of this holy refreshment it is written in isaiah: "kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and queens thy nursing mothers." by kings we understand the father, the son, and the holy ghost, who, in inseparable unity, possess the kingdom of heaven; by queens, the virtues are expressed, which, as has been said, receive the cups of refreshment from the storehouse of the trinity, and offer them to the happy souls. pray, therefore, dearly beloved, to the lord, that he would so grant us to live according to his will, that we may die in him, and may evermore be comforted and refreshed by him. ethan allen ethan allen of new york, a descendant of the revolutionary hero made famous by the capture of ticonderoga, has never been a professional public speaker, but from time to time, when stirred by some cause which appealed to him strongly, he has shown great power as an orator. his address of , delivered in new york city, is here republished from a contemporaneous report, preserved among the papers of mr. enos clarke. it was described in the newspapers of the day as "thrilling eloquence," and perhaps it is the best expression extant of the almost inconceivable excitement of the opening months of the war. in mr. alien joined the liberal republicans and made earnest pleas for reconciliation with the south. in he took a prominent part in supporting the cubans in their struggle for independence. a call to arms (delivered in new york city in ) fellow-citizens:-- once more the country is aroused by a call to arms. it is now nearly a century ago that our fathers assembled in mass meetings in this city to devise ways and means for this very flag which to-day we give to the winds of heaven, bearing defiance from every star. fired, then, with the same spirit of freedom that kindles on this spot to-day, for the time throwing aside the habiliments of peace, our fathers armed themselves for vengeance and for war. the history of that war, read it in the hearts of the american people; the trials and struggles of that war, mark them in the teardrops which the very allusion brings to every eye; the blessings from that war, count them in the temples of industry and trade that arise everywhere around us; the wisdom of that war, and the honor and the perpetuity of its triumphs, behold the one in our unexampled prosperity as a nation, and the other in the impulses that, like an electric flash, bind heart to heart, throughout this vast assemblage, in the firm resolve that, cost what it may, rebellion shall go down. again, the american people are assembled in mass meetings throughout the nation, while the states once more rock in the throes of revolution. once more the cry to arms reverberates throughout the land; but this time we war against domestic foes. treason has raised its black flag near the tomb of washington, and the union of our states hangs her fate upon the bayonet and the sword. accursed be the hand that would not seize the bayonet; withered the arm that would not wield the sword in such a cause! everything that the american citizen holds dear hangs upon the issue of this contest. our national honor and reputation demand that rebellion shall not triumph on our soil. in the name of our heroic dead, in the name of our numberless victories, in the name of our thousand peaceful triumphs, our union shall and must be preserved! our peaceful triumphs? these are the victories we should be jealous to guard. let others recount their martial glories; they shall be eclipsed by the charity and the grace of the triumphs which have been won in peace. "peace hath her victories not less renowned than war," and the hard-earned fruits of these victories rebellion shall not take from us. our peaceful triumphs? who shall enumerate their value to the millions yet unborn? what nation in so short a time has seen so many? on the land and on the sea, in the realms of science and in the world of art, we have everywhere gathered our honors and won our garlands. upon the altars of the states they yet lie, fresh from gathering, while their happy influence fills the land. of the importance and value of our thousand peaceful triumphs time will permit me to mention only one. it is now just two years ago when up the waters of the potomac sailed the representatives of an empire till then shut out from intercourse with all christian nations. in the eastern seas there lay an empire of islands which had hitherto enjoyed no recognition in the christian world other than its name upon the map. no history, as far as we know, illuminated it; no ancient time-marks told of its advancement, step by step, in the march of improvement. there it has rested for thousands of years, wrapped in the mysteries of its own exclusiveness--gloomy, dark, peculiar. it has been supposed to possess great powers; and vague rumors have attributed to it arts to us unknown. against nearly all the world, for thousands of years japan has obstinately shut her doors; the wealth of the christian world could not tempt her cupidity; the wonders of the christian world could not excite her curiosity. there she lay, sullen and alone, the phenomenon of nations. england and france and the other powerful governments of europe have at various times tried to conquer this oriental exclusiveness, but the portuguese only partly succeeded, while all the rest have signally failed. at length we, bearing at our masthead the glorious old stars and stripes, approach the mysterious portals and seek an entrance. not with cannon and the implements of death do we demand admission, but, appreciating the saying of euripides, that "resistless eloquence shall open the gates that steel exclude," we peacefully appeal to that sense of justice which is the "touch of nature that makes the whole world kin," and behold! the interdiction is removed; the doors of the mysterious empire fly open, and a new garland is added to our commercial conquests! who shall set limits to the gain that shall follow this one victory of peace, if our government shall be perpetuated so as to gather it for the generations? who shall say that in an unbroken, undivided union, the opening of the empire of japan shall not accomplish for the present era all that the reformation, the art of printing, steam, and the telegraph have done within the last three hundred years? new avenues of wealth are thrown open; new fields are to be occupied; arts new to us, perhaps, are to be studied; and science, doubtless, has revelations to make us, from that arcana of nations, equal to anything we have ever learned before. fifty millions of people are to be enlightened; the printing press is yet to catch the daily thought and stamp it on the page; the magnetic wire must yet tremble along her highways, and niphon yet tremble to her very centre at each heart-beat of our ocean steamers, as they sweep through her waters and thunder round her island homes. all hail, all hail, to these children of the morning; all hail, all hail, to the great republic of the west that calls them into life! from every age that has passed there comes a song of praise for the treaty that has been consummated. the buried masters of three thousand years start again to life and march in solemn and grand procession before the eyes of the new-found empire. homer with his songs, greece with her arts, rome with her legions, and america with her heroes, all come to us with the freshness and novelty of the newly born. wipe off the mold that time has gathered upon their tombs, and let them all come forth and answer, at the summons of a new-born nation that calls them again to life! tell to these strangers the story of the resurrection. clutching in their hands their dripping blades, the warriors recount their conquests, and joined at last in harmonious brotherhood, copernicus, with bony fingers pointing upward, tells to confucius his story of the stars! fellow-citizens, i have recounted but one of our many peaceful triumphs. shall all these hopes of the future, shall all these peaceful victories of our people, shall all these struggles of the past be swept away by the dissolution of this union and the destruction of the government? forbid it, almighty god! rather perish a thousand times the cause of the rebellion, and over the ruins of slavery let peace once more resume her sway, and let the cannon's lips grow cold. _delenda_ _est_ _carthago_, said the old roman patriot, when gloom settled upon his state. the rebellion must go down in the same spirit, say we all to-day. down with party, sect, and class, and up with a sentiment of unanimity when our country calls to arms! new england leads us in the contest. the legions of vermont are now _en_ _route_ for the field. again, she can say with truth that "the bones of her sons lie mingling and bleaching with the soil of every state from maine to georgia, and there they will lie forever." new york must not be behind the old bay state which led a year ago. in the spirit world, warren calls to hamilton, and hamilton calls back to warren, that hand in hand their mortal children go on together to fame, to victory, or to the grave. where the ranks are full, let us catch an inspiration from the past, and with it upon us go forth to conflict. go call the roll on saratoga, bunker hill, and yorktown, that the sheeted dead may rise as witnesses, and tell your legions of the effort to dissolve their union, and there receive their answer. mad with frenzy, burning with indignation at the thought, all ablaze for vengeance upon the traitors, such shall be the fury and impetuosity of the onset that all opposition shall be swept away before them, as the pigmy yields to the avalanche that comes tumbling, rumbling, thundering from its alpine home! let us gather at the tomb of washington and invoke his immortal spirit to direct us in the combat. rising again incarnate from the tomb, in one hand he holds that same old flag, blackened and begrimed with the smoke of a seven-years' war, and with the other hand be points us to the foe. up and at them! let immortal energy strengthen our arms, and infernal fury thrill us to the soul. one blow,--deep, effectual, and forever,--one crushing blow upon the rebellion, in the name of god, washington, and the republic! fisher ames ( - ) fisher ames is easily first among the new england federalist orators of the first quarter of a century of the republic. he was greatly, sometimes extravagantly, admired by his contemporaries, and his addresses are studied as models by eminent public speakers of our own day. dr. charles caldwell in his autobiography calls ames "one of the most splendid rhetoricians of his age." . . . "two of his speeches," writes doctor caldwell, "that on jay's treaty and that usually called his tomahawk speech, because it included some resplendent passages on indian massacre, were the most brilliant and fascinating specimens of eloquence i have ever heard, though i have listened to some of the most eloquent speakers in the british parliament,--among others to wilberforce and mackintosh, plunkett, brougham, and canning. doctor priestly who was familiar with the oratory of pitt the father, and pitt the son, as also with that of burke and fox, made to myself the acknowledgment that the speech of ames on the british treaty was 'the most bewitching piece of eloquence' to which he had ever listened." ames was born at dedham, massachusetts, on april th, . his father, nathaniel ames, a physician, had the "honorable family standing" which was so important in the life of most of the colonies. he had scientific tendencies and published an "astronomical diary," or nautical almanac, which was in considerable vogue. the son, however, developed at the early age of six years a fondness for classical literature, which led him to undertake to master latin. he made such progress that he was admitted to harvard when but twelve years old. while there, it "was observed that he coveted the glory of eloquence," showing his fondness for oratory not merely in the usual debating society declamation, but by the study of classical models and of such great english poets as shakespeare and milton. to this, no doubt correctly, has been attributed his great command of language and his fertility in illustration. after graduating from harvard in , he studied law in boston, served in the massachusetts legislature, in the convention for ratifying the federal constitution, and in the first congress elected under the constitution. after retiring, be was called in to the presidency of harvard. he declined the honor, however, on account of diffidence and failing health. his death occurred on the fourth of july, , in the fiftieth year of his age. after the treaty with great britain (jay's), concluded in , had been ratified and proclaimed by the president, he communicated it to the house of representatives, "in order that the necessary appropriations might be made to carry it into effect." the speech on the treaty, delivered by ames, was on a resolution in favor of making the appropriations thus called for, the house being in committee of the whole april th, . on the british treaty (delivered in the house of representatives, april , ) mr. chairman:-- i entertain the hope, perhaps a rash one, that my strength will hold me out to speak a few minutes. in my judgment, a right decision will depend more on the temper and manner with which we may prevail upon ourselves to contemplate the subject than upon the development of any profound political principles, or any remarkable skill in the application of them. if we could succeed to neutralize our inclinations, we should find less difficulty than we have to apprehend in surmounting all our objections. the suggestion, a few days ago, that the house manifested symptoms of heat and irritation, was made and retorted as if the charge ought to create surprise, and would convey reproach. let us be more just to ourselves and to the occasion. let us not affect to deny the existence and the intrusion of some portion of prejudice and feeling into the debate, when, from the very structure of our nature, we ought to anticipate the circumstance as a probability, and when we are admonished by the evidence of our senses that it is the fact. how can we make professions for ourselves, and offer exhortations to the house, that no influence should be felt but that of duty, and no guide respected but that of the understanding, while the peal to rally every passion of man is continually ringing in our ears? our understandings have been addressed, it is true, and with ability and effect; but, i demand, has any corner of the heart been left unexplored? it has been ransacked to find auxiliary arguments, and, when that attempt failed, to awaken the sensibilities that would require none. every prejudice and feeling has been summoned to listen to some peculiar style of address; and yet we seem to believe and to consider as an affront a doubt that we are strangers to any influence but that of unbiased reason. it would be strange that a subject which has aroused in turn all the passions of the country should be discussed without the interference of any of our own. we are men, and, therefore, not exempt from those passions; as citizens and representatives we feel the interests that must excite them. the hazard of great interests cannot fail to agitate strong passions. we are not disinterested; it is impossible we should be dispassionate. the warmth of such feelings may becloud the judgment, and, for a time, pervert the understanding. but the public sensibility, and our own, has sharpened the spirit of inquiry, and given an animation to the debate. the public attention has been quickened to mark the progress of the discussion, and its judgment, often hasty and erroneous on first impressions, has become solid and enlightened at last. our result will, i hope, on that account, be the safer and more mature, as well as more accordant with that of the nation. the only constant agents in political affairs are the passions of men. shall we complain of our nature-- shall we say that man ought to have been made otherwise? it is right already, because he, from whom we derive our nature, ordained it so; and because thus made and thus acting, the cause of truth and the public good is the more surely promoted. but an attempt has been made to produce an influence of a nature more stubborn and more unfriendly to truth. it is very unfairly pretended, that the constitutional right of this house is at stake, and to be asserted and preserved only by a vote in the negative. we hear it said that this is a struggle for liberty, a manly resistance against the design to nullify this assembly and to make it a cipher in the government; that the president and senate, the numerous meetings in the cities, and the influence of the general alarm of the country, are the agents and instruments of a scheme of coercion and terror, to force the treaty down our throats, though we loathe it, and in spite of the clearest convictions of duty and conscience. it is necessary to pause here and inquire whether suggestions of this kind be not unfair in their very texture and fabric, and pernicious in all their influences. they oppose an obstacle in the path of inquiry, not simply discouraging, but absolutely insurmountable. they will not yield to argument; for as they were not reasoned up, they cannot be reasoned down. they are higher than a chinese wall in truth's way, and built of materials that are indestructible. while this remains, it is vain to argue; it is vain to say to this mountain, be thou cast into the sea. for, i ask of the men of knowledge of the world whether they would not hold him for a blockhead that should hope to prevail in an argument whose scope and object is to mortify the self-love of the expected proselyte? i ask, further, when such attempts have been made, have they not failed of success? the indignant heart repels a conviction that is believed to debase it. the self-love of an individual is not warmer in its sense, nor more constant in its action, than what is called in french, _l'esprit_ _du_ _corps_, or the self-love of an assembly; that jealous affection which a body of men is always found to bear towards its own prerogatives and power. i will not condemn this passion. why should we urge an unmeaning censure or yield to groundless fears that truth and duty will be abandoned, because men in a public assembly are still men, and feel that _esprit_ _du_ _corps_ which is one of the laws of their nature? still less should we despond or complain, if we reflect that this very spirit is a guardian instinct that watches over the life of this assembly. it cherishes the principle of self-preservation, and without its existence, and its existence with all the strength we see it possess, the privileges of the representatives of the people, and mediately the liberties of the people, would not be guarded, as they are, with a vigilance that never sleeps and an unrelaxed constancy and courage. if the consequences, most unfairly attributed to the vote in the affirmative, were not chimerical, and worse, for they are deceptive, i should think it a reproach to be found even moderate in my zeal to assert the constitutional powers of this assembly; and whenever they shall be in real danger, the present occasion affords proof that there will be no want of advocates and champions. indeed, so prompt are these feelings, and, when once roused, so difficult to pacify, that if we could prove the alarm was groundless, the prejudice against the appropriations may remain on the mind, and it may even pass for an act of prudence and duty to negative a measure which was lately believed by ourselves, and may hereafter be misconceived by others, to encroach upon the powers of the house. principles that bear a remote affinity with usurpation on those powers will be rejected, not merely as errors, but as wrongs. our sensibilities will shrink from a post where it is possible they may be wounded, and be inflamed by the slightest suspicion of an assault. while these prepossessions remain, all argument is useless. it may be heard with the ceremony of attention, and lavish its own resources, and the patience it wearies, to no manner of purpose. the ears may be open; but the mind will remain locked up, and every pass to the understanding guarded. unless, therefore, this jealous and repulsive fear for the rights of the house can be allayed, i will not ask a hearing. i cannot press this topic too far; i cannot address myself with too much emphasis to the magnanimity and candor of those who sit here, to suspect their own feelings, and, while they do, to examine the grounds of their alarm. i repeat it, we must conquer our persuasion that this body has an interest in one side of the question more than the other, before we attempt to surmount our objections. on most subjects, and solemn ones too, perhaps in the most solemn of all, we form our creed more from inclination than evidence. let me expostulate with gentlemen to admit, if it be only by way of supposition, and for a moment, that it is barely possible they have yielded too suddenly to their alarms for the powers of this house; that the addresses which have been made with such variety of forms and with so great dexterity in some of them, to all that is prejudice and passion in the heart, are either the effects or the instruments of artifice and deception, and then let them see the subject once more in its singleness and simplicity. it will be impossible, on taking a fair review of the subject, to justify the passionate appeals that have been made to us to struggle for our liberties and rights, and the solemn exhortations to reject the proposition, said to be concealed in that on your table, to surrender them forever. in spite of this mock solemnity, i demand, if the house will not concur in the measure to execute the treaty, what other course shall we take? how many ways of proceeding lie open before us? in the nature of things there are but three; we are either to make the treaty, to observe it, or break it. it would be absurd to say we will do neither. if i may repeat a phrase already much abused, we are under coercion to do one of them; and we have no power, by the exercise of our discretion, to prevent the consequences of a choice. by refusing to act, we choose. the treaty will be broken and fall to the ground. where is the fitness, then, of replying to those who urge upon the house the topics of duty and policy that they attempt to force the treaty down, and to compel this assembly to renounce its discretion, and to degrade itself to the rank of a blind and passive instrument in the hands of the treaty-making power? in case we reject the appropriation, we do not secure any greater liberty of action; we gain no safer shelter than before from the consequences of the decision. indeed, they are not to be evaded. it is neither just nor manly to complain that the treaty-making power has produced this coercion to act. it is not the act or the despotism of that power--it is the nature of things that compels. shall we, dreading to become the blind instruments of power, yield ourselves the blinder dupes of mere sounds of imposture? yet that word, that empty word, coercion, has given scope to an eloquence that, one would imagine, could not be tired and did not choose to be quieted. let us examine still more in detail the alternatives that are before us, and we shall scarcely fail to see, in still stronger lights, the futility of our apprehensions for the power and liberty of the house. if, as some have suggested, the thing called a treaty is incomplete,--if it has no binding force or obligation,--the first question is, will this house complete the instrument, and, by concurring, impart to it that force which it wants? the doctrine has been avowed that the treaty, though formally ratified by the executive power of both nations, though published as a law for our own by the president's proclamation, is still a mere proposition submitted to this assembly, no way distinguishable, in point of authority or obligation, from a motion for leave to bring in a bill, or any other original act of ordinary legislation. this doctrine, so novel in our country, yet so dear to many, precisely for the reason that, in the contention for power, victory is always dear, is obviously repugnant to the very terms as well as the fair interpretation of our own resolutions (mr. blount's). we declare that the treaty-making power is exclusively vested in the president and senate, and not in this house. need i say that we fly in the face of that resolution when we pretend that the acts of that power are not valid until we have concurred in them? it would be nonsense, or worse, to use the language of the most glaring contradiction, and to claim a share in a power which we at the same time disdain as exclusively vested in other departments. what can be more strange than to say that the compacts of the president and senate with foreign nations are treaties, without our agency, and yet those compacts want all power and obligation, until they are sanctioned by our concurrence? it is not my design, in this place, if at all, to go into the discussion of this part of the subject. i will, at least for the present, take it for granted, that this monstrous opinion stands in little need of remark, and if it does, lies almost out of the reach of refutation. but, say those who hide the absurdity under the cover of ambiguous phrases, have we no discretion? and if we have, are we not to make use of it in judging of the expediency or inexpediency of the treaty? our resolution claims that privilege, and we cannot surrender it without equal inconsistency and breach of duty. if there be any inconsistency in the case, it lies, not in making the appropriations for the treaty, but in the resolution itself (mr. blount's). let us examine it more nearly. a treaty is a bargain between nations, binding in good faith; and what makes a bargain? the assent of the contracting parties. we allow that the treaty power is not in this house; this house has no share in contracting, and is not a party; of consequence, the president and senate alone may make a treaty that is binding in good faith. we claim, however, say the gentlemen, a right to judge of the expediency of treaties; that is the constitutional province of our discretion. be it so. what follows? treaties, when adjudged by us to be inexpedient, fall to the ground, and the public faith is not hurt. this, incredible and extravagant as it may seem, is asserted. the amount of it, in plainer language, is this--the president and senate are to make national bargains, and this house has nothing to do in making them. but bad bargains do not bind this house, and, of inevitable consequence, do not bind the nation. when a national bargain, called a treaty, is made, its binding force does not depend upon the making, but upon our opinion that it is good. . . . to expatiate on the value of public faith may pass with some men for declamation--to such men i have nothing to say. to others i will urge, can any circumstance mark upon a people more turpitude and debasement? can anything tend more to make men think themselves mean, or degrade to a lower point their estimation of virtue and their standard of action? it would not merely demoralize mankind; it tends to break all the ligaments of society, to dissolve that mysterious charm which attracts individuals to the nation, and to inspire in its stead a repulsive sense of shame and disgust. what is patriotism? is it a narrow affection for the spot where a man was born? are the very clods where we tread entitled to this ardent preference because they are greener? no, sir; this is not the character of the virtue, and it soars higher for its object. it is an extended self-love, mingling with all the enjoyments of life, and twisting itself with the minutest filaments of the heart. it is thus we obey the laws of society, because they are the laws of virtue. in their authority we see, not the array of force and terror, but the venerable image of our country's honor. every good citizen makes that honor his own, and cherishes it not only as precious, but as sacred. he is willing to risk his life in its defense, and is conscious that he gains protection while he gives it. for what rights of a citizen will be deemed inviolable when a state renounces the principles that constitute their security? or, if his life should not be invaded, what would its enjoyments be in a country odious in the eyes of strangers and dishonored in his own? could he look with affection and veneration to such a country as his parent? the sense of having one would die within him; he would blush for his patriotism, if he retained any, and justly, for it would be a vice. he would be a banished man in his native land. i see no exception to the respect that is paid among nations to the law of good faith. if there are cases in this enlightened period when it is violated, there are none when it is decried. it is the philosophy of politics, the religion of governments. it is observed by barbarians--a whiff of tobacco smoke, or a string of beads, gives not merely binding force, but sanctity to treaties. even in algiers a truce may be bought for money; but, when ratified, even algiers is too wise, or too just, to disown and annul its obligation. thus, we see neither the ignorance of savages nor the principles of an association for piracy and rapine, permit a nation to despise its engagements. if, sir, there could be a resurrection from the foot of the gallows, if the victims of justice could live again, collect together and form a society, they would, however loath, soon find themselves obliged to make justice, that justice under which they fell, the fundamental law of their state. they would perceive it was their interest to make others respect, and they would therefore soon pay some respect themselves to the obligations of good faith. it is painful, i hope it is superfluous, to make even the supposition, that america should furnish the occasion of this opprobrium. no, let me not even imagine that a republican government, sprung as our own is, from a people enlightened and uncorrupted, a government whose origin is right, and whose daily discipline is duty, can, upon solemn debate, make its option to be faithless--can dare to act what despots dare not avow, what our own example evinces, the states of barbary are unsuspected of. no, let me rather make the supposition that great britain refuses to execute the treaty, after we have done everything to carry it into effect. is there any language of reproach pungent enough to express your commentary on the fact? what would you say, or rather what would you not say? would you not tell them, wherever an englishman might travel, shame would stick to him--he would disown his country. you would exclaim, england, proud of your wealth, and arrogant in the possession of power--blush for these distinctions, which become the vehicles of your dishonor. such a nation might truly say to corruption, thou art my father, and to the worm, thou art my mother and my sister. we should say of such a race of men, their name is a heavier burden than their debt. i can scarcely persuade myself to believe that the consideration i have suggested requires the aid of any auxiliary. but, unfortunately, auxiliary arguments are at hand. five millions of dollars, and probably more, on the score of spoliations committed on our commerce, depend upon the treaty. the treaty offers the only prospect of indemnity. such redress is promised as the merchants place some confidence in. will you interpose and frustrate that hope, leaving to many families nothing but beggary and despair? it is a smooth proceeding to take a vote in this body; it takes less than half an hour to call the yeas and nays and reject the treaty. but what is the effect of it? what, but this? the very men formerly so loud for redress, such fierce champions that even to ask for justice was too mean and too slow, now turn their capricious fury upon the sufferers and say by their vote, to them and their families, no longer eat bread; petitioners, go home and starve; we can not satisfy your wrongs and our resentments. will you pay the sufferers out of the treasury? no. the answer was given two years ago, and appears on our journals. will you give them letters of marque and reprisal to pay themselves by force? no; that is war. besides, it would be an opportunity for those who have already lost much to lose more. will you go to war to avenge their injury? if you do, the war will leave you no money to indemnify them. if it should be unsuccessful, you will aggravate existing evils; if successful, your enemy will have no treasure left to give our merchants; the first losses will be confounded with much greater, and be forgotten. at the end of a war there must be a negotiation, which is the very point we have already gained; and why relinquish it? and who will be confident that the terms of the negotiation, after a desolating war, would be more acceptable to another house of representatives than the treaty before us? members and opinions may be so changed that the treaty would then be rejected for being what the present majority say it should be. whether we shall go on making treaties and refusing to execute them, i know not. of this i am certain, it will be very difficult to exercise the treaty-making power on the new principles, with much reputation or advantage to the country. the refusal of the posts (inevitable if we reject the treaty) is a measure too decisive in its nature to be neutral in its consequences. from great causes we are to look for great effects. a plain and obvious one will be the price of the western lands will fall. settlers will not choose to fix their habitation on a field of battle. those who talk so much of the interest of the united states should calculate how deeply it will be affected by rejecting the treaty; how vast a tract of wild land will almost cease to be property. the loss, let it be observed, will fall upon a fund expressly devoted to sink the national debt. what, then, are we called upon to do? however the form of the vote and the protestations of many may disguise the proceeding, our resolution is in substance, and it deserves to wear the title of a resolution to prevent the sale of the western lands and the discharge of the public debt. will the tendency to indian hostilities be contested by any one? experience gives the answer. the frontiers were scourged with war till the negotiation with great britain was far advanced, and then the state of hostility ceased. perhaps the public agents of both nations are innocent of fomenting the indian war, and perhaps they are not. we ought not, however, to expect that neighboring nations, highly irritated against each other, will neglect the friendship of the savages; the traders will gain an influence and will abuse it; and who is ignorant that their passions are easily raised, and hardly restrained from violence? their situation will oblige them to choose between this country and great britain, in case the treaty should be rejected. they will not be our friends, and at the same time the friends of our enemies. but am i reduced to the necessity of proving this point? certainly the very men who charged the indian war on the detention of the posts, will call for no other proofs than the recital of their own speeches. it is remembered with what emphasis, with what acrimony, they expatiated on the burden of taxes, and the drain of blood and treasure into the western country, in consequence of britain's holding the posts. until the posts are restored, they exclaimed, the treasury and the frontiers must bleed. if any, against all these proofs, should maintain that the peace with the indians will be stable without the posts, to them i will urge another reply. from arguments calculated to produce conviction, i will appeal directly to the hearts of those who hear me, and ask whether it is not already planted there. i resort especially to the convictions of the western gentlemen, whether, supposing no posts and no treaty, the settlers will remain in security. can they take it upon them to say that an indian peace, under these circumstances, will prove firm? no, sir; it will not be peace, but a sword; it will be no better than a lure to draw victims within the reach of the tomahawk. on this theme, my emotions are unutterable. if i could find words for them--if my powers bore any proportion to my zeal--i would swell my voice to such a note of remonstrance, it should reach every log house beyond the mountains, i would say to the inhabitants, wake from your false security; your cruel dangers, your more cruel apprehensions, are soon to be renewed; the wounds, yet unhealed, are to be torn open again; in the daytime, your path through the woods will be ambushed; the darkness of midnight will glitter with the blaze of your dwellings. you are a father--the blood of your sons shall fatten your corn-field; you are a mother--the war-whoop shall wake the sleep of the cradle. on this subject you need not suspect any deception on your feelings. it is a spectacle of horror which can not be overdrawn. if you have nature in your hearts, it will speak a language compared with which all i have said or can say will be poor and frigid. will it be whispered that the treaty has made a new champion for the protection of the frontiers? it is known that my voice as well as vote has been uniformly given in conformity with the ideas i have expressed. protection is the right of the frontiers; it is our duty to give it. who will accuse me of wandering out of the subject? who will say that i exaggerate the tendencies of our measures? will any one answer by a sneer, that all this is idle preaching? will any one deny that we are bound, and i would hope to good purpose, by the most solemn sanctions of duty, for the vote we give? are despots alone to be approached for unfeeling indifference to the tears and blood of their subjects? are republicans unresponsible? have the principles, on which you ground the reproach upon cabinets and kings, no practical influence, no binding force? are they merely themes of idle declamation, introduced to decorate the morality of a newspaper essay, or to furnish pretty topics of harangue from the windows of that state house? i trust it is neither too presumptuous nor too late to ask, can you put the dearest interest of society at risk without guilt, and without remorse? it is vain to offer as an excuse, that public men are not to be reproached for the evils that may happen to ensue from their measures. this is very true, where they are unforeseen or inevitable. those i have depicted are not unforeseen; they are so far from inevitable, we are going to bring them into being by our vote. we choose the consequences, and become as justly answerable for them as for the measure that we know will produce them. by rejecting the posts, we light the savage fires--we bind the victims. this day we undertake to render account to the widows and orphans whom our decision will make, to the wretches that will be roasted at the stake, to our country, and i do not deem it too serious to say, to conscience and to god. we are answerable, and if duty be anything more than a word of imposture, if conscience be not a bugbear, we are preparing to make ourselves as wretched as our country. there is no mistake in this case; there can be none. experience has already been the prophet of events, and the cries of our future victims have already reached us. the western inhabitants are not a silent and uncomplaining sacrifice. the voice of humanity issues from the shade of their wilderness. it exclaims, that while one hand is held up to reject this treaty, the other grasps a tomahawk. it summons our imagination to the scenes that will open. it is no great effort to the imagination to conceive that events so near are already begun. i can fancy that i listen to the yells of savage vengeance and the shrieks of torture. already they seem to sigh in the west wind--already they mingle with every echo from the mountains. it is not the part of prudence to be inattentive to the tendencies of measures. where there is any ground to fear that these will be pernicious, wisdom and duty forbid that we should underrate them. if we reject the treaty, will our peace be as safe as if we executed it with good faith? i do honor to the intrepid spirit of those who say it will. it was formerly understood to constitute the excellence of a man's faith to believe without evidence and against it. but as opinions on this article are changed, and we are called to act for our country, it becomes us to explore the dangers that will attend its peace, and to avoid them if we can. few of us here, and fewer still in proportion of our constituents, will doubt that, by rejecting, all those dangers will be aggravated. . . . st. anselm ( - ) st. anselm, who has been called the acutest thinker and profoundest theologian of his day, was born in piedmont about . educated under the celebrated lanfranc, he went to england in and became archbishop of canterbury. he was banished by william rufus as a result of a conflict between royal and ecclesiastical prerogative. he died in . neale calls him the last of the great fathers except st. bernard, and adds that "he probably possessed the greatest genius of all except st. augustine." the sermon here given, the third of the sixteen extant, is given entire from neale's translation. it is one of the best examples of the middle-age style of interpreting all scripture as metaphor and parable. it contains, moreover, a number of striking passages, such as, "it is a proof of great virtue to struggle with happiness." the sea op life "and straightway jesus constrained his disciples to get into a ship, and to go before him to the other side, while he sent the multitude away." (matt, xiv, .) in this section, according to its mystical interpretation, we have a summary description of the state of the church, from the coming of the savior to the end of the world. for the lord constrained his disciples to get into a ship, when he committed the church to the government of the apostles and their followers. and thus to go before him unto the other side,--that is, to bear onwards towards the haven of the celestial country, before he himself should entirely depart from the world. for, with his elect, and on account of his elect, he ever remains here until the consummation of all things; and he is preceded to the other side of the sea of this world by those who daily pass hence to the land of the living. and when he shall have sent all that are his to that place, then, leaving the multitude of the reprobate, and no longer warning them to be converted, but giving them over to perdition, he will depart hence that he may be with his elect alone in the kingdom. whence it is added, "while he sent the multitude away." for in the end of the world he will "send away the multitude" of his enemies, that they may then be hurried by the devil to everlasting vdamnation. "and when he had sent the multitude away, he went up in a mountain to pray." he will not send away the multitude of the gentiles till the end of the world; but he did dismiss the multitude of the jewish people at the time when, as saith isaiah, "he commanded his clouds that they should rain no rain upon it"; that is, he commanded his apostles that they should preach no longer to the jews, but should go to the gentiles. thus, therefore, he sent away that multitude, and "went up into a mountain"; that is, to the height of the celestial kingdom, of which it had been written, "who shall ascend into the hill of the lord, or who shall rise up in his holy place?" for a mountain is a height, and what is higher than heaven? there the lord ascended. and he ascended alone, "for no man hath ascended up into heaven save he that came down from heaven, even the son of man which is in heaven." and even when he shall come at the end of the world, and shall have collected all of us, his members, together, and shall have raised us into heaven, he will also ascend alone, because christ, the head, is one with his body. but now the head alone ascends,--the mediator of god and man --the man christ jesus. and he goes up to pray, because he went to the father to intercede for us. "for christ is not entered into holy places made with hands, which are figures of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of god for us." it follows: "and when the evening was come, he was there alone." this signifies the nearness of the end of the world, concerning which john also speaks: "little children, it is the last time." therefore it is said that, "when the evening was come, he was there alone," because, when the world was drawing to its end, he by himself, as the true high priest, entered into the holy of holies, and is there at the right hand of god, and also maketh intercession for us. but while he prays on the mountain, the ship is tossed with waves in the deep. for, since the billows arise, the ship may be tossed; but since christ prays, it cannot be overwhelmed. ... we may notice, also, that this commotion of the waves, and tottering or half-sinking of peter, takes place even in our time, according to the spiritual sense daily. for every man's own besetting sin is the tempest. you love god; you walk upon the sea; the swellings of this world are under your feet. you love the world; it swallows you up; its wont is to devour, not to bear up, its lovers. but when your heart fluctuates with the desire of sin, call on the divinity of christ, that you may conquer that desire. you think that the wind is then contrary when the adversity of this world rises against you, and not also when its prosperity fawns upon you. for when wars, when tumults, when famine, when pestilence comes, when any private calamity happens even to individual men, then the wind is thought adverse, and then it is held right to call upon god; but when the world smiles with temporal felicity, then, forsooth, the wind is not contrary. do not, by such tokens as these, judge of the tranquillity of the time; but judge of it by your own temptations. see if you are tranquil within yourself; see if no internal tempest is overwhelming you. it is a proof of great virtue to struggle with happiness, so that it shall not seduce, corrupt, subvert. learn to trample on this world; remember to trust in christ. and if your foot be moved,--if you totter,--if there be some temptations that you cannot overcome,--if you begin to sink, cry out to jesus, lord, save me. in peter, therefore, the common condition of all of us is to be considered; so that, if the wind of temptation endeavor to upset us in any matter, or its billows to swallow us up, we may cry to christ. he shall stretch forth his hand, and preserve us from the deep. it follows: "and when he was come into the ship, the wind ceased." in the last day he shall ascend into the ship of the church, because then he shall sit upon the throne of his glory; which throne may not unfitly be understood of the church. for he who by faith and good works now and always dwells in the church shall then, by the manifestation of his glory, enter into it. and then the wind shall cease, because evil spirits shall no more have the power of sending forth against it the flames of temptation or the commotions of troubles; for then all things shall be at peace and at rest. it follows: "then they that were with him in the ship came and worshipped him, saying, of a truth thou art the son of god." they who remain faithfully in the church amidst the tempests of temptations will approach to him with joy, and, entering into his kingdom with him, will worship him; and, praising him perpetually, will affirm him of a truth to be the son of god. then, also, that will happen which is written concerning the elect raised from death: "all flesh shall come and shall worship before my face," saith the lord. and again: "blessed are they that dwell in thy house; they will always be praising thee." for him, whom with their heart they believe unto righteousness, and with their mouth confess to salvation, him they shall see with their heart to light, and with their mouth shall praise to glory, when they behold how ineffably he is begotten of the father, with whom he liveth and reigneth, in the unity of the holy ghost, god to all ages of ages. amen. thomas arnold ( - ) doctor thomas arnold, the celebrated head master of rugby was born june th, , at west cowes, in the isle of wight, where his father, william arnold, was a collector of customs. after several years at winchester school, he went to oxford where in he was elected a fellow of oriel college. his intellectual bent showed at oxford, on the one hand, in fondness for aristotle and thucydides, and on the other in what one of his friends has described as "an earnest, penetrating, and honest examination of christianity." as a result of this honesty and earnestness, he became and remains a great force wherever english is spoken. elected head master of rugby in december , and remaining in charge of that school for nearly fourteen years, he almost revolutionized and did much to civilize the english system of public education. when he left rugby, in december , it was to go to oxford as professor of modern history, but his death, june th, , left him remembered by the english-speaking world as "arnold of rugby." he left five volumes of sermons, an edition of 'thucydides,' a 'history of rome' in three volumes, and other works, but his greatest celebrity has been given him by the enthusiastic love which his manly christian character inspired in his pupils and acquaintances, furnishing as it did the master motive of 'tom brown at rugby,' a book which is likely to hold the place it has taken next to 'robinson crusoe' among english classics for the young. the sermon here republished from the text given in 'simons's sermons of great preachers,' is an illustration of the eloquence which appeals to the mind of others, not through musical and beautiful language so much as through deep thought and compact expression. the realities of life and death "god is not the god of the dead, but of the living."--matt. xxii. we hear these words as a part of our lord's answer to the sadducees; and, as their question was put in evident profaneness, and the answer to it is one which to our minds is quite obvious and natural, so we are apt to think that in this particular story there is less than usual that particularly concerns us. but it so happens, that our lord, in answering the sadducees, has brought in one of the most universal and most solemn of all truths,--which is indeed implied in many parts of the old testament, but which the gospel has revealed to us in all its fullness,--the truth contained in the words of the text, that "god is not the god of the dead, but of the living." i would wish to unfold a little what is contained in these words, which we often hear even, perhaps, without quite understanding them; and many times oftener without fully entering into them. and we may take them, first, in their first part, where they say that "god is not the god of the dead." the word "dead," we know, is constantly used in scripture in a double sense, as meaning those who are dead spiritually, as well as those who are dead naturally. and, in either sense, the words are alike applicable: "god is not the god of the dead." god's not being the god of the dead signifies two things: that they who are without him are dead, as well as that they who are dead are also without him. so far as our knowledge goes respecting inferior animals, they appear to be examples of this truth. they appear to us to have no knowledge of god; and we are not told that they have any other life than the short one of which our senses inform us. i am well aware that our ignorance of their condition is so great that we may not dare to say anything of them positively; there may be a hundred things true respecting them which we neither know nor imagine. i would only say that, according to that most imperfect light in which we see them, the two points of which i have been speaking appear to meet in them: we believe that they have no consciousness of god, and we believe that they will die. and so far, therefore, they afford an example of the agreement, if i may so speak, between these two points; and were intended, perhaps, to be to our view a continual image of it. but we had far better speak of ourselves. and here, too, it is the case that "god is not the god of the dead." if we are without him we are dead; and if we are dead we are without him: in other words, the two ideas of death and absence from god are in fact synonymous. thus, in the account given of the fall of man, the sentence of death and of being cast out of eden go together; and if any one compares the description of the second eden in the revelation, and recollects how especially it is there said, that god dwells in the midst of it, and is its light by day and night, he will see that the banishment from the first eden means a banishment from the presence of god. and thus, in the day that adam sinned, he died; for he was cast out of eden immediately, however long he may have moved about afterwards upon the earth where god was not. and how very strong to the same point are the words of hezekiah's prayer, "the grave cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate thee; they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth"; words which express completely the feeling that god is not the god of the dead. this, too, appears to be the sense generally of the expression used in various parts of the old testament, "thou shalt surely die." it is, no doubt, left purposely obscure; nor are we ever told, in so many words, all that is meant by death; but, surely, it always implies a separation from god, and the being--whatever the notion may extend to--the being dead to him. thus, when david had committed his great sin, and had expressed his repentance for it, nathan tells him, "the lord also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die": which means, most expressively, thou shalt not die to god. in one sense david died, as all men die; nor was he by any means freed from the punishment of his sin: he was not, in that sense, forgiven; but he was allowed still to regard god as his god; and, therefore, his punishments were but fatherly chastisements from god's hand, designed for his profit, that he might be partaker of god's holiness. and thus, although saul was sentenced to lose his kingdom, and although he was killed with his sons on mount gilboa, yet i do not think that we find the sentence passed upon him, "thou shalt surely die;" and, therefore, we have no right to say that god had ceased to be his god, although he visited him with severe chastisements, and would not allow him to hand down to his sons the crown of israel. observe, also, the language of the eighteenth chapter of ezekiel, where the expressions occur so often, "he shall surely live," and "he shall surely die." we have no right to refer these to a mere extension on the one hand, or a cutting short on the other, of the term of earthly existence. the promise of living long in the land, or, as in hezekiah's case, of adding to his days fifteen years, is very different from the full and unreserved blessing, "thou shalt surely live." and we know, undoubtedly, that both the good and the bad to whom ezekiel spoke died alike the natural death of the body. but the peculiar force of the promise, and of the threat, was, in the one case, thou shalt belong to god; in the other, thou shalt cease to belong to him; although the veil was not yet drawn up which concealed the full import of those terms, "belonging to god," and "ceasing to belong to him": nay, can we venture to affirm that it is fully drawn aside even now? i have dwelt on this at some length, because it really seems to place the common state of the minds of too many amongst us in a light which is exceedingly awful; for if it be true, as i think the scripture implies, that to be dead, and to be without god, are precisely the same thing, then can it be denied that the symptoms of death are strongly marked upon many of us? are there not many who never think of god or care about his service? are there not many who live, to all appearances, as unconscious of his existence as we fancy the inferior animals to be? and is it not quite clear, that to such persons, god cannot be said to be their god? he may be the god of heaven and earth, the god of the universe, the god of christ's church; but he is not their god, for they feel to have nothing at all to do with him; and, therefore, as he is not their god, they are, and must be, according to the scripture, reckoned among the dead. but god is the god "of the living." that is, as before, all who are alive, live unto him; all who live unto him are alive. "god said, i am the god of abraham, and the god of isaac, and the god of jacob;" and, therefore, says our lord, "abraham, and isaac, and jacob are not and cannot be dead." they cannot be dead because god owns them; he is not ashamed to be called their god; therefore, they are not cast out from him; therefore, by necessity, they live. wonderful, indeed, is the truth here implied, in exact agreement, as we have seen, with the general language of scripture; that, as she who but touched the hem of christ's garment was, in a moment, relieved from her infirmity, so great was the virtue which went out from him; so they who are not cast out from god, but have anything: whatever to do with him, feel the virtue of his gracious presence penetrating their whole nature; because he lives, they must live also. behold, then, life and death set before us; not remote (if a few years be, indeed, to be called remote), but even now present before us; even now suffered or enjoyed. even now we are alive unto god or dead unto god; and, as we are either the one or the other, so we are, in the highest possible sense of the terms, alive or dead. in the highest possible sense of the terms; but who can tell what that highest possible sense of the terms is? so much has, indeed, been revealed to us, that we know now that death means a conscious and perpetual death, as life means a conscious and perpetual life. but greatly, indeed, do we deceive ourselves, if we fancy that, by having thus much told us, we have also risen to the infinite heights, or descended to the infinite depths, contained in those little words, life and death. they are far higher, and far deeper, than ever thought or fancy of man has reached to. but, even on the first edge of either, at the visible beginnings of that infinite ascent or descent, there is surely something which may give us a foretaste of what is beyond. even to us in this mortal state, even to you advanced but so short a way on your very earthly journey, life and death have a meaning: to be dead unto god or to be alive to him, are things perceptibly different. for, let me ask of those who think least of god, who are most separate from him, and most without him, whether there is not now actually, perceptibly, in their state, something of the coldness, the loneliness, the fearfulness of death? i do not ask them whether they are made unhappy by the fear of god's anger; of course they are not: for they who fear god are not dead to him, nor he to them. the thought of him gives them no disquiet at all; this is the very point we start from. but i would ask them whether they know what it is to feel god's blessing, for instance: we all of us have our troubles of some sort or other, our disappointments, if not our sorrows. in these troubles, in these disappointments,--i care not how small they may be,--have they known what it is to feel that god's hand is over them; that these little annoyances are but his fatherly correction; that he is all the time loving us, and supporting us? in seasons of joy, such as they taste very often, have they known what it is to feel that they are tasting the kindness of their heavenly father, that their good things come from his hand, and are but an infinitely slight foretaste of his love? sickness, danger,--i know that they come to many of us but rarely; but if we have known them, or at least sickness, even in its lighter form, if not in its graver,-- have we felt what it is to know that we are in our father's hands, that he is with us, and will be with us to the end; that nothing can hurt those whom he loves? surely, then, if we have never tasted anything of this: if in trouble, or in joy, or in sickness, we are left wholly to ourselves, to bear as we can, and enjoy as we can; if there is no voice that ever speaks out of the heights and the depths around us, to give any answer to our own; if we are thus left to ourselves in this vast world,--there is in this a coldness and a loneliness; and whenever we come to be, of necessity, driven to be with our own hearts alone, the coldness and the loneliness must be felt. but consider that the things which we see around us cannot remain with us, nor we with them. the coldness and loneliness of the world, without god, must be felt more and more as life wears on: in every change of our own state, in every separation from or loss of a friend, in every more sensible weakness of our own bodies, in every additional experience of the uncertainty of our own counsels,--the deathlike feeling will come upon us more and more strongly: we shall gain more of that fearful knowledge which tells us that "god is not the god of the dead." and so, also, the blessed knowledge that he is the god "of the living" grows upon those who are truly alive. surely he "is not far from every one of us." no occasion of life fails to remind those who live unto him, that he is their god, and that they are his children. on light occasions or on grave ones, in sorrow and in joy, still the warmth of his love is spread, as it were, all through the atmosphere of their lives: they for ever feel his blessing. and if it fills them with joy unspeakable even now, when they so often feel how little they deserve it; if they delight still in being with god, and in living to him, let them be sure that they have in themselves the unerring witness of life eternal:--god is the god of the living, and all who are with him must live. hard it is, i well know, to bring this home, in any degree, to the minds of those who are dead: for it is of the very nature of the dead that they can hear no words of life. but it has happened that, even whilst writing what i have just been uttering to you, the news reached me that one, who two months ago was one of your number, who this very half-year has shared in all the business and amusements of this place, is passed already into that state where the meanings of the terms life and death are become fully revealed. he knows what it is to live unto god and what it is to die to him. those things which are to us unfathomable mysteries, are to him all plain: and yet but two months ago he might have thought himself as far from attaining this knowledge as any of us can do. wherefore it is clear, that these things, life and death, may hurry their lesson upon us sooner than we deem of, sooner than we are prepared to receive it. and that were indeed awful, if, being dead to god, and yet little feeling it, because of the enjoyments of our worldly life these enjoyments were of a sudden to be struck away from us, and we should find then that to be dead to god is death indeed, a death from which there is no waking and in which there is no sleeping forever. chester alan arthur ( - ) if "eloquence consists in saying all that is necessary and no more." president arthur's inaugural address is one of its best examples. he was placed in a position of the gravest difficulty. he had been nominated for vice-president as a representative of the "stalwart" republicans when that element of the party had been defeated in national convention by the element then described as "half-breeds." after the assassination of president garfield by the "paranoiac" guiteau, the country waited with breathless interest to hear what the vice-president would say in taking the presidency. with a tact which amounted to genius, which never failed him during his administration, which in its results showed itself equivalent to the highest statesmanship, mr. arthur, a man to whom his opponents had been unwilling to concede more than mediocre abilities, rose to the occasion, disarmed factional oppositions, mitigated the animosity of partisanship, and during his administration did more than had been done before him to re-unite the sections divided by civil war. he was born in fairfield, vermont, october th, . his father, rev. william arthur, a baptist clergyman, born in ireland, gave him a good education, sending him to union college where he graduated in . after teaching school in vermont, he studied law and began practice in new york city. entering politics as a henry clay whig, and casting his first vote in for winfield scott, he was active as a republican in the fremont campaign of and from that time until elected to the vice-presidency took that strong interest in public affairs which led his opponents to class him as a "professional politician." during the civil war he was inspector-general and quarter-master general of new york troops. in president grant appointed him collector of the port of new york and he held the office until july . when he was suspended by president hayes. taking an active part in the movement to nominate general grant for the presidency to succeed mr. hayes. he attended the republican convention of , and after the defeat of the grant forces, he was nominated as their representative for the vice-presidency. he died suddenly in new york city, november th, , having won for himself during his administration as president the good-will of so many of his political opponents that the future historian will probably study his administration as that during which the most notable changes of the decade were made from the politics of the civil war period. inaugural address (delivered september d, ) for the fourth time in the history of the republic its chief magistrate has been removed by death. all hearts are filled with grief and horror at the hideous crime which has darkened our land, and the memory of the murdered president, his protracted sufferings, his unyielding fortitude, the example and achievements of his life and the pathos of his death will forever illumine the pages of our history. for the fourth time, the officer elected by the people and ordained by the constitution to fill a vacancy so created, is called to assume the executive chair. the wisdom of our fathers, foreseeing even the most dire possibilities, made sure that the government should never be imperiled because of the uncertainty of human life. men may die but the fabric of our free institutions remains unshaken. no higher or more assuring proof could exist of the strength and permanence of popular government than the fact that though the chosen of the people be struck down, his constitutional successor is peacefully installed without shock or strain except that of the sorrow which mourns the bereavement. all the noble aspirations of my lamented predecessor, which found expression during his life, the measures devised and suggested during his brief administration to correct abuses, to enforce economy, to advance prosperity, to promote the general welfare, to insure domestic security and maintain friendly and honorable relations with the nations of the earth, will be garnered in the hearts of the people and it will be my earnest endeavor to profit and to see that the nation shall profit by his example and experience. prosperity blesses our country. our fiscal policy as fixed by law is well-grounded and generally approved. no threatening issue mars our foreign intercourse and the wisdom, integrity, and thrift of our people may be trusted to continue undisturbed the present career of peace, tranquillity, and welfare. the gloom and anxiety which have enshrouded the country must make repose especially welcome now. no demand for speedy legislation has been heard; no adequate occasion is apparent for an unusual session of congress. the constitution defines the functions and powers of the executive as clearly as those of either of the other two departments of the government, and he must answer for the just exercise of the discretion it permits and the performance of the duties it imposes. summoned to these high duties and responsibilities, and profoundly conscious of their magnitude and gravity, i assume the trust imposed by the constitution, relying for aid on divine guidance and on the virtue, patriotism, and intelligence of the american people. athanasius ( - ) athanasius, patriarch of alexandria, owes his great celebrity chiefly to the controversy with the arians, in which for half a century he was at the head of the orthodox party in the church. he was born at alexandria in the year , and was ordained a priest at the age of twenty-one. he accompanied his bishop, alexander, to the council of nice in , and when under thirty years old succeeded to the bishopric, on the death of alexander, his success in the arian controversy was not achieved without cost, since, as an incident of it, he spent twenty years in banishment. his admirers credit him with "a deep mind, invincible courage, and living faith," but as his orations and discourses were largely controversial, the interest which now attaches to them is chiefly historical. the following was preached from the seventh and eighth verses of the forty-fifth psalm. the divinity of christ behold, o ye arians, and acknowledge hence the truth. the psalmist speaks of us all as fellows or partakers of the lord, but were he one of things which come out of nothing and of things generated he himself had been one of those who partake. but since he hymned him as the eternal god, saying, "thy throne, o god, is forever and ever," and has declared that all other things partake of him, what conclusion must we draw, but that he is distinct from generated things, and he only the father's veritable word, radiance, and wisdom, which all things generate partake, being sanctified by him in the spirit? and, therefore, he is here "anointed," not that he may become god, for he was so even before; nor that he may become king, for he had the kingdom eternally, existing as god's image, as the sacred oracle shows; but in our behalf is this written, as before. for the israelitish kings, upon their being anointed, then became kings, not being so before, as david, as ezekias, as josias, and the rest; but the savior, on the contrary, being god, and ever ruling in the father's kingdom, and being himself the dispenser of the holy ghost, nevertheless is here said to be anointed, that, as before, being said as man to be anointed with the spirit, he might provide for us more, not only exaltation and resurrection, but the indwelling and intimacy of the spirit. and signifying this, the lord himself hath said by his own mouth, in the gospel according to john: "i have sent them into the world, and for their sakes do i sanctify myself, that they may be sanctified in the truth." in saying this, he has shown that he is not the sanctified, but the sanctifier; for he is not sanctified by other, but himself sanctifies himself, that we may be sanctified in the truth. he who sanctifies himself is lord of sanctification. how, then, does this take place? what does he mean but this? "i, being the father's word, i give to myself, when become man, the spirit; and myself, become man, do i sanctify in him, that henceforth in me, who am truth (for 'thy word is truth'), all may be sanctified." if, then, for our sake, he sanctifies himself, and does this when he becomes man, it is very plain that the spirit's descent on him in jordan was a descent upon us, because of his bearing our body. and it did not take place for promotion to the word, but again for our sanctification, that we might share his anointing, and of us it might be said, know ye not that ye are god's temple, and the spirit of god dwelleth in you? for when the lord, as man, was washed in jordan, it was we who were washed in him and by him. and when he received the spirit, we it was who, by him, were made recipients of it. and, moreover, for this reason, not as aaron, or david, or the rest, was he anointed with oil, but in another way, above all his fellows, "with the oil of gladness," which he himself interprets to be the spirit, saying by the prophet, "the spirit of the lord is upon me, because the lord hath anointed me"; as also the apostle has said, "how god anointed him with the holy ghost." when, then, were these things spoken of him, but when he came in the flesh, and was baptized in jordan, and the spirit descended on him? and, indeed, the lord himself said, "the spirit shall take of mine," and "i will send him"; and to his disciples, "receive ye the holy ghost." and, notwithstanding, he who, as the word and radiance of the father, gives to others, now is said to be sanctified, because now he has become man, and the body that is sanctified is his. from him, then, we have begun to receive the unction and the seal, john saying, "and ye have an unction from the holy one"; and the apostle, "and ye were sealed with the holy spirit of promise." therefore, because of us, and for us, are these words. what advance, then, of promotion, and reward of virtue, or generally of conduct, is proved from this in our lord's instance? for if he was not god, and then had become god--if, not being king, he was preferred to the kingdom, your reasoning would have had some faint plausibility. but if he is god, and the throne of his kingdom is everlasting, in what way could god advance? or what was there wanting to him who was sitting on his father's throne? and if, as the lord himself has said, the spirit is his, and takes of his, and he sends it, it is not the word, considered as the word and wisdom, who is anointed with the spirit, which he himself gives, but the flesh assumed by him, which is anointed in him and by him; that the sanctification coming to the lord as man, may come to all men from him. for, not of itself, saith he, doth the spirit speak, but the word is he who gives it to the worthy. for this is like the passage considered above; for, as the apostle hath written, "who, existing in form of god, thought it not robbery to be equal with god, but humbled himself, and took a servant's form," so david celebrates the lord, as the everlasting god and king, but sent to us, and assuming our body, which is mortal. for this is his meaning in the psalm, "all thy garments smell of myrrh, aloes, and cassia"; and it is represented by nicodemus's and by mary's company, when he came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pounds weight; and they took the spices which they had prepared for the burial of the lord's body. what advancement, then, was it to the immortal to have assumed the mortal? or what promotion is it to the everlasting to have put on the temporal? what reward can be great to the everlasting god and king, in the bosom of the father? see ye not, that this, too, was done and written because of us and for us, that us who are mortal and temporal, the lord, become man, might mate immortal, and bring into the everlasting kingdom of heaven? blush ye not, speaking lies against the divine oracles? for when our lord jesus christ had been among us, we, indeed, were promoted, as rescued from sin; but he is the same, nor did he alter when he became man (to repeat what i have said), but, as has been written, "the word of god abideth forever." surely as, before his becoming man, he, the word, dispensed to the saints the spirit as his own; so also, when made man, be sanctifies all by the spirit, and says to his disciples, "receive ye the holy ghost." and he gave to moses and the other seventy; and through him david prayed to the father, saying, "take not thy holy spirit from me." on the other hand, when made man, he said, "i will send to you the paraclete, the spirit of truth"; and he sent him, he, the word of god, as being faithful. therefore "jesus christ is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever," remaining unalterable, and at once gives and receives, giving as god's word, receiving as man. it is not the word then, viewed as the word, that is promoted,--for he had all things and has had them always,--but men, who have in him and through him their origin of receiving them. for, when he is now said to be anointed in a human respect, we it is who in him are anointed; since also, when he is baptized, we it is who in him are baptized. but on all these things the savior throws much light, when he says to the father, "and the glory which thou gavest me, i have given to them, that they may be one, even as we are one." because of us, then, he asked for glory, and the words occur, "took" and "gave" and "highly exalted," that we might take, and to us might be given, and we might be exalted, in him; as also for us he sanctifies himself, that we might be sanctified in him. but if they take advantage of the word "wherefore," as connected with the passage in the psalm, "wherefore god, even thy god, hath anointed thee," for their own purposes, let these novices in scripture and masters in irreligion know that, as before, the word "wherefore" does not imply reward of virtue or conduct in the word, but the reason why he came down to us, and of the spirit's anointing, which took place in him for our sakes. for he says not, "wherefore he anointed thee in order to thy being god or king or son or word,"--for so he was before, and is forever, as has been shown,--but rather, "since thou art god and king, therefore thou wast anointed, since none but thou couldst unite man to the holy ghost, thou the image of the father, in which we were made in the beginning; for thine is even the spirit," for the nature of things generate could give no warranty for this, angels having transgressed, and men disobeyed. wherefore there was need of god; and the word is god; that those who had become under a curse, he himself might set free. if then he was of nothing, he would not have been the christ or anointed, being one among others and having fellowship as the rest. but, whereas he is god, as being the son of god, and is everlasting king, and exists as radiance and expression of the father, wherefore fitly is he the expected christ, whom the father announces to mankind, by revelation to his holy prophets; that as through him we have come to be, so also in him all men might be redeemed from their sins, and by him all things might be ruled. and this is the cause of the anointing which took place in him, and of the incarnate presence of the word; which the psalmist foreseeing, celebrates, first his godhead and kingdom, which is the father's, in these tones, "thy throne, o god, is forever and ever; a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom"; then announces his descent to us thus: "wherefore god, even thy god, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows." saint augustine ( - ) saint augustine who is always classed as one of the four great latin fathers is generally conceded to be chief among them in natural strength of intellect. saint jerome, who excelled him in knowledge of classical literature, is his inferior in intellectual acuteness; and certainly no other theologian of the earlier ages of the church has done so much as has saint augustine to influence the thought of its strongest minds. augustine (aurelius augustinus) was a numidian by birth. he had a christian mother, whose devotion resulted in his conversion, as well as in that of his father, who seems to have been a man of liberal mind, aware of the value of literary education. augustine was well versed in the latin classics. the extent of his knowledge of greek literature has been questioned, but it is conceded that he knew the language, at least well enough for purposes of comparative study of the scripture text. as a young man, his ideas of morality, as we know from his 'confessions,' were not severe. he was not extraordinarily licentious, but he had the introspective sensitiveness which seems to characterize great genius wherever it is found, and in his later life he looked with acute pain on the follies of his youth. becoming a christian at the age of twenty-three, he was ordained a priest four years later, and in became bishop of hippo. of his literary works, his book 'the city of god' is accounted his masterpiece, though it is not so generally read as his 'confessions.' the sermon on the lord's prayer here given as an illustration of his style in the pulpit, is from his 'homilies on the new testament,' as translated in parker's 'library of the fathers.' the lord's prayer the order established for your edification requires that ye learn first what to believe, and afterwards what to ask. for so saith the apostle, "whosoever shall call upon the name of the lord shall be saved." this testimony blessed paul cited out of the prophet; for by the prophet were those times foretold, when all men should call upon god; "whosoever shall call upon the name of the lord shall be saved." and he added, "how then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? or how shall they hear without a preacher? or how shall they preach except they be sent?" therefore were preachers sent. they preached christ. as they preached, the people heard; by hearing they believed, and by believing called upon him. because then it was most rightly and most truly said, "how shall they call on him in whom they have not believed?" therefore have ye first learned what to believe: and to-day have learned to call on him in whom ye have believed. the son of god, our lord jesus christ, hath taught us a prayer; and though he be the lord himself, as ye have heard and repeated in the creed, the only son of god, yet he would not be alone. he is the only son, and yet would not be alone; he hath vouchsafed to have brethren. for to whom doth he say, "say, our father, which art in heaven?" whom did he wish us to call our father, save his own father? did he grudge us this? parents sometimes when they have gotten one, or two, or three children, fear to give birth to any more, lest they reduce the rest to beggary. but because the inheritance which he promised us is such as many may possess, and no one be straitened, therefore hath he called into his brotherhood the peoples of the nations; and the only son hath numberless brethren, who say, "our father, which art in heaven." so said they who have been before us; and so shall say those who will come after us. see how many brethren the only son hath in his grace, sharing his inheritance with those for whom he suffered death. we had a father and mother on earth, that we might be born to labors and to death; but we have found other parents, god our father and the church our mother, by whom we are born unto life eternal. let us then consider, beloved, whose children we have begun to be; and let us live so as becomes those who have such a father. see, how that our creator hath condescended to be our father. we have heard whom we ought to call upon, and with what hope of an eternal inheritance we have begun to have a father in heaven; let us now hear what we must ask of him. of such a father what shall we ask? do we not ask rain of him, to-day, and yesterday, and the day before? this is no great thing to have asked of such a father, and yet ye see with what sighings, and with what great desire we ask for rain, when death is feared,--when that is feared which none can escape. for sooner or later every man must die, and we groan, and pray, and travail in pain, and cry to god, that we may die a little later, how much more ought we to cry to him, that we may come to that place where we shall never die! therefore it is said, "hallowed be thy name." this we also ask of him that his name may be hallowed in us; for holy is it always. and how is his name hallowed in us, except while it makes us holy? for once we were not holy, and we are made holy by his name; but he is always holy, and his name always holy. it is for ourselves, not for god, that we pray. for we do not wish well to god, to whom no ill can ever happen. but we wish what is good for ourselves, that his holy name may be hallowed, that that which is always holy, may be hallowed in us. "thy kingdom come." come it surely will, whether we ask or no. indeed, god hath an eternal kingdom. for when did he not reign? when did he begin to reign? for his kingdom hath no beginning, neither shall it have any end. but that ye may know that in this prayer also we pray for ourselves, and not for god (for we do not say, "thy kingdom come," as though we were asking that god may reign); we shall be ourselves his kingdom, if believing in him we make progress in this faith. all the faithful, redeemed by the blood of his only son, will be his kingdom. and this his kingdom will come, when the resurrection of the dead shall have taken place; for then he will come himself. and when the dead are risen, he will divide them, as he himself saith, "and he shall set some on the right hand, and some on the left." to those who shall be on the right hand he will say, "come, ye blessed of my father, receive the kingdom." this is what we wish and pray for when we say, "thy kingdom come"; that it may come to us. for if we shall be reprobates, that kingdom shall come to others, but not to us. but if we shall be of that number, who belong to the members of his only-begotten son, his kingdom will come to us, and will not tarry. for are there as many ages yet remaining as have already passed away? the apostle john hath said, "my little children, it is the last hour." but it is a long hour proportioned to this long day; and see how many years this last hour lasteth. but, nevertheless, be ye as those who watch, and so sleep, and rise again, and reign. let us watch now, let us sleep in death; at the end we shall rise again, and shall reign without end. "thy will be done as in heaven, so in earth." the third thing we pray for is, that his will may be done as in heaven so in earth. and in this, too, we wish well for ourselves. for the will of god must necessarily be done. it is the will of god that the good should reign, and the wicked be damned. is it possible that this will should not be done? but what good do we wish for ourselves, when we say, "thy will be done as in heaven, so in earth?" give ear. for this petition may be understood in many ways, and many things are to be in our thoughts in this petition, when we pray god, "thy will be done as in heaven, so in earth." as thy angels offend thee not, so may we also not offend thee. again, how is "thy will be done as in heaven, so in earth," understood? all the holy patriarchs, all the prophets, all the apostles, all the spiritual are, as it were, god's heaven; and we in comparison of them are earth. "thy will be done in heaven, so in earth"; as in them, so in us also. again, "thy will be done as in heaven, so in earth"; the church of god is heaven, his enemies are earth. so we wish well for our enemies, that they too may believe and become christians, and so the will of god be done as in heaven, so also in earth. again, "thy will be done as in heaven, so in earth." our spirit is heaven, and the flesh earth. as our spirit is renewed by believing, so may our flesh be renewed by rising again; and "the will of god be done as in heaven, so in earth." again, our mind whereby we see truth, and delight in this truth, is heaven; as, "i delight in the law of god, after the inward man." what is the earth? "i see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind?" when this strife shall have passed away, and a full concord be brought about of the flesh and spirit, the will of god will be done as in heaven, so also in earth. when we repeat this petition, let us think of all these things, and ask them all of the father. now all these things which we have mentioned, these three petitions, beloved, have respect to the life eternal. for if the name of our god is sanctified in us, it will be for eternity. if his kingdom come, where we shall live forever, it will be for eternity. if his will be done as in heaven, so in earth, in all the ways which i have explained, it will be for eternity. there remain now the petitions for this life of our pilgrimage; therefore follows, "give us this day our daily bread." give us eternal things, give us things temporal. thou hast promised a kingdom, deny us not the means of subsistence. thou wilt give everlasting glory with thyself hereafter, give us in this earth temporal support. therefore is it day by day, and to-day, that is, in this present time. for when this life shall have passed away, shall we ask for daily bread then? for then it will not be called day by day, but to-day. now it is called day by day, when one day passes away, and another day succeeds. will it be called day by day when there will be one eternal day? this petition for daily bread is doubtless to be understood in two ways, both for the necessary supply of our bodily food, and for the necessities of our spiritual support. there is a necessary supply of bodily food, for the preservation of our daily life, without which we cannot live. this is food and clothing, but the whole is understood in a part. when we ask for bread, we thereby understand all things. there is a spiritual food, also, which the faithful know, which ye, too, will know when ye shall receive it at the altar of god. this also is "daily bread," necessary only for this life. for shall we receive the eucharist when we shall have come to christ himself, and begun to reign with him forever? so then the eucharist is our daily bread; but let us in such wise receive it, that we be not refreshed in our bodies only, but in our souls. for the virtue which is apprehended there, is unity, that gathered together into his body, and made his members, we may be what we receive. then will it be, indeed, our daily bread. again, what i am handling before you now is "daily bread"; and the daily lessons which ye hear in church are daily bread, and the hymns ye hear and repeat are daily bread. for all these arc necessary in our state of pilgrimage. but when we shall have got to heaven, shall we hear the word, we who shall see the word himself, and hear the word himself, and eat and drink him as the angels do now? do the angels need books, and interpreters, and readers? surely not. they read in seeing, for the truth itself they see, and are abundantly satisfied from that fountain, from which we obtain some few drops. therefore has it been said touching our daily bread, that this petition is necessary for us in this life. "forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." is this necessary except in this life? for in the other we shall have no debts. for what are debts, but sins? see, ye are on the point of being baptized, then all your sins will be blotted out, none whatever will remain. whatever evil ye have ever done, in deed, or word, or desire, or thought, all will be blotted out. and yet if in the life which is after baptism there were security from sin, we should not learn such a prayer as this, "forgive us our debts." only let us by all means do what comes next, "as we forgive our debtors." do ye then, who are about to enter in to receive a plenary and entire remission of your debts, do ye above all things see that ye have nothing in your hearts against any other, so as to come forth from baptism secure, as it were, free and discharged of all debts, and then begin to purpose to avenge yourselves on your enemies, who in time past have done you wrong. forgive, as ye are forgiven. god can do no one wrong, and yet he forgiveth who oweth nothing. how then ought he to forgive who is himself forgiven, when he forgiveth all who oweth nothing that can be forgiven him? "lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." will this again be necessary in the life to come? "lead us not into temptation," will not be said except where there can be temptation. we read in the book of holy job, "is not the life of man upon earth a temptation?" what, then, do we pray for? hear what. the apostle james saith, "let no man say when he is tempted, i am tempted of god." he spoke of those evil temptations whereby men are deceived, and brought under the yoke of the devil. this is the kind of temptation he spoke of. for there is another sort of temptation which is called a proving; of this kind of temptation it is written, "the lord your god tempteth [proveth] you to know whether ye love him." what means "to know"? "to make you know," for he knoweth already. with that kind of temptation whereby we are deceived and seduced, god tempteth no man. but undoubtedly in his deep and hidden judgment he abandons some. and when he hath abandoned them, the tempter finds his opportunity. for he finds in him no resistance against his power, but forthwith presents himself to him as his possessor, if god abandon him. therefore, that he may not abandon us, do we say, "lead us not into temptation." "for every one is tempted," says the same apostle james, "when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed. then lust, when it hath conceived, bringeth forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." what, then, has he hereby taught us? to fight against our lusts. for ye are about to put away your sins in holy baptism; but lusts will still remain, wherewith ye must fight after that ye are regenerate. for a conflict with your own selves still remains. let no enemy from without be feared; conquer thine own self, and the whole world is conquered. what can any tempter from without, whether the devil or the devil's minister, do against thee? whosoever sets the hope of gain before thee to seduce thee, let him only find no covetousness in thee; and what can he who would tempt thee by gain effect? whereas, if covetousness be found in thee, thou takest fire at the sight of gain, and art taken by the bait of this corrupt food. but if we find no covetousness in thee, the trap remains spread in vain. or should the tempter set before thee some woman of surpassing beauty; if chastity be within, iniquity from without is overcome. therefore, that he may not take thee with the bait of a strange woman's beauty, fight with thine own lust within; thou hast no sensible perception of thine enemy, but of thine own concupiscence thou hast. thou dost not see the devil, but the object that engageth thee thou dost see. get the mastery then over that of which thou art sensible within. fight valiantly, for he who hath regenerated thee is thy judge; he hath arranged the lists, he is making ready the crown. but because thou wilt without doubt be conquered, if thou have not him to aid thee, if he abandon thee, therefore dost thou say in the prayer, "lead us not into temptation." the judge's wrath hath given over some to their own lusts; and the apostle says, "god gave them over to the lusts of their hearts." how did he give them up? not by forcing, but by forsaking them. "deliver us from evil," may belong to the same sentence. therefore, that thou mayst understand it to be all one sentence, it runs thus, "lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." therefore, he added "but," to show that all this belongs to one sentence, "lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." how is this? i will propose them singly. "lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." by delivering us from evil, he leadeth us not into temptation; by not leading us into temptation, he delivereth us from evil. and, truly, it is a great temptation, dearly beloved, it is a great temptation in this life, when that in us is the subject of temptation whereby we attain pardon if, in any of our temptations, we have fallen. it is a frightful temptation when that is taken from us whereby we may be healed from the wounds of other temptations. i know that ye have not yet understood me. give me your attention, that ye may understand. suppose, avarice tempts a man, and he is conquered in any single temptation (for sometimes even a good wrestler and fighter may get roughly handled): avarice, then, has got the better of a man, good wrestler though he be, and he has done some avaricious act. or there has been a passing lust; it has not brought the man to fornication, nor reached unto adultery--for when this does take place, the man must at all events be kept back from the criminal act. but he "hath seen a woman to lust after her"; he has let his thoughts dwell on her with more pleasure than was right; he has admitted the attack; excellent combatant though he be, he has been wounded, but he has not consented to it; he has beaten back the motion of his lust, has chastised it with the bitterness of grief, he has beaten it back; and has prevailed. still, in the very fact that he had slipped, has he ground for saying, "forgive us our debts." and so of all other temptations, it is a hard matter that in them all there should not be occasion for saying, "forgive us our debts." what, then, is that frightful temptation which i have mentioned, that grievous, that tremendous temptation, which must be avoided with all our strength, with all our resolution; what is it? when we go about to avenge ourselves. anger is kindled, and the man bums to be avenged. o frightful temptation! thou art losing that, whereby thou hadst to attain pardon for other faults. if thou hadst committed any sin as to other senses, and other lusts, hence mightest thou have had thy cure, in that thou mightest say, "forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors." but whoso instigateth thee to take vengeance will lose for thee the power thou hadst to say, "as we also forgive our debtors." when that power is lost, all sins will be retained; nothing at all is remitted. our lord and master, and savior, knowing this dangerous temptation in this life, when he taught us six or seven petitions in this prayer, took none of them for himself to treat of, and to commend to us with greater earnestness, than this one. have we not said, "our father, which art in heaven," and the rest which follows? why after the conclusion of the prayer, did he not enlarge upon it to us, either as to what he had laid down in the beginning, or concluded with at the end, or placed in the middle? for why said he not, if the name of god be not hallowed in you, or if ye have no part in the kingdom of god, or if the will of god be not done in you, as in heaven, or if god guard you not, that ye enter not into temptation; why none of all these? but what saith he? "verily i say unto you, that if ye forgive men their trespasses," in reference to that petition, "forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors." having passed over all the other petitions which he taught us, this he taught us with an especial force. there was no need of insisting so much upon those sins in which if a man offend, he may know the means whereby he may be cured; need of it there was with regard to that sin in which, if thou sin, there is no means whereby the rest can be cured. for this thou oughtest to be ever saying, "forgive us our debts." what debts? there is no lack of them, for we are but men; i have talked somewhat more than i ought, have said something i ought not, have laughed more than i ought, have eaten more than i ought, have listened with pleasure to what i ought not, have drunk more than i ought, have seen with pleasure what i ought not, have thought with pleasure on what i ought not; "forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors." this if thou hast lost, thou art lost thyself. take heed, my brethren, my sons, sons of god, take heed, i beseech you, in that i am saying to you. fight to the uttermost of your powers with your own hearts. and if ye shall see your anger making a stand against you, pray to god against it, that god may make thee conqueror of thyself, that god may make thee conqueror, i say, not of thine enemy without, but of thine own soul within. for he will give thee his present help, and will do it. he would rather that we ask this of him, than rain. for ye see, beloved, how many petitions the lord christ hath taught us; and there is scarce found among them one which speaks of daily bread, that all our thoughts may be molded after the life to come. for what can we fear that he will not give us, who hath promised and said, "seek ye first the kingdom of god and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you; for your father knoweth that ye have need of these things before ye ask him." "seek ye first the kingdom of god and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." for many have been tried even with hunger, and have been found gold, and have not been forsaken by god. they would have perished with hunger, if the daily inward bread were to leave their heart. after this let us chiefly hunger. for, "blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled." but he can in mercy look upon our infirmity, and see us, as it is said, "remember that we are dust." he who from the dust made and quickened man, for that his work of clay's sake, gave his only son to death. who can explain, who can worthily so much as conceive, how much he loveth us? francis bacon ( - ) francis bacon, baron verulam and viscount st. albans, is called by one of his contemporaries, "the eloquentest man in england." perhaps those who read his legal arguments before the star chamber may not see this eloquence so fully exemplified in them as in his incomparable essays; but wherever he speaks, it is francis bacon speaking. it is doubtful if any other man ever lived who has even approached him in the power of controlling his own and subsequent times by purely intellectual means. until his time, aristotle had no rival in the domain of pure intellect since he lived, the higher mind of the world has owned his mastery and has shown the results of the inspiration of his intellectual daring in following, regardless of consequences, the "inductive method," the determination to make truth fruitful through experiment, which has resulted in the scientific accomplishments of the modern world. lucretius writes of the pleasure of knowing truth as like that a man on shore in a storm has in seeing the struggles of those who are about to be shipwrecked:-- "'tis sweet when the seas are roughened by violent winds to view on land the toils of others; not that there is pleasure in seeing others in distress, but because man is glad to know himself secure. it is pleasant, too, to look with no share of peril on the mighty contests of war; but nothing is sweeter than to reach those calm, undisturbed temples, raised by the wisdom of philosophers, whence thou mayst look down on poor, mistaken mortals, wandering up and down in life's devious ways."--(lucretius ii , translated by ramage.) "suave mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis, e terra magnum altcrius spectare laborem; non quia vexari quenquam est jucunda voluptas, sed quibus ipse malis careas, quia cernere suave est," etc. perhaps the spirit of the ancient learning was never so well expressed elsewhere as in these lines. in what may be called a plea for the possibilities of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries bacon answered it. "is there any such happiness for a man's mind to be raised above the confusion of things where he may have the prospect of the order of nature and error of man? but is this view of delight only and not of discovery--of contentment, and not of benefit? shall he not as well discern the riches of nature's warehouse as the beauties of her shop? is truth ever barren? shall he not be able thereby to produce worthy effects and to endow the life of man with infinite commodities?" among the "infinite commodities" already developed from the thought flowing into and out of the mind which framed these sublime sentences are the steam engine, the electric motor, the discoveries of the microscope in the treatment of disease, the wonders of chemistry, working out practical results to alleviate human misery, and to increase steadily from year to year, and from century to century, the sum of human comfort. looking forward to this, bacon worked for it until his whole life became a manifestation of his master-thought. it may be said with literal truth that he died of it, for the cold which brought him his death resulted from his rashness in leaving his carriage, when sick, to experiment on the arrest of putrefaction by freezing. the idea came to him. it was winter and the ground was covered with snow. he was feeble, but he left his carriage to stuff snow into the carcass of a chicken he had procured for the experiment. the experiment succeeded, and centuries later, as a result of it, england is fed with the meat of america and australia, but bacon died after it, leaving behind him ideas which stamp him as the greatest and brightest, whether or not he was also "the meanest of mankind." on this latter point, he may speak for himself, as he does thus in the volume 'state trials' from which his speech on dueling, before the star chamber, here used, is extracted:-- (howell's, vol. ii.): "upon advised consideration of the charge, descending into my own conscience and calling my memory to account, as far as i am able, i do plainly and ingenuously confess that i am guilty of corruption, and do renounce all defense and put myself upon the grace and mercy of your lordships. ... to the nineteenth article, _vis._, 'that in the cause between reynell and peacock, he received from reynell two hundred pounds and a diamond ring worth four or five hundred pounds,' i confess and declare that on my first coming to the seal when i was at whitehall, my servant hunt delivered me two hundred pounds from sir george reynell, my near ally, to be bestowed upon furniture of my house, adding further that he had received divers former favors from me. and this was, as i verily think, before any suit was begun. the ring was received certainly _pendente_ _lite_, and though it was at new year's tide it was too great a value for a new year's gift, though, i take it, nothing near the value mentioned in the article." that while lord chancellor of england he took gifts intended to corrupt justice, he confessed to his shame, but he does not seem to have been wholly able to decide whether in doing so he broke faith with those who wished to corrupt him, or with the kingdom and constitution of england he represented, against their desire to purchase justice. he seems to have believed that though his conduct was corrupt, his decisions were honest. he says, indeed, that in spite of his bribe-taking, "he never had bribe or reward in his eye or thought when he pronounced any sentence or order." this cannot be admitted in excuse even for bacon, but his moral weakness, if it obscure for the time the splendor of his intellect, died with him, while his genius, marvelously radiant above that of any other of the last ten centuries, still illuminates the path of every pioneer of progress. his address to the star chamber on dueling was delivered in the proceedings against mr. william priest for writing and sending a challenge, and mr. richard wright for carrying it, january th, , bacon being then the king's attorney-general. the text is from t. b. howell's 'state trials,' london . speech against dueling my lords, i thought it fit for my place, and for these times, to bring to hearing before your lordships some cause touching private duels, to see if this court can do any good to tame and reclaim that evil, which seems unbridled. and i could have wished that i had met with some greater persons, as a subject for your censure; both because it had been more worthy of this presence, and also the better to have shown the resolution i myself have to proceed without respect of persons in this business. but finding this cause on foot in my predecessor's time, i thought to lose no time in a mischief that groweth every day; and besides, it passes not amiss sometimes in government, that the greater sort be admonished by an example made in the meaner, and the dog to be eaten before the lion. nay, i should think, my lords, that men of birth and quality will leave the practice, when it begins to be vilified, and come so low as to barber-surgeons and butchers, and such base mechanical persons. and for the greatness of this presence, in which i take much comfort, both as i consider it in itself, and much more in respect it is by his majesty's direction, i will supply the meanness of the particular cause, by handling of the general point; to the end that by the occasion of this present cause, both my purpose of prosecution against duels and the opinion of the court, without which i am nothing, for the censure of them may appear, and thereby offenders in that kind may read their own case, and know what they are to expect; which may serve for a warning until example may be made in some greater person, which i doubt the times will but too soon afford. therefore, before i come to the particular, whereof your lordships are now to judge, i think the time best spent to speak somewhat ( ) of the nature and greatness of this mischief; ( ) of the causes and remedies; ( ) of the justice of the law of england, which some stick not to think defective in this matter; ( ) of the capacity of this court, where certainly the remedy of this mischief is best to be found; ( ) touching mine own purpose and resolution, wherein i shall humbly crave your lordships' aid and assistance. for the mischief itself, it may please your lordships to take into your consideration that, when revenge is once extorted out of the magistrate's hands, contrary to god's ordinance, _mihi_ _vindicta_, _ego_ _retribuam_, and every man shall bear the sword, not to defend, but to assail, and private men begin once to presume to give law to themselves and to right their own wrongs, no man can foresee the danger and inconveniences that may arise and multiply thereupon. it may cause sudden storms in court, to the disturbance of his majesty and unsafety of his person. it may grow from quarrels to bandying, and from bandying to trooping, and so to tumult and commotion; from particular persons to dissension of families and alliances; yea, to national quarrels, according to the infinite variety of accidents, which fall not under foresight. so that the state by this means shall be like to a distempered and imperfect body, continually subject to inflammations and convulsions. besides, certainly both in divinity and in policy, offenses of presumption are the greatest. other offenses yield and consent to the law that it is good, not daring to make defense, or to justify themselves; but this offense expressly gives the law an affront, as if there were two laws, one a kind of gown law and the other a law of reputation, as they term it. so that paul's and westminster, the pulpit and the courts of justice, must give place to the law, as the king speaketh in his proclamation, of ordinary tables, and such reverend assemblies; the yearbooks, and statute books must give place to some french and italian pamphlets, which handle the doctrines of duels, which, if they be in the right, _transeamus_ _ad_ _illa_, let us receive them, and not keep the people in conflict and distraction between two laws. again, my lords, it is a miserable effect, when young men full of towardness and hope, such as the poets call "_aurorae_ _filii_," sons of the morning, in whom the expectation and comfort of their friends consisteth, shall be cast away and destroyed in such a vain manner. but much more it is to be deplored when so much noble and genteel blood should be spilt upon such follies, as, if it were adventured in the field in service of the king and realm, were able to make the fortune of a day and change the future of a kingdom. so your lordships see what a desperate evil this is; it troubleth peace; it disfurnisheth war; it bringeth calamity upon private men, peril upon the state, and contempt upon the law. touching the causes of it: the first motive, no doubt, is a false and erroneous imagination of honor and credit; and therefore the king, in his last proclamation, doth most aptly and excellently call them bewitching duels. for, if one judge of it truly, it is no better than a sorcery that enchanteth the spirits of young men, that bear great minds with a false show, _species_ _falsa_; and a kind of satanical illusion and apparition of honor against religion, against law, against moral virtue, and against the precedents and examples of the best times and valiantest nations; as i shall tell you by and by, when i shall show you that the law of england is not alone in this point. but then the seed of this mischief being such, it is nourished by vain discourses and green and unripe conceits, which, nevertheless, have so prevailed as though a man were staid and sober-minded and a right believer touching the vanity and unlawfulness of these duels; yet the stream of vulgar opinion is such, as it imposeth a necessity upon men of value to conform themselves, or else there is no living or looking upon men's faces; so that we have not to do, in this case, so much with particular persons as with unsound and depraved opinions, like the dominations and spirits of the air which the scripture speaketh of. hereunto may be added that men have almost lost the true notion and understanding of fortitude and valor. for fortitude distinguisheth of the grounds of quarrels whether they be just; and not only so, but whether they be worthy; and setteth a better price upon men's lives than to bestow them idly. nay, it is weakness and disesteem of a man's self, to put a man's life upon such ledger performances. a man's life is not to be trifled away; it is to be offered up and sacrificed to honorable services, public merits, good causes, and noble adventures. it is in expense of blood as it is in expense of money. it is no liberality to make a profusion of money upon every vain occasion; nor no more is it fortitude to make effusion of blood, except the cause be of worth. and thus much for the cause of this evil. for the remedies. i hope some great and noble person will put his hand to this plough, and i wish that my labors of this day may be but forerunners to the work of a higher and better hand. but yet to deliver my opinion as may be proper for this time and place, there be four things that i have thought on, as the most effectual for the repressing of this depraved custom of particular combats. the first is, that there do appear and be declared a constant and settled resolution in the state to abolish it. for this is a thing, my lords, must go down at once or not at all; for then every particular man will think himself acquitted in his reputation, when he sees that the state takes it to heart, as an insult against the king's power and authority, and thereupon hath absolutely resolved to master it; like unto that which we set down in express words in the edict of charles ix. of france, touching duels, that the king himself took upon him the honor of all that took themselves grieved or interested for not having performed the combat. so must the state do in this business; and in my conscience there is none that is but of a reasonable sober disposition, be he never so valiant, except it be some furious person that is like a firework, but will be glad of it, when he shall see the law and rule of state disinterest him of a vain and unnecessary hazard. secondly, care must be taken that this evil be no more cockered, nor the humor of it fed; wherein i humbly pray your lordships, that i may speak my mind freely, and yet be understood aright. the proceedings of the great and noble commissioners martial i honor and reverence much, and of them i speak not in any sort. but i say the compounding of quarrels, which is otherwise in use by private noblemen and gentlemen, is so punctual, and hath such reference and respect unto the received conceits, what is beforehand, and what is behindhand, and i cannot tell what, as without all question it doth, in a fashion, countenance and authorize this practice of duels as if it had in it somewhat of right. thirdly, i must acknowledge that i learned out of the king's last proclamation, the most prudent and best applied remedy for this offense, if it shall please his majesty to use it, that the wit of man can devise. this offense, my lords, is grounded upon a false conceit of honor; and therefore it would be punished in the same kind, in _eo_ _quis_ _rectissime_ _plectitur_, _in_ _quo_ _peccat_. the fountain of honor is the king and his aspect, and the access to his person continueth honor in life, and to be banished from his presence is one of the greatest eclipses of honor that can be. if his majesty shall be pleased that when this court shall censure any of these offenses in persons of eminent quality, to add this out of his own power and discipline, that these persons shall be banished and excluded from his court for certain years, and the courts of his queen and prince, i think there is no man that hath any good blood in him will commit an act that shall cast him into that darkness that he may not behold his sovereign's face. lastly, and that which more properly concerneth this court. we see, my lords, the root of this offense is stubborn; for it despiseth death, which is the utmost of punishments; and it were a just but a miserable severity to execute the law without all remission or mercy, where the case proveth capital. and yet the late severity in france was more, where by a kind of martial law, established by ordinance of the king and parliament, the party that had slain another was presently had to the gibbet, insomuch as gentlemen of great quality were hanged, their wounds bleeding, lest a natural death should prevent the example of justice. but, my lords, the course which we shall take is of far greater lenity, and yet of no less efficacy; which is to punish, in this court, all the middle acts and proceedings which tend to the duel, which i will enumerate to you anon, and so to hew and vex the root in the branches, which, no doubt, in the end will kill the root, and yet prevent the extremity of law. now for the law of england, i see it excepted to, though ignorantly, in two points. the one, that it should make no difference between an insidious and foul murder, and the killing of a man upon fair terms, as they now call it. the other, that the law hath not provided sufficient punishment and reparations for contumely of words, as the lie, and the like. but these are no better than childish novelties against the divine law, and against all laws in effect, and against the examples of all the bravest and most virtuous nations of the world. for first, for the law of god, there is never to be found any difference made in homicide, but between homicide voluntary and involuntary, which we term misadventure. and for the case of misadventure itself, there were cities of refuge; so that the offender was put to his flight, and that flight was subject to accident, whether the revenger of blood should overtake him before he had gotten sanctuary or no. it is true that our law hath made a more subtle distinction between the will inflamed and the will advised, between manslaughter in heat and murder upon prepensed malice or cold blood, as the soldiers call it; an indulgence not unfit for a choleric and warlike nation; for it is true, _ira_ _furor_ _brevis_, a man in fury is not himself. this privilege of passion the ancient roman law restrained, but to a case; that was, if the husband took the adulterer in the manner. to that rage and provocation only it gave way, that a homicide was justifiable. but for a difference to be made in killing and destroying man, upon a forethought purpose, between foul and fair, and, as it were, between single murder and vied murder, it is but a monstrous child of this latter age, and there is no shadow of it in any law, divine or human. only it is true, i find in the scripture that cain enticed his brother into the field and slew him treacherously; but lamech vaunted of his manhood, that he would kill a young man, and if it were to his hurt; so as i see no difference between an insidious murder and a braving or presumptuous murder, but the difference between cain and lamech. as for examples in civil states, all memory doth consent, that graecia and rome were the most valiant and generous nations of the world; and that, which is more to be noted, they were free estates, and not under a monarchy; whereby a man would think it a great deal the more reason that particular persons should have righted themselves. and yet they had not this practice of duels, nor anything that bare show thereof; and sure they would have had it, if there had been any virtue in it. nay, as he saith, "_fas_ _est_ _et_ _ab_ _hoste_ _doceri_" it is memorable, that which is reported by a counsel or ambassador of the emperor, touching the censure of the turks of these duels. there was a combat of this kind performed by two persons of quality of the turks, wherein one of them was slain, and the other party was converted before the council of bashaws. the manner of the reprehension was in these words: "how durst you undertake to fight one with the other? are there not christians enough to kill? did you not know that whether of you shall be slain, the loss would be the great seignor's?" so, as we may see, the most warlike nations, whether generous or barbarous, have ever despised this wherein now men glory. it is true, my lords, that i find combats of two natures authorized, how justly i will not dispute as to the latter of them. the one, when upon the approaches of armies in the face one of the other, particular persons have made challenges for trial of valors in the field upon the public quarrel. this the romans called "_pugna_ _per_ _provocationem_." and this was never, but either between the generals themselves, who were absolute, or between particulars by license of the generals; never upon private authority. so you see david asked leave when he fought with goliath; and joab, when the armies were met, gave leave, and said "let the young man play before us." and of this kind was that famous example in the wars of naples, between twelve spaniards and twelve italians, where the italians bore away the victory; besides other infinite like examples worthy and laudable, sometimes by singles, sometimes by numbers. the second combat is a judicial trial of right, where the right is obscure, introduced by the goths and the northern nations, but more anciently entertained in spain. and this yet remains in some cases as a divine lot of battle, though controverted by divines, touching the lawfulness of it; so that a wise writer saith: "_taliter_ _pugnantes_ _videntur_ _tentare_ _deum_, _quia_ _hoc_ _volunt_ _ut_ _deus_ _ostendat_ _et_ _faciat_ _miraculum_, _ut_ _justam_ _causam_ _habens_ _victor_ _efficiatur_, _quod_ _saepe_ _contra_ _accidit_." but whosoever it be, this kind of fight taketh its warrant from law. nay, the french themselves, whence this folly seemeth chiefly to have flown, never had it but only in practice and toleration, and never as authorized by law; and yet now of late they have been fain to purge their folly with extreme rigor, in so much as many gentlemen left between death and life in the duels, as i spake before, were hastened to hanging with their wounds bleeding. for the state found it had been neglected so long, as nothing could be thought cruelty which tended to the putting of it down. as for the second defect, pretended in our law, that it hath provided no remedy for lies and fillips, it may receive like answer. it would have been thought a madness amongst the ancient lawgivers to have set a punishment upon the lie given, which in effect is but a word of denial, a negative of another's saying. any lawgiver, if he had been asked the question, would have made solon's answer: that he had not ordained any punishment for it, because he never imagined the world would have been so fantastical as to take it so highly. the civilians dispute whether an action of injury lie for it, and rather resolve the contrary. and francis i. of france, who first set on and stamped this disgrace so deep, is taxed by the judgment of all wise writers for beginning the vanity of it; for it was he, that when he had himself given the lie and defy to the emperor, to make it current in the world, said in a solemn assembly, "that he was no honest man that would bear the lie," which was the fountain of this new learning. as for the words of approach and contumely, whereof the lie was esteemed none, it is not credible, but that the orations themselves are extant, what extreme and exquisite reproaches were tossed up and down in the senate of rome and the places of assembly, and the like in graecia, and yet no man took himself fouled by them, but took them but for breath, and the style of an enemy, and either despised them or returned them, but no blood was spilt about them. so of every touch or light blow of the person, they are not in themselves considerable, save that they have got them upon the stamp of a disgrace, which maketh these light things pass for great matters. the law of england and all laws hold these degrees of injury to the person, slander, battery, mayhem, death; and if there be extraordinary circumstances of despite and contumely, as in case of libels and bastinadoes and the like, this court taketh them in hand and punisheth them exemplarily. but for this apprehension of a disgrace that a fillip to the person should be a mortal wound to the reputation, it were good that men did hearken unto the saying of gonsalvo, the great and famous commander, that was wont to say a gentleman's honor should be _de_ _tela_ _crassiore_, of a good strong warp or web, that every little thing should not catch in it; when as now it seems they are but of cobweb-lawn or such light stuff, which certainly is weakness, and not true greatness of mind, but like a sick man's body, that is so tender that it feels everything. and so much in maintenance and demonstration of the wisdom and justice of the law of the land. for the capacity of this court, i take this to be a ground infallible, that wheresoever an offense is capital, or matter of felony, though it be not acted, there the combination or practice tending to the offense is punishable in this court as high misdemeanor. so practice to imprison, though it took no effect; waylaying to murder, though it took no effect; and the like; have been adjudged heinous misdemeanors punishable in this court. nay, inceptions and preparations in inferior crimes, that are not capital, as suborning and preparing of witnesses that were never deposed, or deposed nothing material, have likewise been censured in this court, as appeareth by the decree in garnon's case. why, then, the major proposition being such, the minor cannot be denied, for every appointment of the field is but combination and plotting of murder. let them gild it how they list, they shall never have fairer terms of me in a place of justice. then the conclusion followeth, that it is a case fit for the censure of the court. and of this there be precedents in the very point of challenge. it was the case of wharton, plaintiff, against ellekar and acklam, defendants, where acklam, being a follower of ellekar's, was censured for carrying a challenge from ellekar to wharton, though the challenge was not put in writing, but delivered only by word of message; and there are words in the decree, that such challenges are to the subversion of government. these things are well known, and therefore i needed not so much to have insisted upon them, but that in this case i would be thought not to innovate anything of my own head, but to follow the former precedents of the court, though i mean to do it more thoroughly, because the time requires it more. therefore now to come to that which concerneth my part, i say that by the favor of the king and the court, i will prosecute in this court in the cases following: if any man shall appoint the field, though the fight be not acted or performed. if any man shall send any challenge in writing, or any message of challenge. if any man carry or deliver any writing or message of challenge. if any man shall accept to be second in a challenge of either side. if any man shall depart the realm, with intention and agreement to perform the fight beyond the seas. if any man shall revive a quarrel by any scandalous bruits or writings, contrary to former proclamation published by his majesty in that behalf. nay i hear there be some counsel learned of duels, that tell voting men when they are beforehand, and when they are otherwise and thereby incense and incite them to the duel, and make an art of it. i hope i shall meet with some of them too; and i am sure, my lords, this course of preventing duels, in nipping them in the bud, is fuller of clemency and providence than the suffering them to go on, and hanging men with their wounds bleeding, as they did in france. to conclude, i have some petitions to make first to your lordship, my lord chancellor, that in case i be advertised of a purpose in any to go beyond the sea to fight, i may have granted his majesty's writ of _ne_ _exeat_ _regnum_ to stop him, for this giant bestrideth the sea, and i would take and snare him by the foot on this side; for the combination and plotting is on this side, though it should be acted beyond the sea. and your lordship said notably the last time i made a motion in this business, that a man may be as well _fur_ _de_ _se_ as _felo_ _de_ _se_, if he steal out of the realm for a bad purpose. as for the satisfying of the words of the writ, no man will doubt but he does _machinari_ _contra_ _coronam_, as the words of the writ be, seeking to murder a subject; for that is ever _contra_ _coronam_ _et_ _dignitatem_. i have also a suit to your lordships all in general, that for justice's sake, and for true honor's sake, honor of religion, law, and the king our master, against this fond and false disguise or puppetry of honor. i may, in my prosecution, which, it is like enough, may sometimes stir coals, which i esteem not for my particular, but as it may hinder the good service, i may, i say, be countenanced and assisted from your lordships. lastly, i have a petition to the nobles and gentlemen of england, that they would learn to esteem themselves at a just price. _non_ _hos_ _quaesitim_ _munus_ _in_ _usus_--their blood is not to be spilt like water or a vile thing; therefore, that they would rest persuaded there cannot be a form of honor, except it be upon a worthy matter. but this, _ipsi_ _viderunt_, i am resolved. james barbour ( - ) senator james barbour's speech on the treaty-making power, made in the united states senate in january , is one of the ablest and most concise presentations of the virginia view of the federal constitution represented by madison before he came under jefferson's influence. the speech itself, here reproduced from benton's 'debates,' sufficiently explains all that is of permanent importance in the question presented to the senate, if, under the federal constitution, it was necessary after the ratification of a treaty to specially repeal laws in conflict with it, then such laws and "municipal regulations" as remained unrepealed by special act would be in force in spite of the treaty. arguing against this as it affected the treaty-making power of the senate from which the house of representatives was excluded by the constitution, senator barbour declared the treaty-making power supreme over commerce, and incidentally asserted that unless there is such a supremacy lodged somewhere in the government, the condition would be as anomalous as that of christendom when it had three popes. mr. barbour was born in and educated for the bar. he served in the virginia legislature, was twice governor of the state, and twice elected to represent it in the united states senate. he was secretary of war in under john quincy adams, who sent him as minister to england--a post from which he was recalled by president jackson. he presided over the national convention which nominated william henry harrison for the presidency, dying in . treaties as supreme laws mr. president, as it seems to be the wish of the senate to pass upon this subject without debate, it adds to the reluctance i always feel when compelled, even by a sense of duty, to intrude on their attention. yet, as i feel myself obliged, under the solemn responsibility attached to the station i hold here, to vote against the bill under consideration--as i think, also, it is but a due respect to the other branch of the legislature, from whom it is my misfortune to differ, and but an act of justice to myself to state the grounds of my opinion, i must be pardoned for departing from the course which seemed to be desired by the senate. in the exercise of this privilege, with a view to promote the wishes of the senate as far as a sense of duty will permit, i will confine myself to a succinct view of the most prominent objections which lie against its passage, rather than indulge in the extensive range of which the subject is susceptible. before i enter into the discussion of the merits of the question, i beg leave to call the attention of the senate to the course which was adopted by us in relation to this subject. a bill, brought in by the committee on foreign relations, passed the senate unanimously, declaring that all laws in opposition to the convention between the united states and great britain, concluded on the third of july last, should be held as null and void. the principle on which this body acted was, that the treaty, upon the exchange of its ratification, did, of itself, repeal any commercial regulation, incompatible with its provisions, existing in our municipal code; it being by us believed at the time that such a bill was not necessary, but by a declaratory act, it was supposed, all doubts and difficulties, should any exist, might be removed. this bill is sent to the house of representatives, who, without acting thereon, send us the one under consideration, but differing materially from ours. far from pretending an intimate knowledge of the course of business pursued by the two houses, i do not say that the mode adopted in this particular case is irregular, but if it has not the sanction of precedent, it appears to me to be wanting in that courtesy which should be perpetually cherished between the two houses. it would have been more decorous to have acted on our bill, to have agreed to it if it were approved, to reject or amend it. in the latter case, upon its being returned to the senate, the views of the other body would have been contrasted with our own, and we might then have regularly passed upon the subject. a different course, however, has been adopted; and if a regard to etiquette had been the only obstacle to my support to the bill, it would have been readily given; for it is the substance, and not the shadow, which weighs with me. the difference between the two bills is rendered important by its involving a constitutional question. it is my misfortune, for such i certainly esteem it, to differ from the other branch of the legislature on that question; were it a difference of opinion on the expediency of a measure, it might readily be obviated, as being entirely free, or at least i hope so, from pride of opinion. my disposition is to meet, by mutual concession, those with whom i am in the habit of acting; but when a principle of the constitution is involved, concession and compromise are out of the question. with one eye on the sacred charter of our liberties, and the other on the solemn sanction under which i act here, i surrender myself to the dictates of my best judgment (weak enough god knows), and fearlessly pursue the course pointed out by these guides. my regret is certainly greatly lessened by the reflection that there is no difference of opinion with any one on the propriety of executing the treaty with good faith--we differ only as to the manner in which our common purpose shall be effected. the difference between the friends of the bill, and those opposed to it is, as i understand it, this: the former contend, that the law of congress, discriminating between american and british tonnage, is not abrogated by the treaty, although its provisions conflict with the treaty, but that to effect its repeal, the bill in question, a mere echo of the treaty, must pass; the latter, among whom i wish to be considered, on the contrary say, that the law above alluded to was annulled upon the ratification of the treaty. i hope i have succeeded in stating the question fairly, for that certainly was my wish, and it is also my determination to discuss it in the same spirit. this, then, is the issue which is made up between the friends and the opponents of the bill; and although in its practical effects i cannot believe it would be of consequence which way it is decided, yet, as the just interpretation of the constitution is the pivot on which it turns, from that consideration alone the question becomes an interesting one. fortunately for us we have a written constitution to recur to, dictated with the utmost precision of which our language is susceptible--it being the work of whatsoever of wisdom, of experience, and of foresight, united america possessed. to a just understanding of this instrument, it will be essential to recur to the object of its adoption; in this there can be no difference of opinion. the old band of union had been literally dissolved in its own imbecility; to remedy this serious evil, an increase of the powers of the general government was indispensable. to draw the line of demarcation between the powers thus granted to the general government, and those retained by the states, was the primary and predominating object. in conformity with this view, we find a general enumeration of the powers assigned the former, of which congress is made the depository; which powers, although granted to congress in the first instance, are, in the same instrument, subsequently distributed among the other branches of the government. various examples might be adduced in support of this position. the following for the present will suffice: article i., section i, of the constitution declares, that "all legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a congress of the united states, which shall consist of a senate and house of representatives." yet we find, by the seventh section of the same article, the president invested with a large share of legislative power, and, in fact, constituting an integral branch of the legislature; in addition to this, i will here barely add, that the grant of the very power to regulate the exercise of which gave birth to this bill, furnishes, by the admission of the friends of the bill, another evidence of the truth of this position, as i shall show hereafter; and, therefore, to comprehend the true meaning of the constitution, an isolated view of a particular clause or section will involve you in error, while a comprehensive one, both of its spirit and letter, will conduct you to a just result; when apparent collisions will be removed, and vigor and effect will be given to every part of the instrument. with this principle as our guide, i come directly to that part of the constitution which recognizes the treaty-making power. in the second clause, second section, second article, are the following plain and emphatic words: "he [the president] shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the senate, to make treaties, provided two-thirds of the senators present concur." two considerations here irresistibly present themselves--first, there is no limitation to the exercise of the power, save such restrictions as arise from the constitution, as to the subjects on which it is to act; nor is there any participation of the power, with any other branch of the government, in any way alluded to. am i borne out in this declaration by the clause referred to? that i am, seems to me susceptible of demonstration. to the president and senate has been imparted the power of making treaties. well, what is a treaty? if a word have a known signification by the common consent of mankind, and it be used without any qualification in a law, constitution, or otherwise, the fair inference is that the received import of such word is intended to be conveyed. if so, the extent of the power intended to be granted admits of no difficulty. it reaches to those acts of courtesy and kindness, which philanthropy has established in the intercourse of nations, as well as to treaties of commerce, of boundaries, and, in fine, to every international subject whatsoever. this exposition is supported by such unequivocal authority, that it is believed it will not be questioned. i, therefore, infer that it will be readily yielded, that in regard to the treaty, in aid of which this bill is exhibited, the treaty-making power has not exceeded its just limits. so far we have proceeded on sure ground; we now come to the pith of the question. is the legislative sanction necessary to give it effect? i answer in the negative. why? because, by the second clause of the sixth article of the constitution, it is declared that all treaties made or which shall be made, under the authority of the united states, shall be the supreme law of the land. if this clause means anything, it is conclusive of the question. if the treaty be a supreme law, then whatsoever municipal regulation comes within its provisions must _ipso_ _facto_ be annulled--unless gentlemen contend there can be at the same time two supreme laws, emanating from the same authority, conflicting with each other, and still both in full vigor and effect. this would indeed produce a state of things without a parallel in human affairs, unless indeed its like might be found in the history of the popes. in one instance, we are told, there were three at one time roaming over the christian world, all claiming infallibility, and denouncing their anathemas against all who failed to yield implicit obedience to their respective mandates, when to comply with the one was to disobey the other. a result like this, so monstrous in its aspect, excludes the interpretation which produces it. it is a safe course in attempting to ascertain the meaning of a law or constitution to connect different clauses (no matter how detached) upon the same subject together. let us do it in this case. the president shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the senate, to make treaties, which treaties shall be the supreme law of the land. i seek to gain no surreptitious advantage from the word supreme, because i frankly admit that it is used in the constitution, in relation to the laws and constitutions of the states; but i appeal to it merely to ascertain the high authority intended to be imparted by the framers of the constitution to a ratified treaty. it is classed in point of dignity with the laws of the united states. we ask for no superiority, but equality; and as the last law made annuls a former one, where they conflict, so we contend that a subsequent treaty, as in the present case, revokes a former law in opposition thereto. but the other side contend that it is inferior to the law in point of authority, which continues in full force despite of a treaty, and to its repeal the assent of the whole legislature is necessary. our claims rest on the expressed words of the constitution--the opposite on implication; and if the latter be just, i cannot forbear to say that the framers of the constitution would but ill deserve what i have heretofore thought a just tribute to their meritorious services. if they really designed to produce the effect contended for, instead of so declaring by a positive provision, they have used a language which, to my mind, operates conclusively against it. under what clause of the constitution is the right to exercise this power set up? the reply is, the third clause of eighth section, first article--congress shall have power to regulate commerce with foreign nations, etc. i immediately inquire to what extent does the authority of congress, in relation to commercial treaties, reach? is the aid of the legislature necessary in all cases whatsoever, to give effect to a commercial treaty? it is readily admitted that it is not. that a treaty, whose influence is extra territorial, becomes obligatory the instant of its ratification. that, as the aid of the legislature is not necessary to its execution, the legislature has no right to interpose. it is then admitted that while a general power on the subject of commerce is given to congress, that yet important commercial regulations may be adopted by treaty, without the co-operation of the legislature, notwithstanding the generality of the grant of power on commercial subjects to congress. if it be true that the president and senate have, in their treaty-making power, an exclusive control over part and not over the whole, i demand to know at what point that exclusive control censes? in the clause relied upon, there is no limitation. the fact is, sir, none exists. the treaty-making power over commerce is supreme. no legislative sanction is necessary, if the treaty be capable of self-execution, and when a legislative sanction is necessary, as i shall more at large hereafter show, such sanction, when given, adds nothing to the validity of the treaty, but enables the proper authority to execute it; and when the legislature do act in this regard, it in under such obligation as the necessity of fulfilling a moral contract imposes. if it be inquired of me what i understand by the clause in question, in answer i refer to the principle with which i set out: that this was a grant of power to the general government of which congress was in the first instance merely the depository, which power, had not a portion thereof been transferred to another branch of the government, would have been exclusively exercised by congress, but that a distribution of this power has been made by the constitution; as a portion thereof has been given to the treaty-making power, and that which is not transferred is left in the possession of congress. hence, to congress it is competent to act in this grant in its proper character by establishing municipal regulations. the president and the senate, on the other hand, have the same power within their sphere, that is, by a treaty or convention with a foreign nation, to establish such regulations in regard to commerce, as to them may seem friendly to the public interest. thus each department moves in its own proper orbit, nor do they come in collision with each other. if they have exercised their respective powers on the same subject, the last act, whether by the legislature or the treaty-making power, abrogates a former one. the legislature of the nation may, if a cause exist in their judgment sufficient to justify it, abrogate a treaty, as has been done; so the president and senate by a treaty may abrogate a pre-existing law containing interfering provisions, as has been done heretofore (without the right being questioned), and as we say in the very case under consideration. i will endeavor to make myself understood by examples; congress has power, under the clause in question, to lay embargoes, to pass nonintercourse, or nonimportation, or countervailing laws, and this power they have frequently exercised. on the other hand, if the nation against whom one of those laws is intended to operate is made sensible of her injustice and tenders reparation, the president and senate have power by treaty to restore the amicable relations between the two nations, and the law directing otherwise, upon the ratification of the treaty, is forthwith annulled. again, if congress should be of opinion that the offending nation had not complied with their engagements, they might by law revoke the treaty, and place the relation between the two nations upon such footing as they approved. where is the collision here? i see none. this view of the subject presents an aspect as innocent as that which is produced when a subsequent law repeals a former one. by this interpretation you reconcile one part of the constitution with another, giving to each a proper effect, a result always desirable, and in rules of construction claiming a precedence to all others. indeed, sir, i do not see how the power in question could have been otherwise arranged. the power which has been assigned to congress was indispensable; without it we should have been at the mercy of a foreign government, who, knowing the incompetency of congress to act, would have subjected our commerce to the most injurious regulations, as was actually the case before the adoption of the constitution, when it was managed by the states, by whom no regular system could be established; indeed, we all know this very subject was among the most prominent of the causes which produced the constitution. had this state of things continued, no nation which could profit by a contrary course would have treated. on the other hand, had not a power been given to some branch of the government to treat, whatever might have been the friendly dispositions of other powers, or however desirous to reciprocate beneficial arrangements, they could not, without a treaty-making power lodged somewhere, be realized. i therefore contend, that although to congress a power is given in the clause alluded to, to regulate commerce, yet this power is in part, as i have before endeavored to show, given to the president and senate in their treaty-making capacity--the truth of which position is admitted by the friends of the bill to a certain extent. the fact is, that the only difference between us is to ascertain the precise point where legislative aid is necessary to the execution of the treaty, and where not. to fix this point is to settle the question. after the most mature reflection which i have been able to give this subject, my mind has been brought to the following results; whenever the president and senate, within the acknowledged range of their treaty-making power, ratify a treaty upon extraterritorial subjects, then it is binding without any auxiliary law. again, if from the nature of the treaty self-executory, no legislative aid is necessary. if on the contrary, the treaty from its nature cannot be carried into effect but by the agency of the legislature, that is, if some municipal regulation be necessary, then the legislature must act not as participating in the treaty-making power, but in its proper character as a legislative body. barnave ( - ) antoine pierre joseph marie barnave was born at grenoble, france, in . he was the son of an advocate, who gave him a careful education. his first work of a public character, a pamphlet against the feudal system, led to his election to the states-general in . he advocated the proclamation of the rights of man and identified himself with those enthusiastic young republicans of whom lafayette is the best type. the emancipation of the jews from all civil and religious disabilities and the abolition of slavery throughout french territory owed much to his efforts. he also opposed the absolute veto and led the fight for the sequestration of the property of the church. this course made him a popular idol and in the early days of the revolution he was the leader of the extreme wing of the republicans. when he saw, however, that mob law was about to usurp the place of the republican institutions for which he had striven, he leaned towards the court and advocated the sacrosanctity of the king's person. denounced as a renegade, with his life threatened and his influence lost, he retired to his native province. in august he was impeached for correspondence with the king, and on november th, . he was guillotined. the specimens of his eloquence here given were translated for this library from the paris edition of his works, published in . representative democracy against majority absolutism (delivered in the national assembly, august th, ) it is not enough to desire to be free--one must know how to be free. i shall speak briefly on this subject, for after the success of our deliberations, i await with confidence the spirit and action of this assembly. i only wish to announce my opinions on a question, the rejection of which would sooner or later mean the loss of our liberties. this question leaves no doubt in the minds of those who reflect on governments and are guided by impartial judgments. those who have combatted the committee have made a fundamental error. they have confounded democratic government with representative government; they have confounded the rights of the people with the qualifications of an elector, which society dispenses for its well understood interest. where the government is representative, where there exists an intermediary degree of electors, society which elects them has essentially the right to determine the conditions of their eligibility. there is one right existing in our constitution, that of the active citizen, but the function of an elector is not a right. i repeat, society has the right to determine its conditions. those who misunderstand the nature as they do the advantages of representative government, remind us of the governments of athens and sparta, ignoring the differences that distinguish them from france, such as extent of territory, population, etc. do they forget that they interdicted representative government? have they forgotten that the lacedemonians had the right to vote in the assemblies only when they held helots? and only by sacrifice of individual rights did the lacedemonians, athenians, and romans possess any democratic governments! i ask those who remind us of them, if it is at such government they would arrive? i ask those who profess here metaphysical ideas, because they have no practical ideas, those who envelop the question in clouds of theory, because they ignore entirely the fundamental facts of a positive government--i ask is it forgotten that the democracy of a portion of a people would exist but by the entire enslavement of the other portion of the people? a representative government has but one evil to fear, that of corruption. that such a government shall be good, there must be guaranteed the purity and incorruptibility of the electorate. this body needs the union of three eminent guarantees. first, the light of a fair education and broadened views. second, an interest in things, and still better if each had a particular and considerable interest at stake to defend. third, such condition of fortune as to place the elector above attack from corruption. these advantages i do not look for in the superior class of the rich, for they undoubtedly have too many special and individual interests, which they separate from the general interests. but if it is true that we must not look for the qualifications of the pure elector among the eminently rich, neither should i look for it among those whose lack of fortune has prevented their enlightenment; among such, unceasingly feeling the touches of want, corruption too easily can find its means. it is, then, in the middle class that we find the qualities and advantages i have cited. and, i ask, is it the demand that they contribute five to ten francs that causes the assertion that we would throw elections into the hands of the rich? you have established the usage that the electors receive nothing; if it were otherwise their great number would make an election most expensive. from the instant that the voter has not means enough to enable him to sacrifice a little time from his daily labor, one of three things would occur. the voter would absent himself, or insist on being paid by the state, else he would be rewarded by the one who wanted to obtain his suffrage. this does not occur when a comfortable condition is necessary to constitute an elector. as soon as the government is established, when the constitution is guaranteed, there is but a common interest for those who live on their property, and those who toil honestly. then can be distinguished those who desire a stable government and those who seek but revolution and change, since they increase in importance in the midst of trouble as vermin in the midst of corruption. if it is true, then, that under an established constitutional government all its well-wishers have the same interest, the power of the same must be placed in the hands of the enlightened who can have no interest pressing on them, greater than the common interest of all the citizens. depart from these principles and you fall into the abuses of representative government. you would have extreme poverty in the electorate and extreme opulence in the legislature. you would see soon in france what yon see now in england, the purchase of voters in the boroughs not with money even, but with pots of beer. thus incontestably are elected many of their parliamentary members. good representation must not be sought in either extreme, but in the middle class. the committee have thus placed it by making it incumbent that the voter shall possess an accumulation the equivalent of, say forty days of labor. this would unite the qualities needed to make the elector exercise his privilege with an interest in the same. it is necessary that he own from one hundred and twenty to two hundred and forty livres, either in property or chattels. i do not think it can seriously be said that this qualification is fixed too high, unless we would introduce among our electors men who would beg or seek improper recompense. if you would have liberty subsist do not hesitate because of specious arguments which will be presented to you by those who, if they reflect, will recognize the purity of our intentions and the resultant advantages of our plans. i add to what i have already said that the system will diminish many existing inconveniences, and the proposed law will not have its full effect for two years. they tell us we are taking from the citizen a right which elevated him by the only means through which he can acquire it. i reply that if it was an honor the career which you will open for them will imprint them with character greater and more in conformity with true equality. our opponents have not failed either to magnify the inconveniences of changing the constitution. nor do i desire its change. for that reason we should not introduce imprudent discussions to create the necessity of a national convention. in one word, the advice and conclusions of the committee are the sole guarantees for the prosperity and peaceable condition of the nation. commercial politics commerce forms a numerous class, friends of external peace and internal tranquillity, who attach themselves to the established government. it creates great fortunes, which in republics become the origin of the most forceful aristocracies. as a rule commerce enriches the cities and their inhabitants, and increases the laboring and mechanical classes, in opening more opportunities for the acquirement of riches. to an extent it fortifies the democratic element in giving the people of the cities greater influence in the government. it arrives at nearly the same result by impoverishing the peasant and land owner, by the many new pleasures offered him and by displaying to him the ostentation and voluptuousness of luxury and ease. it tends to create bands of mercenaries rather than those capable of worthy personal service. it introduces into the nation luxury, ease, and avarice at the same time as labor. the manners and morals of a commercial people are not the manners of the merchant. he individually is economical, while the general mass are prodigal. the individual merchant is conservative and moral, while the general public are rendered dissolute. the mixture of riches and pleasures which commerce produces joined to freedom of manners, leads to excesses of all kinds, at the same time that the nation may display the perfection of elegance and taste that one noticed in rome, mistress of the world or in france before the revolution. in rome the wealth was the inflow of the whole world, the product of the hardiest ambition, producing the deterioration of the soldier and the indifference of the patrician. in france the wealth was the accumulation of an immense commerce and the varied labors of the most industrious nation on the earth diverted by a brilliant and corrupt court, a profligate and chivalrous nobility, and a rich and voluptuous capital. where a nation is exclusively commercial, it can make an immense accumulation of riches without sensibly altering its manners. the passion of the trader is avarice and the habit of continuous labor. left alone to his instincts he amasses riches to possess them, without designing or knowing how to use them. examples are needed to conduct him to prodigality, ostentation, and moral corruption. as a rule the merchant opposes the soldier. one desires the accumulations of industry, the other of conquest. one makes of power the means of getting riches, the other makes of riches the means of getting power. one is disposed to be economical, a taste due to his labor. the other is prodigal, the instinct of his valor. in modern monarchies these two classes form the aristocracy and the democracy. commerce in certain republics forms an aristocracy, or rather an "extra aristocracy in the democracy." these are the directing forces of such democracies, with the addition of two other governing powers, which have come in, the clergy and the legal fraternity, who assist largely in shaping the course of events. isaac barrow ( - ) it is not often that a sermon, however eloquent it may be, becomes a literary classic, as has happened to those preached by barrow against evil speaking. literature--that which is expressed in letters--has its own method, foreign to that of oratory--the art of forcing one mind on another by word of mouth. literature can rely on suggestion, since it leaves those who do not comprehend at once free to read over again what has attracted their attention without compelling their understanding. all great literature relies mostly on suggestion. this is the secret of shakespeare's strength in 'hamlet,' as it is the purpose of burke's in such speeches as that at the trial of hastings, to compel immediate comprehension by crowding his meaning on the hearer in phalanxed sentences, moving to the attack, rank on rank, so that the first are at once supported and compelled by those which succeed them. it is not easy to find the secret by virtue of which sermons that made barrow his reputation for eloquence escaped the fate of most eloquent sermons so far as to find a place in the standard "libraries of english classics," but it lies probably in their compactness, clearness, and simplicity. barrow taught sir isaac newton mathematics, and his style suggests the method of thought which newton illustrated in such great results. born in london in , barrow was educated at the charterhouse school, at felstead, and at cambridge. belonging to a royalist family, under cromwell, he left england after his graduation and traveled abroad, studying the greek fathers in constantinople. after the restoration he became lucasian professor of mathematics at cambridge and chaplain to charles ii., who called him the best scholar in england. celebrated for the length of his sermons, barrow had nevertheless a readiness at sharp repartee which made him formidable on occasion. "i am yours, doctor, to the knee-strings," said the earl of rochester, meeting him at court and seeking amusement at his expense. "i am yours, my lord, to the shoe-tie," answered the doctor, bowing still lower than the earl had done. "yours, doctor, to the ground," said rochester. "yours, ray lord, to the centre of the earth," answered barrow with another bow. "yours. doctor, to the lowest pit of hell," said rochester, as he imagined, in conclusion. "there, my lord, i must leave you!" was the immediate answer. slander general declamations against vice and sin are indeed excellently useful, as rousing men to consider and look about them; but they do often want effect, because they only raise confused apprehensions of things, and indeterminate propensions to action, which usually, before men thoroughly perceive or resolve what they should practice, do decay and vanish. as he that cries out "fire!" doth stir up people, and inspireth them with a kind of hovering tendency every way, yet no man thence to purpose moveth until he be distinctly informed where the mischief is; then do they, who apprehend themselves concerned, run hastily to oppose it: so, till we particularly discern where our offenses lie (till we distinctly know the heinous nature and the mischievous consequences of them), we scarce will effectually apply ourselves to correct them. whence it is requisite that men should be particularly acquainted with their sins, and by proper arguments be dissuaded from them. in order whereto i have now selected one sin to describe, and dissuade from, being in nature as vile, and in practice as common, as any other whatever that hath prevailed among men. it is slander, a sin which in all times and places hath been epidemical and rife, but which especially doth seem to reign and rage in our age and country. there are principles innate to men, which ever have, and ever will, incline them to this offense. eager appetites to secular and sensual goods; violent passions, urging the prosecution of what men affect; wrath and displeasure against those who stand in the way of compassing their desires; emulation and envy towards those who happen to succeed better, or to attain a greater share in such things; excessive self-love; unaccountable malignity and vanity are in some degrees connatural to all men, and ever prompt them to this dealing, as appearing the most efficacious, compendious, and easy way of satisfying such appetites, of promoting such designs, of discharging such passions. slander thence hath always been a principal engine whereby covetous, ambitious, envious, ill-natured, and vain persons have striven to supplant their competitors and advance themselves; meaning thereby to procure, what they chiefly prize and like, wealth, or dignity, or reputation, favor and power in the court, respect and interest with the people. but from especial causes our age peculiarly doth abound in this practice; for, besides the common dispositions inclining thereto, there are conceits newly coined, and greedily entertained by many, which seem purposely leveled at the disparagement of piety, charity, and justice, substituting interest in the room of conscience, authorizing and commending for good and wise, all ways serving to private advantage. there are implacable dissensions, fierce animosities, and bitter zeals sprung up; there is an extreme curiosity, niceness, and delicacy of judgment; there is a mighty affectation of seeming wise and witty by any means; there is a great unsettlement of mind, and corruption of manners, generally diffused over people; from which sources it is no wonder that this flood hath so overflown, that no banks can restrain it, no fences are able to resist it; so that ordinary conversation is full of it, and no demeanor can be secure from it. if we do mark what is done in many (might i not say, in most?) companies, what is it but one telling malicious stories of, or fastening odious characters upon, another? what do men commonly please themselves in so much as in carping and harshly censuring, in defaming and abusing their neighbors? is it not the sport and divertisement of many to cast dirt in the faces of all they meet with? to bespatter any man with foul imputations? doth not in every corner a momus lurk, from the venom of whose spiteful or petulant tongue no eminency of rank, dignity of place, or sacredness of office, no innocence or integrity of life, no wisdom or circumspection in behavior, no good-nature or benignity in dealing and carriage, can protect any person? do not men assume to themselves a liberty of telling romances, and framing characters concerning their neighbors, as freely as a poet doth about hector or turnus, thersites or draucus? do they not usurp a power of playing with, or tossing about, of tearing in pieces their neighbor's good name, as if it were the veriest toy in the world? do not many having a form of godliness (some of them demurely, others confidently, both without any sense of, or remorse for, what they do) backbite their brethren? is it not grown so common a thing to asperse causelessly that no man wonders at it, that few dislike, that scarce any detest it? that most notorious calumniators are heard, not only with patience, but with pleasure; yea, are even held in vogue and reverence as men of a notable talent, and very serviceable to their party? so that slander seemeth to have lost its nature and not to be now an odious sin, but a fashionable humor, a way of pleasing entertainment, a fine knack, or curious feat of policy; so that no man at least taketh himself or others to be accountable for what is said in this way? is not, in fine, the case become such, that whoever hath in him any love of truth, any sense of justice or honesty, any spark of charity towards his brethren, shall hardly be able to satisfy himself in the conversations he meeteth; but will be tempted, with the holy prophet, to wish himself sequestered from society, and cast into solitude; repeating those words of his, "oh, that i had in the wilderness a lodging-place of wayfaring men, that i might leave my people, and go from them: for they are ... an assembly of treacherous men, and they bend their tongues like their bow for lies"? this he wished in an age so resembling ours, that i fear the description with equal patness may suit both: "take ye heed" (said he then, and may we not advise the like now?) "every one of his neighbor, and trust ye not in any brother: for every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbor will walk with slanders. they will deceive every one his neighbor, and will not speak the truth; they have taught their tongue to speak lies, and weary themselves to commit iniquity." such being the state of things, obvious to experience, no discourse may seem more needful, or more useful, than that which serveth to correct or check this practice: which i shall endeavor to do ( ) by describing the nature, ( ) by declaring the folly of it: or showing it to be very true which the wise man here asserteth, "he that uttereth slander is a fool." which particulars i hope so to prosecute, that any man shall be able easily to discern, and ready heartily to detest this practice. . for explication of its nature, we may describe slander to be the uttering false (or equivalent to false, morally false) speech against our neighbor, in prejudice to his fame, his safety, his welfare, or concernment in any kind, out of malignity, vanity, rashness, ill-nature, or bad design. that which is in holy scripture forbidden and reproved under several names and notions: of bearing false witness, false accusation, railing censure, sycophantry, talebearing, whispering, backbiting, supplanting, taking up reproach: which terms some of them do signify the nature, others denote the special kinds, others imply the manners, others suggest the ends of this practice. but it seemeth most fully intelligible by observing the several kinds and degrees thereof; as also by reflecting on the divers ways and manners of practicing it. the principal kinds thereof i observe to be these:-- . the grossest kind of slander is that which in the decalogue is called, bearing false testimony against our neighbor; that is, flatly charging him with acts which he never committed, and is nowise guilty of. as in the case of naboth, when men were suborned to say, "naboth did blaspheme god and the king," and as was david's case, when he thus complained, "false witnesses did rise up, they laid to my charge things that i knew not of." this kind in the highest way (that is, in judicial proceedings) is more rare; and of all men, they who are detected to practice it are held most vile and infamous, as being plainly the most pernicious and perilous instruments of injustice, the most desperate enemies of all men's right and safety that can be. but also out of the court there are many knights-errant of the poet, whose business it is to run about scattering false reports; sometimes loudly proclaiming them in open companies, sometimes closely whispering them in dark corners; thus infecting conversation with their poisonous breath: these no less notoriously are guilty of this kind, as bearing always the same malice and sometimes breeding as ill effects. . another kind is, affixing scandalous names, injurious epithets, and odious characters upon persons, which they deserve not. as when corah and his accomplices did accuse moses of being ambitious, unjust, and tyrannical; when the pharisees called our lord an impostor, a blasphemer, a sorcerer, a glutton and wine-bibber, an incendiary and perverter of the people, one that spake against caesar, and forbade to give tribute; when the apostles were charged with being pestilent, turbulent, factious, and seditious fellows. this sort being very common, and thence in ordinary repute not so bad, yet in just estimation may be judged even worse than the former, as doing to our neighbor more heavy and more irreparable wrong. for it imposeth on him really more blame, and that such which he can hardly shake off; because the charge signifies habits of evil, and includeth many acts; then, being general and indefinite, can scarce be disproved. he, for instance, that calleth a sober man drunkard doth impute to him many acts of such intemperance (some really past, others probably future), and no particular time or place being specified, how can a man clear himself of that imputation, especially with those who are not thoroughly acquainted with his conversation? so he that calleth a man unjust, proud, perverse, hypocritical, doth load him with most grievous faults, which it is not possible that the most innocent person should discharge himself from. . like to that kind is this: aspersing a man's actions with harsh censures and foul terms, importing that they proceed from ill principles, or tend to bad ends; so as it doth not or cannot appear. thus, when we say of him that is generously hospitable, that he is profuse; of him that is prudently frugal, that he is niggardly; of him that is cheerful and free in his conversation, that he is vain or loose; of him that is serious and resolute in a good way, that he is sullen or morose; of him that is conspicuous and brisk in virtuous practice, that it is ambition or ostentation which prompts him; of him that is close and bashful in the like good way, that it is sneaking stupidity, or want of spirit; of him that is reserved, that it is craft; of him that is open, that it is simplicity in him; when we ascribe a man's liberality and charity to vainglory or popularity; his strictness of life, and constancy in devotion, to superstition, or hypocrisy. when, i say, we pass such censures, or impose such characters on the laudable or innocent practice of our neighbors, we are indeed slanderers, imitating therein the great calumniator, who thus did slander even god himself, imputing his prohibition of the fruit unto envy towards men; "god," said he, "doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil;" who thus did ascribe the steady piety of job, not to a conscientious love and fear of god, but to policy and selfish design: "doth job fear god for naught?" whoever, indeed, pronounceth concerning his neighbor's intentions otherwise than as they are evidently expressed by words, or signified by overt actions, is a slanderer; because he pretendeth to know, and dareth to aver, that which he nowise possibly can tell whether it be true; because the heart is exempt from all jurisdiction here, is only subject to the government and trial of another world; because no man can judge concerning the truth of such accusations, because no man can exempt or defend himself from them: so that apparently such practice doth thwart all course of justice and equity. . another kind is, perverting a man's words or actions disadvantageously by affected misconstruction. all words are ambiguous, and capable of different senses, some fair, some more foul; all actions have two handles, one that candor and charity will, another that disingenuity and spite may lay hold on; and in such cases to misapprehend is a calumnious procedure, arguing malignant disposition and mischievous design. thus, when two men did witness that our lord affirmed, he "could demolish the temple, and rear it again in three days"--although he did, indeed, speak words to that purpose, meaning them in a figurative sense, discernible enough to those who would candidly have minded his drift and way of speaking:--yet they who crudely alleged them against him are called false witnesses. "at last," saith the gospel, "came two false witnesses, and said, this fellow said, i am able to destroy the temple," etc. thus, also, when some certified of st stephen, as having said that "jesus of nazareth should destroy that place, and change the customs that moses delivered"; although probably he did speak words near to that purpose, yet are those men called false witnesses. "and," saith st. luke, "they set up false witnesses, which said, this man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words," etc. which instances do plainly show, if we would avoid the guilt of slander, how careful we should be to interpret fairly and favorably the words and actions of our neighbor. . another sort of this practice is, partial and lame representation of men's discourse, or their practice, suppressing some part of the truth in them, or concealing some circumstances about them which might serve to explain, to excuse, or to extenuate them. in such a manner easily, without uttering; any logical untruth, one may yet grievously calumniate. thus, suppose a man speaketh a thing upon supposition, or with exception, or in way of objection, or merely for disputation's sake, in order to the discussion or clearing of truth; he that should report him asserting it absolutely, unlimitedly, positively, and peremptorily, as his own settled judgment, would notoriously calumniate. if one should be inveigled by fraud, or driven by violence, or slip by chance into a bad place or bad company, he that should so represent the gross of that accident, as to breed an opinion of that person, that out of pure disposition and design he did put himself there, doth slanderously abuse that innocent person. the reporter in such cases must not think to defend himself by pretending that he spake nothing false; for such propositions, however true in logic, may justly be deemed lies in morality, being uttered with a malicious and deceitful (that is, with a calumnious) mind, being apt to impress false conceits and to produce hurtful effects concerning our neighbor. there are slanderous truths as well as slanderous falsehoods; when truth is uttered with a deceitful heart, and to a base end, it becomes a lie. "he that speaketh truth," saith the wise man, "showeth forth righteousness, but a false witness deceit." deceiving is the proper work of slander; and truth abused to that end putteth on its nature, and will engage into like guilt. , another kind of calumny is, by instilling sly suggestions, which although they do not downrightly assert falsehoods, yet they breed sinister opinions in the hearers, especially in those who, from weakness or credulity, from jealousy or prejudice, from negligence or inadvertency, are prone to entertain them. this is done in many ways: by propounding wily suppositions, shrewd insinuations, crafty questions, and specious comparisons, intimating a possibility, or inferring some likelihood of, and thence inducing to believe the fact. "doth not," saith this kind of slanderer, "his temper incline him to do thus? may not his interest have swayed him thereto? had he not fair opportunity and strong temptation to it? hath he not acted so in like cases? judge you, therefore, whether he did it not." thus the close slanderer argueth; and a weak or prejudiced person is thereby so caught, that he presently is ready thence to conclude the thing done. again: "he doeth well," saith the sycophant, "it is true; but why, and to what end? is it not, as most men do, out of ill design? may he not dissemble now? may he not recoil hereafter? have not others made as fair a show? yet we know what came of it." thus do calumnious tongues pervert the judgments of men to think ill of the most innocent, and meanly of the worthiest actions. even commendation itself is often used calumniously, with intent to breed dislike and ill-will towards a person commended in envious or jealous ears; or so as to give passage to dispraises, and render the accusations following more credible. tis an artifice commonly observed to be much in use there, where the finest tricks of supplanting are practiced, with greatest effect; so that _pessimum_ _inimicorum_ _genus_, _laudantes_; there is no more pestilent enemy than a malevolent praiser. all these kinds of dealing, as they issue from the principles of slander, and perform its work, so they deservedly bear the guilt thereof. . a like kind is that of oblique and covert reflections; when a man doth not directly or expressly charge his neighbor with faults, but yet so speaketh that he is understood, or reasonably presumed to do it. this is a very cunning and very mischievous way of slandering; for therein the skulking calumniator keepeth a reserve for himself, and cutteth off from the person concerned the means of defense. if he goeth to clear himself from the matter of such aspersions: "what need," saith this insidious speaker, "of that? must i needs mean you? did i name you? why do you then assume it to yourself? do you not prejudge yourself guilty? i did not, but your own conscience, it seemeth, doth accuse you. you are so jealous and suspicious, as persons overwise or guilty use to be." so meaneth this serpent out of the hedge securely and unavoidably to bite his neighbor, and is in that respect more base and more hurtful than the most flat and positive slanderer. . another kind is that of magnifying and aggravating the faults of others; raising any small miscarriage into a heinous crime, any slender defect into an odious vice, and any common infirmity into a strange enormity; turning a small "mote in the eye" of our neighbor into a huge "beam," a little dimple in his face into a monstrous wen. this is plainly slander, at least in degree, and according to the surplusage whereby the censure doth exceed the fault. as he that, upon the score of a small debt, doth extort a great sum, is no less a thief, in regard to what amounts beyond his due, than if without any pretense he had violently or fraudulently seized on it, so he is a slanderer that, by heightening faults or imperfections, doth charge his neighbor with greater blame, or load him with more disgrace than he deserves. 'tis not only slander to pick a hole where there is none, but to make that wider which is, so that it appeareth more ugly, and cannot so easily be mended. for charity is wont to extenuate faults, justice doth never exaggerate them. as no man is exempt from some defects, or can live free from some misdemeanors, so by this practice every man may be rendered very odious and infamous. . another kind of slander is, imputing to our neighbor's practice, judgment, or profession, evil consequences (apt to render him odious, or despicable) which have no dependence on them, or connection with them. there do in every age occur disorders and mishaps, springing from various complications of causes, working some of them in a more open and discernible, others in a more secret and subtle way (especially from divine judgment and providence checking or chastising sin); from such occurrences it is common to snatch occasion and matter of calumny. those who are disposed this way are ready peremptorily to charge them upon whomsoever they dislike or dissent from, although without any apparent cause, or upon most frivolous and senseless pretenses; yea, often when reason showeth quite the contrary, and they who are so charged are in just esteem of all men the least obnoxious to such accusations. so, usually, the best friends of mankind, those who most heartily wish the peace and prosperity of the world and most earnestly to their power strive to promote them, have all the disturbances and disasters happening charged on them by those fiery vixens, who (in pursuance of their base designs, or gratification of their wild passions) really do themselves embroil things, and raise miserable combustions in the world. so it is that they who have the conscience to do mischief will have the confidence also to disavow the blame and the iniquity, to lay the burden of it on those who are most innocent. thus, whereas nothing more disposeth men to live orderly and peaceably, nothing more conduceth to the settlement and safety of the public, nothing so much draweth blessings down from heaven upon the commonwealth, as true religion, yet nothing hath been more ordinary than to attribute all the miscarriages and mischiefs that happened unto it; even those are laid at his door, which plainly do arise from the contempt or neglect of it, being the natural fruits or the just punishments of irreligion. king ahab, by forsaking god's commandments and following wicked superstitions, had troubled israel, drawing sore judgments and calamities thereon; yet had he the heart and the face to charge those events on the great assertor of piety, elias: "art thou he that troubleth israel?" the jews by provocation of divine justice had set themselves in a fair way towards desolation and ruin; this event to come they had the presumption to lay upon the faith of our lord's doctrine. "if," said they, "we let him alone, all men will believe on him, and the romans shall come, and take away our place and nation," whereas, in truth, a compliance with his directions and admonitions had been the only means to prevent those presaged mischiefs. and, _si_ _tibris_ _ascenderit_ _in_ _mania_, if any public calamity did appear, then _christianos_ _ad_ _leones_, christians must be charged and persecuted as the causes thereof. to them it was that julian and other pagans did impute all the discussions, confusions, and devastations falling upon the roman empire. the sacking of rome by the goths they cast upon christianity; for the vindication of it from which reproach st. augustine did write those renowned books 'de civitate dei.' so liable are the best and most innocent sort of men to be calumniously accused in this manner. another practice (worthily bearing the guilt of slander) is, aiding and being accessory thereto, by anywise furthering, cherishing, abetting it. he that by crafty significations of ill-will doth prompt the slanderer to vent his poison; he that by a willing audience and attention doth readily suck it up, or who greedily swalloweth it down by credulous approbation and assent; he that pleasingly relisheth and smacketh at it, or expresseth a delightful complacence therein; as he is a partner in the fact, so he is a sharer in the guilt. there are not only slanderous throats, but slanderous ears also; not only wicked inventions, which engender and brood lies, but wicked assents, which hatch and foster them. not only the spiteful mother that conceiveth such spurious brats, but the midwife that helpeth to bring them forth, the nurse that feedeth them, the guardian that traineth them up to maturity, and setteth them forth to live in the world; as they do really contribute to their subsistence, so deservedly they partake in the blame due to them, and must be responsible for the mischief they do. basil the great ( - ) basil the great, born at caesarea in cappadocia a. d. , was one of the leading orators of the christian church in the fourth century. he was a friend of the famous gregory of nazianzus, and gregory of nyssa was his brother. the spirit of his time was one of change. the foundations of the roman world were undermined. the old classical civilization of beauty and order had reached its climax and reacted on itself; the greek worship of the graceful; the roman love of the regular, the strong, the martial, the magnificent, had failed to save the world from a degradation which, under the degeneracy of the later caesars, had become indescribable. the early christians, filled with a profound conviction of the infernal origin of the corruption of the decaying civilization they saw around them, were moved by such a compelling desire to escape it as later times can never realize and hardly imagine. moved by this spirit, the earnest young men of the time, educated as basil was in the philosophy, the poetry, and the science of the classical times, still felt that having this they would lose everything unless they could escape the influences of the world around them. they did not clearly discriminate between what was within and without themselves. it was not clear to them whether the corruption of an effete civilization was not the necessary corruption of all human nature including their own. this doubt sent men like basil to the desert to attempt, by fasting and scourging, to get such mastery over their bodies as to compel every rebellious nerve and stubborn muscle to yield instant obedience to their aspirations after a more than human perfection. if they never attained their ideal; if we find them coming out of the desert, as they sometimes did, to engage in controversies, often fierce and unsaintly enough, we can see, nevertheless, how the deep emotions of their struggle after a higher life made them the great orators they were. their language came from profound depths of feeling. often their very earnestness betrays them into what for later ages is unintelligibility. only antiquarians now can understand how deeply the minds of the earlier centuries of the new order, which saved progress from going down into the bottomless pit of classical decadence, were stirred by controversies over prepositions and conjunctions. but if we remember that in all of it, the men who are sometimes ridiculed as mere ascetics, mere pedants, were moved by a profound sense of their duty to save a world so demoralized, so shameless in the pursuit of everything sensual and base, that nothing short of their sublime enthusiasm, their very madness of contempt for the material and the sensual, could have saved it. after studying in constantinople and in athens, the spirit of the reformers of his time took hold on basil and, under the ascetic impulse, he visited the hermits of arabia and asia minor, hoping to learn sanctity from them. he founded a convent in pontus, which his mother and sister entered. after his ordination as "presbyter." he was involved in the great arian controversy, and the ability he showed as a disputant probably had much to do with his promotion to the bishopric of caesarea. in meeting the responsibilities of that office, his courage and eloquence made him famous. when threatened by the emperor valens, he replied that having nothing but a few books and his cloak, he did not fear confiscation of his goods; that he could not be exiled, since the whole earth was the lord's; that torture and death would merely put an end to his labors and bring him nearer to the god for whom he longed. he died at caesarea a. d. . such men must be judged from their own standpoints. it is worth much to understand them. the sermon 'to the fallen,' here used from fish's translation, was greatly admired by fenelon, who calls it a masterpiece. it was occasioned by a nun's breaking a vow of perpetual virginity. on a recreant nun it is time, now, to take up the exclamation of the prophet: "o that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that i might weep for the wounded of the daughter of my people!"--jer. ix. i. for, although they are wrapped in profound silence, and lie quite stupefied by their calamity, and deprived, by their deadly wound, even of the very sense of suffering, yet it does not become us to withhold our tears over so sad a fall. for if jeremiah deemed those worthy of countless lamentations who had received bodily wounds in battle, what shall we say when souls are involved in so great a calamity? "thy wounded," says the prophet, "are not wounded with the sword, and thy dead are not the dead of war." but my lamentation is for grievous sin, the sting of the true death, and for the fiery darts of the wicked, which have cruelly kindled a flame in both body and soul. well might the laws of god groan within themselves, beholding such pollution on earth, those laws which always utter their loud prohibition, saying in olden time, "thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife"; and in the gospels, "that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart." but now they behold the very bride of the lord--her of whom christ is the head-- committing adultery without fear or shame. yes, the very spirits of departed saints may well groan, the zealous phineas, that it is not permitted to him now to snatch the spear and to punish the loathsome sin with a summary corporeal vengeance; and john the baptist, that he cannot now leave the celestial abodes, as he once left the wilderness, and hasten to rebuke the transgression, and if the sacrifice were called for, to lay down his head sooner than abate the severity of his reproof. nay, let us rather say that, like blessed abel, john "being dead yet speaketh," and now lifts up his voice with a yet louder cry than in the case of herodias, saying, "it is not lawful for thee to have her." for, although the body of john, yielding to the inevitable sentence of god, has paid the debt of nature, and his tongue is silent, yet "the word of god is not bound." and he who, when the marriage covenant had been violated in the case of a fellow-servant, was faithful even unto death with his stern reproofs, what must he have felt if he had seen the holy bride-chamber of the lord thus wantonly outraged? but as for thee, o thou who hast thus cast off the yoke of that divine union, and deserted the undefiled chamber of the true king, and shamefully fallen into this disgraceful and impious defilement, since thou hast no way of evading this bitter charge, and no method or artifice can avail to conceal thy fearful crime, thou boldly hardenest thyself in guilt. and as he who has once fallen into the abyss of crime becomes henceforth an impious despiser, so thou deniest thy very covenant with the true bridegroom; alleging that thou wast not a virgin, and hadst never taken the vow, although thou hast both received and given many pledges of virginity. remember the good confession which thou hast made before god and angels and men. remember that venerable assembly, and the sacred choir of virgins, and the congregation of the lord, and the church of the saints. remember thy aged grandmother in christ, whose christian virtues still flourish in the vigor of youth; and thy mother in the lord, who vies with the former, and strives by new and unwonted endeavors to dissolve the bands of custom; and thy sister likewise, in some things their imitator, and in some aspiring to excel them, and to surpass in the merits of virginity the attainments of her progenitors, and both in word and deed diligently inviting thee, her sister, as is meet, to the same competition. remember these, and the angelic company associated with them in the service of the lord, and the spiritual life though yet in the flesh, and the heavenly converse upon earth. remember the tranquil days and the luminous nights, and the spiritual songs, and the melodious psalmody, and the holy prayers, and the chaste and undefiled couch, and the progress in virginal purity, and the temperate diet so helpful in preserving thy virginity uncontaminated. and where is now that grave deportment, and that modest mien, and that plain attire which so become a virgin, and that beautiful blush of bashfulness, and that comely paleness--the delicate bloom of abstinence and vigils, that outshines every ruddier glow. how often in prayer that thou mightest keep unspotted thy virginal purity hast thou poured forth thy tears! how many letters hast thou indited to holy men, imploring their prayers, not that thou mightest obtain these human --nuptials, shall i call them? rather this dishonorable defilement --but that thou mightest not fall away from the lord jesus? how often hast thou received the gifts of the spouse! and why should i mention also the honors accorded for his sake by those who are his --the companionship of the virgins, journeyings with them, welcomes from them, encomiums on virginity, blessings bestowed by virgins, letters addressed to thee as to a virgin! but now, having been just breathed upon by the aerial spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience, thou hast denied all these, and hast bartered that precious and enviable possession for a brief pleasure, which is sweet to thy taste for a moment, but which afterward thou wilt find bitterer than gall. besides all this, who can avoid exclaiming with grief, "how is zion, the faithful city, become an harlot!" nay, does not the lord himself say to some who now walk in the spirit of jeremiah, "hast thou seen what the virgin of israel hath done unto me?" "i betrothed her unto me in faith and purity, in righteousness and in judgment, and in loving-kindness and in mercies," even as i promised her by hosea, the prophet. but she has loved strangers; and even while i her husband lived, she has made herself an adulteress, and has not feared to become the wife of another husband. and what would the bride's guardian and conductor say, the divine and blessed paul? both the ancient apostle, and this modern one, under whose auspices and instruction thou didst leave thy father's house, and join thyself to the lord? would not each, filled with grief at the great calamity, say, "the thing which i greatly feared has come upon me, and that which i was afraid of is come unto me," for "i espoused you unto one husband, that i might present you as a chaste virgin to christ"; and i was always fearful, lest in some way as the serpent beguiled eve by his subtilty, so thy mind should sometime be corrupted. and on this account i always endeavored, like a skillful charmer, by innumerable incantations, to suppress the tumult of the passions, and by a thousand safeguards to secure the bride of the lord, rehearsing again and again the manner of her who is unmarried, how that she only "careth for the things of the lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit"; and i set forth the honor of virginity, calling thee the temple of god, that i might add wings to thy zeal, and help thee upward to jesus; and i also had recourse to the fear of evil, to prevent thee from falling, telling thee that "if any man defile the temple of god, him shall god destroy." i also added the assistance of my prayers, that, if possible, "thy whole body, and soul, and spirit might be preserved blameless unto the coming of our lord jesus christ," but all this labor i have spent in vain upon thee; and those sweet toils have ended in a bitter disappointment; and now i must again groan over her of whom i ought to have joy. for lo, thou hast been beguiled by the serpent more bitterly than eve; for not only has thy mind become defiled, but with it thy very body also, and what is still more horrible--i dread to say it, but i cannot suppress it; for it is as fire burning and blazing in my bones, and i am dissolving in every part and cannot endure it--thou hast taken the members of christ, and made them the members of a harlot. this is incomparably the greatest evil of all. this is a new crime in the world, to which we may apply the words of the prophet, "pass over the isles of chittim, and see; and send unto kedar, and consider diligently, and see if there be such a thing. hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods?" for the virgin hath changed her glory, and now glories in her shame. the heavens are astonished at this, and the earth trembleth very exceedingly. now, also, the lord says, the virgin hath committed two evils, she hath forsaken me, the true and holy bridegroom of sanctified souls, and hath fled to an impious and lawless polluter of the body, and corrupter of the soul. she hath turned away from god her savior, and hath yielded her members servants to imparity and iniquity; she bath forgotten me, and gone after her lover, by whom she shall not profit. it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should cause one of the lord's virgins to offend. what impudent servant ever carried his insane audacity so far as to fling himself upon the couch of his lord? or what robber has ever become so madly hardened as to lay hands upon the very offerings devoted to god?--but here it is not inanimate vessels, but living bodies, inhabited by souls made in the image of god. since the beginning of the world was any one ever heard of, who dared, in the midst of a great city, in broad midday, to deface the likeness of a king by inscribing upon it the forms of filthy swine? he that despises human nuptials dies without mercy under two or three witnesses; of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy who hath trodden under foot the son of god, and defiled his espoused wife, and done despite to the spirit of virginity? . . . but, after all this, "shall they fall and not arise? shall he turn away and not return?" why hath the virgin turned away in so shameless an apostasy?--and that, too, after having heard christ, the bridegroom, saying by jeremiah, "and i said, after she had lewdly done all these things, turn thou unto me. but she returned not," "is there no balm in gilead? is there no physician there? why, then, is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?" truly thou mightest find in the divine scriptures many remedies for such an evil--many medicines that recover from perdition and restore to life; mysterious words about death and resurrection, a dreadful judgment, and everlasting punishment; the doctrines of repentance and remission of sins; those innumerable examples of conversion--the piece of silver, the lost sheep, the son that had devoured his living with harlots, that was lost and found, that was dead and alive again. let us use these remedies for the evil; with these let us heal our souls. think, too, of thy last day (for thou art not to live always, more than others), of the distress, and the anguish, as the hour of death draws nearer, of the impending sentence of god, of the angels moving on rapid wing, of the soul fearfully agitated by all these things, and bitterly tormented by a guilty conscience, and clinging pitifully to the things here below, and still under the inevitable necessity of taking its departure. picture to thy mind the final dissolution of all that belongs to our present life, when the son of man shall come in his glory, with his holy angels; for he "shall come, and shall not keep silence," when he shall come to judge the living and the dead, and to render to every man according to his work; when the trumpet, with its loud and terrible echo, shall awaken those who have slept from the beginning of the world, and they shall come forth, they that have done good to the resurrection of the life, and they that have done evil to the resurrection of damnation. remember the divine vision of daniel, how he brings the judgment before our eyes. "i beheld," says he, "till the thrones were placed, and the ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool; his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire. a fiery stream issued and came forth from before him; thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him; the judgment was set, and the books were opened," revealing all at once in the hearing of all men and all angels, all things, whether good or bad, open or secret, deeds, words, thoughts. what effect must all these things have on those who have lived viciously? where, then, shall the soul, thus suddenly revealed in all the fullness of its shame in the eyes of such a multitude of spectators--oh, where shall it hide itself? in what body can it endure those unbounded and intolerable torments of the unquenchable fire, and the tortures of the undying worm, and the dark and frightful abyss of hell, and the bitter howlings, and woeful wailings, and weeping, and gnashing of teeth; and all these dire woes without end? deliverance from these after death there is none; neither is there any device, nor contrivance, for escaping these bitter torments. but now it is possible to escape them. now, then, while it is possible, let us recover ourselves from our fall, let us not despair of restoration, if we break loose from our vices. jesus christ came into the world to save sinners. "oh, come, let us worship and bow down," let us weep before him. his word, calling us to repentance, lifts up its voice and cries aloud, "come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and i will give you rest." there is, then, a way to be saved, if we will death has prevailed and swallowed us up; but be assured, that god will wipe away every tear from the face of every penitent. the lord is faithful in all his words. he does not lie, when he says, "though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." the great physician of souls is ready to heal thy disease; he is the prompt deliverer, not of thee alone, but of all who are in bondage to sin. these are his words,--his sweet and life-giving lips pronounced them,--"they that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. i am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." what excuse, then, remains to thee, or to any one else, when he utters such language as this? the lord is willing to heal thy painful wound, and to enlighten thy darkness. the good shepherd leaves the sheep who have not strayed, to seek for thee. if thou give thyself up to him, he will not delay, he in his mercy will not disdain to carry thee upon his own shoulders, rejoicing that he has found his sheep which was lost. the father stands waiting thy return from thy wanderings. only arise and come, and whilst thou art yet a great way off he will run and fall upon thy neck; and, purified at once by thy repentance, thou shalt be enfolded in the embraces of his friendship. he will put the best robe on thy soul, when it has put off the old man with his deeds; he will put a ring on thy hands when they have been washed from the blood of death; he will put shoes on thy feet, when they have turned from the evil way to the path of the gospel of peace; and he will proclaim a day of joy and gladness to the whole family of both angels and men, and will celebrate thy salvation with every form of rejoicing. for he himself says, "verily i say unto you, that joy shall be in heaven before god over one sinner that repenteth." and if any of those that stand by should seem to find fault, because thou art so quickly received, the good father himself will plead for thee, saying, "it was meet that we should make merry and be glad; for this my daughter was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found." richard baxter ( - ) richard baxter, author of 'the saints' everlasting rest' and of other works to the extent of sixty octavo volumes, was called by doddridge "the english demosthenes." he was born november th. , in shropshire, england, and was admitted to orders in the english church in . he refused, however, to take the oath of "submission to archbishops. bishops," etc., and established himself as the pastor of a dissenting church in kidderminster. he was twice imprisoned for refusing to conform to the requirements of the established church. he died in . one of his critics says of him:-- "the leading characteristics of baxter are, eminent piety and vigor of intellect, keenness of logic, burning power and plainness of language, melting pathos, cloudless perspicuity, graceful description, and a certain vehemence of feeling which brings home his words with an irresistible force." the sermon here extracted from was preached first at kidderminster and afterwards at london, and it is said it produced "a profound sensation." as published entire, under the title 'making light of christ and salvation,' it makes a considerable volume. unwillingness to improve beloved hearers, the office that god bath called us to, is by declaring the glory of his grace, to help under christ to the saving of men's souls, i hope you think not that i come hither to-day on any other errand. the lord knows i had not set a foot out of doors but in hope to succeed in this work for your souls. i have considered, and often considered, what is the matter that so many thousands should perish when god hath done so much for their salvation; and i find this that is mentioned in my text is the cause. it is one of the wonders of the world, that when god hath so loved the world as to send his son, and christ hath made a satisfaction by his death sufficient for them all and offereth the benefits of it so freely to them, even without money or price, that yet the most of the world should perish; yea, the most of those that are thus called by his word! why, here is the reason, when christ hath done all this, men make light of it. god hath showed that he is not unwilling; and christ hath showed that he is not unwilling that men should be restored to god's favor and be saved; but men are actually unwilling themselves. god takes not pleasure in the death of sinners, but rather that they return and live. but men take such pleasure in sin that they will die before they will return. the lord jesus was content to be their physician, and hath provided them a sufficient plaster of his own blood: but if men make light of it, and will not apply it, what wonder if they perish after all? the scripture giveth us the reason of their perdition. this, sad experience tells us, the most of the world is guilty of. it is a most lamentable thing to see how most men do spend their care, their time, their pains, for known vanities, while god and glory are cast aside; that he who is all should seem to them as nothing, and that which is nothing should seem to them as good as all; that god should set mankind in such a race where heaven or hell is their certain end, and that they should sit down, and loiter, or run after the childish toys of the world, and so much forget the prize that they should run for. were it but possible for one of us to see the whole of this business as the all-seeing god doth; to see at one view both heaven and hell, which men are so near; and see what most men in the world are minding, and what they are doing every day, it would be the saddest sight that could be imagined. oh how should we marvel at their madness, and lament their self-delusion! oh poor distracted world! what is it you run after? and what is it that you neglect? if god had never told them what they were sent into the world to do, or whither they are going, or what was before them in another world, then they had been excusable; but he hath told them over and over, till they were weary of it. had he left it doubtful, there had been some excuse; but it is his sealed word, and they profess to believe it, and would take it ill of us if we should question whether they do believe it or not. beloved, i come not to accuse any of you particularly of this crime; but seeing it is the commonest cause of men's destruction, i suppose you will judge it the fittest matter for our inquiry, and deserving our greatest care for the cure, to which end i shall, . endeavor the conviction of the guilty, . shall give them such considerations as may tend to humble and reform them. . i shall conclude with such direction as may help them that are willing to escape the destroying power of this sin. and for the first, consider:-- . it is the case of most sinners to think themselves freest from those sins that they are most enslaved to; and one reason why we cannot reform them, is because we cannot convince them of their guilt. it is the nature of sin so far to blind and befool the sinner, that he knoweth not what he doth, but thinketh he is free from it when it reigneth in him, or when he is committing it; it bringeth men to be so much unacquainted with themselves that they know not what they think, or what they mean and intend, nor what they love or hate, much less what they are habituated and disposed to. they are alive to sin, and dead to all the reason, consideration, and resolution that should recover them, as if it were only by their sinning that we must know they are alive. may i hope that you that hear me to-day are but willing to know the truth of your case, and then i shall be encouraged to proceed to an inquiry. god will judge impartially; why should not we do so? let me, therefore, by these following questions, try whether none of you are slighters of christ and your own salvation. and follow me, i beseech you, by putting them close to your own hearts, and faithfully answering them. . things that men highly value will be remembered; they will be matter of their freest and sweetest thoughts. this is a known case. do not those then make light of christ and salvation that think of them so seldom and coldly in comparison of other things? follow thy own heart, man, and observe what it daily runneth after; and then judge whether it make not light of christ. we cannot persuade men to one hour's sober consideration what they should do for an interest in christ, or in thankfulness for his love, and yet they will not believe that they make light of him. . things that we highly value will be matter of our discourse; the judgment and heart will command the tongue. freely and delightfully will our speech run after them. this also is a known case. do not those men make light of christ and salvation that shun the mention of his name, unless it be in a vain or sinful use? those that love not the company where christ and salvation is much talked of, but think it troublesome, precise discourse; that had rather hear some merry jests, or idle tales, or talk of their riches or business in the world? when you may follow them from morning to night, and scarce have a savory word of christ; but, perhaps, some slight and weary mention of him sometimes; judge whether these make not light of christ and salvation. how seriously do they talk of the world and speak vanity! but how heartlessly do they make mention of christ and salvation! . the things that we highly value we would secure the possession of, and, therefore, would take any convenient course to have all doubts and fears about them well resolved. do not those men then make light of christ and salvation that have lived twenty or thirty years in uncertainty whether they have any part in these or not, and yet never seek out for the right resolution of their doubts? are all that hear me this day certain they shall be saved? oh that they were! oh, had you not made light of salvation, you could not so easily bear such doubting of it; you could not rest till you had made it sure, or done your best to make it sure. have you nobody to inquire of, that might help you in such a work? why, you have ministers that are purposely appointed to that office. have you gone to them, and told them the doubtfulness of your case, and asked their help in the judging of your condition? alas, ministers may sit in their studies from one year to another, before ten persons among a thousand will come to them on such an errand! do not these make light of christ and salvation? when the gospel pierceth the heart indeed, they cry out, "men and brethren, what shall we do to be saved?" trembling and astonished, paul cries out, "lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" and so did the convinced jews to peter. but when hear we such questions? . the things that we value do deeply affect us, and some motions will be in the heart according to our estimation of them. o sirs, if men made not light of these things, what working would there be in the hearts of all our hearers! what strange affections would it raise in them to hear of the matters of the world to come! how would their hearts melt before the power of the gospel! what sorrow would be wrought in the discovery of their sins! what astonishment at the consideration of their misery! what unspeakable joy at the glad tidings of salvation by the blood of christ! what resolution would be raised in them upon the discovery of their duty! oh what hearers should we have, if it were not for this sin! whereas, now we are liker to weary them, or preach them asleep with matters of this unspeakable moment. we talk to them of christ and salvation till we make their heads ache; little would one think by their careless carriage that they heard and regarded what we said, or thought we spoke at all to them. . our estimation of things will be seen in the diligence of our endeavors. that which we highliest value, we shall think no pains too great to obtain. do not those men then make light of christ and salvation that think all too much that they do for them; that murmur at his service, and think it too grievous for them to endure? that ask of his service as judas of the ointment, what need this waste? cannot men be saved without so much ado? this is more ado than needs. for the world they will labor all the day, and all their lives; but for christ and salvation they are afraid of doing too much. let us preach to them as long as we will, we cannot bring them to relish or resolve upon a life of holiness. follow them to their houses, and you shall not hear them read a chapter, nor call upon god with their families once a day; nor will they allow him that one day in seven which he hath separated to his service. but pleasure, or worldly business, or idleness, must have a part. and many of them are so far hardened as to reproach them that will not be as mad as themselves. and is not christ worth the seeking? is not everlasting salvation worth more than all this? doth not that soul make light of all these that thinks his ease more worth than they? let but common sense judge. . that which we most highly value, we think we cannot buy too dear: christ and salvation are freely given, and yet the most of men go without them because they cannot enjoy the world and them together. they are called but to part with that which would hinder them from christ, and they will not do it. they are called but to give god his own, and to resign all to his will, and let go the profits and pleasures of this world when they must let go either christ or them, and they will not. they think this too dear a bargain, and say they cannot spare these things; they must hold their credit with men; they must look to their estates: how shall they live else? they must have their pleasure, whatsoever becomes of christ and salvation: as if they could live without christ better than without these: as if they were afraid of being losers by christ or could make a saving match by losing their souls to gain the world. christ hath told us over and over that if we will not forsake all for him we cannot be his disciples. far are these men from forsaking all, and yet will needs think that they are his disciples indeed. . that which men highly esteem, they would help their friends to as well as themselves. do not those men make light of christ and salvation that can take so much care to leave their children portions in the world, and do so little to help them to heaven? that provide outward necessaries so carefully for their families, but do so little to the saving of their souls? their neglected children and friends will witness that either christ, or their children's souls, or both, were made light of. . that which men highly esteem, they will so diligently seek after that you may see it in the success, if it be a matter within their reach. you may see how many make light of christ, by the little knowledge they have of him, and the little communion with him, and communication from him; and the little, yea, none of his special grace in them. alas! how many ministers can speak it to the sorrow of their hearts, that many of their people know almost nothing of christ, though they hear of him daily! nor know they what they must do to be saved: if we ask them an account of these things, they answer as if they understood not what we say to them, and tell us they are no scholars, and therefore think they are excusable for their ignorance. oh if these men had not made light of christ and their salvation, but had bestowed but half as much pains to know and enjoy him as they have done to understand the matters of their trades and callings in the world, they would not have been so ignorant as they are: they make light of these things, and therefore will not be at the pains to study or learn them. when men that can learn the hardest trade in a few years have not learned a catechism, nor how to understand their creed, under twenty or thirty years' preaching, nor can abide to be questioned about such things, doth not this show that they have slighted them in their hearts? how will these despisers of christ and salvation be able one day to look him in the face, and to give an account of these neglects? james a. bayard ( - ) during the first decade of the nineteenth century, a most important formative period of american history, james a. bayard was the recognized leader of the federalists in the senate. they had lost the presidential election of , and their party had been so completely disorganized by the defeat that they never recovered from it, nor won, as a party, another victory. defeat, however, did not prevent them from making a stubborn fight for principle--from filing, as it were, an appeal from the first to the third quarter of the century. in this james a. bayard was their special advocate and representative. the pleas he made in his celebrated speech on the judiciary, delivered in the house of representatives, and in similar speeches in the senate, defined as they had not been defined before, the views of that body of conservatives whose refusal to accept the defeat of as anything more than an ephemeral incident, led to the far-reaching results achieved by other parties which their ideas brought into existence. it was said of bayard, as their representative and leader, that "he was distinguished for the depth of his knowledge, the solidity of his reasoning, and the perspicuity of his illustration." he was called "the goliath of federalism," and "the high priest of the constitution," by the opponents of "jacobinism." as federalists often termed jeffersonian democracy. mr. bayard was born in philadelphia, july th, . his father, dr. james a. bayard, claimed his descent from the celebrated "chevalier" bayard,--a fact which greatly influenced the son as it has others of the family who have succeeded him in public life. thus when offered the french mission james a. bayard declined it, fearing that it might involve the suspicion of a bargain. "my ambitions," he wrote in a letter to a relative, "shall never be gratified at the expense of a suspicion. i shall never lose sight of the motto of the great original of our name." after preparing for the bar. bayard settled in delaware and in that state elected him to the lower house of congress, promoting him in to the senate and re-electing him at the expiration of his first term. in , president madison appointed him one of the commissioners to conclude the treaty of peace with england. after the success of that mission, he was appointed minister to russia, but declined saying that he had "no wish to serve the administration except when his services were necessary for the public good." he died in august . his speeches show a strong and comprehensive grasp of facts, a power to present them in logical sequence, and an apprehension of principle which is not often seen in public speeches. they were addressed, however, only to the few who will take the pains to do severe and connected thinking and they are never likely to become extensively popular. the federal judiciary (delivered on the judiciary bill, in the house of representatives, on the nineteenth of february, ) mr. chairman:-- i must be allowed to express my surprise at the course pursued by the honorable gentleman from virginia, mr. giles, in the remarks which be has made on the subject before us. i had expected that he would have adopted a different line of conduct. i had expected it as well from that sentiment of magnanimity which ought to have been inspired by a sense of the high ground he holds on the floor of this house, as from the professions of a desire to conciliate, which he has so repeatedly made during the session. we have been invited to bury the hatchet, and brighten the chain of peace. we were disposed to meet on middle-ground. we had assurances from the gentleman that he would abstain from reflections on the past, and that his only wish was that we might unite in future in promoting the welfare of our common country. we confided in the gentleman's sincerity, and cherished the hope, that if the divisions of party were not banished from the house, its spirit would be rendered less intemperate. such were our impressions, when the mask was suddenly thrown aside, and we saw the torch of discord lighted and blazing before our eyes. every effort has been made to revive the animosities of the house and inflame the passions of the nation. i am at no loss to perceive why this course has been pursued. the gentleman has been unwilling to rely upon the strength of his subject, and has, therefore, determined to make the measure a party question. he has probably secured success, but would it not have been more honorable and more commendable to have left the decision of a great constitutional question to the understanding, and not to the prejudices of the house? it was my ardent wish to discuss the subject with calmness and deliberation, and i did intend to avoid every topic which could awaken the sensibility of party. this was my temper and design when i took my seat yesterday. it is a course at present we are no longer at liberty to pursue. the gentleman has wandered far, very far, from the points of the debate, and has extended his animadversions to all the prominent measures of the former administrations. in following him through his preliminary observations, i necessarily lose sight of the bill upon your table. the gentleman commenced his strictures with the philosophic observation, that it was the fate of mankind to hold different opinions as to the form of government which was preferable; that some were attached to the monarchical, while others thought the republican more eligible. this, as an abstract remark, is certainly true, and could have furnished no ground of offense, if it had not evidently appeared that an allusion was designed to be made to the parties in this country. does the gentleman suppose that we have a less lively recollection than himself, of the oath which we have taken to support the constitution; that we are less sensible of the spirit of our government, or less devoted to the wishes of our constituents? whatever impression it might be the intention of the gentleman to make, he does not believe that there exists in the country an anti-republican party. he will not venture to assert such an opinion on the floor of this house. that there may be a few individuals having a preference for monarchy is not improbable; but will the gentleman from virginia, or any other gentleman, affirm in his place, that there is a party in the country who wish to establish monarchy? insinuations of this sort belong not to the legislature of the union. their place is an election ground, or an alehouse. within these walls they are lost; abroad, they have had an effect, and i fear are still capable of abusing popular credulity. we were next told of the parties which have existed, divided by the opposite views of promoting executive power and guarding the rights of the people. the gentleman did not tell us in plain language, but he wished it to be understood, that he and his friends were the guardians of the people's rights, and that we were the advocates of executive power. i know that this is the distinction of party which some gentlemen have been anxious to establish; but it is not the ground on which we divide. i am satisfied with the constitutional powers of the executive, and never wished nor attempted to increase them; and i do not believe, that gentlemen on the other side of the house ever had a serious apprehension of danger from an increase of executive authority. no, sir, our views, as to the powers which do and ought to belong to the general and state governments, are the true sources of our divisions. i co-operate with the party to which i am attached, because i believe their true object and end is an honest and efficient support of the general government, in the exercise of the legitimate powers of the constitution. i pray to god i may be mistaken in the opinion i entertain as to the designs of gentlemen to whom i am opposed. those designs i believe hostile to the powers of this government. state pride extinguishes a national sentiment. whatever power is taken from this government is given to the states. the ruins of this government aggrandize the states. there are states which are too proud to be controlled; whose sense of greatness and resource renders them indifferent to our protection, and induces a belief that if no general government existed, their influence would be more extensive, and their importance more conspicuous. there are gentlemen who make no secret of an extreme point of depression, to which the government is to be sunk. to that point we are rapidly progressing. but i would beg gentlemen to remember that human affairs are not to be arrested in their course, at artificial points. the impulse now given may be accelerated by causes at present out of view. and when those, who now design well, wish to stop, they may find their powers unable to resist the torrent. it is not true, that we ever wished to give a dangerous strength to executive power. while the government was in our hands, it was our duty to maintain its constitutional balance, by preserving the energies of each branch. there never was an attempt to vary the relation of its powers. the struggle was to maintain the constitutional powers of the executive. the wild principles of french liberty were scattered through the country. we had our jacobins and disorganizes. they saw no difference between a king and a president, and as the people of france had put down their king, they thought the people of america ought to put down their president. they, who considered the constitution as securing all the principles of rational and practicable liberty, who were unwilling to embark upon the tempestuous sea of revolution in pursuit of visionary schemes, were denounced as monarchists. a line was drawn between the government and the people, and the friends of the government were marked as the enemies of the people. i hope, however, that the government and the people are now the same; and i pray to god, that what has been frequently remarked, may not, in this case, be discovered to be true that they, who have the name of the people the most often in their mouths, have their true interests the most seldom at their hearts. the honorable gentleman from virginia wandered to the very confines of the federal administration, in search of materials the most inflammable and most capable of kindling the passions of his party. ... i did suppose, sir, that this business was at an end; and i did imagine, that as gentlemen had accomplished their object, they would have been satisfied. but as the subject is again renewed, we must be allowed to justify our conduct. i know not what the gentleman calls an expression of the public will. there were two candidates for the office of president, who were presented to the house of representatives with equal suffrages. the constitution gave us the right and made it our duty to elect that one of the two whom we thought preferable. a public man is to notice the public will as constitutionally expressed. the gentleman from virginia, and many others, may have had their preference; but that preference of the public will not appear by its constitutional expression. sir, i am not certain that either of those candidates had a majority of the country in his favor. excluding the state of south carolina, the country was equally divided. we know that parties in that state were nearly equally balanced, and the claims of both the candidates were supported by no other scrutiny into the public will than our official return of votes. those votes are very imperfect evidence of the true will of a majority of the nation. they resulted from political intrigue and artificial arrangement. when we look at the votes, we must suppose that every man in virginia voted the same way. these votes are received as a correct expression of the public will. and yet we know that if the votes of that state were apportioned according to the several voices of the people, that at least seven out of twenty-one would have been opposed to the successful candidate. it was the suppression of the will of one-third of virginia, which enables gentlemen now to say that the present chief magistrate is the man of the people. i consider that as the public will, which is expressed by constitutional organs. to that will i bow and submit. the public will, thus manifested, gave to the house of representatives the choice of the two men for president. neither of them was the man whom i wished to make president; but my election was confined by the constitution to one of the two, and i gave my vote to the one whom i thought was the greater and better man. that vote i repeated, and in that vote i should have persisted, had i not been driven from it by imperious necessity. the prospect ceased of the vote being effectual, and the alternative only remained of taking one man for president, or having no president at all. i chose, as i then thought, the lesser evil. from the scene in this house, the gentleman carried us to one in the senate. i should blush, sir, for the honor of the country, could i suppose that the law, designed to be repealed, owed its support in that body to the motives which have been indicated. the charge designed to be conveyed, not only deeply implicates the integrity of individuals of the senate, but of the person who was then the chief magistrate. the gentleman, going beyond all precedent, has mentioned the names of members of that body, to whom commissions issued for offices not created by the bill before them, but which that bill, by the promotions it afforded, was likely to render vacant. he has considered the scandal of the transaction as aggravated by the issuing of commissions for offices not actually vacant, upon the bare presumption that they would become vacant by the incumbents accepting commissions for higher offices which were issued in their favor. the gentleman has particularly dwelt upon the indecent appearance of the business, from two commissions being held by different persons at the same time for the same office. i beg that it will be understood that i mean to give no opinion as to the regularity of granting a commission for a judicial office, upon the probability of a vacancy before it is actually vacant; but i shall be allowed to say that so much doubt attends the point, that an innocent mistake might be made on the subject. i believe, sir, it has been the practice to consider the acceptance of an office as relating to the date of the commission. the officer is allowed his salary from that date, upon the principle that the commission is a grant of the office, and the title commences with the date of the grant. this principle is certainly liable to abuse, but where there was a suspicion of abuse i presume the government would depart from it. admitting the office to pass by the commission, and the acceptance to relate to its date, it then does not appear very incorrect, in the case of a commission for the office of a circuit judge, granted to a district judge, as the acceptance of the commission for the former office relates to the date of the commission, to consider the latter office as vacant from the same time. the offices are incompatible. you cannot suppose the same person in both offices at the same time. from the moment, therefore, that you consider the office of circuit judge as filled by a person who holds the commission of district judge, you must consider the office of district judge as vacated. the grant is contingent. if the contingency happen, the office vests from the date of the commission; if the contingency does not happen, the grant is void. if this reasoning be sound, it was not irregular, in the late administration, after granting a commission to a district judge, for the place of a circuit judge, to make a grant of the office of the district judge, upon the contingency of his accepting the office of circuit judge. the legislative power of the government is not absolute, but limited. if it be doubtful whether the legislature can do what the constitution does not explicitly authorize, yet there can be no question, that they cannot do what the constitution expressly prohibits. to maintain, therefore, the constitution, the judges are a check upon the legislature. the doctrine, i know, is denied, and it is, therefore, incumbent upon me to show that it is sound. it was once thought by gentlemen, who now deny the principle, that the safety of the citizen and of the states rested upon the power of the judges to declare an unconstitutional law void. how vain is a paper restriction if it confers neither power nor right. of what importance is it to say, congress are prohibited from doing certain acts, if no legitimate authority exists in the country to decide whether an act done is a prohibited act? do gentlemen perceive the consequences which would follow from establishing the principle, that congress have the exclusive right to decide upon their own powers? this principle admitted, does any constitution remain? does not the power of the legislature become absolute and omnipotent? can you talk to them of transgressing their powers, when no one has a right to judge of those powers but themselves? they do what is not authorized, they do what is inhibited, nay, at every step, they trample the constitution under foot; yet their acts are lawful and binding, and it is treason to resist them. how ill, sir, do the doctrines and professions of these gentlemen agree. they tell us they are friendly to the existence of the states; that they are the friends of federative, but the enemies of a consolidated general government, and yet, sir, to accomplish a paltry object, they are willing to settle a principle which, beyond all doubt, would eventually plant a consolidated government, with unlimited power, upon the ruins of the state governments. nothing can be more absurd than to contend that there is a practical restraint upon a political body, who are answerable to none but themselves for the violation of the restraint, and who can derive, from the very act of violation, undeniable justification of their conduct. if, mr. chairman, you mean to have a constitution, you must discover a power to which the acknowledged right is attached of pronouncing the invalidity of the acts of the legislature, which contravened the instrument. does the power reside in the states? has the legislature of a state a right to declare an act of congress void? this would be erring upon the opposite extreme. it would be placing the general government at the feet of the state governments. it would be allowing one member of the union to control all the rest. it would inevitably lead to civil dissension and a dissolution of the general government. will it be pretended that the state courts have the exclusive right of deciding upon the validity of our laws? i admit they have the right to declare an act of congress void. but this right they enjoy in practice, and it ever essentially must exist, subject to the revision and control of the courts of the united states. if the state courts definitely possessed the right of declaring the invalidity of the laws of this government, it would bring us in subjection to the states. the judges of those courts, being bound by the laws of the state, if a state declared an act of congress unconstitutional, the law of the state would oblige its courts to determine the law invalid. this principle would also destroy the uniformity of obligation upon all the states, which should attend every law of this government. if a law were declared void in one state, it would exempt the citizens of that state from its operation, whilst obedience was yielded to it in the other states. i go further, and say, if the states or state courts had a final power of annulling the acts of this government, its miserable and precarious existence would not be worth the trouble of a moment to preserve. it would endure but a short time, as a subject of derision, and, wasting into an empty shadow, would quickly vanish from our sight. let me now ask, if the power to decide upon the validity of our laws resides with the people. gentlemen cannot deny this right to the people. i admit they possess it. but if, at the same time, it does not belong to the courts of the united states, where does it lead the people? it leads them to the gallows. let us suppose that congress, forgetful of the limits of their authority, pass an unconstitutional law. they lay a direct tax upon one state and impose none upon the others. the people of the state taxed contest the validity of the law. they forcibly resist its execution. they are brought by the executive authority before the courts upon charges of treason. the law is unconstitutional, the people have done right, but the court are bound by the law, and obliged to pronounce upon them the sentence which it inflicts. deny to the courts of the united states the power of judging upon the constitutionality of our laws, and it is vain to talk of its existing elsewhere. the infractors of the laws are brought before these courts, and if the courts are implicitly bound, the invalidity of the laws can be no defense. there is, however, mr. chairman, still a stronger ground of argument upon this subject. i shall select one or two cases to illustrate it. congress are prohibited from passing a bill of attainder; it is also declared in the constitution, that "no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood or forfeiture, except during the life of the party attainted." let us suppose that congress pass a bill of attainder, or they enact, that any one attainted of treason shall forfeit, to the use of the united states, all the estate which he held in any lands or tenements. the party attainted is seized and brought before a federal court, and an award of execution passed against him. he opens the constitution and points to this line, "no bill of attainder or _ex_ _post_ _facto_ law shall be passed." the attorney for the united states reads the bill of attainder. the courts are bound to decide, but they have only the alternative of pronouncing the law or the constitution invalid. it is left to them only to say that the law vacates the constitution, or the constitution voids the law. so, in the other case stated, the heir after the death of his ancestor, brings his ejectment in one of the courts of the united states to recover his inheritance. the law by which it is confiscated is shown. the constitution gave no power to pass such a law. on the contrary, it expressly denied it to the government. the title of the heir is rested on the constitution, the title of the government on the law. the effect of one destroys the effect of the other; the court must determine which is effectual. there are many other cases, mr. chairman, of a similar nature to which i might allude. there is the case of the privilege of _habeas_ _corpus_, which cannot be suspended but in times of rebellion or invasion. suppose a law prohibiting the issue of the writ at a moment of profound peace! if, in such case, the writ were demanded of a court, could they say, it is true the legislature were restrained from passing the law suspending the privilege of this writ, at such a time as that which now exists, but their mighty power has broken the bonds of the constitution, and fettered the authority of the court? i am not, sir, disposed to vaunt, but standing on this ground, i throw the gauntlet to any champion upon the other side. i call upon them to maintain, that, in a collision between a law and the constitution, the judges are bound to support the law, and annul the constitution. can the gentlemen relieve themselves from this dilemma? will they say, though a judge has no power to pronounce a law void, he has a power to declare the constitution invalid? the doctrine for which i am contending, is not only clearly inferable from the plain language of the constitution, but by law has been expressly declared and established in practice since the existence of the government. the second section of the third article of the constitution expressly extends the judicial power to all cases arising under the constitution, laws, etc. the provision in the second clause of the sixth article leaves nothing to doubt. "this constitution and the laws of the united states, which shall be made in pursuance thereof etc., shall be the supreme law of the land." the constitution is absolutely the supreme law. not so the acts of the legislature! such only are the law of the land as are made in pursuance of the constitution. i beg the indulgence of the committee one moment, while i read the following provision from the twenty-fifth section of the judicial act of the year : "a final judgment or decree in any suit in the highest court of law or equity of a state, in which a decision in the suit could be had, where is drawn in question the validity of a treaty or statute of, or an authority exercised under, the united states, and the decision is against their validity, etc., may be re-examined and reversed or affirmed in the supreme court of the united states, upon a writ of error." thus, as early as the year , among the first acts of the government, the legislature explicitly recognized the right of a state court to declare a treaty, a statute, and an authority exercised under the united states, void, subject to the revision of the supreme court of the united states; and it has expressly given the final power to the supreme court to affirm a judgment which is against the validity, either of a treaty, statute, or an authority of the government. i humbly trust, mr. chairman, that i have given abundant proofs from the nature of our government, from the language of the constitution, and from legislative acknowledgment, that the judges of our courts have the power to judge and determine upon the constitutionality of our laws. let me now suppose that, in our frame of government, the judges are a check upon the legislature; that the constitution is deposited in their keeping. will you say afterwards that their existence depends upon the legislature? that the body whom they are to check has the power to destroy them? will you say that the constitution may be taken out of their hands by a power the most to be distrusted, because the only power which could violate it with impunity? can anything be more absurd than to admit that the judges are a check upon the legislature, and yet to contend that they exist at the will of the legislature? a check must necessarily imply a power commensurate to its end. the political body, designed to check another, must be independent of it, otherwise there can be no check. what check can there be when the power designed to be checked can annihilate the body which is to restrain? i go further, mr. chairman, and take a stronger ground. i say, in the nature of things, the dependence of the judges upon the legislature, and their right to declare the acts of the legislature void, are repugnant, and cannot exist together. the doctrine, sir, supposes two rights--first, the right of the legislature to destroy the office of the judge, and the right of the judge to vacate the act of the legislature. you have a right to abolish by a law the offices of the judges of the circuit courts; they have a right to declare the law void. it unavoidably follows, in the exercise of these rights, either that you destroy their rights, or that they destroy yours. this doctrine is not a harmless absurdity, it is a most dangerous heresy. it is a doctrine which cannot be practiced without producing not discord only, but bloodshed. if you pass the bill upon your table, the judges have a constitutional right to declare it void. i hope they will have courage to exercise that right; and if, sir, i am called upon to take my side, standing acquitted in ray conscience, and before my god, of all motives but the support of the constitution of my country, i shall not tremble at the consequences. the constitution may have its enemies, but i know that it has also its friends. i beg gentlemen to pause, before they take this rash step. there are many, very many, who believe, if you strike this blow, you inflict a mortal wound on the constitution. there are many now willing to spill their blood to defend that constitution. are gentlemen disposed to risk the consequences? sir, i mean no threats, i have no expectation of appalling the stout hearts of my adversaries; but if gentlemen are regardless of themselves, let them consider their wives and children, their neighbors and their friends. will they risk civil dissension, will they hazard the welfare, will they jeopardize the peace of the country, to save a paltry sum of money, less than thirty thousand dollars? mr. chairman, i am confident that the friends of this measure are not apprised of the nature of its operation, nor sensible of the mischievous consequences which are likely to attend it. sir, the morals of your people, the peace of the country, the stability of the government, rest upon the maintenance of the independence of the judiciary. it is not of half the importance in england, that the judges should be independent of the crown, as it is with us that they should be independent of the legislature. am i asked, would you render the judges superior to the legislature? i answer, no, but co-ordinate. would you render them independent of the legislature? i answer, yes, independent of every power on earth, while they behave themselves well. the essential interests, the permanent welfare of society, require this independence; not, sir, on account of the judge; that is a small consideration, but on account of those between whom he is to decide. you calculate on the weaknesses of human nature, and you suffer the judge to be dependent on no one, lest he should be partial to those on whom he depends. justice does not exist where partiality prevails. a dependent judge cannot be impartial. independence is, therefore, essential to the purity of your judicial tribunals. let it be remembered, that no power is so sensibly felt by society, as that of the judiciary. the life and property of every man is liable to be in the hands of the judges. is it not our great interest to place our judges upon such high ground that no fear can intimidate, no hope seduce them? the present measure humbles them in the dust, it prostrates them at the feet of faction, it renders them the tools of every dominant party. it is this effect which i deprecate, it is this consequence which i deeply deplore. what does reason, what does argument avail, when party spirit presides? subject your bench to the influence of this spirit, and justice bids a final adieu to your tribunals. we are asked, sir, if the judges are to be independent of the people? the question presents a false and delusive view. we are all the people. we are, and as long as we enjoy our freedom, we shall be divided into parties. the true question is, shall the judiciary be permanent, or fluctuate with the tide of public opinion? i beg, i implore gentlemen to consider the magnitude and value of the principle which they are about to annihilate. if your judges are independent of political changes, they may have their preferences, but they will not enter into the spirit of party. but let their existence depend upon the support of the power of a certain set of men, and they cannot be impartial. justice will be trodden under foot. your courts will lose all public confidence and respect. the judges will be supported by their partisans, who, in their turn, will expect impunity for the wrongs and violence they commit. the spirit of party will be inflamed to madness: and the moment is not far off, when this fair country is to be desolated by a civil war. do not say that you render the judges dependent only on the people you make them dependent on your president. this is his measure. the same tide of public opinion which changes a president will change the majorities in the branches of the legislature the legislature will be the instrument of his ambition, and he will have the courts as the instruments of his vengeance. he uses the legislature to remove the judges, that he may appoint creatures of his own. in effect, the powers of the government will be concentrated in the hands of one man, who will dare to act with more boldness, because he will be sheltered from responsibility. the independence of the judiciary was the felicity of our constitution. it was this principle which was to curb the fury of party on sudden changes. the first movements of power gained by a struggle are the most vindictive and intemperate. raised above the storm it was the judiciary which was to control the fiery zeal, and to quell the fierce passions of a victorious faction. we are standing on the brink of that revolutionary torrent, which deluged in blood one of the fairest countries of europe. france had her national assembly, more numerous than, and equally popular with, our own. she had her tribunals of justice, and her juries. but the legislature and her courts were but the instruments of her destruction. acts of proscription and sentences of banishment and death were passed in the cabinet of a tyrant. prostrate your judges at the feet of party, and you break down the mounds which defend you from this torrent. i am done. i should have thanked my god for greater power to resist a measure so destructive to the peace and happiness of the country. my feeble efforts can avail nothing. but it was my duty to make them. the meditated blow is mortal, and from the moment it is struck, we may bid a final adieu to the constitution. commerce and naval power (united states senate, february th, ) god has decided that the people of this country should be commercial people. you read that decree in the seacoast of seventeen hundred miles which he has given you; in the numerous navigable waters which penetrate the interior of the country; in the various ports and harbors scattered alone your shores; in your fisheries; in the redundant productions of your soil; and, more than all, in the enterprising and adventurous spirit of your people. it is no more a question whether the people of this country shall be allowed to plough the ocean, than it is whether they shall be permitted to plough the land. it is not in the power of this government, nor would it be if it were as strong as the most despotic upon the earth, to subdue the commercial spirit, or to destroy the commercial habits of the country. young as we are, our tonnage and commerce surpass those of every nation upon the globe but one, and if not wasted by the deprivations to which they were exposed by their defenseless situation, and the more ruinous restrictions to which this government subjected them, it would require not many more years to have made them the greatest in the world. is this immense wealth always to be exposed as a prey to the rapacity of freebooters? why will you protect your citizens and their property upon land, and leave them defenseless upon the ocean? as your mercantile property increases, the prize becomes more tempting to the cupidity of foreign nations. in the course of things, the ruins and aggressions which you have experienced will multiply, nor will they be restrained while we have no appearance of a naval force. i have always been in favor of a naval establishment--not from the unworthy motives attributed by the gentleman from georgia to a former administration, in order to increase patronage, but from a profound conviction that the safety of the union and the prosperity of the nation depended greatly upon its commerce, which never could be securely enjoyed without the protection of naval power. i offer, sir, abundant proof for the satisfaction of the liberal mind of that gentleman, that patronage was not formerly a motive in voting an increase in the navy, when i give now the same vote, when surely i and my friends have nothing to hope, and for myself, i thank god, nothing to wish from the patronage it may confer. you must and will have a navy; but it is not to be created in a day, nor is it to be expected that, in its infancy, it will be able to cope, foot to foot with the full-grown vigor of the navy of england. but we are even now capable of maintaining a naval force formidable enough to threaten the british commerce, and to render this nation an object of more respect and consideration. in another point of view, the protection of commerce has become more indispensable. the discovery is completely made, that it is from commerce that the revenue is to be drawn which is to support this government, a direct tax, a stamp act, a carriage tax, and an excise, have been tried; and i believe, sir, after the lesson which experience has given on the subject, no set of men in power will ever repeat them again, for all they are likely to produce. the burden must be pretty light upon the people of this country, or the rider is in great danger. you may be allowed to sell your back lands for some time longer, but the permanent fund for the support of this government is the imports. if the people were willing to part with commerce, can the government dispense with it? but when it belongs equally to the interest of the people and of the government to encourage and protect it, will you not spare a few of those dollars which it brings into your treasury, to defend and protect it? in relation to the increase of a permanent military force, a free people cannot cherish too great a jealousy. an army may wrest the power from the hands of the people, and deprive them of their liberty. it becomes us, therefore, to be extremely cautious how we augment it. but a navy of any magnitude can never threaten us with the same danger. upon land, at this time, we have nothing--and probably, at any future time, we shall have but little--to fear from any foreign power. it is upon the ocean we meet them; it is there our collisions arise; it is there we are most feeble, most vulnerable, and most exposed; it is there by consequence, that our safety and prosperity must require an augmented force. thomas f. bayard ( - ) in , when the country was in imminent danger of the renewal of civil war as a result of the contested presidential election, the conservative element of the democratic party, advised by mr. tilden himself, determined to avoid anything which might result in extreme measures. the masses of the people were excited as they had not been since the close of the civil war, and the great majority of the democrats of the country were undoubtedly opposed to making concessions. thomas f. bayard, who took the lead in the senate as the representative of the moderate policy favored by mr. tilden, met the reproaches sure to be visited in such cases on the peacemaker. nevertheless, he advocated the electoral commission as a method of settling the contest, and his speech in supporting it, without doubt one of the best as it was certainly the most important of his life, paved the way for the final adoption of the bill. it is no more than justice to say that the speech is worthy of the dignity of that great occasion. mr. bayard inherited the equable temperament shown by his father and his grandfather. he was a warm-hearted man with a long memory for services done him, but he had a faculty of containing himself which few men exercise to the degree that he exercised it habitually, both in his public and private life. the habit was so strong, in fact, that he indulged only on rare occasions that emotion which is necessary for the highest success as an orator. the calmness of his thought shows itself in logic which, while it may invite confidence, does not compel admiration. when he is moved, however, the freedom of his utterances from exaggeration and from that tendency to rant which mars many orations makes such periods as those with which he closes his speech on the electoral bill models of expression for all who wish to realize the highest possibilities of cumulative force. the son of one united states senator, james a. bayard, of delaware, and the grandson of another, mr. bayard represented well the family tradition of integrity. born in , he succeeded to his father's place in the senate when forty-one years of age, and remained in the public service until within a short time of his death. he was secretary of state under the first cleveland administration and ambassador to england under the second. in the convention which nominated mr. cleveland in , mr. bayard, who had been strongly supported for the democratic presidential nomination in , was so close to the presidency at the beginning of the balloting that his managers confidently expected his success. he became much attached to president cleveland, and in he took a course on the financial issue then uppermost, which alienated many of his friends, as far as friends could be alienated by the political action of a man whose public and private life were so full of dignity, simplicity, and the qualities which result from habitual good faith. mr. bayard survived almost into the twentieth century as a last representative of the colonial gentlemen who debated the federal constitution. supposed to be cold and unapproachable, he was really warm in his friendships, with a memory which never allowed an act of service done him to escape it. few better men have had anything to do with the politics of the second half of the century. he died in . w. v. b. a plea for conciliation in ("counting the electoral votes," united states senate, january th, ) mr. president, i might have been content as a friend of this measure to allow it to go before the senate and the country unaccompanied by any remarks of mine had it not been the pleasure of the senate to assign me as one of the minority in this chamber to a place upon the select committee appointed for the purpose of reporting a bill intended to meet the exigencies of the hour in relation to the electoral votes. there is for every man in a matter of such gravity his own measure of responsibility, and that measure i desire to assume. nothing less important than the decision, into whose hands the entire executive power of this government shall be vested in the next four years, is embraced in the provisions of this bill. the election for president and vice-president has been held, but as to the results of that election the two great political parties of the country stand opposed in serious controversy. each party claims success for its candidate and insists that he and he alone shall be declared by the two houses of congress entitled to exercise the executive power of this government for the next four years. the canvass was prolonged and unprecedented in its excitement and even bitterness. the period of advocacy of either candidate has passed, and the time for judgment has almost come. how shall we who purpose to make laws for others do better than to exhibit our own reverence for law and set the example here of subordination to the spirit of law? it cannot be disguised that an issue has been sought, if not actually raised, in this country, between a settlement of this great question by sheer force and arbitrary exercise of power or by the peaceful, orderly, permanent methods of law and reason. ours is, as we are wont to boast, a government of laws, and not of will; and we must not permit it to pass away from us by changing its nature. "o, yet a nobler task awaits thy hand, for what can war but endless war still breed?" by this measure now before the senate it is proposed to have a peaceful conquest over partisan animosity and lawless action, to procure a settlement grounded on reason and justice, and not upon force. therefore, it is meant to lift this great question of determining who has been lawfully elected president and vice-president of these united states out of the possibility of popular broils and tumult, and elevate it with all dignity to the higher atmosphere of legal and judicial decision. in such a spirit i desire to approach the consideration of the subject and shall seek to deal with it at least worthily, with a sense of public duty unobstructed, i trust, by prejudice or party animosity. the truth of lord bacon's aphorism that "great empire and little minds go ill together," should warn us now against the obtrusion of narrow or technical views in adjusting such a question and at such a time in our country's history. mr. president, from the very commencement of the attempt to form the government under which we live, the apportionment of power in the executive branch and the means of choosing the chief magistrate have been the subject of the greatest difficulty. those who founded this government and preceded us in its control had felt the hand of kingly power, and it was from the abuse of executive power that they dreaded the worst results. therefore it was that when the constitution came to be framed that was the point upon which they met and upon which they parted, less able to agree than upon almost all others combined. a glance at the history of the convention that met at philadelphia on the fourteenth of may, , but did not organize until the twenty-fifth day of the same month, will show that three days after the convention assembled two plans of a constitution were presented, respectively, by mr. edmund randolph, of virginia, and mr. charles pinckney, of south carolina. the first proposed the election of the executive by the legislature, as the two houses were then termed, for a term of seven years, with ineligibility for re-election. the other proposed an election, but left the power to elect or the term of office in blank. both of these features in the schemes proposed came up early for consideration, and, as i have said before, as the grave and able minds of that day approached this subject they were unable to agree, and accordingly, from time to time, the question was postponed and no advance whatever made in the settlement of the question. indeed, so vital and wide was the difference that each attempt made during the course of the five months in which that convention was assembled only seemed to result in renewed failure. so it stood until the fourth day of september had arrived. the labors of the convention by that time had resulted in the framing of a constitution, wise and good and fairly balanced, calculated to preserve power sufficient in the government, and yet leaving that individual freedom and liberty essential for the protection of the states and their citizens. then it was that this question, so long postponed, came up for consideration and had to be decided. as it was decided then, it appears in the constitution as submitted to the states in ; but an amendment of the second article was proposed in , which, meeting the approval of the states, became part of the constitution. i must be pardoned if i repeat something of what has preceded in this debate, by way of citation from the constitution of the united states, in order that we may find there our warrant for the present measure. there were difficulties of which these fathers of our government were thoroughly conscious. the very difficulties that surround the question to-day are suggested in the debates of , in which the history of double returns is foretold by mr. pinckney in his objections to the measure then before the senate. the very title of that act, "a bill prescribing a mode of deciding disputed elections of president and vice-president of the united states," will show the difficulties which they then perceived and of which they felt the future was to be so full. they made the attempt in to meet those difficulties. they did not succeed. again and again the question came before them. in a second attempt was made at legislation. it met the approval of the senate. it seemed to meet the approval of the committee on the judiciary of the house, by whom it was reported without amendment, but never was acted upon in that body, and failed to become a law. this all shows to us that there has been a postponement from generation to generation of a subject of great difficulty that we of to-day are called upon to meet under circumstances of peculiar and additional disadvantage; for while in the convention of there was a difference arising from interest, from all the infinite variances of prejudice and opinion upon subjects of local, geographical, and pecuniary interests, and making mutual concessions and patriotic considerations necessary at all times, yet they were spared the most dangerous of all feelings under which our country has suffered of late; for, amid all the perturbing causes to interfere with and distract their counsels, partisan animosity was at least unknown. there was in that day no such thing as political party in the united states:-- "then none were for a party, but all were for the state." political parties were formed afterward and have grown in strength since, and to-day the troubles that afflict our country chiefly may be said to arise from the dangerous excess of party feeling in our councils. but i propose to refer to the condition of the law and the constitution as we now find it. the second article of the first section of the constitution provides for the vesting of the executive power in the president and also for the election of a vice-president. first it provides that "each state" shall, through its legislature, appoint the number of electors to which it is entitled, which shall be the number of its representatives in congress and its senators combined. the power there is to the state to appoint. the grant is as complete and perfect that the state shall have that power as is another clause of the constitution giving to "each state" the power to be represented by the senators in this branch of congress. there is given to the electors prescribed duties, which i will read:-- the electors shall meet in their respective states and vote by ballot for president and vice-president, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves: they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as president, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as vice-president, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as president, and of all persons voted for as vice-president, and of the number of votes for each; which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of government of the united states, directed to the president of the senate. the president of the senate shall, in the presence of the senate and house of representatives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted. then follows the duty and power of congress in connection with this subject to determine the time of choosing the electors and the day on which they shall give their votes, which day shall be the same throughout the united states. the next clause provides for the qualifications of the candidates for the presidency and vice-presidency. the next clause gives power to the congress of the united states to provide for filling the office of president and vice-president in the event of the death, resignation, or inability of the incumbents to vest the powers and duties of the said office. the other clause empowers congress thus to designate a temporary president. the other clauses simply relate to the compensation of the president and the oath he shall take to perform the duties of the office. connected with that delegation of power is to be considered the eighth section of the first article which gives to the congress of the united states power "to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this constitution in the government of the united states, or in any department or officer thereof." it will be observed, so far, that the constitution has provided the power but has not provided the regulations for carrying that power into effect. the supreme court of the united states sixty-odd years ago defined so well the character of that power and the method of its use that i will quote it from the first volume of _wheaton's reports, page :_ leaving it to the legislature from time to time to adopt its own means to effectuate, legitimate, and mold and model the exercise of its powers as its own wisdom and public interest should require. in less than four years, in march , after the first congress had assembled there was legislation upon this subject, carrying into execution the power vested by this second article of the constitution in a manner which will leave no doubt of what the men of that day believed was competent and proper. here let me advert to that authority which must ever attach to the contemporaneous exposition of historical events. the men who sat in the congress of had many of them been members of the convention that framed the federal constitution. all were its contemporaries and closely were they considering with master-minds the consequences of that work. not only may we gather from the manner in which they treated this subject when they legislated upon it in what were their views of the powers of congress on the subject of where the power was lodged and what was the proper measure of its exercise, but we can gather equally well from the inchoate and imperfect legislation of what those men also thought of their power over this subject, because, although differing as to details, there were certain conceded facts as to jurisdiction quite as emphatically expressed as if their propositions had been enacted into law. likewise in the same instruction is afforded. if we find the senate of the united states without division pass bills which, although not passed by the co-ordinate branch of congress, are received by them and reported back from the proper committees after examination and without amendment to the committee of the whole house, we may learn with equal authority what was conceded by those houses as to the question of power over the subject. in a compilation made at the present session by order of the house committee, co-ordinate with the senate committee, will be found at page a debate containing expressions by the leading men of both parties in of the lawfulness of the exercise of the legislative power of congress over this subject. i venture to read here from the remarks of mr. hunter, of virginia, one of the most respected and conservative minds of his day in the congress of the united states:-- the constitution evidently contemplated a provision to be made by law to regulate the details and the mode of counting the votes for president and vice-president of the united states. the president of the senate shall, in the presence of the senate and house of representatives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted. by whom, and how to be counted, the constitution does not say. but congress has power to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this constitution in the government of the united states, or in any department or officer thereof. congress, therefore, has the power to regulate by law the details of the mode in which the votes are to be counted. as yet, no such law has been found necessary. the cases, happily, have been rare in which difficulties have occurred in the count of the electoral votes. all difficulties of this sort have been managed heretofore by the consent of the two houses--a consent either implied at the time or declared by joint resolutions adopted by the houses on the recommendation of the joint committee which is usually raised to prescribe the mode in which the count is to be made. in the absence of law, the will of the two houses thus declared has prescribed the rule under which the president of the senate and the tellers have acted. it was by this authority, as i understand it, that the president of the senate acted yesterday. the joint resolution of the two bouses prescribed the mode in which the tellers were to make the count and also required him to declare the result, which he did. it was under the authority, therefore, and by the direction of the two houses that he acted. the resolutions by which the authority was given were according to unbroken usage and established precedent. mr. president, the debate from which i have read took place in and was long and able, the question there arising upon the proposed rejection of the vote of the state of wisconsin, because of the delay of a single day in the meeting of the electors. a violent snowstorm having prevented the election on the third of december, it was held on the fourth, which was clearly in violation of the law of congress passed in pursuance of the constitution requiring that the votes for the electors should be cast on the same day throughout the union. that debate will disclose the fact that the danger then became more and more realized of leaving this question unsettled as to who should determine whether the electoral votes of a state should be received or rejected when the two houses of congress should differ upon that subject. there was no arbiter between them. this new-fangled idea of the present hour, that the presiding officer of the senate should decide that question between the two disagreeing houses, had not yet been discovered in the fertility of political invention, or born perhaps of party necessity. the question has challenged all along through our country's history the ablest minds of the country; but at last we have reached a point when under increased difficulties we are bound to settle it. it arose in in the case of the state of indiana, the question being whether indiana was a state in the union at the time of the casting of her vote. the two houses disagreed upon that subject; but by a joint resolution, which clearly assumed the power of controlling the subject, as the vote of indiana did not if cast either way control the election, the difficulty was tided over by an arrangement for that time and that occasion only. in the case of the state of missouri arose and contained the same question. there again came the difficulty when the genius and patriotism of henry clay were brought into requisition and a joint resolution introduced by him and adopted by both houses was productive of a satisfactory solution for the time being. the remedy was merely palliative; the permanent character of the difficulty was confessed and the fact that it was only a postponement to men of a future generation of a question still unsettled. it is not necessary, and would be fatiguing to the senate and to myself, to give anything like a sketch of the debate which followed, of the able and eminent men on both sides who considered the question, arriving, however, at one admitted conclusion, that the remedy was needed and that it did lie in the law-making power of the government to furnish it. thus, mr. president, the unbroken line of precedent, the history of the usage of this government from at the first election of president and vice-president until , when the last count of electoral votes was made for the same offices, exhibits this fact, that the control of the count of the electoral votes, the ascertainment and declaration of the persons who were elected president and vice-president, has been under the co-ordinate power of the two houses of congress, and under no other power at any time or in any instance. the claim is now gravely made for the first time, in , that in the event of disagreement of the two houses the power to count the electoral votes and decide upon their validity under the constitution and law is vested in a single individual, an appointee of one of the houses of congress, the presiding officer of the senate. in the event of a disagreement between the two houses, we are now told, he is to assume the power, in his sole discretion, to count the vote, to ascertain and declare what persons have been elected; and this, too, in the face of an act of congress, passed in , unrepealed, always recognized, followed in every election from the time it was passed until the present day. section of the act of declares:-- that congress shall be in session on the second wednesday in february , and on the second wednesday in february succeeding every meeting of the electors; and the said certificates, or so many of them as shall have been received, shall then be opened, the votes counted, and the persons who shall fill the offices of president and vice-president ascertained and declared agreeably to the constitution. let it be noted that the words "president of the senate" nowhere occur in the section. but we are now told that though "congress shall be in session," that though these two great bodies duly organized, each with its presiding officer, accompanied by all its other officers, shall meet to perform the duty of ascertaining and declaring the true result of the action of the electoral colleges and what persons are entitled to these high executive offices, in case they shall not agree in their decisions there shall be interposed the power of the presiding officer of one of the houses to control the judgment of either and become the arbiter between them. why, mr. president, how such a claim can be supposed to rest upon authority is more than i can imagine. it is against all history. it is against the meaning of laws. it is not consistent with the language of the constitution. it is in the clearest violation of the whole scheme of this popular government of ours, that one man should assume a power in regard to which the convention hung for months undecided, and carefully and grudgingly bestowing that power even when they finally disposed of it. why, sir, a short review of history will clearly show how it was that the presiding officer of the senate became even the custodian of the certificates of the electors. on the fourth of september, , when approaching the close of their labors, the convention discovered that they must remove this obstacle, and they must come to an agreement in regard to the deposit of this grave power. when they were scrupulously considering that no undue grant of power should be made to either branch of congress, and when no one dreamed of putting it in the power of a single hand, the proposition was made by hon. mr. brearly, from a committee of eleven, of alterations in the former schemes of the convention, which embraced this subject. it provided:-- . each state shall appoint, in such manner as its legislature may direct a number of electors equal to the whole number of senators and members of the house of representatives to which the state may be entitled in the legislature. . the electors shall meet in their respective states and vote by ballot for two persons, one of whom at least shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; and they shall make a list of all the persons voted for, and of the number of votes for each, which list they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the general government, directed to the president of the senate. . the president of the senate shall, in that house, open all the certificates; and the votes shall be then and there counted. the person having the greatest number of votes shall be the president, if such number shall be a majority of the whole number of the electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such majority and have an equal number of votes, then the senate shall choose by ballot one of them for president; but if no person have a majority, then from the five highest on the list the senate shall choose by ballot the president. and in every case after the choice of the president the person having the greatest number of votes shall be vice-president. but if there should remain two or more who shall equal votes, the senate shall choose from them the vice-president. (see 'madison papers.' page . etc.) here we discover the reason why the president of the senate was made the custodian of these certificates. it was because in that plan of the constitution the senate was to count the votes alone; the house was not to be present; and in case there was a tie or failure to find a majority the senate was to elect the president and vice-president. the presiding officer of the body that was to count the votes alone, of the body that alone was to elect the president in default of a majority--the presiding officer of that body was naturally the proper person to hold the certificates until the senate should do its duty. it might as well be said that because certificates and papers of various kinds are directed to the president of this senate to be laid before the senate that he should have the control to enact those propositions into law, as to say that because the certificates of these votes were handed to him he should have the right to count them and ascertain and declare what persons had been chosen president and vice-president of the united states. but the scheme reported by mr. brearly met with no favor. in the first place, it was moved and seconded to insert the words "in the presence of the senate and house of representatives" after the word "counted." that was passed in the affirmative. next it was moved to strike out the words "the senate shall immediately choose by ballot" and insert the words "and house of representatives shall immediately choose by ballot one of them for president, and the members of each state shall have one vote," and this was adopted by ten states in the affirmative to one state in the negative. then came another motion to agree to the following paragraph, giving to the senate the right to choose the vice-president in case of the failure to find a majority, which was agreed to by the convention; so that the amendment as agreed to read as follows:-- the president of the senate, in the presence of the senate and house of representatives, shall open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted. the person having the greatest number of votes shall be president, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed: and if there be more than one who have such majority, and have an equal number of votes, then the house of representatives shall immediately choose by ballot one of them for president, the representation from each state having one vote; but if no person have a majority, then from the five highest on the list the house of representatives shall in like manner choose by ballot the president. and then follows that if there should remain two candidates voted for as vice-president having an equal vote the senate shall choose from them the vice-president. mr. president, is it not clear that the constitution directed that the certificates should be deposited with the presiding officer of that body which was alone to count the votes and elect both the president and vice-president in case there was a failure to find a majority of the whole number of electors appointed? there is a maxim of the law, that where the reason ceases the law itself ceases. it is not only a maxim of common law, but equally of common sense. the history of the manner in which and the reason for which the certificates were forwarded to the president of the senate completely explains why he was chosen as the depositary and just what connection he had with and power over those certificates. after the power had been vested in the house of representatives to ballot for the president, voting by states, after the presence of the house of representatives was made equally necessary before the count could begin or proceed at all, the president of the senate was still left as the officer designated to receive the votes. why? because the senate is a continuing body, because the senate always has a quorum. divided into three classes, there never is a day or a time when a quorum of the senate of the united states is not elected and cannot be summoned to perform its functions under the constitution. therefore you had the officer of a continuing body, and as the body over which he presided and by whom he is chosen was one of the two co-ordinate bodies to perform the great function of counting the votes and of ascertaining and declaring the result of the electoral vote, he was left in charge of the certificates. you also find in the sixth section of the act of that congress exercised its regulating power and declared "that in case there shall be no president of the senate at the seat of government on the arrival of the persons intrusted with the lists of votes of the electors, then such persons shall deliver the lists of votes in their custody into the office of the secretary of state to be safely kept and delivered over as soon as may be to the president of the senate." what does this signify? that it was a simple question of custody, of safe and convenient custody, and there is just as much reason to say that the secretary of state being the recipient of those votes had a right to count them as to say that the other officer designated as the recipient of the votes, the president of the senate, had a right to count them. now, here is another fact a denial of which cannot be safely challenged. take the history of these debates upon the formation of the federal constitution from beginning to end, search them, and no line or word can be discovered that even suggests any power whatever in any one man over the subject, much less in the president of the senate, in the control of the election of the president or the vice-president. why, sir, there is the invariable rule of construction in regard to which there can be no dispute, that the express grant of one thing excludes any other. here you have the direction to the president of the senate that be shall receive these certificates, or if absent that another custodian shall receive them, hold them during his absence and pass them over to him as soon as may be, and that then he shall in the presence of the two houses of congress "open all the certificates." there is his full measure of duty; it is clearly expressed; and then after that follows the totally distinct duty, not confided to him, that "the votes shall then be counted." i doubt very much whether any instrument not written by an inspired hand was more clear, terse, frugal of all words except those necessary to express its precise meaning, than the constitution of the united states. it would require the greatest ingenuity to discover where fewer words could be used to accomplish a plain end. how shall it be that in this closely considered charter, where every word, every punctuation was carefully weighed and canvassed, they should employ seven words out of place when two words in place would have fulfilled their end? if it had been intended to give this officer the power to count, how easy to read, "the president of the senate shall, in the presence of the senate and house of representatives, open and count the votes." why resort to this other, strained, awkward, ungrammatical, unreasonable transposition of additional words to grant one power distinctly and leave the other to be grafted upon it by an unjust implication? no, mr. president, if it were a deed of bargain and sale, or any question of private grant, if it did not touch the rights of a great people, there would be but one construction given to this language, that the expression of one grant excluded the other. it was a single command to the president of the senate that, as the custodian, he should honestly open those certificates and lay them before the two houses of congress who were to act, and then his duty was done, and that was the belief of the men who sat in that convention, many of whom joined in framing the law of which directed congress to be in session on a certain day and that the votes should be counted and the persons who should fill the office of president and vice-president ascertained and declared agreeably to the constitution. the certificates are to be opened by their custodian, the president of the senate, in the presence of the senate and the house of representatives. let it be noted this is not in the presence of the senators and representatives, but it is in the presence of two organized bodies who cannot be present except as a senate and as a house of representatives, each with its own organization, its own presiding officer and all adjuncts, each organized for the performance of a great duty. when the first drafts of the constitution were made, instead of saying "in the presence of the senate and the house of representatives," they called it "the legislature." what is a legislature? a law-making body organized, not a mob, but an organized body to make laws; and so the law-making power of this union, consisting of these two houses, is brought together. but it seems to me a most unreasonable proposition to withhold from the law-making power of this government the authority to regulate this subject and yet be willing to intrust it to a single hand. there is not a theory of this government that will support such a construction. it is contrary to the whole genius of the government; it is contrary to everything in the history of the formation of the government; it is contrary to the usage of the government since its foundation. the president of the senate is commanded by the constitution to open the votes in the presence of the two houses. he does not summon them to witness his act, but they summon him by appointing a day and hour when he is to produce and open in their presence all the certificates he may have received, and only then and in their presence can he undertake to open them at all. if he was merely to summon them as witnesses of his act it would have been so stated. but when did the president of the senate ever undertake to call the two houses together to witness the opening and counting of the votes? no, sir; he is called at their will and pleasure to bring with him the certificates which he has received, and open them before them and under their inspection, and not his own. when the certificates have been opened, when the votes have been counted, can the president of the senate declare the result? no, sir, he has never declared a result except as the mouthpiece and the organ of the two houses authorizing and directing him what to declare, and what he did declare was what they had ascertained and in which ascertainment he had never interfered by word or act. suppose there shall be an interruption in the count, as has occurred in our history, can the president of the senate do it? did he ever do it? is such an instance to be found? every interruption in the count comes from some member of the house or of the senate, and upon that the pleasure of the two houses is considered, the question put to them to withdraw if they desire, and the count is arrested until they shall order it to recommence. the proceeding in the count, the commencement of the count is not in any degree under his control. it is and ever was in the two houses, and in them alone. they are not powerless spectators; they do not sit "state statues only," but they are met as a legislature in organized bodies to insure a correct result of the popular election, to see to it that "the votes shall then be counted" agreeably to the constitution. in when some of the men who sat in the convention that framed the constitution enacted into law the powers given in relation to the count of the electoral votes, they said, as i have read, that the certificates then received shall be opened and the votes counted, "and the persons to fill the offices of president and vice-president ascertained agreeably to the constitution," and that direction is contained in the same section of the law that commands congress to be in session on that day. it is the law-making power of the nation, the legislature, that is to perform this solemn and important duty, and not a single person who is selected by one branch of congress and who is removable at their will, according to a late decision of the senate. yes, mr. president, the power contended for by some senators, that the president of the senate can, in the contingency of a disagreement between the two houses, from the necessity of the case, open and count the vote, leads to this: that upon every disputed vote and upon every decision a new president of the senate could be elected; that one man could be selected in the present case to count the vote of florida; another, of south carolina; another, of oregon; another, of louisiana; and the senate could fill those four offices with four different men, each chosen for that purpose, and when that purpose was over to be displaced by the same breath that set them up for the time being. now, sir, if, as has been claimed, the power of counting the votes is deposited equally in both houses, does not this admission exclude the idea of any power to count the votes being deposited in the presiding officer of one of those houses, who is, as i say, eligible and removable by a bare majority of the senate, and at will? if the presiding officer of the senate can thus count the vote, the senate can control him. then the senate can control the count and, the senate appointing their president, become the sole controllers of the vote in case of disagreement. what then becomes of the equal measure of power in the two houses over this subject? if the power may be said to exist only in case of disagreement, and then _ex_ _necessitate_ _rei_, all that remains for the senate is to disagree, and they themselves have created the very contingency that gives them the power, through their president to have the vote counted or not counted, as they may desire. why, sir, such a statement destroys all idea of equality of power between the two houses in regard to this subject. when the president of the senate has opened the certificates and handed them over to the tellers of the two houses, in the presence of the two houses, his functions and powers have ended. he cannot repossess himself of those certificates or papers. he can no longer control their custody. they are then and thereafter in the possession and under the control of the two houses who shall alone dispose of them. why, sir, what a spectacle would it be, some ambitious and unscrupulous man the presiding officer of the senate, as was once aaron burr, assuming the power to order the tellers to count the vote of this state and reject the vote of that, and so boldly and shamelessly reverse the action of the people expressed at the polls, and step into the presidency by force of his own decision. sir, this is a reduction of the thing to an absurdity never dreamed of until now, and impossible while this shall remain a free government of law. now, mr. president, as to the measure before us a few words. it will be observed that this bill is enacted for the present year, and no longer. this is no answer to an alleged want of constitutional power to pass it, but it is an answer in great degree where the mere policy and temporary convenience of the act are to be considered. in the first place, the bill gives to each house of congress equal power over the question of counting, at every stage. it preserves intact the prerogatives, under the constitution, of each house. it excludes any possibility of judicial determination by the presiding officer of the senate upon the reception and exclusion of a vote. the certificates of the electoral colleges will be placed in the possession and subject to the disposition of both houses of congress in joint session. the two houses are co-ordinate and separate and distinct. neither can dominate the other. they are to ascertain whether the electors have been validly appointed, and whether they have validly performed their duties as electors. the two houses must, under the act of , "ascertain and declare" whether there has been a valid election, according to the constitution and laws of the united states. the votes of the electors and the declaration of the result by the two houses give a valid title, and nothing else can, unless no majority has been disclosed by the count; in which case the duty of the house is to be performed by electing a president, and of the senate by electing a vice-president. if it be the duty of the two houses "to ascertain" whether the action of the electors has been in accordance with the constitution, they must inquire. they exercise supervisory power over every branch of public administration and over the electors. the methods they choose to employ in coming to a decision are such as the two houses, acting separately or together, may lawfully employ. sir, the grant of power to the commission is in just that measure, no more and no less. the decision they render can be overruled by the concurrent votes of the two houses. is it not competent for the two houses of congress to agree that a concurrent majority of the two houses is necessary to reject the electoral vote of a state? if so, may they not adopt means which they believe will tend to produce a concurrence? finally, sir, this bill secures the great object for which the two houses were brought together: the counting of the votes of the electoral college; not to elect a president by the two houses, but to determine who has been elected agreeably to the constitution and the laws. it provides against the failure to count the electoral vote of a state in event of disagreement between the two houses, in case of single returns, and, in cases of contest and double returns, furnishes a tribunal whose composition secures a decision of the question in disagreement, and whose perfect justice and impartiality cannot be gainsaid or doubted. the tribunal is carved out of the body of the senate and out of the body of the house by their vote _viva_ _voce_. no man can sit upon it from either branch without the choice, openly made, by a majority of the body of which he is a member, that he shall go there. the five judges who are chosen are from the court of last resort in this country, men eminent for learning, selected for their places because of the virtues and the capacities that fit them for this high station. ... mr. president, objection has been made to the employment of the commission at all, to the creation of this committee of five senators, five representatives, and five judges of the supreme court, and the reasons for the objection have not been distinctly stated. the reasons for the appointment i will dwell upon briefly. sir, how has the count of the vote of every president and vice-president, from the time of george washington and john adams, in , to the present day, been made? always and without exception by tellers appointed by the two houses. this is without exception, even in the much commented case of mr. john langdon, who, before the government was in operation, upon the recommendation of the constitutional convention, was appointed by the senate its president, for the sole purpose of opening and counting these votes. he did it, as did every successor to him, under the motion and authority of the two houses of congress, who appointed their own agents, called tellers to conduct the count, and whose count, being reported to him, was by him declared. from to the count of votes was conducted under concurrent resolutions of the two houses, appointing their respective committees to join "in ascertaining and reporting a mode of examining the votes for president and vice-president." the respective committees reported resolutions fixing the time and place for the assembling of the two houses, and appointing tellers to conduct the examination on the part of each house respectively. mr. president, the office of teller, or the word "teller," is unknown to the constitution, and yet each house has appointed tellers, and has acted upon their report, as i have said, from the very foundation of the government. the present commission is more elaborate, but its objects and its purposes are the same, the information and instruction of the two houses who have a precisely equal share in its creation and organization; they are the instrumentalities of the two houses for performing the high constitutional duty of ascertaining whom the electors in the several states have duly chosen president and vice-president of the united states. whatever is the jurisdiction and power of the two houses of congress over the votes, and the judgment of either reception or rejection, is by this law wholly conferred upon this commission of fifteen. the bill presented does not define what that jurisdiction and power is, but it leaves it all as it is, adding nothing, subtracting nothing. just what power the senate by itself, or the house by itself, or the senate and the house acting together, have over the subject of counting, admitting, or rejecting an electoral vote, in case of double returns from the same state, that power is by this act, no more and no less, vested in the commission of fifteen men; reserving, however, to the two houses the power of overruling the decision of the commission by their concurrent action. the delegation to masters in chancery of the consideration and adjustments of questions of mingled law and fact is a matter of familiar and daily occurrence in the courts of the states and of the united states. the circuit court of the united states is composed of the district judge and the circuit judge, and the report to them of a master is affirmed unless both judges concur in overruling it. under the present bill the decision of the commission will stand unless overruled by the concurrent votes of the two houses. i do not propose to follow the example which has been set here in the senate by some of the advocates as well as the opponents of this measure, and discuss what construction is to be given and what definition may be applied or ought to be applied in the exercise of this power by the commission under this law. let me read the bill:-- all the certificates and papers purporting to be certificates of the electoral votes of each state shall be opened, in the alphabetical order of the states, as provided in section of this act; and when there shall be more than one such certificate or paper, as the certificates and papers from such state shall so be opened (excepting duplicates of the same return), they shall be read by the tellers, and thereupon the president of the senate shall call for objections, if any. every objection shall be made in writing, and shall state clearly and concisely, and without argument, the ground thereof, and shall be signed by at least one senator and one member of the house of representatives before the same shall be received. when all such objections so made to any certificate, vote, or paper from a state shall have been received and read, all such certificates, votes, and papers so objected to, and all papers accompanying the same, together with such objections, shall be forthwith submitted to said commission, which shall proceed to consider the same, with the same powers, if any, now possessed for that purpose by the two houses acting separately or together, and, by a majority of votes, decide whether any and what votes from such states are the votes provided for by the constitution of the united states, and how many and what persons were duly appointed electors in such state, and may therein take into view such petitions, depositions, and other papers, if any, as shall, by the constitution and now existing law, be competent and pertinent in such consideration: which decision shall be made in writing. it will be observed that all the questions to be decided by this commission are to be contained in the written objections. until those objections are read and filed, their contents must be unknown, and the issues raised by them undescribed. but whatever they are, they are submitted to the decision of the commission. the duty of interpreting this law and of giving a construction to the constitution and existing laws is vested in the commission; and i hold that we have no right or power to control in advance, by our construction, their sworn judgment as to the matters which they are to decide. we would defeat the very object of the bill should we invade the essential power of judgment of this commission and establish a construction in advance and bind them to it. it would, in effect, be giving to them a mere mock power to decide by leaving them nothing to decide. mr. president, there are certainly very good reasons why the concurrent action of both houses should be necessary to reject a vote. it is that feature of this bill which has my heartiest concurrence; for i will frankly say that the difficulties which have oppressed me most in considering this question a year or more ago, before any method had been devised, arose from my apprehensions of the continued absorption of undue power over the affairs of the states; and i here declare that the power and the sole power of appointing the electors is in the state, and nowhere else. the power of ascertaining whether the state has executed that power justly and according to the constitution and laws is the duty which is cast upon the two houses of congress. now, if, under the guise or pretext of judging of the regularity of the action of a state or its electors, the congress or either house may interpose the will of its members in opposition to the will of the state, the act will be one of usurpation and wrong, although i do not see where is the tribunal to arrest and punish it except the great tribunal of an honest public opinion. but sir that tribunal, though great, though in the end certain, is yet ofttimes slow to be awakened to action; and therefore i rejoice when the two houses agree that neither of them shall be able to reject the vote of a state which is without contest arising within that state itself, but that the action of both shall be necessary to concur in the rejection. if either house may reject, or by dissenting cause a rejection, then it is in the power of either house to overthrow the electoral colleges or the popular vote, and throw the election upon the house of representatives. this, it is clear to me, cannot be lawfully done unless no candidate has received a majority of the votes of all the electors appointed. the sworn duty is to ascertain what persons have been chosen by the electors, and not to elect by congress. it may be said that the senate would not be apt to throw the election into the house. not so, mr. president; look at the relative majorities of the two houses of congress as they will be after the fourth of march next. it is true there will be a numerical majority of the members of the democratic party in the house of representatives, but the states represented will have a majority as states of the republican party. if the choice were to be made after march th, then a republican senate, by rejecting or refusing to count votes, could of its own motion throw the election into the house; which, voting by states, would be in political accord with the senate. the house of representatives, like the present house in its political complexion, composed of a numerical majority, and having also a majority of the states of the same party, would have the power then to draw the election into its own hands. mr. president, either of these powers would be utterly dangerous and in defeat of the object and intent of the constitutional provisions on this subject. sir, this was my chief objection to the twenty-second joint rule. under that rule either house of congress, without debate, without law, without reason, without justice, could, by the sheer exercise of its will or its caprice, disfranchise any state in the electoral college. under that rule we lived and held three presidential elections. in january , under a resolution introduced by the honorable senator from ohio [mr. sherman] and adopted by the senate, the committee on privileges and elections, presided over by the honorable senator from indiana [mr morton], proceeded to investigate the elections held in the states of louisiana and arkansas, and inquired whether these elections had been held in accordance with the constitution and laws of the united states and the laws of said states, and sent for persons and papers and made thorough investigation, which resulted in excluding the electoral votes of louisiana from the count, (see report no. , third session forty-second congress.) the popular vote was then cast, and it was cast at the mercy of a majority in either branch of congress, who claimed the right to annul it by casting out states until they should throw the election into a republican house of representatives. i saw that dangerous power then, and, because i saw it then, am i so blind, am i so without principle in my action, that i should ask for myself a dangerous power that i refused to those who differ from me in opinion? god forbid. this concurrence of the two houses to reject the electoral votes of a state was the great feature that john marshall sought for in . the senate then proposed that either house should have power to reject a vote. the house of representatives, under the lead of john marshall, declared that they should concur to reject the vote, and upon that difference of opinion the measure fell and was never revived. in the bill prepared by mr. van buren contained the same wholesome principle and provided that the two houses must concur in the rejection of a vote. mr. van buren reported this bill in . it was amended and passed, and, as far as i can find from the record, without a division of the senate. it was referred in the house of representatives to the committee on the judiciary, and it was reported back by mr. daniel webster, without amendment, to the committee of the whole house, showing their approval of the bill; and that principle is thoroughly incorporated in the present measure and gives to me one of the strong reasons for my approval. mr. president, this bill is not the product of any one man's mind, but it is the result of careful study and frequent amendment. mutual concessions, modifications of individual preferences, were constantly and necessarily made in the course of framing such a measure as it now stands. my individual opinions might lead me to object to the employment of the judicial branch at all, of ingrafting even to any extent political power upon the judicial branch or its members, or confiding to them any question even quasi-political in its character. to this i have expressed and still have disinclination, but my sense of the general value of this measure and the necessity for the adoption of a plan outweighed my disposition to insist upon my own preferences as to this feature. at first i was disposed to question the constitutional power to call in the five justices of the supreme court, but the duty of ascertaining what are the votes, the true votes, under the constitution, having been imposed upon the commission, the methods were necessarily discretionary with the two houses. any and every aid that intelligence and skill combined can furnish may be justly used when it is appropriate to the end in view. why, sir, the members of the supreme court have in the history of this country been employed in public service entirely distinct from judicial function. here lately the treaty of washington was negotiated by a member of the supreme court of the united states; the venerable and learned mr. justice nelson, of new york, was nominated by the president and confirmed by the senate as one of the joint high commission. chief-justice jay was sent in , while he was chief-justice of the united states, as minister plenipotentiary to england, and negotiated a treaty of permanent value and importance to both countries. he was holding court in the city of philadelphia at the time that he was nominated and confirmed, as is found by reference to his biography, and-- without vacating his seat upon the bench he went to england, negotiated the treaty which has since borne his name, and returned to this country in the spring of the following year. his successor was chief-justice rutledge, and the next to him was chief-justice oliver ellsworth. he, while holding the high place of chief-justice, was nominated and confirmed as minister plenipotentiary to spain. by a law of congress the chief-justice of the united states is _ex_ _officio_ the president of the board of regents of the smithsonian institution. mr. morton--i should like to ask the senator, if it does not interrupt him, whether he regards the five judges acting on this commission as acting in their character as judges of the supreme court, if that is their official character, and that this bill simply enlarges their jurisdiction in that respect? mr. bayard--certainly not, mr. president. they are not acting as judges of the supreme court, and their powers and their jurisdiction as judges of the supreme court are not in any degree involved; they are simply performing functions under the government not inconsistent, by the constitution, or the law, or the policy of the law, with the stations which they now hold. so i hold that the employment of one or more of the supreme court judges in the matter under discussion was appropriate legislation. we have early and high authority in the majorities in both house and senate in the bill of , in both of which houses a bill was passed creating a commission similar to that proposed by this bill and calling in the chief-justice of the united states as the chairman of the grand committee, as they called it then, a commission as we term it now. as has been said before, many of the senators and members of the congress of had taken part in the convention that framed the constitution, and all were its contemporaries, and one of the chief actors in the proceedings on the part of the house of representatives was john marshall, of virginia, who one year afterward became the chief-justice of the united states, whose judicial interpretations have since that time clad the skeleton of the constitution with muscles of robust power. is it not safe to abide by such examples? and i could name many more, and some to whom my respect is due for other and personal reasons. in the debate of , in the case of the disputed vote of indiana; in , in the case of missouri; and again in , in the case of wisconsin, i find an array of constitutional lawyers who took part in those debates, among them the most distinguished members of both political parties, concurring in the opinion that by appropriate legislation all causes of dispute on this all-important matter of counting the electoral vote could be and ought to be adjusted satisfactorily. why, sir, even the dictum of chancellor kent, that has been read here with so much apparent confidence by the honorable senator from indiana, is itself expressed to be his opinion of the law "in the absence of legislation on the subject." mr. president, there were other objections to this bill; one by the honorable senator from indiana. he denounced it as "a compromise." i have gone over its features and i have failed to discover, nor has the fact yet been stated in my hearing, wherein anything is compromised. what power of the senate is relinquished? what power of the house is relinquished? what power that both should possess is withheld? i do not know where the compromise can be, what principle is surrendered. this bill intends to compromise nothing in the way of principle, to compromise no right, but to provide an honest adjudication for the rights of all. where is it unjust? whose rights are endangered by it? who can foretell the judgment of this commission upon any question of law or fact? sir, there is no compromise in any sense of the word, but there is a blending of feeling, a blending of opinions in favor of right and justice. but, sir, if it were a compromise, what is there in compromise that is discreditable either to men or to nations? this very charter of government under which we live was created in a spirit of compromise and mutual concession. without that spirit it never would have been made, and without a continuance of that spirit it will not be prolonged. sir, when the committee on style and revision of the federal convention of had prepared a digest of their plan, they reported a letter to accompany the plan to congress, from which i take these words as being most applicable to the bill under consideration:-- and thus the constitution which we now present is the result of a spirit of amity and of that mutual deference and concession which the peculiarity of our political situation rendered indispensable. the language of that letter may well be applied to the present measure; and had the words been recalled to my memory before the report was framed i cannot doubt that they would have been adopted as part of it to be sent here to the senate as descriptive of the spirit and of the object with which the committee had acted. but, sir, the honorable senator also stated, as a matter deterring us from our proper action on this bill, that the shadow of intimidation had entered the halls of congress, and that members of this committee had joined in this report and presented this bill under actual fear of personal violence. such a statement seems to me almost incredible. i may not read other men's hearts and know what they have felt, nor can i measure the apprehension of personal danger felt by the honorable senator. it seems to me incredible. fear, if i had it, had been the fear of doing wrong in this great juncture of public affairs, not the fear of the consequences of doing right. had there been this intimidation tenfold repeated to which the senator has alluded, and of which i have no knowledge, i should have scorned myself had i hesitated one moment in my onward march of duty on this subject. "hate's yell, or envy's hiss, or folly's bray"-- what are they to a man who, in the face of events such as now confront us, is doing that which his conscience dictates to him do? it has been more than one hundred years since a great judgment was delivered in westminster hall in england by one of the great judges of our english-speaking people. lord mansfield, when delivering judgment in the case of the king against john wilkes, was assailed by threats of popular violence of every description, and he has placed upon record how such threats should be met by any public man who sees before him the clear star of duty and trims his bark only that he may follow it through darkness and through light. i will ask my friend from missouri if he will do me the favor to read the extract to which i have alluded. mr. cockrell read as follows:-- but here, let me pause. it is fit to take some notice of the various terrors hung out; the numerous crowds which have attended and now attend in and about the hall, out of all reach of hearing what passes in court, and the tumults which, in other places, have shamefully insulted all order and government. audacious addresses in print dictate to us from those they call the people, the judgment to be given now and afterward upon the conviction. reasons of policy are urged from danger to the kingdom by commotion and general confusion. give me leave to take the opportunity of this great and respectable audience to let the whole world know all such attempts are vain. i pass over many anonymous letters i have received. those in print are public; and some of them have been brought judicially before the court. whoever the writers are, they take the wrong way. i will do my duty, unawed. what am i to fear? that _mendax_ _infamia_ from the press, which daily coins false facts and false motives? the lies of calumny carry no terror to me. i trust that my temper of mind, and the color and conduct of my life, have given me a suit of armor against these arrows. if, during this king's reign, i have ever supported his government, and assisted his measures, i have done it without any other reward than the consciousness of doing what i thought right. if i have ever opposed, i have done it upon the points themselves, without mixing in party or faction, and without any collateral views. i honor the king, and respect the people; bat many things acquired by force of either, are, in my account, objects not worth ambition. i wish popularity; but it is that popularity which follows, not that which is run after. it is that popularity which, sooner or later, never fails to do justice to the pursuit of noble ends by noble means. i will not do that which my conscience tells me is wrong upon this occasion to gain the huzzas of thousands, or the daily praise of all the papers which come from the press; i will not avoid doing what i think is right, though it should draw on me the whole artillery of libel, all that falsehood and malice can invent or the credulity of a deluded populace can swallow. i can say, with a great magistrate, upon an occasion and under circumstances not unlike, "_ego_ _hoc_ _animo_ _semper_ _fui_. _ut_ _invidiam_ _virtute_ _partam_ _gloriam_, _non_ _invidiam_ _putarem_." the threats go further than abuse; personal violence is denounced. i do not believe it; it is not the genius of the worst men of this country in the worst of times. but i have set my mind at rest. the last end that can happen to any man never comes too soon, if he falls in support of the law and liberty of his country (for liberty is synonymous to law and government). such a shock, too, might be productive of public good: it might awake the better part of the kingdom out of that lethargy which seems to have benumbed them; and bring the mad part back to their senses, as men intoxicated are sometimes stunned into sobriety.--burrows's reports no. , pp. - . mr. bayard--mr. president, in the course of my duty here as a representative of the rights of others, as a chosen and sworn public servant, i feel that i have no right to give my individual wishes, prejudices, interests, undue influence over my public action. to do so would be to commit a breach of trust in the powers confided to me. it is true i was chosen a senator by a majority only, but not for a majority only. i was chosen by a party, but not for a party. i represent all the good people of the state which has sent me here. in my office as a senator i recognize no claim upon my action in the name and for the sake of party. the oath i have taken is to support the constitution of my country's government, not the fiat of any political organization, even could its will be ascertained. in sessions preceding the present i have adverted to the difficulty attending the settlement of this great question, and have urgently besought action in advance at a time when the measure adopted could not serve to predicate its results to either party. my failure then gave me great uneasiness, and filled me with anxiety; and yet i can now comprehend the wisdom concealed in my disappointment, for in the very emergency of this hour, in the shadow of the danger that has drawn so nigh to us, has been begotten in the hearts of american senators and representatives and the american people a spirit worthy of the occasion--born to meet these difficulties, to cope with them, and, god willing, to conquer them. animated by this spirit the partisan is enlarged into the patriot. before it the lines of party sink into hazy obscurity; and the horizon which bounds our view reaches on every side to the uttermost verge of the great republic. it is a spirit that exalts humanity, and imbued with it the souls of men soar into the pure air of unselfish devotion to the public welfare. it lighted with a smile the cheek of curtius as he rode into the gulf; it guided the hand of aristides as he sadly wrote upon the shell the sentence of his own banishment; it dwelt in the frozen earthworks of valley forge; and from time to time it has been an inmate of these halls of legislation. i believe it is here to-day, and that the present measure was born under its influence. lord beaconsfield (benjamin disraeli) ( - ) when, at the age of thirty-three. benjamin disraeli entered the house of commons, he was flushed with his first literary successes and inclined perhaps to take parliamentary popularity by storm. it was the first year of victoria's reign ( ) and the fashions of the times allowed great latitude for the display of idiosyncracies in dress. it seems that disraeli pushed this advantage to the point of license. we hear much of the amount of jewelry he wore and of the gaudiness of his waistcoats. this may or may not have had a deciding influence in determining the character of his reception by the house, but at any rate it was a tempestuous one. he was repeatedly interrupted, and when he attempted to proceed the uproar of cries and laughter finally overpowered him and he abandoned for the time being the attempt to speak--not, however, until he had served on the house due notice of his great future, expressed in the memorable words--thundered, we are told, at the top of his voice, and audible still in english history--"you shall hear me!" not ten years later, the young man with the gaudy waistcoats had become the leading conservative orator of the campaign against the liberals on their corn law policy and so great was the impression produced by his speeches that in , when the derby ministry was formed, he was made chancellor of the exchequer. the secret of his success is the thorough-going way in which he identified himself with the english aristocracy. where others had apologized for aristocracy as a method of government, he justified. instead of excusing and avoiding, he assumed that a government of privilege rather than that based on rights or the assumption of their existence is the best possible government, the only natural one, the only one capable of perpetuating itself without constant and violent changes. kept on the defensive by the forward movement of the people, as well as by the tendency towards liberalism or radicalism shown by the men of highest education among the aristocratic classes themselves, the english conservatives were delighted to find a man of great ability and striking eloquence, who seemed to have a religious conviction that "toryism" was the only means of saving society and ensuring progress. it is characteristic of his mind and his methods, that he does not shrink from calling himself a tory. he is as proud of bearing that reproach as camilla desmoulins was of being called a sansculotte. when a man is thus "for thorough," he becomes representative of all who have his aspirations or share his tendencies without his aggressiveness. no doubt disraeli's speeches are the best embodiment of tory principle, the most attractive presentation of aristocratic purposes in government made in the nineteenth century. no member of the english peerage to the "manner born" has approached him in this respect. it is not a question of whether others have equaled or exceeded him in ability or statesmanship. on that point there may be room for difference of opinion, but to read any one of his great speeches is to see at once that he has the infinite advantage of the rest in being the strenuous and faith-inspired champion of aristocracy and government by privilege--not the mere defender and apologist for it. in the extent of his information, the energy and versatility of his intellect, and the boldness of his methods, he had no equal among the conservative leaders of the victorian reign. his audacity was well illustrated when, after the great struggle over the reform measures of which he opposed, the conservatives succeeded to power, and he, as their representative, advanced a measure "more sweeping in its nature as a reform bill than that he had successfully opposed" when it was advocated by gladstone. in foreign affairs, he showed the same boldness, working to check the liberal advance at home by directing public attention away from domestic grievances to brilliant achievements abroad. this policy which his opponents resented the more bitterly because they saw it to be the only one by which they could be held in check, won him the title of "jingo," and made him the leading representative of british imperialism abroad as he was of english aristocracy at home. the assassination of lincoln (from a speech in parliament, ) there are rare instances when the sympathy of a nation approaches those tenderer feelings which are generally supposed to be peculiar to the individual and to be the happy privilege of private life; and this is one. under any circumstances we should have bewailed the catastrophe at washington; under any circumstances we should have shuddered at the means by which it was accomplished. but in the character of the victim, and even in the accessories of his last moments, there is something so homely and innocent that it takes the question, as it were, out of all the pomp of history and the ceremonial of diplomacy,--it touches the heart of nations and appeals to the domestic sentiment of mankind. whatever the various and varying opinions in this house, and in the country generally, on the policy of the late president of the united states, all must agree that in one of the severest trials which ever tested the moral qualities of man he fulfilled his duty with simplicity and strength. nor is it possible for the people of england at such a moment to forget that he sprang from the same fatherland and spoke the same mother tongue. when such crimes are perpetrated the public mind is apt to fall into gloom and perplexity, for it is ignorant alike of the causes and the consequences of such deeds. but it is one of our duties to reassure them under unreasoning panic and despondency. assassination has never changed the history of the world. i will not refer to the remote past, though an accident has made the most memorable instance of antiquity at this moment fresh in the minds and memory of all around me. but even the costly sacrifice of a caesar did not propitiate the inexorable destiny of his country. if we look to modern times, to times at least with the feelings of which we are familiar, and the people of which were animated and influenced by the same interests as ourselves, the violent deaths of two heroic men, henry iv. of france and the prince of orange, are conspicuous illustrations of this truth. in expressing our unaffected and profound sympathy with the citizens of the united states on this untimely end of their elected chief, let us not, therefore, sanction any feeling of depression, but rather let us express a fervent hope that from out of the awful trials of the last four years, of which the least is not this violent demise, the various populations of north america may issue elevated and chastened, rich with the accumulated wisdom and strong in the disciplined energy which a young nation can only acquire in a protracted and perilous struggle. then they will be enabled not merely to renew their career of power and prosperity, but they will renew it to contribute to the general happiness of mankind. it is with these feelings that i second the address to the crown. against democracy for england (delivered in ) sir, i could have wished, and once i almost believed, that it was not necessary for me to take part in this debate. i look on this discussion as the natural epilogue of the parliament of ; we remember the prologue. i consider this to be a controversy between the educated section of the liberal party and that section of the liberal party, according to their companions and colleagues, not entitled to an epithet so euphuistic and complimentary. but after the speech of the minister, i hardly think it would become me, representing the opinions of the gentlemen with whom i am acting on this side of the house, entirely to be silent. we have a measure before us to-night which is to increase the franchise in boroughs. without reference to any other circumstances i object to that measure. i object to it because an increase of the franchise in boroughs is a proposal to redistribute political power in the country. i do not think political power in the country ought to be treated partially; from the very nature of things it is impossible, if there is to be a redistribution of political power, that you can only regard the suffrage as it affects one section of the constituent body. whatever the proposition of the honorable gentleman, whether abstractedly it may be expedient or not, this is quite clear, that it must be considered not only in relation to the particular persons with whom it will deal, but to other persons with whom it does not deal, though it would affect them. and therefore it has always been quite clear that if you deal with the subject popularly called parliamentary reform, you must deal with it comprehensively. the arrangements you may make with reference to one part of the community may not be objectionable in themselves, but may be extremely objectionable if you consider them with reference to other parts. consequently it has been held--and the more we consider the subject the more true and just appears to be the conclusion--that if you deal with the matter you must deal with it comprehensively. you must not only consider borough constituencies, you must consider county constituencies: and when persons rise up and urge their claims to be introduced into the constituent body, even if you think there is a plausible claim substantiated on their part, you are bound in policy and justice to consider also the claims of other bodies not in possession of the franchise, but whose right to consideration may be equally great. and so clear is it when you come to the distribution of power that you must consider the subject in all its bearings, that even honorable gentlemen who have taken part in this debate have not been able to avoid the question of what they call the redistribution of seats--a very important part of the distribution of power. it is easy for the honorable member for liskeard, for example, to rise and say, in supporting this measure for the increase of the borough franchise, that it is impossible any longer to conceal the anomalies of our system in regard to the distribution of seats. "is it not monstrous," he asks, "that calne, with voters, should return a member, while glasgow returns only two, with a constituency of , ?" well, it may be equally monstrous that liskeard should return one member, and that birkenhead should only make a similar return. the distribution of seats, as any one must know who has ever considered the subject deeply and with a sense of responsibility towards the country, is one of the most profound and difficult questions that can be brought before the house. it is all very well to treat it in an easy, offhand manner; but how are you to reconcile the case of north cheshire, of north durham, of west kent, and many other counties, where you find four or six great towns, with a population, perhaps, of , , returning six members to this house, while the rest of the population of the county, though equal in amount, returns only two members? how are you to meet the case of the representation of south lancashire in reference to its boroughs? why, those are more anomalous than the case of calne. then there is the question of scotland. with a population hardly equal to that of the metropolis, and with wealth greatly inferior-- probably not more than two-thirds of the amount--scotland yet possesses forty-eight members, while the metropolis has only twenty. do you reformers mean to say that you are prepared to disfranchise scotland; or that you are going to develop the representation of the metropolis in proportion to its population and property; and so allow a country like england, so devoted to local government and so influenced by local feeling, to be governed by london? and, therefore, when those speeches are made which gain a cheer for the moment, and are supposed to be so unanswerable as arguments in favor of parliamentary change, i would recommend the house to recollect that this, as a question, is one of the most difficult and one of the deepest that can possibly engage the attention of the country. the fact is this--in the representation of this country you do not depend on population or on property merely, or on both conjoined; you have to see that there is something besides population and property--you have to take care that the country itself is represented. that is one reason why i am opposed to the second reading of the bill. there is another objection which i have to this bill brought forward by the honorable member for leeds, and that is, that it is brought forward by the member for leeds. i do not consider this a subject which ought to be intrusted to the care and guidance of any independent member of this house. if there be one subject more than another that deserves the consideration and demands the responsibility of the government, it certainly is the reconstruction of our parliamentary system; and it is the government or the political party candidates for power, who recommend a policy, and who will not shrink from the responsibility of carrying that policy into effect if the opportunity be afforded to them, who alone are qualified to deal with a question of this importance. but, sir, i shall be told, as we have been told in a previous portion of the adjourned debate, that the two great parties of the state cannot be trusted to deal with this question, because they have both trifled with it. that is a charge which has been made repeatedly during this discussion and on previous occasions, and certainly a graver one could not be made in this house. i am not prepared to admit that even our opponents have trifled with this question. we have had a very animated account by the right honorable gentleman who has just addressed us as to what may be called the story of the reform measures. it was animated, but it was not accurate. mine will be accurate, though i fear it will not be animated. i am not prepared to believe that english statesmen, though they be opposed to me in politics, and may sit on opposite benches, could ever have intended to trifle with this question. i think that possibly they may have made great mistakes in the course which they took; they may have miscalculated, they may have been misled; but i do not believe that any men in this country, occupying the posts, the eminent posts, of those who have recommended any reconstruction of our parliamentary system in modern days, could have advised a course which they disapproved. they may have thought it perilous, they may have thought it difficult, but though they may have been misled i am convinced they must have felt that it was necessary. let me say a word in favor of one with whom i have had no political connection, and to whom i have been placed in constant opposition in this house when he was an honored member of it--i mean lord russell. i cannot at all agree with the lively narrative of the right honorable gentleman, according to which parliamentary reform was but the creature of lord john russell, whose cabinet, controlled by him with the vigor of a richelieu, at all times disapproved his course; still less can i acknowledge that merely to amuse himself, or in a moment of difficulty to excite some popular sympathy, lord john russell was a statesman always with reform in his pocket, ready to produce it and make a display. how different from that astute and sagacious statesman now at the head of her majesty's government, whom i almost hoped to have seen in his place this evening. i am sure it would have given the house great pleasure to have seen him here, and the house itself would have assumed a more good-humored appearance. i certainly did hope that the noble lord would have been enabled to be in his place and prepared to support his policy. according to the animated but not quite accurate account of the right honorable gentleman who has just sat down, all that lord derby did was to sanction the humor and caprice of lord john russell. it is true that lord john russell when prime minister recommended that her majesty in the speech from the throne should call the attention of parliament to the expediency of noticing the condition of our representative system; but lord john russell unfortunately shortly afterwards retired from his eminent position. he was succeeded by one of the most considerable statesmen of our days, a statesman not connected with the political school of lord john russell, who was called to power not only with assistance of lord john russell and the leading members of the whig party, but supported by the whole class of eminent statesmen who had been educated in the same school and under the same distinguished master. this eminent statesman, however, is entirely forgotten. the right honorable gentleman overlooks the fact that lord aberdeen, when prime minister, and when all the principal places in his cabinet were filled with the disciples of sir robert peel, did think it his duty to recommend the same counsel to her majesty. but this is an important, and not the only important, item in the history of the reform bill which has been ignored by the right honorable gentleman. the time, however, came when lord aberdeen gave place to another statesman, who has been complimented on his sagacity in evading the subject, as if such a course would be a subject for congratulation. let me vindicate the policy of lord palmerston in his absence. he did not evade the question. lord palmerston followed the example of lord john russell. he followed the example also of lord aberdeen, and recommended her majesty to notice the subject in the speech from the throne. what becomes, then, of the lively narrative of the right honorable gentleman, and what becomes of the inference and conclusions which he drew from it? not only is his account inaccurate, but it is injurious, as i take it, to the course of sound policy and the honor of public men. well, now you have three prime ministers bringing forward the question of parliamentary reform; you have lord john russell, lord aberdeen, and you have even that statesman who, according to the account of the right honorable gentleman, was so eminent for his sagacity in evading the subject altogether. now, let me ask the house to consider the position of lord derby when he was called to power, a position which you cannot rightly understand if you accept as correct the fallacious statements of the right honorable gentleman. i will give the house an account of this subject, the accuracy of which i believe neither side will impugn. it may not possibly be without interest, and will not, i am sure, be without significance. lord derby was sent for by her majesty--an unwilling candidate for office, for let me remind the house that at that moment there was an adverse majority of in the house of commons, and i therefore do not think that lord derby was open to any imputation in hesitating to accept political responsibility under such circumstances. lord derby laid these considerations before her majesty. i speak, of course, with reserve. i say nothing now which i have not said before on the discussion of political subjects in this house. but when a government comes in on reform and remains in power six years without passing any measure of the kind, it is possible that these circumstances, too, may be lost sight of. lord derby advised her majesty not to form a government under his influence, because there existed so large a majority against him in the house of commons, and because this question of reform was placed in such a position that it was impossible to deal with it as he should wish. but it should be remembered that lord derby was a member of the famous cabinet which carried the reform bill in . lord derby, as lord stanley, was in the house of commons one of the most efficient promoters of the measure. lord derby believed that the bill had tended to effect the purpose for which it was designed, and although no man superior to prejudices could fail to see that some who were entitled to the exercise of the franchise were still debarred from the privilege, yet he could not also fail to perceive the danger which would arise from our tampering with the franchise. on these grounds lord derby declined the honor which her majesty desired to confer upon him, but the appeal was repeated. under these circumstances it would have been impossible for any english statesman longer to hesitate; but i am bound to say that there was no other contract or understanding further than that which prevails among men, however different their politics, who love their country and wish to maintain its greatness. i am bound to add that there was an understanding at the time existing among men of weight on both sides of the house that the position in which the reform question was placed was one embarrassing to the crown and not creditable to the house, and that any minister trying his best to deal with it under these circumstances would receive the candid consideration of the house. it was thought, moreover, that a time might possibly arrive when both parties would unite in endeavoring to bring about a solution which would tend to the advantage and benefit of the country. and yet, says the right honorable gentleman, it was only in that the portentous truth flashed across the mind of the country--only in , after so many ministers had been dealing with the question for so many years. all i can say is that this was the question, and the only question, which engaged the attention of lord derby's cabinet. the question was whether they could secure the franchise for a certain portion of the working classes, who by their industry, their intelligence, and their integrity, showed that they were worthy of such a possession, without at the same time overwhelming the rest of the constituency by the numbers of those whom they admitted. that, sir, was the only question which occupied the attention of the government of lord derby and yet the right honorable gentleman says that it was in that the attention of the public was first called to the subject, when, in fact, the question of parliamentary reform had been before them for ten years, and on a greater scale than that embraced by the measure under consideration this evening. i need not remind the house of the reception which lord derby's bill encountered. it is neither my disposition, nor, i am sure, that of any of my colleagues, to complain of the votes of this house on that occasion. political life must be taken as you find it, and as far as i am concerned not a word shall escape me on the subject. but from the speeches made the first night, and from the speech made by the right honorable gentleman this evening, i believe i am right in vindicating the conduct pursued by the party with which i act. i believe that the measure which we brought forward was the only one which has tended to meet the difficulties which beset this question. totally irrespective of other modes of dealing with the question, there were two franchises especially proposed on this occasion, which, in my mind, would have done much towards solving the difficulty. the first was the franchise founded upon personal property, and the second the franchise founded upon partial occupation. those two franchises, irrespective of other modes by which we attempted to meet the want and the difficulty--these two franchises, had they been brought into committee of this house, would, in my opinion, have been so shaped and adapted that they would have effected those objects which the majority of the house desire. we endeavored in that bill to make proposals which were in the genius of the english constitution. we did not consider the constitution a mere phrase. we knew that the constitution of this country is a monarchy tempered by co-ordinate estates of the realm. we knew that the house of commons is an estate of the realm; we knew that the estates of the realm form a political body, invested with political power for the government of the country and for the public good; yet we thought that it was a body founded upon privilege and not upon right. it is, therefore, in the noblest and properest sense of the word, an aristocratic body, and from that characteristic the reform bill of did not derogate; and if at this moment we could contrive, as we did in , to add considerably to the number of the constituent body, we should not change that characteristic, but it would still remain founded upon an aristocratic principle. well, now the secretary of state [sir g. grey] has addressed us to-night in a very remarkable speech. he also takes up the history of reform, and before i touch upon some of the features of that speech it is my duty to refer to the statements which he made with regard to the policy which the government of lord derby was prepared to assume after the general election. by a total misrepresentation of the character of the amendment proposed by lord john russell, which threw the government of into a minority, and by quoting a passage from a very long speech of mine in , the right honorable gentleman most dexterously conveyed these two propositions to the house--first, that lord john russell had proposed an amendment to our reform bill, by which the house declared that no bill could be satisfactory by which the working classes were not admitted to the franchise--one of our main objects being that the working classes should in a great measure be admitted to the franchise; and, secondly, that after the election i was prepared, as the organ of the government, to give up all the schemes for those franchises founded upon personal property, partial occupation, and other grounds, and to substitute a bill lowering the borough qualification. that conveyed to the house a totally inaccurate idea of the amendment of lord john russell. there was not a single word in that amendment about the working classes. there was not a single phrase upon which that issue was raised, nor could it have been raised, because our bill, whether it could have effected the object or not, was a bill which proposed greatly to enfranchise the working classes. and as regards the statement i made, it simply was this. the election was over--we were still menaced, but we, still acting according to our sense of duty, recommended in the royal speech that the question of a reform of parliament should be dealt with; because i must be allowed to remind the house that whatever may have been our errors, we proposed a bill which we intended to carry. and having once taken up the question as a matter of duty, no doubt greatly influenced by what we considered the unhappy mistakes of our predecessors, and the difficult position in which they had placed parliament and the country, we determined not to leave the question until it had been settled. but although still menaced, we felt it to be our duty to recommend to her majesty to introduce the question of reform when the parliament of met; and how were we, except in that spirit of compromise which is the principal characteristic of our political system, how could we introduce a reform bill after that election, without in some degree considering the possibility of lowering the borough franchise? but it was not a franchise of pounds, but it was an arrangement that was to be taken with the rest of the bill, and if it had been met in the same spirit we might have retained our places. but, says the right honorable gentleman, pursuing his history of the reform question, when the government of lord derby retired from office "we came in, and we were perfectly sincere in our intentions to carry a reform bill; but we experienced such opposition, and never was there such opposition. there was the right honorable gentleman," meaning myself, "he absolutely allowed our bill to be read a second time." that tremendous reckless opposition to the right honorable gentleman, which allowed the bill to be read a second time, seems to have laid the government prostrate. if he had succeeded in throwing out the bill, the right honorable gentleman and his friends would have been relieved from great embarrassment. but the bill having been read a second time, the government were quite overcome, and it appears they never have recovered from the paralysis up to this time. the right honorable gentleman was good enough to say that the proposition of his government was rather coldly received upon his side of the house, but he said "nobody spoke against it." nobody spoke against the bill on this side, but i remember some most remarkable speeches from the right honorable gentleman's friends. there was the great city of edinburgh, represented by acute eloquence of which we never weary, and which again upon the present occasion we have heard; there was the great city of bristol, represented on that occasion among the opponents, and many other constituencies of equal importance. but the most remarkable speech, which "killed cock robin" was absolutely delivered by one who might be described as almost a member of the government--the chairman of ways and means [mr. massey], who, i believe, spoke from immediately behind the prime minister. did the government express any disapprobation of such conduct? they have promoted him to a great post, and have sent him to india with an income of fabulous amount. and now they are astonished they cannot carry a reform bill. if they removed all those among their supporters who oppose such bills by preferring them to posts of great confidence and great lucre, how can they suppose that they will ever carry one? looking at the policy of the government, i am not at all astonished at the speech which the right honorable gentleman, the secretary of state, has made this evening. of which speech i may observe, that although it was remarkable for many things, yet there were two conclusions at which the right honorable gentleman arrived. first, the repudiation of the rights of man, and, next, the repudiation of the pounds franchise. the first is a great relief, and, remembering what the feeling of the house was only a year ago, when, by the dangerous but fascinating eloquence of the chancellor of the exchequer, we were led to believe that the days of tom paine had returned, and that rousseau was to be rivaled by a new social contract, it must be a great relief to every respectable man here to find that not only are we not to have the rights of man, but we are not even to have the franchise. it is a matter, i think, of great congratulation, and i am ready to give credit to the secretary of state for the honesty with which he has expressed himself, and i only wish we had had the same frankness, the same honesty we always have, arising from a clear view of his subject, in the first year of the parliament as we have had in the last. i will follow the example of the right honorable gentleman and his friends. i have not changed my opinions upon the subject of what is called parliamentary reform. all that has occurred, all that i have observed, all the results of my reflections, lead me to this more and more--that the principle upon which the constituencies of this country should be increased is one not of radical, but i may say of lateral reform--the extension of the franchise, not its degradation. and although i do not wish in any way to deny that we were in the most difficult position when the parliament of met, being anxious to assist the crown and the parliament by proposing some moderate measure which men on both sides might support, we did, to a certain extent, agree to some modification of the pounds franchise--to what extent no one knows; but i may say that it would have been one which would not at all have affected the character of the franchise, such as i and my colleagues wished to maintain. yet i confess that my opinion is opposed, as it originally was, to any course of the kind. i think that it would fail in its object, that it would not secure the introduction of that particular class which we all desire to introduce, but that it would introduce many others who are totally unworthy of the suffrage. but i think it is possible to increase the electoral body of the country by the introduction of voters upon principles in unison with the principles of the constitution, so that the suffrage should remain a privilege, and not a right--a privilege to be gained by virtue, by intelligence, by industry, by integrity, and to be exercised for the common good of the country. i think if you quit that ground--if you once admit that every man has a right to vote whom you cannot prove to be disqualified--you would change the character of the constitution, and you would change it in a manner which will tend to lower the importance of this country. between the scheme we brought forward and the measure brought forward by the honorable member for leeds, and the inevitable conclusion which its principal supporters acknowledge it must lead to, it is a question between an aristocratic government in the proper sense of the term--that is, a government by the best men of all classes--and a democracy. i doubt very much whether a democracy is a government that would suit this country; and it is just as well that the house, when coming to a vote on this question, should really consider if that be the real issue, between retaining the present constitution--not the present constitutional body, but between the present constitution and a democracy. it is just as well for the house to recollect that what is at issue is of some price. you must remember, not to use the word profanely, that we are dealing really with a peculiar people. there is no country at the present moment that exists under the circumstances and under the same conditions as the people of this realm. you have, for example, an ancient, powerful, richly-endowed church, and perfect religious liberty. you have unbroken order and complete freedom. you have estates as large as the romans; you have a commercial system of enterprise such as carthage and venice united never equaled. and you must remember that this peculiar country with these strong contrasts is governed not by force; it is not governed by standing armies--it is governed by a most singular series of traditionary influences, which generation after generation cherishes and preserves because they know that they embalm customs and represent the law. and, with this, what have you done? you have created the greatest empire that ever existed in modern times you have amassed a capital of fabulous amount. you have devised and sustained a system of credit still more marvelous and above all, you have established and maintained a scheme, so vast and complicated, of labor and industry, that the history of the world offers no parallel to it. and all these mighty creations are out of all proportion to the essential and indigenous elements and resources of the country. if you destroy that state of society, remember this-- england cannot begin again. there are countries which have been in great peril and gone through great suffering; there are the united states, which in our own immediate day have had great trials; you have had--perhaps even now in the states of america you have--a protracted and fratricidal civil war which has lasted for four years; but if it lasted for four years more, vast as would be the disaster and desolation, when ended the united states might begin again, because the united states would only be in the same condition that england was at the end of the war of the roses, and probably she had not even , , of population, with vast tracts of virgin soil and mineral treasures, not only undeveloped but undiscovered. then you have france. france had a real revolution in our days and those of our predecessors--a real revolution, not merely a political and social revolution. you had the institutions of the country uprooted, the orders of society abolished--you had even the landmarks and local names removed and erased. but france could begin again. france had the greatest spread of the most exuberant soil in europe; she had, and always had, a very limited population, living in a most simple manner. france, therefore, could begin again. but england--the england we know, the england we live in, the england of which we are proud--could not begin again. i don't mean to say that after great troubles england would become a howling wilderness. no doubt the good sense of the people would to some degree prevail, and some fragments of the national character would survive; but it would not be the old england--the england of power and tradition, of credit and capital, that now exists. that is not in the nature of things, and, under these circumstances, i hope the house will, when the question before us is one impeaching the character of our constitution, sanction no step that has a preference for democracy but that they will maintain the ordered state of free england in which we live, i do not think that in this country generally there is a desire at this moment for any further change in this matter. i think the general opinion of the country on the subject of parliamentary reform is that our views are not sufficiently matured on either side. certainly, so far as i can judge i cannot refuse the conclusion that such is the condition of honorable gentlemen opposite. we all know the paper circulated among us before parliament met, on which the speech of the honorable member from maidstone commented this evening. i quite sympathize with him; it was one of the most interesting contributions to our elegiac literature i have heard for some time. but is it in this house only that we find these indications of the want of maturity in our views upon this subject? our tables are filled at this moment with propositions of eminent members of the liberal party--men eminent for character or talent, and for both--and what are these propositions? all devices to counteract the character of the liberal reform bill, to which they are opposed: therefore, it is quite clear, when we read these propositions and speculations, that the mind and intellect of the party have arrived at no conclusions on the subject. i do not speak of honorable gentlemen with disrespect; i treat them with the utmost respect; i am prepared to give them the greatest consideration; but i ask whether these publications are not proofs that the active intelligence of the liberal party is itself entirely at sea on the subject? i may say there has been more consistency, more calmness, and consideration on this subject on the part of gentlemen on this side than on the part of those who seem to arrogate to themselves the monopoly of treating this subject. i can, at least, in answer to those who charge us with trifling with the subject, appeal to the recollection of every candid man, and say that we treated it with sincerity--we prepared our measure with care, and submitted it to the house, trusting to its candid consideration--we spared no pains in its preparation: and at this time i am bound to say, speaking for my colleagues, in the main principles on which that bill was founded--namely, the extension of the franchise, not its degradation, will be found the only solution that will ultimately be accepted by the country. therefore, i cannot say that i look to this question, or that those with whom i act look to it, with any embarrassment. we feel we have done our duty; and it is not without some gratification that i have listened to the candid admissions of many honorable gentlemen who voted against it that they feel the defeat of that measure by the liberal party was a great mistake. so far as we are concerned, i repeat we, as a party, can look to parliamentary reform not as an embarrassing subject; but that is no reason why we should agree to the measure of the honorable member for leeds. it would reflect no credit on the house of commons. it is a mean device. i give all credit to the honorable member for leeds for his conscientious feeling; but it would be a mockery to take this bill; from the failures of the government and the whole of the circumstances that attended it, it is of that character that i think the house will best do its duty to the country, and will best meet the constituencies with a very good understanding, if they reject the measure by a decided majority. the meaning of "conservatism" (manchester, .april d, ) _gentlemen:_-- the chairman has correctly reminded you that this is not the first time that my voice has been heard in this hall. but that was an occasion very different from that which now assembles us together-- was nearly thirty years ago, when i endeavored to support and stimulate the flagging energies of an institution in which i thought there were the germs of future refinement and intellectual advantage to the rising generation of manchester, and since i have been here on this occasion i have learned with much gratification that it is now counted among your most flourishing institutions. there was also another and more recent occasion when the gracious office fell to me to distribute among the members of the mechanics' institution those prizes which they had gained through their study in letters and in science. gentlemen, these were pleasing offices, and if life consisted only of such offices you would not have to complain of it. but life has its masculine duties, and we are assembled here to fulfill some of the most important of these, when, as citizens of a free country, we are assembled together to declare our determination to maintain, to uphold the constitution to which we are debtors, in our opinion, for our freedom and our welfare. gentlemen, there seems at first something incongruous that one should be addressing the population of so influential and intelligent a county as lancashire who is not locally connected with them, and, gentlemen, i will frankly admit that this circumstance did for a long time make me hesitate in accepting your cordial and generous invitation. but, gentlemen, after what occurred yesterday, after receiving more than two hundred addresses from every part of this great county, after the welcome which then greeted me, i feel that i should not be doing justice to your feelings, i should not do my duty to myself, if i any longer consider my presence here to-night to be an act of presumption. gentlemen, though it may not be an act of presumption, it still is, i am told, an act of great difficulty. our opponents assure us that the conservative party has no political program; and, therefore, they must look with much satisfaction to one whom you honor to-night by considering him the leader and representative of your opinions when he comes forward, at your invitation, to express to you what that program is. the conservative party are accused of having no program of policy. if by a program is meant a plan to despoil churches and plunder landlords, i admit we have no program. if by a program is meant a policy which assails or menaces every institution and every interest, every class and every calling in the country, i admit we have no program. but if to have a policy with distinct ends, and these such as most deeply interest the great body of the nation, be a becoming program for a political party, then i contend we have an adequate program, and one which, here or elsewhere, i shall always be prepared to assert and to vindicate. gentlemen, the program of the conservative party is to maintain the constitution of the country. i have not come down to manchester to deliver an essay on the english constitution; but when the banner of republicanism is unfurled--when the fundamental principles of our institutions are controverted--i think, perhaps, it may not be inconvenient that i should make some few practical remarks upon the character of our constitution upon that monarchy limited by the co-ordinate authority of the estates of the realm, which, under the title of queen, lords, and commons, has contributed so greatly to the prosperity of this country, and with the maintenance of which i believe that prosperity is bound up. gentlemen, since the settlement of that constitution, now nearly two centuries ago, england has never experienced a revolution, though there is no country in which there has been so continuous and such considerable change. how is this? because the wisdom of your forefathers placed the prize of supreme power without the sphere of human passions. whatever the struggle of parties, whatever the strife of factions, whatever the excitement and exaltation of the public mind, there has always been something in this country round which all classes and parties could rally, representing the majesty of the law, the administration of justice, and involving, at the same time, the security for every man's rights and the fountain of honor. now, gentlemen, it is well clearly to comprehend what is meant by a country not having a revolution for two centuries. it means, for that space, the unbroken exercise and enjoyment of the ingenuity of man. it means for that space the continuous application of the discoveries of science to his comfort and convenience. it means the accumulation of capital, the elevation of labor, the establishment of those admirable factories which cover your district; the unwearied improvement of the cultivation of the land, which has extracted from a somewhat churlish soil harvests more exuberant than those furnished by lands nearer to the sun. it means the continuous order which is the only parent of personal liberty and political right. and you owe all these, gentlemen, to the throne. there is another powerful and most beneficial influence which is also exercised by the crown. gentlemen, i am a party man. i believe that, without party, parliamentary government is impossible. i look upon parliamentary government as the noblest government in the world, and certainly the one most suited to england. but without the discipline of political connection, animated by the principle of private honor, i feel certain that a popular assembly would sink before the power or the corruption of a minister. yet, gentlemen, i am not blind to the faults of party government. it has one great defect. party has a tendency to warp the intelligence, and there is no minister, however resolved he may be in treating a great public question, who does not find some difficulty in emancipating himself from the traditionary prejudice on which he has long acted. it is, therefore, a great merit in our constitution, that before a minister introduces a measure to parliament, he must submit it to an intelligence superior to all party, and entirely free from influences of that character. i know it will be said, gentlemen, that, however beautiful in theory, the personal influence of the sovereign is now absorbed in the responsibility of the minister. gentlemen, i think you will find there is great fallacy in this view. the principles of the english constitution do not contemplate the absence of personal influence on the part of the sovereign; and if they did, the principles of human nature would prevent the fulfillment of such a theory. gentlemen, i need not tell you that i am now making on this subject abstract observations of general application to our institutions and our history. but take the case of a sovereign of england, who accedes to his throne at the earliest age the law permits, and who enjoys a long reign,--take an instance like that of george iii. from the earliest moment of his accession that sovereign is placed in constant communication with the most able statesmen of the period, and of all parties. even with average ability it is impossible not to perceive that such a sovereign must soon attain a great mass of political information and political experience. information and experience, gentlemen, whether they are possessed by a sovereign or by the humblest of his subjects, are irresistible in life. no man with the vast responsibility that devolves upon an english minister can afford to treat with indifference a suggestion that has not occurred to him, or information with which he had not been previously supplied. but, gentlemen, pursue this view of the subject. the longer the reign, the influence of that sovereign must proportionately increase. all the illustrious statesmen who served his youth disappear. a new generation of public servants rises up, there is a critical conjunction in affairs--a moment of perplexity and peril. then it is that the sovereign can appeal to a similar state of affairs that occurred perhaps thirty years before. when all are in doubt among his servants, he can quote the advice that was given by the illustrious men of his early years, and, though he may maintain himself within the strictest limits of the constitution, who can suppose, when such information and such suggestions are made by the most exalted person in the country, that they can be without effect? no, gentlemen; a minister who could venture to treat such influence with indifference would not be a constitutional minister, but an arrogant idiot. gentlemen, the influence of the crown is not confined merely to political affairs. england is a domestic country. here the home is revered and the hearth is sacred. the nation is represented by a family--the royal family; and if that family is educated with a sense of responsibility and a sentiment of public duty, it is difficult to exaggerate the salutary influence they may exercise over a nation. it is not merely an influence upon manners; it is not merely that they are a model for refinement and for good taste-- they affect the heart as well as the intelligence of the people; and in the hour of public adversity, or in the anxious conjuncture of public affairs, the nation rallies round the family and the throne, and its spirit is animated and sustained by the expression of public affection. gentlemen, there is yet one other remark that i would make upon our monarchy, though had it not been for recent circumstances, i should have refrained from doing so. an attack has recently been made upon the throne on account of the costliness of the institution. gentlemen, i shall not dwell upon the fact that if the people of england appreciate the monarchy, as i believe they do, it would be painful to them that their royal and representative family should not be maintained with becoming dignity, or fill in the public eye a position inferior to some of the nobles of the land. nor will i insist upon what is unquestionably the fact, that the revenues of the crown estates, on which our sovereign might live with as much right as the duke of bedford, or the duke of northumberland, has to his estates, are now paid into the public exchequer. all this, upon the present occasion, i am not going to insist upon. what i now say is this: that there is no sovereignty of any first-rate state which costs so little to the people as the sovereignty of england. i will not compare our civil list with those of european empires, because it is known that in amount they treble and quadruple it; but i will compare it with the cost of sovereignty in a republic, and that a republic with which you are intimately acquainted--the republic of the united states of america. gentlemen, there is no analogy between the position of our sovereign, queen victoria, and that of the president of the united states. the president of the united states is not the sovereign of the united states. there is a very near analogy between the position of the president of the united states and that of the prime minister of england, and both are paid at much the same rate--the income of a second-class professional man. the sovereign of the united states is the people; and i will now show you what the sovereignty of the united states costs. gentlemen, you are aware of the constitution of the united states. there are thirty-seven independent states, each with a sovereign legislature. besides these, there is a confederation of states, to conduct their external affairs, which consists of the house of representatives and a senate. there are two hundred and eighty-five members of the house of representatives, and there are seventy-four members of the senate, making altogether three hundred and fifty-nine members of congress. now each member of congress receives , pounds sterling per annum. in addition to this he receives an allowance called "mileage," which varies according to the distance which he travels, but the aggregate cost of which is about , pounds per annum. that makes , pounds, almost the exact amount of our civil list. but this, gentlemen, will allow you to make only a very imperfect estimate of the cost of sovereignty in the united states. every member of every legislature in the thirty-seven states is also paid. there are, i believe, five thousand and ten members of state legislatures, who receive about $ per annum each. as some of the returns are imperfect, the average which i have given of expenditure may be rather high, and therefore i have not counted the mileage, which is also universally allowed. five thousand and ten members of state legislatures at $ each make $ , , , or , pounds sterling a year. so you see, gentlemen, that the immediate expenditure for the sovereignty of the united states is between , and , pounds a year. gentlemen, i have not time to pursue this interesting theme, otherwise i could show that you have still but imperfectly ascertained the cost of sovereignty in a republic. but, gentlemen, i cannot resist giving you one further illustration. the government of this country is considerably carried on by the aid of royal commissions. so great is the increase of public business that it would be probably impossible for a minister to carry on affairs without this assistance. the queen of england can command for these objects the services of the most experienced statesmen, and men of the highest position in society. if necessary, she can summon to them distinguished scholars or men most celebrated in science and in arts; and she receives from them services that are unpaid. they are only too proud to be described in the commission as her majesty's "trusty councilors"; and if any member of these commissions performs some transcendent services, both of thought and of labor, he is munificently rewarded by a public distinction conferred upon him by the fountain of honor. gentlemen, the government of the united states, has, i believe, not less availed itself of the services of commissions than the government of the united kingdom; but in a country where there is no fountain of honor, every member of these commissions is paid. gentlemen, i trust i have now made some suggestions to you respecting the monarchy of england which at least may be so far serviceable that when we are separated they may not be altogether without advantage; and now, gentlemen, i would say something on the subject of the house of lords. it is not merely the authority of the throne that is now disputed, but the character and the influence of the house of lords that are held up by some to public disregard. gentlemen, i shall not stop for a moment to offer you any proofs of the advantage of a second chamber; and for this reason. that subject has been discussed now for a century, ever since the establishment of the government of the united states, and all great authorities, american, german, french, italian, have agreed in this, that a representative government is impossible without a second chamber. and it has been, especially of late, maintained by great political writers in all countries, that the repeated failure of what is called the french republic is mainly to be ascribed to its not having a second chamber. but, gentlemen, however anxious foreign countries have been to enjoy this advantage, that anxiety has only been equaled by the difficulty which they have found in fulfilling their object. how is a second chamber to be constituted? by nominees of the sovereign power? what influence can be exercised by a chamber of nominees? are they to be bound by popular election? in what manner are they to be elected? if by the same constituency as the popular body, what claim have they, under such circumstances, to criticize or to control the decisions of that body? if they are to be elected by a more select body, qualified by a higher franchise, there immediately occurs the objection, why should the majority be governed by the minority? the united states of america were fortunate in finding a solution of this difficulty; but the united states of america had elements to deal with which never occurred before, and never probably will occur again, because they formed their illustrious senate from materials that were offered them by the thirty-seven states. we gentlemen, have the house of lords, an assembly which has historically developed and periodically adapted itself to the wants and necessities of the times. what, gentlemen, is the first quality which is required in a second chamber? without doubt, independence. what is the best foundation of independence? without doubt, property. the prime minister of england has only recently told you, and i believe he spoke quite accurately, that the average income of the members of the house of lords is , pounds per annum. of course there are some who have more, and some who have less; but the influence of a public assembly, so far as property is concerned, depends upon its aggregate property, which, in the present case, is a revenue of , , pounds a year. but, gentlemen, you must look to the nature of this property. it is visible property, and therefore it is responsible property, which every rate-payer in the room knows to his cost. but, gentlemen, it is not only visible property; it is, generally speaking, territorial property; and one of the elements of territorial property is, that it is representative. now, for illustration, suppose--which god forbid--there was no house of commons, and any englishman,--i will take him from either end of the island,--a cumberland, or a cornish man, finds himself aggrieved, the cumbrian says: "this conduct i experience is most unjust. i know a cumberland man in the house of lords, the earl of carlisle or the earl of lonsdale; i will go to him; he will never see a cumberland man ill-treated." the cornish man will say: "i will go to the lord of port eliot; his family have sacrificed themselves before this for the liberties of englishmen, and he will get justice done me." but, gentlemen, the charge against the house of lords is that the dignities are hereditary, and we are told that if we have a house of peers they should be peers for life. there are great authorities in favor of this, and even my noble friend near me [lord derby], the other day, gave in his adhesion to a limited application of this principle. now, gentlemen, in the first place, let me observe that every peer is a peer for life, as he cannot be a peer after his death; but some peers for life are succeeded in their dignities by their children. the question arises, who is most responsible--a peer for life whose dignities are not descendible, or a peer for life whose dignities are hereditary? now, gentlemen, a peer for life is in a very strong position. he says: "here i am; i have got power and i will exercise it." i have no doubt that, on the whole, a peer for life would exercise it for what he deemed was the public good. let us hope that. but, after all, he might and could exercise it according to his own will. nobody can call him to account; he is independent of everybody. but a peer for life whose dignities descend is in a very different position. he has every inducement to study public opinion, and, when he believes it just, to yield; because he naturally feels that if the order to which he belongs is in constant collision with public opinion, the chances are that his dignities will not descend to his posterity. therefore, gentlemen, i am not prepared myself to believe that a solution of any difficulties in the public mind on this subject is to be found by creating peers for life. i know there are some philosophers who believe that the best substitute for the house of lords would be an assembly formed of ex-governors of colonies. i have not sufficient experience on that subject to give a decided opinion upon it. when the muse of comedy threw her frolic grace over society, a retired governor was generally one of the characters in every comedy; and the last of our great actors,--who, by the way, was a great favorite at manchester,--mr. farren, was celebrated for his delineation of the character in question. whether it be the recollection of that performance or not, i confess i am inclined to believe that an english gentleman--born to business, managing his own estate, administering the affairs of his county, mixing with all classes of his fellow-men, now in the hunting field, now in the railway direction, unaffected, unostentatious, proud of his ancestors, if they have contributed to the greatness of our common country--is, on the whole, more likely to form a senator agreeable to english opinion and english taste than any substitute that has yet been produced. gentlemen, let me make one observation more on the subject of the house of lords before i conclude. there is some advantage in political experience. i remember the time when there was a similar outcry against the house of lords, but much more intense and powerful; and, gentlemen, it arose from the same cause. a liberal government had been installed in office, with an immense liberal majority. they proposed some violent measures. the house of lords modified some, delayed others, and some they threw out. instantly there was a cry to abolish or to reform the house of lords, and the greatest popular orator [daniel o'connell] that probably ever existed was sent on a pilgrimage over england to excite the people in favor of this opinion. what happened? that happened, gentlemen, which may happen to-morrow. there was a dissolution of parliament. the great liberal majority vanished. the balance of parties was restored. it was discovered that the house of lords had behind them at least half of the english people. we heard no more cries for their abolition or their reform, and before two years more passed england was really governed by the house of lords, under the wise influence of the duke of wellington and the commanding eloquence of lyndhurst; and such was the enthusiasm of the nation in favor of the second chamber that at every public meeting its health was drunk, with the additional sentiment, for which we are indebted to one of the most distinguished members that ever represented the house of commons: "thank god, there is the house of lords." gentlemen, you will, perhaps, not be surprised that, having made some remarks upon the monarchy and the house of lords, i should say something respecting that house in which i have literally passed the greater part of my life, and to which i am devotedly attached. it is not likely, therefore, that i should say anything to depreciate the legitimate position and influence of the house of commons. gentlemen, it is said that the diminished power of the throne and the assailed authority of the house of lords are owing to the increased power of the house of commons, and the new position which of late years, and especially during the last forty years, it has assumed in the english constitution. gentlemen, the main power of the house of commons depends upon its command over the public purse, and its control of the public expenditure; and if that power is possessed by a party which has a large majority in the house of commons, the influence of the house of commons is proportionately increased, and, under some circumstances, becomes more predominant. but, gentlemen, this power of the house of commons is not a power which has been created by any reform act, from the days of lord grey, in , to . it is the power which the house of commons has enjoyed for centuries, which it has frequently asserted and sometimes even tyrannically exercised. gentlemen, the house of commons represents the constituencies of england, and i am here to show you that no addition to the elements of that constituency has placed the house of commons in a different position with regard to the throne and the house of lords from that it has always constitutionally occupied. gentlemen, we speak now on this subject with great advantage. we recently have had published authentic documents upon this matter which are highly instructive. we have, for example, just published the census of great britain, and we are now in possession of the last registration of voters for the united kingdom. gentlemen, it appears that by the census the population at this time is about , , . it is shown by the last registration that, after making the usual deductions for deaths, removals, double entries, and so on, the constituency of the united kingdom may be placed at , , . so, gentlemen, it at once appears that there are , , people in this country who are as much represented by the house of lords as by the house of commons, and who, for the protection of their rights, must depend upon them and the majesty of the throne. and now, gentlemen, i will tell you what was done by the last reform act. lord grey, in his measure of , which was no doubt a statesmanlike measure, committed a great, and for a time it appeared an irretrievable, error. by that measure he fortified the legitimate influence of the aristocracy, and accorded to the middle classes great and salutary franchises; but he not only made no provision for the representation of the working classes in the constitution, but he absolutely abolished those ancient franchises which the working classes had peculiarly enjoyed and exercised from time immemorial. gentlemen, that was the origin of chartism, and of that electoral uneasiness which existed in this country more or less for thirty years. the liberal party, i feel it my duty to say, had not acted fairly by this question. in their adversity they held out hopes to the working classes, but when they had a strong government they laughed their vows to scorn. in there was a french revolution, and a republic was established. no one can have forgotten what the effect was in this country. i remember the day when not a woman could leave her house in london, and when cannon were planted on westminster bridge. when lord derby became prime minister affairs had arrived at such a point that it was of the first moment that the question should be sincerely dealt with. he had to encounter great difficulties, but he accomplished his purpose with the support of a united party. and gentlemen, what has been the result? a year ago there was another revolution in france, and a republic was again established of the most menacing character. what happened in this country? you could not get half a dozen men to assemble in a street and grumble. why? because the people had got what they wanted. they were content, and they were grateful. but, gentlemen, the constitution of england is not merely a constitution in state, it is a constitution in church and state. the wisest sovereigns and statesmen have ever been anxious to connect authority with religion--some to increase their power, some, perhaps, to mitigate its exercise. but the same difficulty has been experienced in effecting this union which has been experienced in forming a second chamber--either the spiritual power has usurped upon the civil, and established a sacerdotal society, or the civil power has invaded successfully the rights of the spiritual, and the ministers of religion have been degraded into stipendiaries of the state and instruments of the government. in england we accomplish this great result by an alliance between church and state, between two originally independent powers. i will not go into the history of that alliance, which is rather a question for those archaeological societies which occasionally amuse and instruct the people of this city. enough for me that this union was made and has contributed for centuries to the civilization of this country. gentlemen, there is the same assault against the church of england and the union between the state and the church as there is against the monarchy and against the house of lords. it is said that the existence of nonconformity proves that the church is a failure. i draw from these premises an exactly contrary conclusion; and i maintain that to have secured a national profession of faith with the unlimited enjoyment of private judgment in matters spiritual, is the solution of the most difficult problem, and one of the triumphs of civilization. it is said that the existence of parties in the church also proves its incompetence. on that matter, too, i entertain a contrary opinion. parties have always existed in the church; and some have appealed to them as arguments in favor of its divine institution, because, in the services and doctrines of the church have been found representatives of every mood in the human mind. those who are influenced by ceremonies find consolation in forms which secure to them the beauty of holiness. those who are not satisfied except with enthusiasm find in its ministrations the exaltation they require, while others who believe that the "anchor of faith" can never be safely moored except in the dry sands of reason find a religion within the pale of the church which can boast of its irrefragable logic and its irresistible evidence. gentlemen, i am inclined sometimes to believe that those who advocate the abolition of the union between church and state have not carefully considered the consequences of such a course. the church is a powerful corporation of many millions of her majesty's subjects, with a consummate organization and wealth which in its aggregate is vast. restricted and controlled by the state, so powerful a corporation may be only fruitful of public advantage, but it becomes a great question what might be the consequences of the severance of the controlling tie between these two bodies. the state would be enfeebled, but the church would probably be strengthened. whether that is a result to be desired is a grave question for all men. for my own part, i am bound to say that i doubt whether it would be favorable to the cause of civil and religious liberty. i know that there is a common idea that if the union between church and state was severed, the wealth of the church would revert to the state; but it would be well to remember that the great proportion of ecclesiastical property is the property of individuals. take, for example, the fact that the great mass of church patronage is patronage in the hands of private persons. that you could not touch without compensation to the patrons. you have established that principle in your late irish bill, where there was very little patronage. and in the present state of the public mind on the subject, there is very little doubt that there would be scarcely a patron in england--irrespective of other aid the church would receive--who would not dedicate his compensation to the spiritual wants of his neighbors. it was computed some years ago that the property of the church in this manner, if the union was terminated, would not be less than between , , and , , pounds, and since that period the amount of private property dedicated to the purposes of the church has very largely increased. i therefore trust that when the occasion offers for the country to speak out it will speak out in an unmistakable manner on this subject; and recognizing the inestimable services of the church, that it will call upon the government to maintain its union with the state. upon this subject there is one remark i would make. nothing is more surprising to me than the plea on which the present outcry is made against the church of england. i could not believe that in the nineteenth century the charge against the church of england should be that churchmen, and especially the clergy, had educated the people. if i were to fix upon one circumstance more than another which redounded to the honor of churchmen, it is that they should fulfill this noble office; and, next to being "the stewards of divine mysteries," i think the greatest distinction of the clergy is the admirable manner in which they have devoted their lives and their fortunes to this greatest of national objects. gentlemen, you are well acquainted in this city with this controversy. it was in this city--i don't know whether it was not in this hall--that that remarkable meeting was held of the nonconformists to effect important alterations in the education act, and you are acquainted with the discussion in parliament which arose in consequence of that meeting. gentlemen, i have due and great respect for the nonconformist body. i acknowledge their services to their country, and though i believe that the political reasons which mainly called them into existence have entirely ceased, it is impossible not to treat with consideration a body which has been eminent for its conscience, its learning, and its patriotism; but i must express my mortification that, from a feeling of envy or of pique, the nonconformist body, rather than assist the church in its great enterprise, should absolutely have become the partisans of a merely secular education. i believe myself, gentlemen, that without the recognition of a superintending providence in the affairs of this world all national education will be disastrous, and i feel confident that it is impossible to stop at that mere recognition. religious education is demanded by the nation generally and by the instincts of human nature. i should like to see the church and the nonconformists work together; but i trust, whatever may be the result, the country will stand by the church in its efforts to maintain the religious education of the people. gentlemen, i foresee yet trials for the church of england; but i am confident in its future. i am confident in its future because i believe there is now a very general feeling that to be national it must be comprehensive. i will not use the word "broad," because it is an epithet applied to a system with which i have no sympathy. but i would wish churchmen, and especially the clergy, always to remember that in our "father's home there are many mansions," and i believe that comprehensive spirit is perfectly consistent with the maintenance of formularies and the belief in dogmas without which i hold no practical religion can exist. gentlemen, i have now endeavored to express to you my general views upon the most important subjects that can interest englishmen. they are subjects upon which, in my mind, a man should speak with frankness and clearness to his countrymen, and although i do not come down here to make a party speech, i am bound to say that the manner in which those subjects are treated by the leading subject of this realm is to me most unsatisfactory. although the prime minister of england is always writing letters and making speeches, and particularly on these topics, he seems to me ever to send forth an "uncertain sound." if a member of parliament announces himself a republican, mr. gladstone takes the earliest opportunity of describing him as a "fellow-worker" in public life. if an inconsiderate multitude calls for the abolition or reform of the house of lords, mr. gladstone says that it is no easy task, and that he must think once or twice, or perhaps even thrice, before he can undertake it. if your neighbor, the member for bradford, mr. miall, brings forward a motion in the house of commons for the severance of church and state, mr. gladstone assures mr. miall with the utmost courtesy that he believes the opinion of the house of commons is against him, but that if mr. miall wishes to influence the house of commons he must address the people out of doors; whereupon mr. miall immediately calls a public meeting, and alleges as its cause the advice he has just received from the prime minister. but, gentlemen, after all, the test of political institutions is the condition of the country whose fortunes they regulate; and i do not mean to evade that test. you are the inhabitants of an island of no colossal size; which, geographically speaking, was intended by nature as the appendage of some continental empire--either of gauls and franks on the other side of the channel or of teutons and scandinavians beyond the german sea. such indeed, and for a long period, was your early history. you were invaded; you were pillaged and you were conquered; yet amid all these disgraces and vicissitudes there was gradually formed that english race which has brought about a very different state of affairs. instead of being invaded, your land is proverbially the only "inviolate land"--"the inviolate land of the sage and free." instead of being plundered, you have attracted to your shores all the capital of the world. instead of being conquered, your flag floats on many waters, and your standard waves in either zone. it may be said that these achievements are due to the race that inhabited the land, and not to its institutions. gentlemen, in political institutions are the embodied experiences of a race. you have established a society of classes which give vigor and variety to life. but no class possesses a single exclusive privilege, and all are equal before the law. you possess a real aristocracy, open to all who desire to enter it. you have not merely a middle class, but a hierarchy of middle classes, in which every degree of wealth, refinement, industry, energy, and enterprise is duly represented. and now, gentlemen, what is the condition of the great body of the people? in the first place, gentlemen, they have for centuries been in the full enjoyment of that which no other country in europe has ever completely attained--complete rights of personal freedom. in the second place, there has been a gradual, and therefore a wise, distribution on a large scale of political rights. speaking with reference to the industries of this great part of the country, i can personally contrast it with the condition of the working classes forty years ago. in that period they have attained two results-- the raising of their wages and the diminution of their toil. increased means and increased leisure are the two civilizers of man. that the working classes of lancashire and yorkshire have proved not unworthy of these boons may be easily maintained; but their progress and elevation have been during this interval wonderfully aided and assisted by three causes, which are not so distinctively attributable to their own energies. the first is the revolution in locomotion, which has opened the world to the working man, which has enlarged the horizon of his experience, increased his knowledge of nature and of art, and added immensely to the salutary recreation, amusement, and pleasure of his existence. the second cause is the cheap postage, the moral benefits of which cannot be exaggerated. and the third is that unshackled press which has furnished him with endless sources of instruction, information, and amusement. gentlemen, if you would permit me, i would now make an observation upon another class of the laboring population. this is not a civic assembly, although we meet in a city. that was for convenience, but the invitation which i received was to meet the county and all the boroughs of lancashire; and i wish to make a few observations upon the condition of the agricultural laborer. that is a subject which now greatly attracts public attention. and, in the first place, to prevent any misconception, i beg to express my opinion that an agricultural laborer has as much right to combine for the bettering of his condition as a manufacturing laborer or a worker in metals. if the causes of his combination are natural--that is to say, if they arise from his own feelings and from the necessities of his own condition--the combination will end in results mutually beneficial to employers and employed. if, on the other hand, it is factitious and he is acted upon by extraneous influences and extraneous ideas, the combination will produce, i fear, much loss and misery both to employers and employed; and after a time he will find himself in a similar, or in a worse, position. gentlemen, in my opinion, the farmers of england cannot, as a body, afford to pay higher wages than they do, and those who will answer me by saying that they must find their ability by the reduction of rents are, i think, involving themselves with economic laws which may prove too difficult for them to cope with. the profits of a fanner are very moderate. the interest upon capital invested in land is the smallest that any property furnishes. the farmer will have his profits and the investor in land will have his interest, even though they may be obtained at the cost of changing the mode of the cultivation of the country. gentlemen, i should deeply regret to see the tillage of this country reduced, and a recurrence to pasture take place. i should regret it principally on account of the agricultural laborers themselves. their new friends call them hodge, and describe them as a stolid race. i must say that, from my experience of them, they are sufficiently shrewd and open to reason. i would say to them with confidence, as the great athenian said to the spartan who rudely assailed him: "strike, but hear me." first, a change in the cultivation of the soil of this country would be very injurious to the laboring class; and second, i am of opinion that that class instead of being stationary has made if not as much progress as the manufacturing class, very considerable progress during the last forty years. many persons write and speak about the agricultural laborer with not so perfect a knowledge of his condition as is desirable. they treat him always as a human being who in every part of the country finds himself in an identical condition. now, on the contrary, there is no class of laborers in which there is greater variety of condition than that of the agricultural laborers. it changes from north to south, from east to west, and from county to county. it changes even in the same county, where there is an alteration of soil and of configuration. the hind in northumberland is in a very different condition from the famous dorsetshire laborer; the tiller of the soil in lincolnshire is different from his fellow-agriculturalist in sussex. what the effect of manufactures is upon the agricultural districts in their neighborhood it would be presumption in me to dwell upon; your own experience must tell you whether the agricultural laborer in north lancashire, for example, has had no rise in wages and no diminution in toil. take the case of the dorsetshire laborer--the whole of the agricultural laborers on the southwestern coast of england for a very long period worked only half the time of the laborers in other parts of england, and received only half the wages. in the experience of many, i dare say, who are here present, even thirty years ago a dorsetshire laborer never worked after three o'clock in the day; and why? because the whole of that part of england was demoralized by smuggling. no one worked after three o'clock in the day, for a very good reason--because he had to work at night. no farmer allowed his team to be employed after three o'clock, because he reserved his horses to take his illicit cargo at night and carry it rapidly into the interior. therefore, as the men were employed and remunerated otherwise, they got into a habit of half work and half play so far as the land was concerned, and when smuggling was abolished--and it has only been abolished for thirty years-- these imperfect habits of labor continued, and do even now continue to a great extent. that is the origin of the condition of the agricultural laborer in the southwestern part of england. but now gentlemen, i want to test the condition of the agricultural laborer generally; and i will take a part of england with which i am familiar, and can speak as to the accuracy of the facts--i mean the group described as the south-midland counties. the conditions of labor there are the same, or pretty nearly the same, throughout. the group may be described as a strictly agricultural community, and they embrace a population of probably a million and a half. now, i have no hesitation in saying that the improvement in their lot during the last forty years has been progressive and is remarkable. i attribute it to three causes. in the first place, the rise in their money wages is no less than fifteen per cent. the second great cause of their improvement is the almost total disappearance of excessive and exhausting toil, from the general introduction of machinery. i don't know whether i could get a couple of men who could or, if they could, would thresh a load of wheat in my neighborhood. the third great cause which has improved their condition is the very general, not to say universal, institution of allotment grounds. now, gentlemen, when i find that this has been the course of affairs in our very considerable and strictly agricultural portion of the country, where there have been no exceptional circumstances, like smuggling, to degrade and demoralize the race, i cannot resist the conviction that the condition of the agricultural laborers, instead of being stationary, as we are constantly told by those not acquainted with them, has been one of progressive improvement, and that in those counties--and they are many--where the stimulating influence of a manufacturing neighborhood acts upon the land, the general conclusion at which i arrive is that the agricultural laborer has had his share in the advance of national prosperity. gentlemen, i am not here to maintain that there is nothing to be done to increase the well-being of the working classes of this country, generally speaking. there is not a single class in the country which is not susceptible of improvement; and that makes the life and animation of our society. but in all we do we must remember, as my noble friend told them at liverpool, that much depends upon the working classes themselves; and what i know of the working classes in lancashire makes me sure that they will respond to this appeal. much, also, may be expected from that sympathy between classes which is a distinctive feature of the present day; and, in the last place, no inconsiderable results may be obtained by judicious and prudent legislation. but, gentlemen, in attempting to legislate upon social matters, the great object is to be practical--to have before us some distinct aims and some distinct means by which they can be accomplished. gentlemen, i think public attention as regards these matters ought to be concentrated upon sanitary legislation. that is a wide subject, and, if properly treated, comprises almost every consideration which has a just claim upon legislative interference. pure air, pure water, the inspection of unhealthy habitations, the adulteration of food,--these and many kindred matters may be legitimately dealt with by the legislature; and i am bound to say the legislature is not idle upon them; for we have at this time two important measures before parliament on the subject. one--by a late colleague of mine, sir charles adderley--is a large and comprehensive measure, founded upon a sure basis, for it consolidates all existing public acts, and improves them. a prejudice has been raised against that proposal, by stating that it interferes with the private acts of the great towns. i take this opportunity of contradicting that. the bill of sir charles adderley does not touch the acts of the great towns. it only allows them, if they think fit, to avail themselves of its new provisions. the other measure by the government is of a partial character. what it comprises is good, so far as it goes, but it shrinks from that bold consolidation of existing acts which i think one of the great merits of sir charles adderley's bill, which permits us to become acquainted with how much may be done in favor of sanitary improvement by existing provisions. gentlemen, i cannot impress upon you too strongly my conviction of the importance of the legislature and society uniting together in favor of these important results. a great scholar and a great wit, three hundred years ago, said that, in his opinion, there was a great mistake in the vulgate, which, as you all know, is the latin translation of the holy scriptures, and that, instead of saying "vanity of vanities, all is vanity"--_vanitas_ _vanitatum_, _omnia_ _vanitas_--the wise and witty king really said:"_sanitas_ _sanitatum_, _omnia_ _sanitas_." gentlemen, it is impossible to overrate the importance of the subject. after all the first consideration of a minister should be the health of the people. a land may be covered with historic trophies, with museums of science and galleries of art, with universities and with libraries; the people may be civilized and ingenious; the country may be even famous in the annals and action of the world, but, gentlemen, if the population every ten years decreases, and the stature of the race every ten years diminishes, the history of that country will soon be the history of the past. gentlemen, i said i had not come here to make a party speech. i have addressed you upon subjects of grave, and i will venture to believe of general, interest; but to be here and altogether silent upon the present state of public affairs would not be respectful to you, and, perhaps, on the whole, would be thought incongruous. gentlemen, i cannot pretend that our position either at home or abroad is in my opinion satisfactory. at home, at a period of immense prosperity, with a people contented and naturally loyal, we find to our surprise the most extravagant doctrines professed and the fundamental principles of our most valuable institutions impugned, and that, too, by persons of some authority. gentlemen, this startling inconsistency is accounted for, in my mind, by the circumstances under which the present administration was formed. it is the first instance in my knowledge of a british administration being avowedly formed on a principle of violence. it is unnecessary for me to remind you of the circumstances which preceded the formation of that government. you were the principal scene and theatre of the development of statesmanship that then occurred. you witnessed the incubation of the portentous birth. you remember when you were informed that the policy to secure the prosperity of ireland and the content of irishmen was a policy of sacrilege and confiscation. gentlemen, when ireland was placed under the wise and able administration of lord abercorn, ireland was prosperous, and i may say content. but there happened at that time a very peculiar conjuncture in politics. the civil war in america had just ceased; and a band of military adventurers--poles, italians, and many irishmen--concocted in new york a conspiracy to invade ireland, with the belief that the whole country would rise to welcome them. how that conspiracy was baffled--how those plots were confounded, i need not now remind you. for that we were mainly indebted to the eminent qualities of a great man who has just left us. you remember how the constituencies were appealed to to vote against the government which had made so unfit an appointment as that of lord mayo to the vice-royalty of india. it was by his great qualities when secretary for ireland, by his vigilance, his courage, his patience, and his perseverance that this conspiracy was defeated. never was a minister better informed. he knew what was going on at new york just as well as what was going on in the city of dublin. when the fenian conspiracy had been entirely put down, it became necessary to consider the policy which it was expedient to pursue in ireland; and it seemed to us at that time that what ireland required after all the excitement which it had experienced was a policy which should largely develop its material resources. there were one or two subjects of a different character, which, for the advantage of the state, it would have been desirable to have settled, if that could have been effected with a general concurrence of both the great parties in that country. had we remained in office, that would have been done. but we were destined to quit it, and we quitted it without a murmur. the policy of our successors was different. their specific was to despoil churches and plunder landlords, and what has been the result? sedition rampant, treason thinly veiled, and whenever a vacancy occurs in the representation a candidate is returned pledged to the disruption of the realm. her majesty's new ministers proceeded in their career like a body of men under the influence of some delirious drug. not satiated with the spoliation and anarchy of ireland, they began to attack every institution and every interest, every class and calling in the country. it is curious to observe their course. they took into hand the army. what have they done? i will not comment on what they have done. i will historically state it, and leave you to draw the inference. so long as constitutional england has existed there has been a jealousy among all classes against the existence of a standing army. as our empire expanded, and the existence of a large body of disciplined troops became a necessity, every precaution was taken to prevent the danger to our liberties which a standing army involved. it was a first principle not to concentrate in the island any overwhelming number of troops, and a considerable portion was distributed in the colonies. care was taken that the troops generally should be officered by a class of men deeply interested in the property and the liberties of england. so extreme was the jealousy that the relations between that once constitutional force, the militia, and the sovereign were rigidly guarded, and it was carefully placed under local influences. all this is changed. we have a standing army of large amount, quartered and brigaded and encamped permanently in england, and fed by a considerable and constantly increasing reserve. it will in due time be officered by a class of men eminently scientific, but with no relations necessarily with society; while the militia is withdrawn from all local influences, and placed under the immediate command of the secretary of war. thus, in the nineteenth century, we have a large standing army established in england, contrary to all the traditions of the land, and that by a liberal government, and with the warm acclamations of the liberal party. let us look what they have done with the admiralty. you remember, in this country especially, the denunciations of the profligate expenditure of the conservative government, and you have since had an opportunity of comparing it with the gentler burden of liberal estimates. the navy was not merely an instance of profligate expenditure, but of incompetent and inadequate management. a great revolution was promised in its administration. a gentleman [mr. childers], almost unknown to english politics, was strangely preferred to one of the highest places in the councils of her majesty. he set to at his task with ruthless activity. the consulative council, under which nelson had gained all his victories, was dissolved. the secretaryship of the admiralty, an office which exercised a complete supervision over every division of that great department,--an office which was to the admiralty what the secretary of state is to the kingdom,--which, in the qualities which it required and the duties which it fulfilled, was rightly a stepping-stone to the cabinet, as in the instances of lord halifax, lord herbert, and many others,--was reduced to absolute insignificance. even the office of control, which of all others required a position of independence, and on which the safety of the navy mainly depended, was deprived of all its important attributes. for two years the opposition called the attention of parliament to these destructive changes, but parliament and the nation were alike insensible. full of other business, they could not give a thought to what they looked upon merely as captious criticism. it requires a great disaster to command the attention of england; and when the captain was lost, and when they had the detail of the perilous voyage of the megara, then public indignation demanded a complete change in this renovating administration of the navy. and what has occurred? it is only a few weeks since that in the house of commons i heard the naval statement made by a new first lord [mr. goschen], and it consisted only of the rescinding of all the revolutionary changes of his predecessor, the mischief of every one of which during the last two years has been pressed upon the attention of parliament and the country by that constitutional and necessary body, the opposition. gentlemen, it will not do for me--considering the time i have already occupied, and there are still some subjects of importance that must be touched--to dwell upon any of the other similar topics, of which there is a rich abundance. i doubt not there is in this hall more than one farmer who has been alarmed by the suggestion that his agricultural machinery should be taxed. i doubt not there is in this hall more than one publican who remembers that last year an act of parliament was introduced to denounce him as a "sinner." i doubt not there are in this hall a widow and an orphan who remember the profligate proposition to plunder their lonely heritage. but, gentlemen, as time advanced it was not difficult to perceive that extravagance was being substituted for energy by the government. the unnatural stimulus was subsiding. their paroxysms ended in prostration. some took refuge in melancholy, and their eminent chief alternated between a menace and a sigh. as i sat opposite the treasury bench the ministers reminded me of one of those marine landscapes not very unusual on the coast of south america. you behold a range of exhausted volcanoes. not a flame flickers on a single pallid crest. but the situation is still dangerous. there are occasional earthquakes, and ever and anon the dark rumbling of the sea. but, gentlemen, there is one other topic on which i must touch. if the management of our domestic affairs has been founded upon a principle of violence, that certainly cannot be alleged against the management of our external relations. i know the difficulty of addressing a body of englishmen on these topics. the very phrase "foreign affairs" makes an englishman convinced that i am about to treat of subjects with which be has no concern. unhappily the relations of england to the rest of the world, which are "foreign affairs," are the matters which most influence his lot. upon them depends the increase or reduction of taxation. upon them depends the enjoyment or the embarrassment of his industry. and yet, though so momentous are the consequences of the mismanagement of our foreign relations, no one thinks of them till the mischief occurs and then it is found how the most vital consequences have been occasioned by mere inadvertence. i will illustrate this point by two anecdotes. since i have been in public life there has been for this country a great calamity and there is a great danger, and both might have been avoided. the calamity was the crimean war. you know what were the consequences of the crimean war: a great addition to your debt, an enormous addition to your taxation, a cost more precious than your treasure --the best blood of england. half a million of men, i believe, perished in that great undertaking. nor are the evil consequences of that war adequately described by what i have said. all the disorders and disturbances of europe, those immense armaments that are an incubus on national industry and the great obstacle to progressive civilization, may be traced and justly attributed to the crimean war. and yet the crimean war need never have occurred. when lord derby acceded to office, against his own wishes, in , the liberal party most unconstitutionally forced him to dissolve parliament at a certain time by stopping the supplies, or at least by limiting the period for which they were voted. there was not a single reason to justify that course, for lord derby had only accepted office, having once declined it, on the renewed application of his sovereign. the country, at the dissolution, increased the power of the conservative party, but did not give to lord derby a majority, and he had to retire from power. there was not the slightest chance of a crimean war when he retired from office; but the emperor of russia, believing that the successor of lord derby was no enemy to russian aggression in the east, commenced those proceedings, with the result of which you are familiar. i speak of what i know, not of what i believe, but of what i have evidence in my possession to prove--that the crimean war never would have happened if lord derby had remained in office. the great danger is the present state of our relations with the united states. when i acceded to office i did so, so far as regarded the united states of america, with some advantage. during the whole of the civil war in america both my noble friend near me and i had maintained a strict and fair neutrality. this was fully appreciated by the government of the united states, and they expressed their wish that with our aid the settlement of all differences between the two governments should be accomplished. they sent here a plenipotentiary, an honorable gentleman, very intelligent and possessing general confidence. my noble friend near me, with great ability, negotiated a treaty for the settlement of all these claims. he was the first minister who proposed to refer them to arbitration, and the treaty was signed by the american government. it was signed, i think, on november th, on the eve of the dissolution of parliament. the borough elections that first occurred proved what would be the fate of the ministry, and the moment they were known in america the american government announced that mr. reverdy johnson, the american minister, had mistaken his instructions, and they could not present the treaty to the senate for its sanction--the sanction of which there had been previously no doubt. but the fact is that, as in the case of the crimean war, it was supposed that our successors would be favorable to russian aggression, so it was supposed that by the accession to office of mr. gladstone and a gentleman you know well, mr. bright, the american claims would be considered in a very different spirit. how they have been considered is a subject which, no doubt, occupies deeply the minds of the people of lancashire. now, gentlemen, observe this--the question of the black sea involved in the crimean war, the question of the american claims involved in our negotiations with mr. johnson, are the two questions that have again turned up, and have been the two great questions that have been under the management of his government. how have they treated them? prince gortschakoff, thinking he saw an opportunity, announced his determination to break from the treaty of paris, and terminate all the conditions hostile to russia which had been the result of the crimean war. what was the first movement on the part of our government is at present a mystery. this we know, that they selected the most rising diplomatist of the day and sent him to prince bismarck with a declaration that the policy of russia, if persisted in, was war with england. now, gentlemen, there was not the slightest chance of russia going to war with england, and no necessity, as i shall always maintain, of england going to war with russia. i believe i am not wrong in stating that the russian government was prepared to withdraw from the position they had rashly taken; but suddenly her majesty's government, to use a technical phrase, threw over the plenipotentiary, and, instead of threatening war, if the treaty of paris were violated, agreed to arrangements by which the violation of that treaty should be sanctioned by england, and, in the form of a congress, showed themselves guaranteeing their own humiliation. that mr. odo russell made no mistake is quite obvious, because he has since been selected to be her majesty's ambassador at the most important court of europe. gentlemen, what will be the consequence of this extraordinary weakness on the part of the british government it is difficult to foresee. already we hear that sebastopol is to be refortified, nor can any man doubt that the entire command of the black sea will soon be in the possession of russia. the time may not be distant when we may hear of the russian power in the persian gulf, and what effect that may have upon the dominions of england and upon those possessions on the productions of which you every year more and more depend, are questions upon which it will be well for you on proper occasions to meditate. i come now to that question which most deeply interests you at this moment, and that is our relations with the united states. i approved the government referring this question to arbitration. it was only following the policy of lord stanley. my noble friend disapproved the negotiations being carried on at washington. i confess that i would willingly have persuaded myself that this was not a mistake, but reflection has convinced me that my noble friend was right. i remember the successful negotiation of the clayton-bulwer treaty by sir henry bulwer. i flattered myself that treaties at washington might be successfully negotiated; but i agree with my noble friend that his general view was far more sound than my own. but no one, when that commission was sent forth, for a moment could anticipate the course of its conduct under the strict injunctions of the government. we believed that commission was sent to ascertain what points should be submitted to arbitration, to be decided by the principles of the law of nations. we had not the slightest idea that that commission was sent with power and instructions to alter the law of nations itself. when that result was announced, we expressed our entire disapprobation; and yet trusting to the representations of the government that matters were concluded satisfactorily, we had to decide whether it were wise, if the great result was obtained, to wrangle upon points however important, such as those to which i have referred. gentlemen, it appears that, though all parts of england were ready to make those sacrifices, the two negotiating states--the government of the united kingdom and the government of the united states--placed a different interpretation upon the treaty when the time had arrived to put its provisions into practice. gentlemen, in my mind, and in the opinion of my noble friend near me, there was but one course to take under the circumstances, painful as it might be, and that was at once to appeal to the good feeling and good sense of the united states, and, stating the difficulty, to invite confidential conference whether it might not be removed. but her majesty's government took a different course. on december th her majesty's government were aware of a contrary interpretation being placed on the treaty of washington by the american government. the prime minister received a copy of their counter case, and he confessed he had never read it. he had a considerable number of copies sent to him to distribute among his colleagues, and you remember, probably, the remarkable statement in which he informed the house that he had distributed those copies to everybody except those for whom they were intended. time went on, and the adverse interpretation of the american government oozed out, and was noticed by the press. public alarm and public indignation were excited; and it was only seven weeks afterward, on the very eve of the meeting of parliament,--some twenty-four hours before the meeting of parliament,--that her majesty's government felt they were absolutely obliged to make a "friendly communication" to the united states that they had arrived at an interpretation of the treaty the reverse of that of the american government. what was the position of the american government? seven weeks had passed without their having received the slightest intimation from her majesty's ministers. they had circulated their case throughout the world. they had translated it into every european language. it had been sent to every court and cabinet, to every sovereign and prime minister. it was impossible for the american government to recede from their position, even if they had believed it to be an erroneous one. and then, to aggravate the difficulty, the prime minister goes down to parliament, declares that there is only one interpretation to be placed on the treaty, and defies and attacks everybody who believes it susceptible of another. was there ever such a combination of negligence and blundering? and now, gentlemen, what is about to happen? all we know is that her majesty's ministers are doing everything in their power to evade the cognizance and criticism of parliament. they have received an answer to their "friendly communication"; of which, i believe, it has been ascertained that the american government adhere to their interpretation; and yet they prolong the controversy. what is about to occur it is unnecessary for one to predict; but if it be this-- if after a fruitless ratiocination worthy of a schoolman, we ultimately agree so far to the interpretation of the american government as to submit the whole case to arbitration, with feeble reservation of a protest, if it be decided against us, i venture to say that we shall be entering on a course not more distinguished by its feebleness than by its impending peril. there is before us every prospect of the same incompetence that distinguished our negotiations respecting the independence of the black sea; and i fear that there is every chance that this incompetence will be sealed by our ultimately acknowledging these direct claims of the united states, which, both as regards principle and practical results, are fraught with the utmost danger to this country. gentlemen, don't suppose, because i counsel firmness and decision at the right moment, that i am of that school of statesmen who are favorable to a turbulent and aggressive diplomacy. i have resisted it during a great part of my life. i am not unaware that the relations of england to europe have undergone a vast change during the century that has just elapsed. the relations of england to europe are not the same as they were in the days of lord chatham or frederick the great. the queen of england has become the sovereign of the most powerful of oriental states. on the other side of the globe there are now establishments belonging to her, teeming with wealth and population, which will, in due time, exercise their influence over the distribution of power. the old establishments of this country, now the united states of america, throw their lengthening shades over the atlantic, which mix with european waters. these are vast and novel elements in the distribution of power. i acknowledge that the policy of england with respect to europe should be policy of reserve, but proud reserve; and in answer to those statesmen--those mistaken statesmen who have intimated the decay of the power of england and the decline of its resources, i express here my confident conviction that there never was a moment in our history when the power of england was so great and her resources so vast and inexhaustible. and yet, gentlemen, it is not merely our fleets and armies, our powerful artillery, our accumulated capital, and our unlimited credit on which i so much depend, as upon that unbroken spirit of her people, which i believe was never prouder of the imperial country to which they belong. gentlemen, it is to that spirit that i above all things trust. i look upon the people of lancashire as fairly representative of the people of england. i think the manner in which they have invited me here, locally a stranger, to receive the expression of their cordial sympathy, and only because they recognize some effort on my part to maintain the greatness of their country, is evidence of the spirit of the land. i must express to you again my deep sense of the generous manner in which you have welcomed me, and in which you have permitted me to express to you my views upon public affairs. proud of your confidence, and encouraged by your sympathy, i now deliver to you, as my last words, the cause of the tory party, of the english constitution, and of the british empire. the venerable bede ( - ) the venerable bede, "the father of english literature," was bora about in the county of durham. the anglo-saxons, whose earliest historian he was, had been converted by st. austin and others by the then not unusual process of preaching to the king until he was persuaded to renounce heathenism both for himself and his subjects. bede, though born among a people not greatly addicted either to religion or letters, became a remarkable preacher, scholar, and thinker. professionally a preacher, his sermons are interesting, chiefly because they are the earliest specimens of oratory extant from any anglo-saxon public speaker. best known as the author of the 'ecclesiastical history of england,' bede was a most prolific writer. he left a very considerable collection of sermons or homilies, many of which are still extant. he also wrote on science, on poetic art, on medicine, philosophy, and rhetoric, not to mention his hymns and his 'book of epigrams in heroic and elegaic verse'--all very interesting and some of them valuable, as any one may see who will take the trouble to read them in his simple and easily understood latin. it is a pity, however, that they are not adequately translated and published in a shape which would make the father of english eloquence the first english rhetorician, as he was the first english philosopher, poet, and historian, more readily accessible to the general public. bede's sermons deal very largely in allegory, and though he may have been literal in his celebrated suggestions of the horrors of hell-- which were certainly literally understood by his hearers--it is pertinent to quote in connection with them his own assertion, that "he who knows how to interpret allegorically will see that the inner sense excels the simplicity of the letter as apples do leaves." bede's reputation spread not only through england but throughout western europe and to rome. attempts were made to thrust honors on him, but he refused them for fear they would prevent him from learning. he taught in a monastery at jarrow where at one time he had six hundred monks and many strangers attending on his discourses. he died in , just as he had completed the first translation of the gospel of john ever made into any english dialect. the present anglo-saxon version, generally in use among english students, is supposed to include that version if not actually to present its exact language. the king james version comes from bede's in a direct line of descent through wycliff and tyndale. the meeting of mercy and justice there was a certain father of a family, a powerful king, who had four daughters, of whom one was called mercy, the second truth, the third justice, the fourth peace; of whom it is said, "mercy and truth are met together; justice and peace have kissed each other." he had also a certain most wise son, to whom no one could be compared in wisdom. he had, also, a certain servant, whom he had exalted and enriched with great honor: for he had made him after his own likeness and similitude, and that without any preceding merit on the servant's part. but the lord, as is the custom with such wise masters, wished prudently to explore, and to become acquainted with, the character and the faith of his servant, whether he were trustworthy towards himself or not; so he gave him an easy commandment, and said, "if you do what i tell you, i will exalt you to further honors; if not, you shall perish miserably." the servant heard the commandment, and without any delay went and broke it. why need i say more? why need i delay you by my words and by my tears? this proud servant, stiff-necked, full of contumely, and puffed up with conceit, sought an excuse for his transgression, and retorted the whole fault on his lord. for when he said, "the woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she deceived me," he threw all the fault on his maker. his lord, more angry for such contumelious conduct than for the transgression of his command, called four most cruel executioners, and commanded one of them to cast him into prison, another to afflict him with grievous torments; the third to strangle him, and the fourth to behead him. by and by, when occasion offers, i will give you the right name of these tormentors. these torturers, then, studying how they might carry out their own cruelty, took the wretched man and began to afflict him with all manner of punishments. but one of the daughters of the king, by name mercy, when she had heard of this punishment of the servant, ran hastily to the prison, and looking in and seeing the man given over to the tormentors, could not help having compassion upon him, for it is the property of mercy to have pity. she tore her garments and struck her hands together, and let her hair fall loose about her neck, and crying and shrieking, ran to her father, and kneeling before his feet began to say with an earnest and sorrowful voice: "my beloved father, am not i thy daughter mercy? and art not thou called merciful? if thou art merciful, have mercy upon thy servant; and if thou wilt not have mercy upon him, thou canst not be called merciful; and if thou art not merciful, thou canst not have me, mercy, for thy daughter." while she was thus arguing with her father, her sister truth came up, and demanded why it was that mercy was weeping. "your sister mercy," replied the father, "wishes me to have pity upon that proud transgressor whose punishment i have appointed." truth, when she heard this, was excessively angry, and looking sternly at her father, "am not i," said she, "thy daughter truth? art not thou called true? is it not true that thou didst fix a punishment for him, and threaten him with death by torments? if thou art true, thou wilt follow that which is true; if thou art not true, thou canst not have me, truth, for thy daughter." here, you see, mercy and truth are met together. the third sister, namely, justice, hearing this strife, contention, quarreling, and pleading, and summoned by the outcry, began to inquire the cause from truth. and truth, who could only speak that which was true, said, "this sister of ours, mercy, if she ought to be called a sister who does not agree with us, desires that our father should have pity on that proud transgressor." then justice, with an angry countenance, and meditating on a grief which she had not expected, said to her father, "am not i thy daughter justice? are thou not called just? if thou art just, thou wilt exercise justice on the transgressor; if thou dost not exercise that justice, thou canst not be just; if thou art not just, thou canst not have me, justice, for thy daughter." so here were truth and justice on the one side, and mercy on the other. _ultima_ _coelicolum_ _terras_ _astrea_ _reliquit_; this means, that peace fled into a far distant country. for where there is strife and contention, there is no peace; and by how much greater the contention, by so much further peace is driven away. peace, therefore, being lost, and his three daughters in warm discussion, the king found it an extremely difficult matter to determine what he should do, or to which side he should lean. for, if he gave ear to mercy, he would offend truth and justice if he gave ear to truth and justice, he could not have mercy for his daughter; and yet it was necessary that he should be both merciful and just, and peaceful and true. there was great need then of good advice. the father, therefore, called his wise son, and consulted him about the affair. said the son, "give me my father, this present business to manage, and i will both punish the transgressor for thee, and will bring back to thee in peace thy four daughters." "these are great promises," replied the father, "if the deed only agrees with the word. if thou canst do that which thou sayest, i will act as thou shalt exhort me." having, therefore, received the royal mandate, the son took his sister mercy along with him, and leaping upon the mountains, passing over the hills, came to the prison, and looking through the windows, looking through the lattice, he beheld the imprisoned servant, shut out from the present life, devoured of affliction, and from the sole of his foot even to the crown there was no soundness in him. he saw him in the power of death, because through him death entered into the world. he saw him devoured, because, when a man is once dead he is eaten of worms. and because i now have the opportunity of telling you, you shall hear the names of the four tormentors. the first, who put him in prison, is the prison of the present life, of which it is said, "woe is me that i am constrained to dwell in mesech"; the second, who tormented him, is the misery of the world, which besets us with all kinds of pain and wretchedness; the third, who was putting him to death, conquered death, bound the strong man, took his goods, and distributed the spoils; and ascending up on high, led captivity captive and gave gifts for men, and brought back the servant into his country, crowned with double honor, and endued with a garment of immortality. when mercy beheld this, she had no grounds for complaint, truth found no cause of discontent, because her father was found true. the servant had paid all his penalties. justice in like manner complained not, because justice had been executed on the transgressor; and thus he who had been lost was found. peace, therefore, when she saw her sisters at concord, came back and united them. and now, behold, mercy and truth are met together, justice and peace have kissed each other. thus, therefore, by the mediator of man and angels, man was purified and reconciled, and the hundredth sheep was brought back to the fold of god. to which fold jesus christ brings us, to whom is honor and power everlasting. amen. a sermon for any day beloved brethren, it is time to pass from evil to good, from darkness to light, from this most unfaithful world to everlasting joys, lest that day take us unawares in which our lord jesus christ shall come to make the round world a desert, and to give over to everlasting punishment sinners who would not repent of the sins which they did. there is a great sin in lying, as saith solomon, "the lips which lie slay the soul. the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of god," no more doth his covetousness. whence the apostle saith, "the love of money and pride are the root of all evil." pride, by which that apostate angel fell, who, as it is read in the prophecy, "despised the beginning of the ways of god. how art thou fallen from heaven!" we must avoid pride, which had power to deceive angels; how much more will it have power to deceive men! and we ought to fear envy, by which the devil deceived the first man, as it is written, "christ was crucified through envy, therefore he that envieth his neighbor crucifieth christ," see that ye always expect the advent of the judge with fear and trembling, lest he should find us unprepared; because the apostle saith, "my days shall come as a thief in the night." woe to them whom it shall find sleeping in sins, for "then," as we read in the gospel, "he shall gather all nations, and shall separate them one from the other, as a shepherd divideth the sheep from the goats. then shall the king say unto them on his right hand, come, ye blessed of my father," where there is no grief nor sorrow; where there is no other sound but love, and peace, and everlasting gladness with all the elect of god; where no good thing can be wanting. then shall the righteous answer and say, lord, why hast thou prepared such glory and such good things? he shall answer, for mercy, for faith, for piety, and truth and the like. lord, when didst thou see these good things in us? the lord shall answer, "verily, i say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto me, and what ye did in secret, i will reward openly." then shall the king say unto them on his left hand, "depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels, where shall be weepjng and gnashing of teeth," and tears of eyes; where death is desired and comes not; where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched; where is no joy, but sorrow; where is no rest, except pain; where nothing is heard but lamentations. then they also shall answer and say, lord, why hast thou prepared such punishments for us? for your iniquity and malignity, the lord shall say. therefore, my brethren, i beseech you, that they who are in the habits of good works would persevere in every good work; and that they who are evil would amend themselves quickly, before sudden death come upon them. while, therefore, we have time, let us do good to all men, and let us leave off doing ill, that we may attain to eternal life. the torments of hell the sunday is a chosen day, in which the angels rejoice. we must ask who was the first to request that souls might (on sunday) have rest in hell; and the answer is that paul the apostle and michael the archangel besought the lord when they came back from hell; for it was the lord's will that paul should see the punishments of that place. he beheld trees all on fire, and sinners tormented on those trees; and some were hung by the feet, some by the hands, some by the hair, some by the neck, some by the tongue, and some by the arm. and again, he saw a furnace of fire burning with seven flames, and many were punished in it; and there were seven plagues round about this furnace; the first, snow; the second, ice; the third, fire, the fourth, blood; the fifth, serpents; the sixth, lightning; the seventh, stench; and in that furnace itself were the souls of the sinners who repented not in this life. there they are tormented, and every one receiveth according to his works; some weep, some howl, some groan; some burn and desire to have rest, but find it not, because souls can never die. truly we ought to fear that place in which is everlasting dolor, in which is groaning, in which is sadness without joy, in which are abundance of tears on account of the tortures of souls; in which a fiery wheel is turned a thousand times a day by an evil angel, and at each turn a thousand souls are burnt upon it. after this he beheld a horrible river, in which were many diabolic beasts, like fishes in the midst of the sea, which devour the souls of sinners; and over that river there is a bridge, across which righteous souls pass without dread, while the souls of sinners suffer each one according to its merits. there paul beheld many souls of sinners plunged, some to the knees, some to the loins, some to the mouth, some to the eyebrows; and every day and eternally they are tormented. and paul wept, and asked who they were that were therein plunged to the knees. and the angel said, these are detractors and evil speakers; and those up to the loins are fornicators and adulterers, who returned not to repentance; and those to the mouth are they who went to church, but they heard not the word of god; and those to the eyebrows are they who rejoiced in the wickedness of their neighbor. and after this, he saw between heaven and earth the soul of a sinner, howling betwixt seven devils, that had on that day departed from the body. and the angels cried out against it and said, woe to thee, wretched soul! what hast thou done upon earth? thou hast despised the commandments of god, and hast done no good works; and therefore thou shalt be cast into outer darkness, where shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. and after this, in one moment, angels carried a soul from its body to heaven; and paul heard the voice of a thousand angels rejoicing over it, and saying, o most happy and blessed soul! rejoice to-day, because thou hast done the will of god. and they set it in the presence of god. ... and the angel said, whoso keepeth the sunday shall have his part with the angels of god. and paul demanded of the angel, how many kinds of punishment there were in hell. and the angel said, there are a hundred and forty-four thousand, and if there were a hundred eloquent men, each having four iron tongues, that spoke from the beginning of the world, they could not reckon up the torments of hell. but let us, beloved brethren, hearing of these so great torments, be converted to our lord that we may be able to reign with the angels. henry ward beecher ( - ) a very great orator must be a thoroughly representative man, sensitive enough to be moved to the depths of his nature by the master-passions of his time. henry ward beecher was a very great orator,--one of the greatest the country has produced,--and in his speeches and orations inspired by the feelings which evolved the civil war and were themselves exaggerated by it to tenfold strength, we feel all the volcanic forces which buried the primitive political conditions of the united states deep under the ashes and lava of their eruption. words are feeble in the presence of the facts of such a war. but what more could words do to suggest its meaning than they do in mr. beecher's oration on the raising of the flag at fort sumter, april th, :-- "the soil has drunk blood and is glutted. millions mourn for myriads slain, or, envying the dead, pray for oblivion. towns and villages have been razed. fruitful fields have been turned back to wilderness. it came to pass as the prophet had said: 'the sun was turned to darkness and the moon to blood.' the course of the law was ended. the sword sat chief magistrate in half the nation; industry was paralyzed; morals corrupted; the public weal invaded by rapine and anarchy; whole states were ravaged by avenging armies. the world was amazed. the earth reeled." in such passages, mr. beecher has something of the force which immortalized the "voluspa." the "bardic inspiration," which moved the early norse poets to sing the bloody results of the "berserker fury," peculiar to the teutonic and norse peoples, seems to control him as he recounts the dreadful features of the war and reminds the vanquished of the meaning of defeat. in considering the oratory inspired by the passions which found their climax in the destructiveness of civil war,--and especially in considering such magnificent outbursts as mr. beecher's oration at fort sumter, intelligence will seek to free itself alike from sympathy and from prejudice that it may the better judge the effect of the general mind of the people on the orator, and the extent to which that general mind as he voiced it, was influenced by the strength of his individuality. if when we ourselves are moved by no passion we judge with critical calmness the impassioned utterances of the orators of any great epoch of disturbance, we can hardly fail to be repelled by much that the critical faculties will reject as exaggeration. but taking into account the environment, the traditions, the public opinion, the various general or individual impulses which influenced the oratory of one side or the other, we can the better determine its true relation to the history of the human intellect and that forward movement of the world which is but a manifestation of the education of intellect. mr. beecher had the temperament, the habits, the physique of the orator. his ancestry, his intellectual training, his surroundings, fitted him to be a prophet of the crusade against slavery. of those names which for a time were bruited everywhere as a result of the struggles of the three decades from to , a majority are already becoming obscure, and in another generation most of the rest will be "names only" to all who are not students of history as a specialty. but the mind in henry ward beecher was so representative; he was so fully mastered by the forces which sent sherman on his march to the sea and grant to his triumph at appomattox, that he will always be remembered as one of the greatest orators of the civil war period. perhaps when the events of the war are so far removed in point of time as to make a critical judgment really possible, he may even rank as the greatest. raising the flag over fort sumter (delivered april th, , by request of president lincoln) on this solemn and joyful day we again lift to the breeze our fathers' flag, now again the banner of the united states, with the fervent prayer that god will crown it with honor, protect it from treason, and send it down to our children, with all the blessings of civilization, liberty, and religion. terrible in battle, may it be beneficent in peace. happily, no bird or beast of prey has been inscribed upon it. the stars that redeem the night from darkness, and the beams of red light that beautify the morning, have been united upon its folds. as long as the sun endures, or the stars, may it wave over a nation neither enslaved nor enslaving! once, and but once, has treason dishonored it. in that insane hour when the guiltiest and bloodiest rebellion of all time hurled their fires upon this fort, you, sir [turning to general anderson], and a small, heroic band, stood within these now crumbled walls, and did gallant and just battle for the honor and defense of the nation's banner. in that cope of fire, that glorious flag still peacefully waved to the breeze above your head unconscious of harm as the stars and skies above it. once it was shot down. a gallant hand, in whose care this day it has been, plucked it from the ground, and reared it again--"cast down, but not destroyed." after a vain resistance, with trembling hand and sad heart, you withdrew it from its height, closed its wings, and bore it far away, sternly to sleep amid the tumults of rebellion, and the thunder of battle. the first act of war had begun. the long night of four years had set in. while the giddy traitors whirled in a maze of exhilaration, dim horrors were already advancing, that were ere long to fill the land with blood. to-day you are returned again. we devoutly join with you in thanksgiving to almighty god that he has spared your honored life, and vouchsafed to you the glory of this day. the heavens over you are the same, the same shores are here, morning comes, and evening, as they did. all else, how changed! what grim batteries crowd the burdened shores! what scenes have filled this air, and disturbed these waters! these shattered heaps of shapeless stone are all that is left of fort sumter. desolation broods in yonder city--solemn retribution hath avenged our dishonored banner! you have come back with honor, who departed hence four years ago, leaving the air sultry with fanaticism. the surging crowds that rolled up their frenzied shouts as the flag came down, are dead, or scattered, or silent, and their habitations are desolate. ruin sits in the cradle of treason. rebellion has perished. but there flies the same flag that was insulted. with starry eyes it looks over this bay for the banner that supplanted it, and sees it not. you that then, for the day, were humbled, are here again, to triumph once and forever. in the storm of that assault this glorious ensign was often struck; but, memorable fact, not one of its stars was torn out by shot or shell. it was a prophecy. it said: "not a state shall be struck from this nation by treason!" the fulfillment is at hand. lifted to the air to-day, it proclaims that after four years of war, "not a state is blotted out." hail to the flag of our fathers, and our flag! glory to the banner that has gone through four years black with tempests of war, to pilot the nation back to peace without dismemberment! and glory be to god, who, above all hosts and banners, hath ordained victory, and shall ordain peace. wherefore have we come hither, pilgrims from distant places? are we come to exult that northern hands are stronger than southern? no; but to rejoice that the hands of those who defend a just and beneficent government are mightier than the hands that assaulted it. do we exult over fallen cities? we exult that a nation has not fallen. we sorrow with the sorrowful. we sympathize with the desolate. we look upon this shattered fort and yonder dilapidated city with sad eyes, grieved that men should have committed such treason, and glad that god hath set such a mark upon treason that all ages shall dread and abhor it. we exult, not for a passion gratified, but for a sentiment victorious; not for temper, but for conscience; not, as we devoutly believe, that our will is done, but that god's will hath been done. we should be unworthy of that liberty intrusted to our care, if, on such a day as this, we sullied our hearts by feelings of aimless vengeance; and equally unworthy if we did not devoutly thank him who hath said: "vengeance is mine, i will repay, saith the lord," that he hath set a mark upon arrogant rebellion, ineffaceable while time lasts. since this flag went down on that dark day, who shall tell the mighty woes that have made this land a spectacle to angels and men? the soil has drunk blood and is glutted. millions mourn for myriads slain, or, envying the dead, pray for oblivion. towns and villages have been razed. fruitful fields have been turned back to wilderness. it came to pass, as the prophet said: "the sun was turned to darkness and the moon to blood," the course of law was ended. the sword sat chief magistrate in half the nation; industry was paralyzed; morals corrupted; the public weal invaded by rapine and anarchy; whole states ravaged by avenging armies. the world was amazed. the earth reeled. when the flag sunk here, it was as if political night had come, and all beasts of prey had come forth to devour. that long night is ended. and for this returning day we have come from afar to rejoice and give thanks. no more war. no more accursed secession. no more slavery, that spawned them both. let no man misread the meaning of this unfolding flag! it says: "government has returned hither." it proclaims, in the name of vindicated government, peace and protection to loyalty, humiliation and pains to traitors. this is the flag of sovereignty. the nation, not the states, is sovereign. restored to authority, this flag commands, not supplicates. there may be pardon, but no concession. there may be amnesty and oblivion, but no honeyed compromises. the nation to-day has peace for the peaceful, and war for the turbulent. the only condition to submission is to submit! there is the constitution, there are the laws, there is the government. they rise up like mountains of strength that shall not be moved. they are the conditions of peace. one nation, under one government, without slavery, has been ordained and shall stand. there can be peace on no other basis. on this basis reconstruction is easy, and needs neither architect nor engineer. without this basis no engineer nor architect shall ever reconstruct these rebellious states. we do not want your cities or your fields. we do not envy you your prolific soil, nor heavens full of perpetual summer. let agriculture revel here, let manufactures make every stream twice musical, build fleets in every port, inspire the arts of peace with genius second only to that of athens, and we shall be glad in your gladness, and rich in your wealth. all that we ask is unswerving loyalty and universal liberty. and that, in the name of this high sovereignty of the united states of america, we demand and that, with the blessing of almighty god, we will have! we raise our fathers banner that it may bring back better blessings than those of old; that it may cast out the devil of discord; that it may restore lawful government, and a prosperity purer and more enduring than that which it protected before; that it may win parted friends from their alienation; that it may inspire hope, and inaugurate universal liberty; that it may say to the sword, "return to thy sheath"; and to the plow and sickle, "go forth"; that it may heal all jealousies, unite all policies, inspire a new national life, compact our strength, purify our principles, ennoble our national ambitions, and make this people great and strong, not for agression and quarrelsomeness, but for the peace of the world, giving to us the glorious prerogative of leading all nations to juster laws, to more humane policies, to sincerer friendship, to rational, instituted civil liberty, and to universal christian brotherhood. reverently, piously, in hopeful patriotism, we spread this banner on the sky, as of old the bow was painted on the cloud and, with solemn fervor, beseech god to look upon it, and make it a memorial of an everlasting covenant and decree that never again on this fair land shall a deluge of blood prevail. why need any eye turn from this spectacle? are there not associations which, overleaping the recent past, carry us back to times when, over north and south, this flag was honored alike by all? in all our colonial days we were one, in the long revolutionary struggle, and in the scores of prosperous years succeeding, we were united. when the passage of the stamp act in aroused the colonies, it was gadsden, of south carolina, that cried, with prescient enthusiasm, "we stand on the broad common ground of those natural rights that we all feel and know as men. there ought to be no new england man, no new yorker, known on this continent, but all of us," said he, "americans." that was the voice of south carolina. that shall be the voice of south carolina. faint is the echo; but it is coming. we now hear it sighing sadly through the pines; but it shall yet break in thunder upon the shore. no north, no west, no south, but the united states of america. there is scarcely a man born in the south who has lifted his hand against this banner but had a father who would have died for it. is memory dead? is there no historic pride? has a fatal fury struck blindness or hate into eyes that used to look kindly towards each other, that read the same bible, that hung over the historic pages of our national glory, that studied the same constitution? let this uplifting bring back all of the past that was good, but leave in darkness all that was bad. it was never before so wholly unspotted; so clear of all wrong, so purely and simply the sign of justice and liberty. did i say that we brought back the same banner that you bore away, noble and heroic sir? it is not the same. it is more and better than it was. the land is free from slavery since that banner fell. when god would prepare moses for emancipation, he overthrew his first steps and drove him for forty years to brood in the wilderness. when our flag came down, four years it lay brooding in darkness. it cried to the lord, "wherefore am i deposed?" then arose before it a vision of its sin. it had strengthened the strong, and forgotten the weak. it proclaimed liberty, but trod upon slaves. in that seclusion it dedicated itself to liberty. behold, to-day, it fulfills its vows! when it went down four million people had no flag. to-day it rises, and four million people cry out, "behold our flag!" hark! they murmur. it is the gospel that they recite in sacred words: "it is a gospel to the poor, it heals our broken hearts, it preaches deliverance to captives, it gives sight to the blind, it sets at liberty them that are bruised." rise up then, glorious gospel banner, and roll out these messages of god. tell the air that not a spot now sullies thy whiteness. thy red is not the blush of shame, but the flush of joy. tell the dews that wash thee that thou art as pure as they. say to the night that thy stars lead toward the morning; and to the morning, that a brighter day arises with healing in its wings. and then, o glowing flag, bid the sun pour light on all thy folds with double brightness while thou art bearing round and round the world the solemn joy--a race set free! a nation redeemed! the mighty hand of government, made strong in war by the favor of the god of battles, spreads wide to-day the banner of liberty that went down in darkness, that arose in light; and there it streams, like the sun above it, neither parceled out nor monopolized, but flooding the air with light for all mankind. ye scattered and broken, ye wounded and dying, bitten by the fiery serpents of oppression, everywhere, in all the world, look upon this sign, lifted up, and live! and ye homeless and houseless slaves, look, and ye are free! at length you, too, have part and lot in this glorious ensign that broods with impartial love over small and great, the poor and the strong, the bond and the free. in this solemn hour, let us pray for the quick coming of reconciliation and happiness under this common flag. but we must build again, from the foundations, in all these now free southern states. no cheap exhortations "to forgetfulness of the past, to restore all things as they were," will do. god does not stretch out his hand, as he has for four dreadful years, that men may easily forget the might of his terrible acts. restore things as they were! what, the alienations and jealousies, the discords and contentions, and the causes of them? no. in that solemn sacrifice on which a nation has offered for its sins so many precious victims, loved and lamented, let our sins and mistakes be consumed utterly and forever. no, never again shall things be restored as before the war. it is written in god's decree of events fulfilled, "old things are passed away." that new earth, in which dwelleth righteousness, draws near. things as they were! who has an omnipotent hand to restore a million dead, slain in battle or wasted by sickness, or dying of grief, broken-hearted? who has omniscience to search for the scattered ones? who shall restore the lost to broken families? who shall bring back the squandered treasure, the years of industry wasted, and convince you that four years of guilty rebellion and cruel war are no more than dirt upon the hand, which a moment's washing removes and leaves the hand clean as before? such a war reaches down to the very vitals of society. emerging from such a prolonged rebellion, he is blind who tells you that the state, by a mere amnesty and benevolence of government, can be put again, by a mere decree, in its old place. it would not be honest, it would not be kind or fraternal, for me to pretend that southern revolution against the union has not reacted, and wrought revolution in the southern states themselves, and inaugurated a new dispensation. society here is like a broken loom, and the piece which rebellion put in, and was weaving, has been cut, and every thread broken. you must put in new warp and new woof, and weaving anew, as the fabric slowly unwinds we shall see in it no gorgon figures, no hideous grotesques of the old barbarism, but the figures of liberty, vines, and golden grains, framing in the heads of justice, love, and liberty. the august convention of formed the constitution with this memorable preamble: "we, the people of the united states, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain this constitution for the united states of america." again, in the awful convention of war, the people of the united states, for the very ends just recited, have debated, settled, and ordained certain fundamental truths, which must henceforth be accepted and obeyed. nor is any state nor any individual wise who shall disregard them. they are to civil affairs what the natural laws are to health--indispensable conditions of peace and happiness. what are the ordinances given by the people, speaking out of fire and darkness of war, with authority inspired by that same god who gave the law from sinai amid thunders and trumpet voices? . that these united states shall be one and indivisible. . that states have not absolute sovereignty, and have no right to dismember the republic. . that universal liberty is indispensable to republican government, and that slavery shall be utterly and forever abolished. such are the results of war! these are the best fruits of the war. they are worth all they have cost. they are foundations of peace. they will secure benefits to all nations as well as to ours. our highest wisdom and duty is to accept the facts as the decrees of god. we are exhorted to forget all that has happened. yes, the wrath, the conflict, the cruelty, but not those overruling decrees of god which this war has pronounced. as solemnly as on mount sinai, god says, "remember! remember!" hear it to-day. under this sun, tinder that bright child of the sun, our banner, with the eyes of this nation and of the world upon us, we repeat the syllables of god's providence and recite the solemn decrees: no more disunion! no more secession! no more slavery! why did this civil war begin? we do not wonder that european statesmen failed to comprehend this conflict, and that foreign philanthropists were shocked at a murderous war that seemed to have no moral origin, but, like the brutal fights of beasts of prey, to have sprung from ferocious animalism. this great nation, filling all profitable latitudes, cradled between two oceans, with inexhaustible resources, with riches increasing in an unparalleled ratio, by agriculture, by manufactures, by commerce, with schools and churches, with books and newspapers thick as leaves in our own forests, with institutions sprung from the people, and peculiarly adapted to their genius; a nation not sluggish, but active, used to excitement, practiced in political wisdom, and accustomed to self-government, and all its vast outlying parts held together by the federal government, mild in temper, gentle in administration, and beneficent in results, seemed to have been formed for peace. all at once, in this hemisphere of happiness and hope, there came trooping clouds with fiery bolts, full of death and desolation. at a cannon shot upon this fort, all the nation, as if it had been a trained army lying on its arms, awaiting a signal, rose up and began a war which, for awfulness, rises into the front rank of bad eminence. the front of the battle, going with the sun, was twelve hundred miles long; and the depth, measured along a meridian, was a thousand miles. in this vast area more than two million men, first and last, for four years, have, in skirmish, fight, and battle, met in more than a thousand conflicts; while a coast and river line, not less than four thousand miles in length, has swarmed with fleets freighted with artillery. the very industry of the country seemed to have been touched by some infernal wand, and, with sudden wheel, changed its front from peace to war. the anvils of the land beat like drums. as out of the ooze emerge monsters, so from our mines and foundries uprose new and strange machines of war, ironclad. and so, in a nation of peaceful habits, without external provocation, there arose such a storm of war as blackened the whole horizon and hemisphere. what wonder that foreign observers stood amazed at this fanatical fury, that seemed without divine guidance, but inspired wholly with infernal frenzy. the explosion was sudden, but the train had long been laid. we must consider the condition of southern society, if we would understand the mystery of this iniquity. society in the south resolves itself into three divisions, more sharply distinguished than in any other part of the nation. at the base is the laboring class, made up of slaves. next is the middle class, made up of traders, small farmers, and poor men. the lower edge of this class touches the slave, and the upper edge reaches up to the third and ruling class. this class was a small minority in numbers, but in practical ability they had centred in their hands the whole government of the south, and had mainly governed the country. upon this polished, cultured, exceedingly capable, and wholly unprincipled class, rests the whole burden of this war. forced up by the bottom heat of slavery, the ruling class in all the disloyal states arrogated to themselves a superiority not compatible with republican equality, nor with just morals. they claimed a right of pre-eminence. an evil prophet arose who trained these wild and luxuriant shoots of ambition to the shapely form of a political philosophy. by its reagents they precipitated drudgery to the bottom of society, and left at the top what they thought to be a clarified fluid. in their political economy, labor was to be owned by capital; in their theory of government, the few were to rule the many. they boldly avowed, not the fact alone, that, under all forms of government, the few rule the many, but their right and duty to do so. set free from the necessity of labor, they conceived a contempt for those who felt its wholesome regimen. believing themselves foreordained to supremacy, they regarded the popular vote, when it failed to register their wishes, as an intrusion and a nuisance. they were born in a garden, and popular liberty, like freshets overswelling their banks, but covered their dainty walks and flowers with slime and mud--of democratic votes. when, with shrewd observation, they saw the growth of the popular element in the northern states, they instinctively took in the inevitable events. it must be controlled or cut off from a nation governed by gentlemen! controlled, less and less, could it be in every decade; and they prepared secretly, earnestly, and with wide conference and mutual connivance, to separate the south from the north. we are to distinguish between the pretenses and means, and the real causes of this war. to inflame and unite the great middle class of the south, who had no interest in separation and no business with war, they alleged grievances that never existed, and employed arguments which they, better than all other men, knew to be specious and false. slavery itself was cared for only as an instrument of power or of excitement. they had unalterably fixed their eye upon empire, and all was good which would secure that, and bad which hindered it. thus, the ruling class of the south--an aristocracy as intense, proud, and inflexible as ever existed--not limited either by customs or institutions, not recognised and adjusted in the regular order of society, playing a reciprocal part in its machinery, but secret, disowning its own existence, baptized with ostentatious names of democracy, obsequious to the people for the sake of governing them; this nameless, lurking aristocracy, that ran in the blood of society like a rash not yet come to the skin; this political tapeworm, that produced nothing, but lay coiled in the body, feeding on its nutriment, and holding the whole structure to be but a servant set up to nourish it--this aristocracy of the plantation, with firm and deliberate resolve, brought on the war, that they might cut the land in two, and, clearing themselves from an incorrigibly free society, set up a sterner, statelier empire, where slaves worked that gentlemen might live at ease. nor can there be any doubt that though, at first, they meant to erect the form of republican government, this was but a device, a step necessary to the securing of that power by which they should be able to change the whole economy of society. that they never dreamed of such a war, we may well believe. that they would have accepted it, though twice as bloody, if only thus they could rule, none can doubt that knows the temper of these worst men of modern society. but they miscalculated. they understood the people of the south; but they were totally incapable of understanding the character of the great working classes of the loyal states. that industry, which is the foundation of independence, and so of equity, they stigmatized as stupid drudgery, or as mean avarice. that general intelligence and independence of thought which schools for the common people and newspapers breed, they reviled as the incitement of unsettled zeal, running easily into fanaticism. they more thoroughly misunderstood the profound sentiment of loyality, the deep love of country, which pervaded the common people. if those who knew them best had never suspected the depth and power of that love of country which threw it into an agony of grief when the flag was here humbled, how should they conceive of it who were wholly disjoined from them in sympathy? the whole land rose up, you remember, when the flag came down, as if inspired unconsciously by the breath of the almighty, and the power of omnipotence. it was as when one pierces the banks of the mississippi for a rivulet, and the whole raging stream plunges through with headlong course. there they calculated, and miscalculated! and more than all, they miscalculated the bravery of men who have been trained under law, who are civilized and hate personal brawls, who are so protected by society as to have dismissed all thought of self-defense, the whole force of whose life is turned to peaceful pursuits. these arrogant conspirators against government, with chinese vanity, believed that they could blow away these self-respecting citizens as chaff from the battlefield. few of them are left alive to ponder their mistake! here, then, are the roots of this civil war. it was not a quarrel of wild beasts, it was an inflection of the strife of ages, between power and right, between ambition and equity. an armed band of pestilent conspirators sought the nation's life. her children rose up and fought at every door and room and hall, to thrust out the murderers and save the house and household. it was not legitimately a war between the common people of the north and south. the war was set on by the ruling class, the aristocratic conspirators of the south. they suborned the common people with lies, with sophistries, with cruel deceits and slanders, to fight for secret objects which they abhorred, and against interests as dear to them as their own lives, i charge the whole guilt of this war upon the ambitious, educated, plotting, political leaders of the south. they have shed this ocean of blood. they have desolated the south. they have poured poverty through all her towns and cities. they have bewildered the imagination of the people with phantasms, and led them to believe that they were fighting for their homes and liberty, whose homes were unthreatened, and whose liberty was in no jeopardy. these arrogant instigators of civil war have renewed the plagues of egypt, not that the oppressed might go free, but that the free might be oppressed. a day will come when god will reveal judgment, and arraign at his bar these mighty miscreants; and then, every orphan that their bloody game has made, and every widow that sits sorrowing, and every maimed and wounded sufferer, and every bereaved heart in all the wide regions of this land, will rise up and come before the lord to lay upon these chief culprits of modern history their awful witness. and from a thousand battlefields shall rise up armies of airy witnesses, who, with the memory of their awful sufferings, shall confront the miscreants with shrieks of fierce accusation; and every pale and starved prisoner shall raise his skinny hand in judgment. blood shall call out for vengeance, and tears shall plead for justice, and grief shall silently beckon, and love, heart-smitten, shall wail for justice. good men and angels will cry out: "how long, o lord, how long, wilt thou not avenge?" and, then, these guiltiest and most remorseless traitors, these high and cultured men,--with might and wisdom, used for the destruction of their country,--the most accursed and detested of all criminals, that have drenched a continent in needless blood, and moved the foundations of their times with hideous crimes and cruelty, caught up in black clouds, full of voices of vengeance and lurid with punishment, shall be whirled aloft and plunged downwards forever and forever in an endless retribution; while god shall say, "thus shall it be to all who betray their country"; and all in heaven and upon the earth will say "amen!" but for the people misled, for the multitudes drafted and driven into this civil war, let not a trace of animosity remain. the moment their willing hand drops the musket, and they return to their allegiance, then stretch out your own honest right hand to greet them. recall to them the old days of kindness. our hearts wait for their redemption. all the resources of a renovated nation shall be applied to rebuild their prosperity, and smooth down the furrows of war. has this long and weary period of strife been an unmingled evil? has nothing been gained? yes, much. this nation has attained to its manhood. among indian customs is one which admits young men to the rank of warriors only after severe trials of hunger, fatigue, pain, endurance. they reach their station, not through years, but ordeals. our nation has suffered, but now is strong. the sentiment of loyalty and patriotism, next in importance to religion, has been rooted and grounded. we have something to be proud of, and pride helps love. never so much as now did we love our country. but four such years of education in ideas, in the knowledge of political truth, in the love of history, in the geography of our own country, almost every inch of which we have probed with the bayonet, have never passed before. there is half a hundred years' advance in four. we believed in our institutions and principles before; but now we know their power. it is one thing to look upon artillery, and be sure that it is loaded; it is another thing to prove its power in battle! we believe in the hidden power stored in our institutions; we had never before seen this nation thundering like mount sinai at all those that worshiped the calf at the base of the mountain. a people educated and moral are competent to all the exigencies of national life. a vote can govern better than a crown. we have proved it. a people intelligent and religious are strong in all economic elements. they are fitted for peace and competent to war. they are not easily inflamed, and, when justly incensed, not easily extinguished. they are patient in adversity, endure cheerfully needful burdens, tax themselves to meet real wants more royally than any prince would dare to tax his people. they pour forth without stint relief for the sufferings of war, and raise charity out of the realm of a dole into a munificent duty of beneficence. the habit of industry among free men prepares them to meet the exhaustion of war with increase of productiveness commensurate with the need that exists. their habits of skill enable them at once to supply such armies as only freedom can muster, with arms and munitions such as only free industry can create. free society is terrible in war, and afterwards repairs the mischief of war with celerity almost as great as that with which the ocean heals the seams gashed in it by the keel of ploughing ships. free society is fruitful of military genius. it comes when called; when no longer needed, it falls back as waves do to the level of the common sea, that no wave may be greater than the undivided water. with proof of strength so great, yet in its infancy, we stand up among the nations of the world, asking no privileges, asserting no rights, but quietly assuming our place, and determined to be second to none in the race of civilization and religion. of all nations we are the most dangerous and the least to be feared. we need not expound the perils that wait upon enemies that assault us. they are sufficiently understood! but we are not a dangerous people because we are warlike. all the arrogant attitudes of this nation, so offensive to foreign governments, were inspired by slavery, and under the administration of its minions. our tastes, our habits, our interests, and our principles, incline us to the arts of peace. this nation was founded by the common people for the common people. we are seeking to embody in public economy more liberty, with higher justice and virtue, than have been organized before. by the necessity of our doctrines, we are put in sympathy with the masses of men in all nations. it is not our business to subdue nations, but to augment the powers of the common people. the vulgar ambition of mere domination, as it belongs to universal human nature, may tempt us; but it is withstood by the whole force of our principles, our habits, our precedents, and our legends. we acknowledge the obligation which our better political principles lay upon us, to set an example more temperate, humane, and just, than monarchical governments can. we will not suffer wrong, and still less will we inflict it upon other nations. nor are we concerned that so many, ignorant of our conflict, for the present, misconceive the reasons of our invincible military zeal. "why contend," say they, "for a little territory that you do not need?" because it is ours! because it is the interest of every citizen to save it from becoming a fortress and refuge of iniquity. this nation is our house, and our fathers' house; and accursed be the man who will not defend it to the uttermost. more territory than we need! england, that is not large enough to be our pocket, may think that it is more than we need, because it is more than it needs; but we are better judges of what we need than others are. shall a philanthropist say to a banker, who defends himself against a robber, "why do you need so much money?" but we will not reason with such questions. when any foreign nation willingly will divide its territory and give it cheerfully away, we will answer the question why we are fighting for territory! at present--for i pass to the consideration of benefits that accrue to the south in distinction from the rest of the nation--the south reaps only suffering; but good seed lies buried under the furrows of war, that peace will bring to harvest, . deadly doctrines have been purged away in blood. the subtle poison of secession was a perpetual threat of revolution. the sword has ended that danger. that which reason had affirmed as a philosophy, that people have settled as a fact. theory pronounces, "there can be no permanent government where each integral particle has liberty to fly off." who would venture upon a voyage in a ship each plank and timber of which might withdraw at its pleasure? but the people have reasoned by the logic of the sword and of the ballot, and they have declared that states are inseparable parts of the national government. they are not sovereign. state rights remain; but sovereignty is a right higher than all others; and that has been made into a common stock for the benefit of all. all further agitation is ended. this element must be cast out of political problems. henceforth that poison will not rankle in the blood. . another thing has been learned: the rights and duties of minorities. the people of the whole nation are of more authority than the people of any section. these united states are supreme over northern, western, and southern states. it ought not to have required the awful chastisement of this war to teach that a minority must submit the control of the nation's government to a majority. the army and navy have been good political schoolmasters. the lesson is learned. not for many generations will it require further illustration. . no other lesson will be more fruitful of peace than the dispersion of those conceits of vanity, which, on either side, have clouded the recognition of the manly courage of all americans. if it be a sign of manhood to be able to fight, then americans are men. the north certainly is in no doubt whatever of the soldierly qualities of southern men. southern soldiers have learned that all latitudes breed courage on this continent. courage is a passport to respect. the people of all the regions of this nation are likely hereafter to cherish a generous admiration of each other's prowess. the war has bred respect, and respect will breed affection, and affection peace and unity. . no other event of the war can fill an intelligent southern man, of candid nature, with more surprise than the revelation of the capacity, moral and military, of the black race. it is a revelation indeed. no people were ever less understood by those most familiar with them. they were said to be lazy, lying, impudent, and cowardly wretches, driven by the whip alone to the tasks needful to their own support and the functions of civilization. they were said to be dangerous, bloodthirsty, liable to insurrection; but four years of tumultuous distress and war have rolled across the area inhabited by them, and i have yet to hear of one authentic instance of the misconduct of a colored man. they have been patient and gentle and docile, and full of faith and hope and piety; and, when summoned to freedom, they have emerged with all the signs and tokens that freedom will be to them what it was to us, the swaddling-band that shall bring them to manhood. and after the government, honoring them as men summoned them to the field, when once they were disciplined, and had learned the arts of war, they have proved themselves to be not second to their white brethren in arms. and when the roll of men that have shed their blood is called in the other land, many and many a dusky face will rise, dark no more when the light of eternal glory shall shine upon it from the throne of god! . the industry of the southern states is regenerated, and now rests upon a basis that never fails to bring prosperity. just now industry is collapsed; but it is not dead; it sleepeth. it is vital yet. it will spring like mown grass from the roots that need but showers and heat and time to bring them forth. though in many districts not a generation will see wanton wastes of self-invoked war repaired, and many portions may lapse again to wilderness, yet, in our lifetime, we shall see states, as a whole, raised to a prosperity, vital, wholesome, and immovable, . the destruction of class interests, working with a religion which tends toward true democracy, in proportion as it is pure and free, will create a new era of prosperity for the common laboring people of the south, upon them have come the labor, the toil, and the loss of this war. they have fought blindfolded. they have fought for a class that sought their degradation, while they were made to believe that it was for their own homes and altars. their leaders meant a supremacy which would not long have left them political liberty, save in name. but their leaders are swept away. the sword has been hungry for the ruling classes. it has sought them out with remorseless zeal. new men are to rise up; new ideas are to bud and blossom; and there will be men with different ambition and altered policy. , meanwhile, the south, no longer a land of plantations, but of farms; no longer tilled by slaves, but by freedmen, will find no hindrance to the spread of education. schools will multiply. books and papers will spread. churches will bless every hamlet. there is a good day coming for the south. through darkness and tears and blood she has sought it. it has been an unconscious _via_ _dolorosa_. but in the end it will be worth all that it has cost. her institutions before were deadly. she nourished death in her bosom. the greater her secular prosperity, the more sure was her ruin. every year of delay but made the change more terrible. now, by an earthquake, the evil is shaken down. and her own historians, in a better day, shall write, that from the day the sword cut off the cancer, she began to find her health. what, then, shall hinder the rebuilding of the republic? the evil spirit is cast out: why should not this nation cease to wander among tombs, cutting itself? why should it not come, clothed and in its right mind, to "sit at the feet of jesus"? is it feared that the government will oppress the conquered states? what possible motive has the government to narrow the base of that pyramid on which its own permanence depends? is it feared that the rights of the states will be withheld? the south is not more jealous of state rights than the north. state rights from the earliest colonial days have been the peculiar pride and jealousy of new england. in every stage of national formation, it was peculiarly northern, and not southern, statesmen that guarded state rights as we were forming the constitution. but once united, the loyal states gave up forever that which had been delegated to the national government. and now, in the hour of victory, the loyal states do not mean to trench upon southern state rights. they will not do it, nor suffer it to be done. there is not to be one rule for high latitudes and another for low. we take nothing from the southern states that has not already been taken from the northern. the south shall have just those rights that every eastern, every middle, every western state has--no more, no less. we are not seeking our own aggrandizement by impoverishing the south. its prosperity is an indispensable element of our own. we have shown, by all that we have suffered in war, how great is our estimate of the southern states of this union; and we will measure that estimate, now, in peace, by still greater exertions for their rebuilding. will reflecting men not perceive, then, the wisdom of accepting established facts, and, with alacrity of enterprise, begin to retrieve the past? slavery cannot come back. it is the interest, therefore, of every man to hasten its end. do you want more war? are you not yet weary of contest? will you gather up the unexploded fragments of this prodigious magazine of all mischief, and heap them up for continued explosions? does not the south need peace? and, since free labor is inevitable, will you have it in its worst forms or in its best? shall it be ignorant, impertinent, indolent, or shall it be educated, self-respecting, moral, and self-supporting? will you have men as drudges, or will you have them as citizens? since they have vindicated the government, and cemented its foundation stones with their blood, may they not offer the tribute of their support to maintain its laws and its policy? it is better for religion; it is better for political integrity; it is better for industry; it is better for money--if you will have that ground motive--that you should educate the black man, and, by education, make him a citizen. they who refuse education to the black man would turn the south into a vast poorhouse, and labor into a pendulum, incessantly vibrating between poverty and indolence. from this pulpit of broken stone we speak forth our earnest greeting to all our land. we offer to the president of these united states our solemn congratulations that god has sustained his life and health under the unparalleled burdens and sufferings of four bloody years, and permitted him to behold this auspicious consummation of that national unity for which he has waited with so much patience and fortitude, and for which he has labored with such disinterested wisdom. to the members of the government associated with him in the administration of perilous affairs in critical times; to the senators and representatives of the united states, who have eagerly fashioned the instruments by which the popular will might express and enforce itself, we tender our grateful thanks. to the officers and men of the army and navy, who have so faithfully, skillfully, and gloriously upheld their country's authority, by suffering, labor, and sublime courage, we offer a heart-tribute beyond the compass of words. upon those true and faithful citizens, men and women, who have borne up with unflinching hope in the darkest hour, and covered the land with their labor of love and charity, we invoke the divinest blessing of him whom they have so truly imitated. but chiefly to thee, god of our fathers, we render thanksgiving and praise for that wondrous providence that has brought forth from such a harvest of war the seed of so much liberty and peace! we invoke peace upon the north. peace be to the west! peace be upon the south! in the name of god we lift up our banner, and dedicate it to peace, union, and liberty, now and for evermore! amen. effect of the death of lincoln (delivered in brooklyn, april th. ) again a great leader of the people has passed through toil, sorrow, battle, and war, and come near to the promised land of peace, into which he might not pass over. who shall recount our martyr's sufferings for this people? since the november of , his horizon has been black with storms. by day and by night, he trod a way of danger and darkness. on his shoulders rested a government dearer to him than his own life. at its integrity millions of men were striking at home. upon this government foreign eyes lowered. it stood like a lone island in a sea full of storms, and every tide and wave seemed eager to devour it. upon thousands of hearts great sorrows and anxieties have rested, but not on one such, and in such measure, as upon that simple, truthful, noble soul, our faithful and sainted lincoln. never rising to the enthusiasm of more impassioned natures in hours of hope, and never sinking with the mercurial in hours of defeat to the depths of despondency, he held on with unmovable patience and fortitude, putting caution against hope, that it might not be premature, and hope against caution, that it might not yield to dread and danger. he wrestled ceaselessly, through four black and dreadful purgatorial years, wherein god was cleansing the sin of his people as by fire. at last, the watcher beheld the gray dawn for the country. the mountains began to give forth their forms from out the darkness, and the east came rushing toward us with arms full of joy for all our sorrows. then it was for him to be glad exceedingly that had sorrowed immeasurably. peace could bring to no other heart such joy, such rest, such honor, such trust, such gratitude. but he looked upon it as moses looked upon the promised land. then the wail of a nation proclaimed that he had gone from among us. not thine the sorrow, but ours, sainted soul. thou hast, indeed, entered the promised land, while we are yet on the march. to us remains the rocking of the deep, the storm upon the land, days of duty and nights of watching; but thou art sphered high above all darkness and fear, beyond all sorrow and weariness. rest, o weary heart! rejoice exceedingly, thou that hast enough suffered! thou hast beheld him who invisibly led thee in this great wilderness. thou standest among the elect. around thee are the royal men that have ennobled human life in every age. kingly art thou, with glory on thy brow as a diadem. and joy is upon thee for evermore. over all this land, over all the little cloud of years that now from thine infinite horizon moves back as a speck, thou art lifted up as high as the star is above the clouds that bide us, but never reach it. in the goodly company of mount zion thou shalt find that rest which thou hast sorrowing sought in vain; and thy name, an everlasting name in heaven, shall flourish in fragrance and beauty as long as men shall last upon the earth, or hearts remain, to revere truth, fidelity, and goodness. never did two such orbs of experience meet in one hemisphere, as the joy and the sorrow of the same week in this land. the joy was as sudden as if no man had expected it, and as entrancing as if it had fallen a sphere from heaven. it rose up over sobriety, and swept business from its moorings, and ran down through the land in irresistible course. men embraced each other in brotherhood that were strangers in the flesh. they sang, or prayed, or, deeper yet, many could only think thanksgiving and weep gladness. that peace was sure; that government was firmer than ever; that the land was cleansed of plague; that the ages were opening to our footsteps, and we were to begin a march of blessings; that blood was staunched, and scowling enmities were sinking like storms beneath the horizon; that the dear fatherland, nothing lost, much gained, was to rise up in unexampled honor among the nations of the earth--these thoughts, and that undistinguishable throng of fancies, and hopes, and desires, and yearnings, that filled the soul with tremblings like the heated air of midsummer days--all these kindled up such a surge of joy as no words may describe. in one hour joy lay without a pulse, without a gleam or breath. a sorrow came that swept through the land as huge storms sweep through the forest and field, rolling thunder along the sky, disheveling the flowers, daunting every singer in thicket or forest, and pouring blackness and darkness across the land and up the mountains. did ever so many hearts, in so brief a time, touch two such boundless feelings? it was the uttermost of joy; it was the uttermost of sorrow--noon and midnight, without a space between. the blow brought not a sharp pang. it was so terrible that at first it stunned sensibility. citizens were like men awakened at midnight by an earthquake and bewildered to find everything that they were accustomed to trust wavering and falling. the very earth was no longer solid. the first feeling was the least. men waited to get straight to feel. they wandered in the streets as if groping after some impending dread, or undeveloped sorrow, or some one to tell them what ailed them. they met each other as if each would ask the other, "am i awake, or do i dream?" there was a piteous helplessness. strong men bowed down and wept. other and common griefs belonged to some one in chief; this belonged to all. it was each and every man's. every virtuous household in the land felt as if its firstborn were gone. men were bereaved and walked for days as if a corpse lay unburied in their dwellings. there was nothing else to think of. they could speak of nothing but that; and yet of that they could speak only falteringly. all business was laid aside. pleasure forgot to smile. the city for nearly a week ceased to roar. the great leviathan lay down, and was still. even avarice stood still, and greed was strangely moved to generous sympathy and universal sorrow. rear to his name monuments, found charitable institutions, and write his name above their lintels; but no monument will ever equal the universal, spontaneous, and sublime sorrow that in a moment swept down lines and parties, and covered up animosities, and in an hour brought a divided people into unity of grief and indivisible fellowship of anguish. ... this nation has dissolved--but in tears only. it stands foursquare, more solid to-day than any pyramid in egypt. this people are neither wasted, nor daunted, nor disordered. men hate slavery and love liberty with stronger hate and love to-day than ever before. the government is not weakened, it is made stronger. how naturally and easily were the ranks closed! another steps forward, in the hour that the one fell, to take his place and his mantle; and i avow my belief that he will be found a man true to every instinct of liberty; true to the whole trust that is reposed in him; vigilant of the constitution; careful of the laws; wise for liberty, in that he himself, through his life, has known what it was to suffer from the stings of slavery, and to prize liberty from bitter personal experiences. where could the head of government in any monarchy be smitten down by the hand of an assassin, and the funds not quiver or fall one-half of one per cent? after a long period of national disturbance, after four years of drastic war, after tremendous drafts on the resources of the country, in the height and top of our burdens, the heart of this people is such that now, when the head of government is stricken down, the public funds do not waver, but stand as the granite ribs in our mountains. republican institutions have been vindicated in this experience as they never were before; and the whole history of the last four years, rounded up by this cruel stroke, seems, in the providence of god, to have been clothed, now, with an illustration, with a sympathy, with an aptness, and with a significance, such as we never could have expected nor imagined. god, i think, has said, by the voice of this event, to all nations of the earth, "republican liberty, based upon true christianity, is firm as the foundation of the globe." even he who now sleeps has, by this event, been clothed with new influence. dead, he speaks to men who now willingly hear what before they refused to listen to. now his simple and weighty words will be gathered like those of washington, and your children and your children's children shall be taught to ponder the simplicity and deep wisdom of utterances which, in their time, passed, in party heat, as idle words. men will receive a new impulse of patriotism for his sake and will guard with zeal the whole country which he loved so well. i swear you, on the altar of his memory, to be more faithful to the country for which he has perished. they will, as they follow his hearse, swear a new hatred to that slavery against which he warred, and which, in vanquishing him, has made him a martyr and a conqueror. i swear you, by the memory of this martyr, to hate slavery with an unappeasable hatred. they will admire and imitate the firmness of this man, his inflexible conscience for the right, and yet his gentleness, as tender as a woman's, his moderation of spirit, which not all the heat of party could inflame, nor all the jars and disturbances of his country shake out of place. i swear you to an emulation of his justice, his moderation, and his mercy. you i can comfort; but how can i speak to that twilight million to whom his name was as the name of an angel of god? there will be wailing in places which no minister shall be able to reach. when, in hovel and in cot, in wood and in wilderness, in the field throughout the south, the dusky children, who looked upon him as that moses whom god sent before them to lead them out of the land of bondage, learn that he has fallen, who shall comfort them? o, thou shepherd of israel, that didst comfort thy people of old, to thy care we commit the helpless, the long-wronged, and grieved. and now the martyr is moving in triumphal march, mightier than when alive. the nation rises up at every stage of his coming. cities and states are his pallbearers, and the cannon beats the hours with solemn progression. dead, dead, dead, he yet speaketh. is washington dead? is hampden dead? is david dead? is any man that ever was fit to live dead? disenthralled of flesh, and risen in the unobstructed sphere where passion never comes, he begins his illimitable work. his life now is grafted upon the infinite, and will be fruitful as no earthly life can be. pass on, thou that hast overcome. your sorrows, o people, are his peace. your bells and bands and muffled drums sound triumph in his ear. wail and weep here; god made it echo joy and triumph there. pass on. four years ago, o illinois, we took from your midst an untried man and from among the people. we return him to you a mighty conqueror. not thine any more, but the nation's; not ours, but the world's. give him place, o ye prairies. in the midst of this great continent his dust shall rest, a sacred treasure to myriads who shall pilgrim to that shrine to kindle anew their zeal and patriotism. ye winds that move over the mighty places of the west, chant his requiem. ye people, behold a martyr whose blood, as so many articulate words, pleads for fidelity, for law, for liberty. lord belhaven ( - ) scotland ceased to exist as a nation by the act of union, may st, . as occasions have been so rare in the world's history when a nation has voluntarily abdicated its sovereignty and ceased to exist by its own free act, it would be too much to say that lord belhaven's speech against surrendering scotch nationality was worthy of so remarkable a scene as that presented in he scotch parliament when, soon after its opening, november st, , he rose to make the protest which immortalized him. smollet belongs more properly to another generation, but the feeling against the union was rather exaggerated than diminished between the date of its adoption and that of his poem, 'the tears of scotland,' into the concluding stanza of which he has condensed the passion which prompted belhaven's protest:-- "while the warm blood bedews my veins and unimpaired remembrance reigns, resentment of my country's fate within my filial heart shall beat, and spite of her insulting foe, my sympathizing verse shall flow;-- 'mourn, helpless caledonia, mourn, thy banished peace, thy laurels torn!'" if there is nothing in belhaven's oration which equals this in intensity, there is power and pathos, as well as ciceronian syntax, in the period: "hannibal, my lord, is at our gates; hannibal is come within our gates; hannibal is come the length of this table; he is at the foot of this throne; if we take not notice he'll seize upon these regalia, he'll take them as our _spolia_ _opima_, and whip us out of this house, never to return." it is unfortunate for belhaven's fame as an orator that his most effective passages are based on classical allusions intelligible at once to his audience then, but likely to appear pedantic in times when latin has ceased to be the "vulgar tongue" of the educated, as it still was in the scotland of queen anne's time. the text of his speech here used is from 'the parliamentary debates,' london . a plea for the national life of scotland (delivered in the scotch parliament) my lord chancellor:-- when i consider the affair of a union betwixt the two nations, as it is expressed in the several articles thereof, and now the subject of our deliberation at this time i find my mind crowded with a variety of melancholy thoughts, and i think it my duty to disburden myself of some of them, by laying them before, and exposing them to, the serious consideration of this honorable house. i think i see a free and independent kingdom delivering up that which all the world hath been fighting for since the days of nimrod; yea, that for which most of all the empires, kingdoms, states, principalities, and dukedoms of europe, are at this very time engaged in the most bloody and cruel wars that ever were, to-wit, a power to manage their own affairs by themselves, without the assistance and counsel of any other. i think i see a national church, founded upon a rock, secured by a claim of right, hedged and fenced about by the strictest and most pointed legal sanction that sovereignty could contrive, voluntarily descending into a plain, upon an equal level with jews, papists, socinians, arminians, anabaptists, and other sectaries, etc. i think i see the noble and honorable peerage of scotland, whose valiant predecessors led armies against their enemies, upon their own proper charges and expenses, now divested of their followers and vassalages, and put upon such an equal foot with their vassals, that i think i see a petty english exciseman receive more homage and respect than what was paid formerly to their quondam mackallamores. i think i see the present peers of scotland, whose noble ancestors conquered provinces, over-run countries, reduced and subjected towns and fortified places, exacted tribute through the greatest part of england, now walking in the court of requests like so many english attorneys, laying aside their walking swords when in company with the english peers, lest their self-defense should be found murder. i think i see the honorable estate of barons, the bold assertors of the nation's rights and liberties in the worst of times, now setting a watch upon their lips and a guard upon their tongues, lest they be found guilty of _scandalum_ _magnatum_. i think i see the royal state of boroughs walking their desolate streets, hanging down their heads under disappointments, wormed out of all the branches of their old trade, uncertain what hand to turn to, necessitate to become 'prentices to their unkind neighbors; and yet, after all, finding their trade so fortified by companies, and secured by prescriptions, that they despair of any success therein. i think i see our learned judges laying aside their practiques and decisions, studying the common law of england, graveled with _certioraries_, _nisi_ _prius's_, writs of error, _verdicts_ _indovar_, _ejectione_ _firmae_, injunctions, demurs, etc., and frighted with appeals and avocations, because of the new regulations and rectifications they may meet with. i think i see the valiant and gallant soldiery either sent to learn the plantation-trade abroad; or at home petitioning for a small subsistence, as the reward of their honorable exploits; while their old corps are broken, the common soldiers left to beg, and the youngest english corps kept standing. i think i see the honest, industrious tradesman loaded with new taxes and impositions, disappointed of the equivalents, drinking water in place of ale, eating his saltless pottage, petitioning for encouragement to his manufactories, and answered by counter-petitions. in short, i think i see the laborious plowman, with his corn spoiling upon his hands, for want of sale, cursing the day of his birth, dreading the expense of his burial, and uncertain whether to marry or do worse. i think i see the incurable difficulties of the landed men, fettered under the golden chain of equivalents, their pretty daughters petitioning for want of husbands, and their sons for want of employment. i think i see our mariners delivering up their ships to their dutch partners, and what through presses and necessity, earning their bread as underlings in the royal english navy. but above all, my lord, i think i see our ancient mother caledonia, like caesar, sitting in the midst of our senate, ruefully looking round about her, covering herself with her royal garment, attending the fatal blow, and breathing out her last with an _et_ _tu_ _quoque_, _mi_ _fili_. are not these, my lord, very afflicting thoughts? and yet they are but the least part suggested to me by these dishonorable articles. should not the consideration of these things vivify these dry bones of ours? should not the memory of our noble predecessors' valor and constancy rouse up our drooping spirits? are our noble predecessors' souls got so far into the english cabbage stock and cauliflowers that we should show the least inclination that way? are our eyes so blinded? are our ears so deafened? are our hearts so hardened? are our tongues so faltered? are our hands so fettered that in this our day, i say, my lord, that in this our day, we should not mind the things that concern the very being and well-being of our ancient kingdom, before the day be hid from our eyes? no, my lord, god forbid! man's extremity is god's opportunity; he is a present help in time of need, and a deliverer, and that right early. some unforeseen providence will fall out, that may cast the balance; some joseph or other will say, "why do ye strive together, since ye are brethren?" none can destroy scotland, save scotland itself; hold your hands from the pen, you are secure. some judah or other will say, "let not our hands be upon the lad, he is our brother." there will be a jehovah-jireh, and some ram will he caught in the thicket, when the bloody knife is at our mother's throat. let us up then, my lord, and let our noble patriots behave themselves like men, and we know not bow soon a blessing may come. my lord, i wish from my heart, that this my vision prove not as true as my reasons for it are probable. i design not at this time to enter into the merits of any one particular article; i intend this discourse as an introduction to what i may afterwards say upon the whole debate as it falls in before this honorable house; and therefore, in the farther prosecution of what i have to say, i shall insist upon few particulars, very necessary to be understood, before we enter into the detail of so important a matter. i shall, therefore, in the first place, endeavor to encourage a free and full deliberation, without animosities and heats. in the next place i shall endeavor to make an inquiry into the nature and source of the unnatural and dangerous divisions that are now on foot within this isle, with some motives showing that it is our interest to lay them aside at this time. then i shall inquire into the reasons which have induced the two nations to enter into a treaty of union at this time, with some considerations and meditations with relation to the behavior of the lord's commissioners of the two kingdoms in the management of this great concern. and lastly, i shall propose a method, by which we shall most distinctly, and without confusion, go through the several articles of this treaty, without unnecessary repetitions or loss of time. and all this with all deference, and under the correction of this honorable house. my lord chancellor, the greatest honor that was done unto a roman was to allow him the glory of a triumph; the greatest and most dishonorable punishment was that of _parricide_. he that was guilty of _parricide_ was beaten with rods upon his naked body till the blood gushed out of all the veins of his body; then he was sewed up in a leathern sack, called a _culeus_ with a cock, a viper, and an ape, and thrown headlong into the sea. my lord, _patricide_ is a greater crime than _parricide_, all the world over. in a triumph, my lord, when the conqueror was riding in his triumphal chariot, crowned with laurels, adorned with trophies, and applauded with huzzas, there was a monitor appointed to stand behind him, to warn him not to be high-minded, not puffed up with overweening thoughts of himself; and to his chariot were tied a whip and a bell, to mind him that for all his glory and grandeur he was accountable to the people for his administration, and would be punished as other men, if found guilty. the greatest honor amongst us, my lord, is to represent the sovereign's sacred person in parliament; and in one particular it appears to be greater than that of a triumph, because the whole legislative power seems to be wholly intrusted with him. if he give the royal assent to an act of the estates, it becomes a law obligatory upon the subject, though contrary or without any instructions from the sovereign. if he refuse the royal assent to a vote in parliament, it cannot be a law, though he has the sovereign's particular and positive instructions for it. his grace, the duke of queensbury, who now presents her majesty in this session of parliament, hath had the honor of that great trust, as often, if not more, than any scotchman ever had. he hath been the favorite of two successive sovereigns; and i cannot but commend his constancy and perseverance, that notwithstanding his former difficulties and unsuccessful attempts, and maugre some other specialties not yet determined, that his grace has yet had the resolution to undertake the most unpopular measures last. if his grace succeed in this affair of a union, and that it prove for the happiness and welfare of the nation, then he justly merits to have a statue of gold erected for himself; but if it shall tend to the entire destruction and abolition of our nation, and that we the nation's trustees will go into it, then i must say that a whip and a bell, a cock and a viper and an ape, are but too small punishments for any such bold, unnatural undertaking and complaisance. that i may pave a way, my lord, to a full, calm, and free reasoning upon this affair, which is of the last consequence unto this nation, i shall mind this honorable house, that we are the successors of our noble predecessors, who founded our monarchy, framed our laws, amended, altered, and corrected them from time to time, as the affairs and circumstances of the nation did require, without the assistance or advice of any foreign power or potentate, and who, during the time of , years, have handed them down to us, a free independent nation, with the hazard of their lives and fortunes. shall not we then argue for that which our progenitors have purchased for us at so dear a rate, and with so much immortal honor and glory? god forbid. shall the hazard of a father unbind the ligaments of a dumb son's tongue; and shall we hold our peace, when our _patria_ is in danger? i speak this, my lord, that i may encourage every individual member of this house to speak his mind freely. there are many wise and prudent men amongst us, who think it not worth their while to open their mouths; there are others, who can speak very well, and to good purpose, who shelter themselves under the shameful cloak of silence, from a fear of the frowns of great men and parties. i have observed, my lord, by my experience, the greatest number of speakers in the most trivial affairs; and it will always prove so, while we come not to the right understanding of the oath _de_ _fideli_, whereby we are bound not only to give our vote, but our faithful advice in parliament, as we should answer to god; and in our ancient laws, the representatives of the honorable barons and the royal boroughs are termed spokesmen. it lies upon your lordships, therefore, particularly to take notice of such whose modesty makes them bashful to speak. therefore, i shall leave it upon you, and conclude this point with a very memorable saying of an honest private gentleman to a great queen, upon occasion of a state project, contrived by an able statesman, and the favorite to a great king, against a peaceable, obedient people, because of the diversity of their laws and constitutions: "if at this time thou hold thy peace, salvation shall come to the people from another place, but thou and thy house shall perish." i leave the application to each particular member of this house. my lord, i come now to consider our divisions. we are under the happy reign (blessed be god) of the best of queens, who has no evil design against the meanest of her subjects, who loves all her people, and is equally beloved by them again; and yet that under the happy influence of our most excellent queen there should be such divisions and factions more dangerous and threatening to her dominions than if we were under an arbitrary government, is most strange and unaccountable. under an arbitrary prince all are willing to serve because all are under a necessity to obey, whether they will or not. he chooses therefore whom he will, without respect to either parties or factions; and if he think fit to take the advices of his councils or parliaments, every man speaks his mind freely, and the prince receives the faithful advice of his people without the mixture of self-designs. if he prove a good prince, the government is easy; if bad, either death or a revolution brings a deliverance. whereas here, my lord, there appears no end of our misery, if not prevented in time; factions are now become independent, and have got footing in councils, in parliaments, in treaties, armies, in incorporations, in families, among kindred, yea, man and wife are not free from their political jars. it remains therefore, my lord, that i inquire into the nature of these things; and since the names give us not the right idea of the thing, i am afraid i shall have difficulty to make myself well understood. the names generally used to denote the factions are whig and tory, as obscure as that of guelfs and gibelins. yea, my lord, they have different significations, as they are applied to factions in each kingdom; a whig in england is a heterogeneous creature, in scotland he is all of a piece; a tory in england is all of a piece, and a statesman in scotland, he is quite otherways, an anti-courtier and anti-statesman. a whig in england appears to be somewhat like nebuchadnezzar's image, of different metals, different classes, different principles, and different designs; yet take the whigs all together, they are like a piece of fine mixed drugget of different threads, some finer, some coarser, which, after all, make a comely appearance and an agreeable suit. tory is like a piece of loyal-made english cloth, the true staple of the nation, all of a thread; yet, if we look narrowly into it, we shall perceive diversity of colors, which, according to the various situations and positions, make various appearances. sometimes tory is like the moon in its full, as appeared in the affair of the bill of occasional conformity; upon other occasions it appears to be under a cloud, and as if it were eclipsed by a greater body, as it did in the design of calling over the illustrious princess sophia. however, by this we may see their designs are to outshoot whig in his own bow. whig in scotland is a true blue presbyterian, who, without considering time or power, will venture their all for the kirk, but something less for the state. the greatest difficulty is how to describe a scots tory. of old, when i knew them first, tory was an honest-hearted comradish fellow, who, provided he was maintained and protected in his benefices, titles, and dignities by the state, was the less anxious who had the government and management of the church. but now what he is since _jure_ _divino_ came in fashion, and that christianity, and, by consequence, salvation comes to depend upon episcopal ordination, i profess i know not what to make of him; only this i must say for him, that he endeavors to do by opposition that which his brother in england endeavors by a more prudent and less scrupulous method. now, my lord, from these divisions there has got up a kind of aristocracy something like the famous triumvirate at rome; they are a kind of undertakers and pragmatic statesmen, who, finding their power and strength great, and answerable to their designs, will make bargains with our gracious sovereign; they will serve her faithfully, but upon their own terms; they must have their own instruments, their own measures; this man must be turned out, and that man put in, and then they will make her the most glorious queen in europe. where will this end, my lord? is not her majesty in danger by such a method? is not the monarchy in danger? is not the nation's peace and tranquillity in danger? will a change of parties make the nation more happy? no, my lord, the seed is sown that is like to afford us a perpetual increase; it is not an annual herb, it takes deep root; it seeds and breeds; and, if not timely prevented by her majesty's royal endeavors, will split the whole island in two. my lord, i think, considering our present circumstances at this time, the almighty god has reserved this great work for us. we may bruise this hydra of division, and crush this cockatrice's egg. our neighbors in england are not yet fitted for any such thing; they are not under the afflicting hand of providence, as we are; their circumstances are great and glorious; their treaties are prudently managed, both at home and abroad; their generals brave and valorous; their armies successful and victorious; their trophies and laurels memorable and surprising; their enemies subdued and routed; their strongholds besieged and taken, sieges relieved, marshals killed and taken prisoners; provinces and kingdoms are the results of their victories; their royal navy is the terror of europe; their trade and commerce extended through the universe, encircling the whole habitable world and rendering their own capital city the emporium for the whole inhabitants of the earth. and, which is yet more than all these things, the subjects freely bestow their treasure upon their sovereign! and, above all, these vast riches, the sinews of war, and without which all the glorious success had proved abortive --these treasures are managed with such faithfulness and nicety, that they answer seasonably all their demands, though at never so great a distance. upon these considerations, my lord, how hard and difficult a thing will it prove to persuade our neighbors to a self-denying bill. 'tis quite otherwise with us, my lord; we are an obscure poor people, though formerly of better account, removed to a remote corner of the world, without name, and without alliances, our posts mean and precarious, so that i profess i don't think any one post of the kingdom worth the briguing after, save that of being commissioner to a long session of a factious scotch parliament, with an antedated commission, and that yet renders the rest of the ministers more miserable. what hinders us then, my lord, to lay aside our divisions, to unite cordially and heartily together in our present circumstances, when our all is at stake? hannibal, my lord, is at our gates; hannibal is come within our gates hannibal is come the length of this table; he is at the foot of this throne; he will demolish this throne; if we take not notice, he'll seize upon these regalia, he'll take them as our _spolia_ _opima_, and whip us out of this house, never to return again. for the love of god then, my lord, for the safety and welfare of our ancient kingdom, whose sad circumstances, i hope, we shall yet convert into prosperity and happiness, we want no means, if we unite. god blessed the peacemakers; we want neither men, nor sufficiency of all manner of things necessary, to make a nation happy; all depends upon management, _concordia_ _res_ _parvae_ _crescunt_. i fear not these articles, though they were ten times worse than they are, if we once cordially forgive one another, and that, according to our proverb, bygones be bygones, and fair play for time to come. for my part, in the sight of god, and in the presence of this honorable house, i heartily forgive every man, and beg that they may do the same to me; and i do most humbly propose that his grace, my lord commissioner, may appoint an agape, may order a love feast for this honorable house, that we may lay aside all self-designs, and after our fasts and humiliations may have a day of rejoicing and thankfulness, may eat our meat with gladness, and our bread with a merry heart; then shall we sit each man under his own fig-tree, and the voice of the turtle shall be heard in our land, a bird famous for constancy and fidelity. my lord, i shall make a pause here, and stop going on further in my discourse, till i see further, if his grace, my lord commissioner, receive any humble proposals for removing misunderstandings among us, and putting an end to our fatal divisions; upon honor, i have no other design, and i am content to beg the favor upon my bended knees. (no answer.) my lord chancellor, i am sorry that i must pursue the thread of my sad and melancholy story. what remains, i am afraid may prove as afflicting as what i have said; i shall therefore consider the motives which have engaged the two nations to enter upon a treaty of union at this time. in general, my lord, i think both of them had in their view to better themselves by the treaty; but before i enter upon the particular motives of each nation, i must inform this honorable house that since i can remember, the two nations have altered their sentiments upon that affair, even almost to downright contradiction--they have changed headbands, as we say; for the english, till of late, never thought it worth their pains of treating with us; the good bargain they made at the beginning they resolve to keep, and that which we call an incorporating union was not so much as in their thoughts. the first notice they seemed to take of us was in our affair of caledonia, when they had most effectually broken off that design in a manner very well known to the world, and unnecessary to be repeated here; they kept themselves quiet during the time of our complaints upon that head. in which time our sovereign, to satisfy the nation, and allay their heats, did condescend to give us some good laws, and amongst others that of personal liberties; but they having declared their succession, and extended their entail, without ever taking notice of us, our gracious sovereign queen anne was graciously pleased to give the royal assent to our act of security, to that of peace and war after the decease of her majesty, and the heirs of her body, and to give us a hedge to all our sacred and civil interests, by declaring it high treason to endeavor the alteration of them, as they were then established. thereupon did follow the threatening and minatory laws against us by the parliament of england, and the unjust and unequal character of what her majesty had so graciously condescended to in our favors. now, my lord, whether the desire they had to have us engaged in the same succession with them, or whether they found us like a free and independent people, breathing after more liberty than what formerly was looked after, or whether they were afraid of our act of security, in case of her majesty's decease; which of all these motives has induced them to a treaty i leave it to themselves. this i must say only, they have made a good bargain this time also. for the particular motives that induced us, i think they are obvious to be known, we found by sad experience, that every man hath advanced in power and riches, as they have done in trade, and at the same time considering that nowhere through the world slaves are found to be rich, though they should be adorned with chains of gold, we thereupon changed our notion of an incorporating union to that of a federal one; and being resolved to take this opportunity to make demands upon them, before we enter into the succession, we were content to empower her majesty to authorize and appoint commissioners to treat with the commissioners of england, with as ample powers as the lords commissioners from england had from their constituents, that we might not appear to have less confidence in her majesty, nor more narrow-heartedness in our act, than our neighbors of england. and thereupon last parliament, after her majesty's gracious letter was read, desiring us to declare the succession in the first place, and afterwards to appoint commissioners to treat, we found it necessary to renew our former resolve, which i shall read to this honorable house. the resolve presented by the duke of hamilton last session of parliament:-- "that this parliament will not proceed to the nomination of a successor till we have had a previous treaty with england, in relation to our commerce, and other concerns with that nation. and further, it is resolved that this parliament will proceed to make such limitations and conditions of government, for the rectification of our constitution, as may secure the liberty, religion, and independency of this kingdom, before they proceed to the said nomination." now, my lord, the last session of parliament having, before they would enter into any treaty with england, by a vote of the house, passed both an act for limitations and an act for rectification of our constitution, what mortal man has reason to doubt the design of this treaty was only federal? my lord chancellor, it remains now, that we consider the behavior of the lords commissioners at the opening of this treaty. and before i enter upon that, allow me to make this meditation, that if our posterity, after we are all dead and gone, shall find themselves under an ill-made bargain, and shall have recourse unto our records, and see who have been the managers of that treaty, by which they have suffered so much; when they read the names, they will certainly conclude, and say, ah! our nation has been reduced to the last extremity, at the time of this treaty; all our great chieftains, all our great peers and considerable men, who used formerly to defend the rights and liberties of the nation, have been all killed and dead in the bed of honor, before ever the nation was necessitated to condescend to such mean and contemptible terms. where are the names of the chief men, of the noble families of stuarts, hamiltons, grahams, campbels, gordons, johnstons, humes, murrays, kers? where are the two great officers of the crown, the constables and marshals of scotland? they have certainly all been extinguished, and now we are slaves forever. whereas the english records will make their posterity reverence the memory of the honorable names who have brought under their fierce, warlike, and troublesome neighbors, who had struggled so long for independence, shed the best blood of their nation and reduced a considerable part of their country to become waste and desolate. i am informed, my lord, that our commissioners did indeed frankly tell the lords commissioners for england that the inclinations of the people of scotland were much altered of late, in relation to an incorporating union; and that, therefore, since the entail was to end with her majesty's life (whom god long preserve), it was proper to begin the treaty upon the foot of the treaty of , year of god, the time when we came first under one sovereign; but this the english commissioners would not agree to, and our commissioners, that they might not seem obstinate, were willing to treat and conclude in the terms laid before this honorable house and subjected to their determination. if the lords commissioners for england had been as civil and complaisant, they should certainly have finished a federal treaty likewise, that both nations might have the choice which of them to have gone into as they thought fit; but they would hear of nothing but an entire and complete union, a name which comprehends a union, either by incorporation, surrender, or conquest, whereas our commissioners thought of nothing but a fair, equal, incorporating union. whether this be so or not i leave it to every man's judgment; but as for myself i must beg liberty to think it no such thing; for i take an incorporating union to be, where there is a change both in the material and formal points of government, as if two pieces of metal were melted down into one mass, it can neither be said to retain its former form or substance as it did before the mixture. but now, when i consider this treaty, as it hath been explained and spoke to before us this three weeks by past, i see the english constitution remaining firm, the same two houses of parliament, the same taxes, the same customs, the same excises, the same trading companies, the same municipal laws and courts of judicature; and all ours either subject to regulations or annihilations, only we have the honor to pay their old debts and to have some few persons present for witnesses to the validity of the deed when they are pleased to contract more. good god! what, is this an entire surrender! my lord, i find my heart so full of grief and indignation that i must beg pardon not to finish the last part of my discourse, that i may drop a tear as the prelude to so sad a story. john bell ( - ) john bell, of tennessee, who was a candidate with edward everett on the "constitutional union" ticket of , when virginia, kentucky, and tennessee gave him their thirty-nine electoral votes in favor of a hopeless peace, will always seem one of the most respectable figures in the politics of a time when calmness and conservatism, such as characterized him and his coadjutor., mr. everett, of massachusetts, had ceased to be desired by men who wished immediate success in public life. he was one of the founders of the whig party, and by demonstrating himself to be one of the very few men who could win against andrew jackson's opposition in tennessee, he acquired, under jackson and van buren, a great influence with the whigs of the country at large. he was a member of congress from tennessee for fourteen years dating from , when he won by a single vote against felix grundy, one of the strongest men in tennessee and a special favorite with general jackson. disagreeing with jackson on the removal of the deposits, bell was elected speaker of the house over jackson's protege, james k. polk, in , and in he entered the whig cabinet as secretary of war under harrison who had defeated another of jackson's proteges, van buren. in and again in , he was elected united states senator from tennessee and he did his best to prevent secession. he had opposed calhoun's theories of the right of a state to nullify a federal act if unconstitutional, and in march , in the debate over the lecompton constitution, he opposed toombs in a speech which probably made him the candidate of the constitutional unionists two years later. another notable speech, of even more far-reaching importance, he had delivered in in favor of opening up the west by building the pacific railroad, a position in which he was supported by jefferson davis. mr. bell was for the union in , denying the right of secession, but he opposed the coercion of the southern states, and when the fighting actually began he sided with tennessee, and took little or no part in public affairs thereafter. he died in . against extremists north and south (from a speech in the senate, march th, . on the lecompton constitution) the honorable senator from georgia, mr. toombs, announced some great truths to-day. he said that mankind made a long step, a great stride, when they declared that minorities should not rule; and that a still higher and nobler advance had been made when it was decided that majorities could only rule through regular and legal forms. he asserted this general doctrine with reference to the construction he proposed to give to the lecompton constitution; and to say that the people of kansas, unless they spoke through regular forms, cannot speak at all. he will allow me to say, however, that the forms through which a majority speaks must be provided and established by competent authority, and his doctrine can have no application to the lecompton constitution, unless he can first show that the legislature of kansas was vested with legal authority to provide for the formation of a state constitution; for, until that can be shown, there could be no regular and legal forms through which the majority could speak. but how does that senator reconcile his doctrine with that avowed by the president, as to the futility of attempting, by constitutional provisions, to fetter the power of the people in changing their constitution at pleasure? in no states of the union so much as in some of the slaveholding states would such a doctrine as that be so apt to be abused by incendiary demagogues, disappointed and desperate politicians, in stirring up the people to assemble voluntarily in convention--disregarding all the restrictions in their constitution--and strike at the property of the slaveholder. the honorable senator from kentucky inquired what, under this new doctrine, would prevent the majority of the people of the states of the union from changing the present federal constitution, and abrogating all existing guarantees for the protection of the small states, and any peculiar or particular interest confined to a minority of the states of the union. the analogy, i admit, is not complete between the federal constitution and a constitution of a state; but the promulgation of the general principle, that a majority of the people are fettered by no constitutional restrictions in the exercise of their right to change their form of government, is dangerous. that is quite enough for the purposes of demagogues and incendiary agitators. when i read the special message of the president, i said to some friends that the message, taking it altogether, was replete with more dangerous heresies than any paper i had ever seen emanating, not from a president of the united states, but from any political club in the country, and calculated to do more injury. i consider it in effect, and in its tendencies, as organizing anarchy. we are told that if we shall admit kansas with the lecompton constitution, this whole difficulty will soon be settled by the people of kansas. how? by disregarding the mode and forms prescribed by the constitution for amending it? no. i am not sure that the president, after all the lofty generalities announced in his message, in regard to the inalienable rights of the people, intended to sanction the idea that all the provisions of the lecompton constitution in respect to the mode and form of amending it should be set aside. he says the legislature now elected may, at its first meeting, call a convention to amend the constitution; and in another passage of his message he says that this inalienable power of the majority must be exercised in a lawful manner. this is perplexing. can there be any lawful enactment of the legislature in relation to the call of a convention, unless it be in conformity with the provisions of the constitution? they require that two-thirds of the members of the legislature shall concur in passing an act to take the sense of the people upon the call of a convention, and that the vote shall be taken at the next regular election, which cannot be held until two years afterwards. how can this difficulty be got over? the truth is, that unless all constitutional impediments in respect to forms be set aside, and the people take it in hand to amend the constitution on revolutionary principles, there can be no end of agitation on this subject in less than three years. i long since ventured the prediction that there would be no settlement of the difficulties in kansas until the next presidential election. to continue the agitation is too important to the interests of both the great parties of the country to dispense with it, as long as any pretext can be found for prolonging it. in the closing debate on the kansas-nebraska bill, i told its supporters that they could do nothing more certain to disturb the composure of the two senators who sat on the opposite side of the chamber, the one from massachusetts [mr. sumner] and the other from ohio [mr. chase], than to reject that bill. its passage was the only thing in the range of possible events by which their political fortunes could be resuscitated, so completely had the free-soil movement at the north been paralyzed by the compromise measures of . i say now to the advocates of this measure, if they want to strengthen the republican party, and give the reins of government into their hands, pass this bill. if they desire to weaken the power of that party, and arrest the progress of slavery agitation, reject it. and if it is their policy to put an end to the agitation connected with kansas affairs at the earliest day practicable, as they say it is, then let them remit this constitution back to the people of kansas, for their ratification or rejection. in that way the whole difficulty will be settled before the adjournment of the present session of congress, without the violation of any sound principle, or the sacrifice of the rights of either section of the union. but the president informs us that threatening and ominous clouds impend over the country; and he fears that if kansas is not admitted under the lecompton constitution, slavery agitation will be revived in a more dangerous form than it has ever yet assumed. there may be grounds for that opinion, for aught i know; but it seems to me that if any of the states of the south have taken any position on this question which endangers the peace of the country, they could not have been informed of the true condition of affairs in kansas, and of the strong objections which may be urged on principle against the acceptance by congress of the lecompton constitution. and i have such confidence in the intelligence of the people of the whole south, that when the history and character of this instrument shall be known, even those who would be glad to find some plausible pretext for dissolving the union will see that its rejection by congress would not furnish them with such a one as they could make available for their purposes. when the kansas-nebraska bill was under discussion, in , in looking to all the consequences which might follow the adoption of that measure, i could not overlook the fact that a sentiment of hostility to the union was widely diffused in certain states of the south; and that that sentiment was only prevented from assuming an organized form of resistance to the authority of the federal government, at least in one of the states, in , by the earnest remonstrance of a sister state, that was supposed to sympathize with her in the project of establishing a southern republic. nor could i fail to remember that the project--i speak of the convention held in south carolina, in pursuance of an act of the legislature--was then postponed, not dropped. the argument was successfully urged that an enterprise of such magnitude ought not to be entered upon without the co-operation of a greater number of states than they could then certainly count upon. it was urged that all the cotton-planting states would, before a great while, be prepared to unite in the movement, and that they, by the force of circumstances, would bring in all the slaveholding states. the ground was openly taken, that separation was an inevitable necessity. it was only a question of time. it was said that no new aggression was necessary on the part of the north to justify such a step. it was said that the operation of this government from its foundation had been adverse to southern interests; and that the admission of california as a free state, and the attempt to exclude the citizens of the south, with their property, from all the territory acquired from mexico, was a sufficient justification for disunion. it was not a mere menace to deter the north from further aggressions. these circumstances made a deep impression on my mind at the time, and from a period long anterior to that i had known that it was a maxim with the most skillful tacticians among those who desire separation, that the slaveholding states must be united--consolidated into one party. that object once effected, disunion, it was supposed, would follow without difficulty. i had my fears that the kansas-nebraska bill was expected to consolidate the south, and to pave the way for the accomplishment of ulterior plans by some of the most active supporters of that measure from the south; and these fears i indicated in the closing debate on that subject. some of the supporters of that measure, i fear, are reluctant now to abandon the chances of finding some pretext for agitating the subject of separation in the south in the existing complications of the kansas embroilment. to what extent the idea of disunion is entertained in some of the southern states, and what importance is attached to the policy of uniting the whole south in one party as a preliminary step, may be inferred from a speech delivered before the southern convention lately held in knoxville, tenn., by mr. de bow, the president of the convention, and the editor of a popular southern review. i will only refer now to the fate to which the author resigns those who dare to break the ranks of that solid phalanx in which he thinks the south should be combined--that is, to be "held up to public scorn and public punishment as traitors and tories, more steeped in guilt than those of the revolution itself." the honorable senator from new york further announced to us in exultant tones, that "at last there was a north side of this chamber, a north side of the chamber of the house of representatives, and a north side of the union, as well as a south side of all these"; and he admonished us that the time was at hand when freedom would assert its influence in the regulation of the domestic and foreign policy of the country. when was there a time in the history of the government that there was no north side of this chamber and of the other? when was there a time that there was not a proud array of northern men in both chambers, distinguished by their genius and ability, devoted to the interests of the north, and successful in maintaining them? though it may be true that southern men have filled the executive chair for much the larger portion of the time that has elapsed since the organization of the government, yet when, in what instance was it, that a southerner has been elevated to that high station without the support of a majority of the freemen of the north? do you of the north complain that the policy of the government, under the long-continued influence of southern presidents, has been injurious or fatal to your interests? has it paralyzed your industry? has it crippled your resources? has it impaired your energies? has it checked your progress in any one department of human effort? let your powerful mercantile marine, your ships whitening every sea--the fruit of wise commercial regulations and navigation laws; let your flourishing agriculture, your astonishing progress in manufacturing skill, your great canals, your thousands of miles of railroads, your vast trade, internal and external, your proud cities, and your accumulated millions of moneyed capital, ready to be invested in profitable enterprises in any part of the world, answer that question. do you complain of a narrow and jealous policy under southern rule, in extending and opening new fields of enterprise to your hardy sons in the great west, along the line of the great chain of american lakes, even to the head waters of the father of rivers, and over the rich and fertile plains stretching southward from the lake shores? let the teeming populations--let the hundreds of millions of annual products that have succeeded to the but recent dreary and unproductive haunts of the red man--answer that question. that very preponderance of free states which the senator from new york contemplates with such satisfaction, and which has moved him exultingly to exclaim that there is at last a north side of this chamber, has been hastened by the liberal policy of southern presidents and southern statesmen; and has it become the ambition of that senator to unite and combine all this great, rich, and powerful north in the policy of crippling the resources and repressing the power of the south? is this to be the one idea which is to mold the policy of the government, when that gentleman and his friends shall control it? if it be, then i appeal to the better feelings and the better judgment of his followers to arrest him in his mad career. sir, let us have some brief interval of repose at least from this eternal agitation of the slavery question. let power go into whatever hands it may, let us save the union! i have all the confidence other gentlemen can have in the extent to which this union is intrenched in the hearts of the great mass of the people of the north and south; but when i reflect upon and consider the desperate and dangerous extremes to which ambitious party leaders are often prepared to go, without meaning to do the country any mischief, in the struggle for the imperial power, the crown of the american presidency, i sometimes tremble for its fate. two great parties are now dividing the union on this question. it is evident to every man of sense, who examines it, that practically, in respect to slavery, the result will be the same both to north and south; kansas will be a free state, no matter what may be the decision on this question. but how that decision may affect the fortunes of those parties, is not certain; and there is the chief difficulty. but the greatest question of all is, how will that decision affect the country as a whole? two adverse yet concurrent and mighty forces are driving the vessel of state towards the rocks upon which she must split, unless she receives timely aid--a paradox, yet expressive of a momentous and perhaps a fatal truth. there is no hope of rescue unless the sober-minded men, both of the north and south, shall, by some sufficient influence, be brought to adopt the wise maxims and sage counsels of the great founders of our government. trans-continental railroads (delivered in the united states senate, february th, . in support of the pacific railroad bill) an objection made to this bill is, the gigantic scale of the projected enterprise. a grand idea it is. a continent of three thousand miles in extent from east to west, reaching from the atlantic to the pacific, is to be connected by a railway! honorable senators will remember, that over one thousand miles--one-third of this whole expanse of the continent--the work is already accomplished, and that chiefly by private enterprise. i may, as a safe estimate, say, that a thousand miles of this railroad leading from the atlantic to the west, upon the line of the lakes, and nearly as much upon a line further south, are either completed, or nearly so. we have two thousand miles yet to compass, in the execution of a work which it is said has no parallel in the history of the world. no, sir; it has no parallel in the history of the world, ancient or modern, either as to its extent and magnitude, or to its consequences, beneficent and benignant in all its bearings on the interests of all mankind. it is in these aspects, and in the contemplation of these consequences, that it has no parallel in the history of the world--changing the course of the commerce of the world--bringing the west almost in contact, by reversing the ancient line of communication, with the gorgeous east, and all its riches, the stories of which, in our earlier days we regarded as fabulous; but now, sir, what was held to be merely fictions of the brain in former times, in regard to the riches of eastern asia, is almost realized on our own western shores. sir, these are some of the inducements to the construction of this great road, besides its importance to the military defenses of the country, and its mail communications. sir, it is a magnificent and splendid project in every aspect in which you can view it. one-third of this great railway connection is accomplished; two-thirds remain to be. shall we hesitate to go forward with the work? now, with regard to the means provided for the construction of the road. it is said, here is an enormous expenditure of the public money proposed. we propose to give twenty millions of dollars in the bonds of the government, bearing five per cent. interest, and fifteen millions of acres of land, supposed to be worth as much more, on the part of the government. this is said to be enormous, and we are reminded that we ought to look at what the people will say, and how they will feel when they come to the knowledge that twenty millions in money and twenty millions in land have been given for the construction of a railway! some doubtless there are in this chamber who are ready to contend that we had better give these fifteen millions of acres of land to become homesteads for the landless and homeless. what is this twenty millions in money, and how is it to be paid? it is supposed that the road cannot be constructed in less than five years. in that event, bonds of the government to the amount of four millions of dollars will issue annually. probably the road will not be built in less than ten years, and that will require an issue of bonds amounting to two millions a year; and possibly the road may not be finished in less than twenty years, which would limit the annual issue of bonds to one million. the interest upon these bonds, at five per cent, will of course have to be paid out of the treasury, a treasury in which there is now a surplus of twelve or fourteen millions of dollars. when the road is completed and the whole amount of twenty millions in lands is paid, making the whole sum advanced by the government forty millions, the annual interest upon them will only be two millions. and what is that? why, sir, the donations and benevolences, the allowances of claims upon flimsy and untenable grounds, and other extravagant and unnecessary expenditures that are granted by congress and the executive departments, while you have an overflowing treasury, will amount to the half of that sum annually. the enormous sum of two millions is proposed to be paid out of the treasury annually, when this great road shall be completed! it is a tremendous undertaking, truly! what a scheme! what extravagance! i understand the cost of the new york and erie road alone, constructed principally by private enterprise, has been not less than thirty millions--between thirty and thirty-three millions of dollars. that work was constructed by a single state giving aid occasionally to a company, which supplied the balance of the cost. i understand that the road from baltimore to wheeling, when it shall have been finished, and its furniture placed upon it, will have cost at least thirty millions. what madness, what extravagance, then, is it for the government of the united states to undertake to expend forty millions for a road from the mississippi to the pacific. mr. president, one honorable senator says the amount is not sufficient to induce a capitalist to invest his money in the enterprise. others, again, say it is far too much; more than we can afford to give for the construction of the work. let us see which is right. the government is to give twenty millions in all out of the treasury for the road; or we issue bonds and pay five per cent, interest annually upon them, and twenty millions in lands, which, if regarded as money, amounts to a cost to the government of two millions per annum. what are the objects to be accomplished? a daily mail from the valley of the mississippi to the pacific; the free transportation of all troops and munitions of war required for the protection and defense of our possessions on the pacific; which we could not hold three months in a war either with england or france, without such a road. by building this road we accomplish this further object: this road will be the most effective and powerful check that can be interposed by the government upon indian depredations and aggressions upon our frontiers or upon each other; the northern tribes upon the southern, and the southern upon the northern. you cut them in two. you will be constantly in their midst, and cut off their intercommunication and hostile depredations. you will have a line of quasi fortifications, a line of posts and stations, with settlements on each side of the road. every few miles you will thus have settlements strong enough to defend themselves against inroads of the indians, and so constituting a wall of separation between the indian tribes, composed of a white population, with arms in their hands. this object alone would, perhaps, be worth as much as the road will cost; and when i speak of what the road will be worth in this respect, i mean to say, that besides the prevention of savage warfare, the effusion of blood, it will save millions of dollars to the treasury annually, in the greater economy attained in moving troops and military supplies and preventing hostilities. . . . i have been thus particular in noting these things because i want to show where or on which side the balance will be found in the adjustment of the responsibility account between the friends and the opponents of this measure--which will have the heaviest account to settle with the country. for myself, i am not wedded to this particular scheme. rather than have no road, i would prefer to adopt other projects. i am now advocating one which i supposed would meet the views of a greater number of senators than any other. i think great honor is due to mr. whitney for having originated the scheme, and having obtained the sanction of the legislatures of seventeen or eighteen states of the union. rather than have the project altogether fail, i would be willing to adopt this plan. it may not offer the same advantages for a speedy consummation of the work; but still, we would have a road in prospect, and that would be a great deal. but if gentlemen are to rise here in their places year after year--and this is the fifth year from the time we ought to have undertaken this work--and tell us it is just time to commence a survey, we will never have a road. the honorable senator from south carolina [mr. butler] says there ought to be some limitation in this idea of progress, when regarded as a spur to great activity and energy, as to what we shall do in our day. he says we have acquired california; we have opened up those rich regions on our western borders, which promises such magnificent results; and he asks, is not that enough for the present generation? leave it to the nest generation to construct a work of such magnitude as this--requiring forty millions of dollars from the government. mr. president, i have said that if the condition was a road or no road, i would regard one hundred and fifty millions of dollars as well laid out by the government for the work; though i have no idea that it will take such an amount. eighty or one hundred millions of dollars will build the road. but with regard to what is due from this generation to itself, or what may be left to the next generation, i say it is for the present generation that we want the road. as to our having acquired california, and opened this new world of commerce and enterprise, and as to what we shall leave to the next generation, i say that, after we of this generation shall have constructed this road, we will, perhaps, not even leave to the next generation the construction of a second one. the present generation, in my opinion, will not pass away until it shall have seen two great lines of railroads in prosperous operation between the atlantic and pacific oceans, and within our own territory, and still leave quite enough to the next generation--the third and fourth great lines of communication between the two extremes of the continent. one, at least, is due to ourselves, and to the present generation; and i hope there are many within the sound of my voice who will live to see it accomplished. we want that new dorado, the new ophir of america, to be thrown open and placed within the reach of the whole people. we want the great cost, the delays, as well as the privations and risks of a passage to california, by the malarious isthmus of panama, or any other of the routes now in use, to be mitigated, or done away with. there will be some greater equality in the enjoyment and advantages of these new acquisitions upon the pacific coast when this road shall be constructed. the inexhaustible gold mines, or placers of california, will no longer be accessible only to the more robust, resolute, or desperate part of our population, and who may be already well enough off to pay their passage by sea, or provide an outfit for an overland travel of two and three thousand miles. enterprising young men all over the country, who can command the pittance of forty or fifty dollars to pay their railroad fare; heads of families who have the misfortune to be poor, but spirit and energy enough to seek comfort and independence by labor, will no longer be restrained by the necessity of separating themselves from their families, but have it in their power, with such small means as they may readily command, in eight or ten days, to find themselves with their whole households transported and set down in the midst of the gold regions of the west, at full liberty to possess and enjoy whatever of the rich harvest spread out before them their industry and energy shall entitle them to. it will be theirs by as good a title as any can boast who have had the means to precede them. we hear much said of late of the justice and policy of providing a homestead, a quarter section of the public land, to every poor and landless family in the country. make this road, and you enable every poor man in the country to buy a much better homestead, and retain all the pride and spirit of independence. gentlemen here may say that the region of california, so inviting, and abundant in gold now, will soon be exhausted, and all these bright prospects for the enterprising poor pass away. no, sir; centuries will pass--ages and ages must roll away before those gold-bearing mountains shall all have been excavated--those auriferous sands and alluvial deposits shall give out all their wealth; and even after all these shall have failed, the beds of the rivers will yield a generous return to the toil of the laborer. ... mr. president, i alluded to the importance of having a communication by railway between the mississippi river and the pacific ocean, in the event of war with any great maritime power. i confess that the debates upon the subject of our foreign relations within the last few weeks, if all that was said had commanded my full assent, would have dissipated very much the force of any argument which i thought might be fairly urged in favor of this road as a necessary work for the protection and security of our possessions on the pacific coast. we now hear it stated, and reiterated by grave and respectable and intelligent senators, that there is no reason that any one should apprehend a war with either great britain or france. not now, nor at any time in the future; at all events, unless there shall be a total change in the condition, social, political, and economical, of those powers, and especially as regards great britain. all who have spoken agree that there is no prospect of war. none at all. i agree that i can see nothing in the signs of the times which is indicative of immediate and certain war. several gentlemen have thrown out the idea that we hold the bond of great britain to keep the peace, with ample guarantees and sureties, not only for the present time, but for an indefinite time; and as long as great britain stands as an independent monarchy. these sureties and guarantees are said to consist in the discontented and destitute class of her population, of her operatives and laborers, and the indispensable necessity of the cotton crop of the united states in furnishing them with employment and subsistence, without which it is said she would be torn with internal strife. i could tell gentlemen who argue in that way, that we have another guarantee that great britain will not break with the united states for any trivial cause, which they have not thought proper to raise. we may threaten and denounce and bluster as much as we please about british violations of the clayton and bulwer treaty, and the mosquito protectorate, about the assumption of territorial dominion over the balize or british honduras, and the new colony of the bay islands; and great britain will negotiate, explain, treat, and transgress, and negotiate again, and resort to any device, before she will go to war with us, as long as she can hope to prolong the advantages to herself of the free-trade policy now established with the united states. it is not only the cotton crop of america which she covets, but it is the rich market for the products of her manufacturing industry, which she finds in the united states; and this has contributed as much as any other cause to improve the condition of her operatives, and impart increased prosperity to her trade and revenue. as long as we think proper to hold to our present commercial regulations, i repeat that it will require very great provocation on our part to force great britain into a war with the united states. . . . as for this road, we are told at every turn that it is ridiculous to talk of war in connection with it, for we will have no wars except those with the indians. both england and france dare not go to war with us. i say this course of argument is not only unwise and delusive, but if such sentiments take hold on the country, they will be mischievous; they will almost to a certainty lead to a daring and reckless policy on our part; and as each government labors under a similar delusion as to what the other will not dare to do, what is more probable than that both may get into such a position--the result of a mutual mistake--that war must ensue? it is worth while to reflect upon the difference between the policy of great britain and this country in her diplomatic correspondence and debates in parliament. when we make a threat, great britain does not threaten in turn. we hear of no gasconade on her part. if we declare that we have a just right to latitude degrees ', and will maintain our right at all hazard, she does not bluster, and threaten, and declare what she will do, if we dare to cany out our threat. when we talk about the mosquito king, of balize, and of the bay islands, and declare our determination to drive her from her policy and purposes in regard to them, we do not hear of an angry form of expression from her. we employed very strong language last year in regard to the rights of american fishermen; but the reply of great britain scarcely assumed the tone of remonstrance against the intemperate tone of our debates. her policy upon all such occasions is one of wisdom. her strong and stern purpose is seldom to be seen in her diplomatic intercourse, or in the debates of her leading statesmen; but if you were about her dock-yards, or in her foundries, or her timber-yards, and her great engine manufactories, and her armories, you would find some bustle and stir. there, all is life and motion. i have always thought that the proper policy of this country is to make no threats--to make no parade of what we intend to do. let us put the country in a condition to defend its honor and interests; to maintain them successfully whenever they may be assailed; no matter by what power, whether by great britain, or france, or both combined. make this road; complete the defenses of the country, of your harbors, and navy yards; strengthen your navy--put it upon an efficient footing; appropriate ample means for making experiments to ascertain the best model of ships-of-war, to be driven by steam or any other motive power; the best models of the engines to be employed in them; to inquire whether a large complement of guns, or a few guns of great calibre, is the better plan. we may well, upon such questions, take a lesson from england. at a recent period she has been making experiments of this nature, in order to give increased efficiency to her naval establishment. how did she set about it? her admiralty board gave orders for eleven of the most perfect engines that could be built by eleven of the most skillful and eminent engine-builders in the united kingdom, without limit as to the cost, or any other limitation, except as to class or size. at the same time orders were issued for the building of thirteen frigates of a medium class by thirteen of the most skillful shipbuilders in the kingdom, in order to ascertain the best models, the best running lines, and the best of every other quality desirable in a war vessel. this is the mode in which great britain prepares for any contingencies which may arise. she cannot tell when they may occur, yet she knows that she has no immunity from those chances which, at some time or other, are seen to happen to all nations. in my opinion, the construction of this road from the mississippi to the pacific is essential to the protection and safety of this country, in the event of a war with any great maritime power. it may take ten years to complete it; but every hundred miles of it, which may be finished before the occurrence of war, will be just so much gained--so much added to our ability to maintain our honor in that war. in every view of this question i can take, i am persuaded that we ought at least prepare to commence the work, and do it immediately. judah philip benjamin ( - ) judah p. benjamin, the "beaconsfield of the confederacy," was born at st. croix in the west indies, where his parents, a family of english-jews, on their way to settle in new orleans, were delayed by the american measures against intercourse with england. in his parents brought him to wilmington, north carolina, where, and at yale college, he was educated. not until after he was ready to begin life at the bar, did he reach new orleans, the destination for which his parents had set out before he was born. in new orleans, after a severe struggle, he rose to eminence as a lawyer, and his firm, of which mr. slidell was a partner, was the leading law firm of the state. he was elected to the united states senate as a whig in and re-elected as a democrat in . with mr. slidell, who was serving with him in the senate, he withdrew in and became attorney-general in the confederate cabinet. he was afterwards made secretary of war, but as the confederate congress censured him in that position he resigned it and mr. davis immediately appointed him secretary of state. after the close of the war, when pursuit after members of the confederate cabinet was active, he left the coast of florida in an open boat and landed at the bahamas, taking passage thence to london where he rose to great eminence as a lawyer. he was made queen's counsel, and on his retirement from practice, because of ill health, in , a farewell banquet was given him by the bar in the hall of the inner temple, probably the most notable compliment paid in england to any orator since the banquet to berryer. he died in . benjamin was called the "brains of the confederacy" and in acuteness of intellect he probably surpassed most men of his time. he resembled disraeli in this as well as in being a thorough-going believer in an aristocratic method of government rather than in one based on universal suffrage and the will of the masses determined by majority vote. farewell to the union (on leaving the united states senate in ) mr. president, if we were engaged in the performance of our accustomed legislative duties, i might well rest content with the simple statement of my concurrences in the remarks just made by my colleague [mr. slidell]. deeply impressed, however, with the solemnity of the occasion, i cannot remain insensible to the duty of recording, among the authentic reports of your proceedings, the expression of my conviction that the state of louisiana has judged and acted well and wisely in this crisis of her destiny. sir, it has been urged, on more than one occasion, in the discussions here and elsewhere, that louisiana stands on an exceptional footing. it has been said that whatever may be the rights of the states that were original parties to the constitution, --even granting their right to resume, for sufficient cause, those restricted powers which they delegated to the general government in trust for their own use and benefit,--still louisiana can have no such right, because she was acquired by purchase. gentlemen have not hesitated to speak of the sovereign states formed out of the territory ceded by france as property bought with the money of the united states, belonging to them as purchasers; and, although they have not carried their doctrine to its legitimate results, i must conclude that they also mean to assert, on the same principle, the right of selling for a price that which for a price was bought. i shall not pause to comment on this repulsive dogma of a party which asserts the right of property in free-born white men, in order to reach its cherished object of destroying the right of property in slave-born black men--still less shall i detain the senate in pointing out how shadowy the distinction between the condition of the servile african and that to which the white freeman of my state would be reduced, if it, indeed, be true that they are bound to this government by ties that cannot be legitimately dissevered without the consent of that very majority which wields its powers for their oppression. i simply deny the fact on which the argument is founded. i deny that the province of louisiana, or the people of louisiana, were ever conveyed to the united states for a price as property that could be bought or sold at will. without entering into the details of the negotiation, the archives of our state department show the fact to be, that although the domain, the public lands, and other property of france in the ceded province, were conveyed by absolute title to the united states, the sovereignty was not conveyed otherwise than in trust. a hundredfold, sir, has the government of the united states been reimbursed by the sales of public property, of public lands, for the price of the acquisition; but not with the fidelity of the honest trustee has it discharged the obligations as regards the sovereignty. i have said that the government assumed to act as trustee or guardian of the people of the ceded province, and covenanted to transfer to them the sovereignty thus held in trust for their use and benefit, as soon as they were capable of exercising it. what is the express language of the treaty? "the inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be incorporated in the union of the united states, and admitted as soon as possible, according to the principles of the federal constitution, to the enjoyments of all rights, advantages, and immunities of citizens of the united states; and in the meantime they shall be maintained and protected in the enjoyment of their liberty, property, and the religion which they profess." and, sir, as if to mark the true nature of the cession in a manner too significant to admit of misconstruction, the treaty stipulates no price; and the sole consideration for the conveyance, as stated on its face, is the desire to afford a strong proof of the friendship of france for the united states. by the terms of a separate convention stipulating the payment of a sum of money, the precaution is again observed of stating that the payment is to be made, not as a consideration or a price or a condition precedent of the cession, but it is carefully distinguished as being a consequence of the cession. it was by words thus studiously chosen, sir, that james monroe and thomas jefferson marked their understanding of a contract now misconstrued as being a bargain and sale of sovereignty over freemen. with what indignant scorn would those stanch advocates of the inherent right of self-government have repudiated the slavish doctrine now deduced from their action! how were the obligations of this treaty fulfilled? that louisiana at that date contained slaves held as property by her people through the whole length of the mississippi valley, that those people had an unrestricted right of settlement with their slaves under legal protection throughout the entire ceded province, no man has ever yet had the hardihood to deny. here is a treaty promise to protect their property--their slave property--in that territory, before it should become a state. that this promise was openly violated, in the adjustment forced upon the south at the time of the admission of missouri, is a matter of recorded history. the perspicuous and unanswerable exposition of mr. justice catron, in the opinion delivered by him in the dred scott case, will remain through all time as an ample vindication of this assertion. if then, sir, the people of louisiana had a right, which congress could not deny, of the admission into the union with all the rights of all the citizens of the united states, it is in vain that the partisans of the right of the majority to govern the minority with despotic control, attempt to establish a distinction, to her prejudice, between her rights and those of any other state. the only distinction which really exists is this, that she can point to a breach of treaty stipulations expressly guaranteeing her rights, as a wrong superadded to those which have impelled a number of her sister states to the assertion of their independence. the rights of louisiana as a sovereign state are those of virginia; no more, no less. let those who deny her right to resume delegated powers successfully refute the claim of virginia to the same right, in spite of her express reservation made and notified to her sister states when she consented to enter the union! and, sir, permit me to say that, of all the causes which justify the action of the southern states, i know none of greater gravity and more alarming magnitude than that now developed of the right of secession. a pretension so monstrous as that which perverts a restricted agency constituted by sovereign states for common purposes, into the unlimited despotism of the majority, and denies all legitimate escape from such despotism, when powers not delegated are usurped, converts the whole constitutional fabric into the secure abode of lawless tyranny, and degrades sovereign states into provincial dependencies. it is said that the right of secession, if conceded, makes of our government a mere rope of sand; that to assert its existence imputes to the framers of the constitution the folly of planting the seeds of death in that which was designed for perpetual existence. if this imputation were true, sir, it would merely prove that their offspring was not exempt from that mortality which is the common lot of all that is not created by higher than human power. but it is not so, sir. let facts answer theory. for two-thirds of a century this right has been known by many of the states to be, at all times, within their power. yet, up to the present period, when its exercise has become indispensable to a people menaced with absolute extermination, there have been but two instances in which it has been even threatened seriously; the first, when massachusetts led the new england states in an attempt to escape from the dangers of our last war with great britain; the second, when the same state proposed to secede on account of the admission of texas as a new state into the union. sir, in the language of our declaration of secession from great britain, it is stated as an established truth, that "all experience has shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they have been accustomed"; and nothing can be more obvious to the calm and candid observer of passing events than that the disruption of the confederacy has been due, in a great measure, not to the existence, but to the denial of this right. few candid men would refuse to admit that the republicans of the north would have been checked in their mad career had they been convinced of the existence of this right, and the intention to assert it. the very knowledge of its existence by preventing occurrences which alone could prompt its exercise would have rendered it a most efficient instrument in the preservation of the union, but, sir, if the fact were otherwise-- if all the teachings of experience were reversed--better, far better, a rope of sand, aye, the flimsiest gossamer that ever glistened in the morning dew, than chains of iron and shackles of steel; better the wildest anarchy, with the hope, the chance, of one hour's inspiration of the glorious breath of freedom, than ages of the hopeless bondage and oppression to which our enemies would reduce us. we are told that the laws must be enforced; that the revenues must be collected; that the south is in rebellion without cause, and that her citizens are traitors. rebellion! the very word is a confession; an avowal of tyranny, outrage, and oppression. it is taken from the despot's code, and has no terror for others than slavish souls. when, sir, did millions of people, as a single man, rise in organized, deliberate, unimpassioned rebellion against justice, truth, and honor? well did a great englishman exclaim on a similar occasion:-- "you might as well tell me that they rebelled against the light of heaven, that they rejected the fruits of the earth. men do not war against their benefactors; they are not mad enough to repel the instincts of self-preservation. i pronounce fearlessly that no intelligent people ever rose, or ever will rise, against a sincere, rational, and benevolent authority. no people were ever born blind. infatuation is not a law of human nature. when there is a revolt by a free people, with the common consent of all classes of society, there must be a criminal against whom that revolt is aimed." traitors! treason! ay, sir, the people of the south imitate and glory in just such treason as glowed in the soul of hampden; just such treason as leaped in living flame from the impassioned lips of henry; just such treason as encircles with a sacred halo the undying name of washington. you will enforce the laws. you want to know if we have a government; if you have any authority to collect revenue; to wring tribute from an unwilling people? sir, humanity desponds, and all the inspiring hopes of her progressive improvement vanish into empty air at the reflections which crowd on the mind at hearing repeated, with aggravated enormity, the sentiments against which a chatham launched his indignant thunders nearly a century ago. the very words of lord north and his royal master are repeated here in debate, not as quotations, but as the spontaneous outpourings of a spirit the counterpart of theirs. in lord north's speech on the destruction of the tea in boston harbor, he said:-- "we are no longer to dispute between legislation and taxation; we are now only to consider whether or not we have any authority there. it is very clear we have none, if we suffer the property of our subjects to be destroyed. we must punish, control, or yield to them." and thereupon he proposed to close the port of boston, just as the representatives of massachusetts now propose to close the port of charleston, in order to determine whether or not you have any authority there. it is thus that, in , boston is to pay her debt of gratitude to charleston, which, in the days of her struggle, proclaimed the generous sentiment that "the cause of boston was the cause of charleston." who, after this, will say that republicans are ungrateful? well, sir, the statesmen of great britain answered to lord north's appeal, "yield." the courtiers and the politicians said, "punish," "control." the result is known. history gives you the lesson. profit by its teachings! so, sir, in the address sent under the royal sign-manual to parliament, it was invoked to take measures "for better securing the execution of the laws," and it acquiesced in the suggestion. just as now, a senile executive, under the sinister influence of insane counsels, is proposing, with your assent, "to secure the better execution of the laws," by blockading ports and turning upon the people of the states the artillery which they provided at their own expense for their own defense, and intrusted to you and to him for that and for no other purpose--nay, even in states that are now exercising the undoubted and most precious rights of a free people; where there is no secession; where the citizens are assembling to hold peaceful elections for considering what course of action is demanded in this dread crisis by a due regard for their own safety and their own liberty; aye, even in virginia herself, the people are to cast their suffrages beneath the undisguised menaces of a frowning fortress. cannon are brought to bear on their homes, and parricidal hands are preparing weapons for rending the bosom of the mother of washington. sir, when great britain proposed to exact tribute from your fathers against their will, lord chatham said:-- "whatever is a man's own is absolutely his own; no man has a right to take it from him without his consent. whoever attempts to do it attempts an injury. whoever does it commits a robbery. you have no right to tax america. i rejoice that america has resisted. "let the sovereign authority of this country over the colonies be asserted in as strong terms as can be devised, and be made to extend to every point of legislation whatever, so that we may bind their trade, confine their manufactures, and exercise every power, except that of taking money out of their own pockets without their consent." it was reserved for the latter half of the nineteenth century, and for the congress of a republic of free men, to witness the willing abnegation of all power, save that of exacting tribute. what imperial britain, with the haughtiest pretensions of unlimited power over dependent colonies, could not even attempt without the vehement protest of her greatest statesmen, is to be enforced in aggravated form, if you can enforce it, against independent states. good god, sir! since when has the necessity arisen of recalling to american legislators the lessons of freedom taught in lisping childhood by loving mothers; that pervade the atmosphere we have breathed from infancy; that so form part of our very being, that in their absence we would lose the consciousness of our own identity? heaven be praised that not all have forgotten them; that when we shall have left these familiar halls, and when force bills, blockades, armies, navies, and all the accustomed coercive appliances of despots shall be proposed and advocated, voices shall be heard from this side of the chamber that will make its very roof resound with the indignant clamor of outraged freedom. methinks i still hear ringing in my ears the appeal of the eloquent representative [hon. george h. pendleton, of ohio], whose northern home looks down on kentucky's fertile borders: "armies, money, blood cannot maintain this union; justice, reason, peace may." and now to you, mr. president, and to my brother senators, on all sides of this chamber, i bid a respectful farewell; with many of those from whom i have been radically separated in political sentiment, my personal relations have been kindly, and have inspired me with a respect and esteem that i shall not willingly forget; with those around me from the southern states i part as men part from brothers on the eve of a temporary absence, with a cordial pressure of the hand and a smiling assurance of the speedy renewal of sweet intercourse around the family hearth. but to you, noble and generous friends, who, born beneath other skies, possess hearts that beat in sympathy with ours; to you, who, solicited and assailed by motives the most powerful that could appeal to selfish natures, have nobly spurned them all; to you, who, in our behalf, have bared your breasts to the fierce beatings of the storm, and made willing sacrifice of life's most glittering prizes in your devotion to constitutional liberty; to you, who have made our cause your cause, and from many of whom i feel i part forever, what shall i, can i say? naught, i know and feel, is needed for myself; but this i will say for the people in whose name i speak to-day: whether prosperous or adverse fortunes await you, one priceless treasure is yours-- the assurance that an entire people honor your names, and hold them in grateful and affectionate memory. but with still sweeter and more touching return shall your unselfish devotion be rewarded. when, in after days, the story of the present shall be written, when history shall have passed her stern sentence on the erring men who have driven their unoffending brethren from the shelter of their common home, your names will derive fresh lustre from the contrast; and when your children shall hear repeated the familiar tale, it will be with glowing cheek and kindling eye; their very souls will stand a-tiptoe as their sires are named, and they will glory in their lineage from men of spirit as generous and of patriotism as high-hearted as ever illustrated or adorned the american senate. slavery as established by law (delivered in the united states senate, march th, ) examine your constitution; are slaves the only species of property there recognized as requiring peculiar protection? sir, the inventive genius of our brethren of the north is a source of vast wealth to them and vast benefit to the nation. i saw a short time ago in one of the new york journals, that the estimated value of a few of the patents now before us in this capitol for renewal was $ , , . i cannot believe that the entire capital invested in inventions of this character in the united states can fall short of one hundred and fifty or two hundred million dollars. on what protection does this vast property rest? just upon that same constitutional protection which gives a remedy to the slave-owner when his property is also found outside of the limits of the state in which he lives. without this protection what would be the condition of the northern inventor? why, sir, the vermont inventor protected by his own law would come to massachusetts, and there say to the pirate who had stolen his property, "render me up my property, or pay me value for its use." the senator from vermont would receive for answer, if he were the counsel of this vermont inventor: "sir, if you want protection for your property go to your own state; property is governed by the laws of the state within whose jurisdiction it is found; you have no property in your invention outside of the limits of your state; you cannot go an inch beyond it." would not this be so? does not every man see at once that the right of the inventor to his discovery, that the right of the poet to his inspiration, depends upon those principles of eternal justice which god has implanted in the heart of man; and that wherever he cannot exercise them, it is because man, faithless to the trust that he has received from god, denies them the protection to which they are entitled? sir, follow out the illustration which the senator from vermont himself has given; take his very case of the delaware owner of a horse riding him across the line into pennsylvania. the senator says, "now you see that slaves are not property, like other property; if slaves were property like other property, why have you this special clause in your constitution to protect a slave? you have no clause to protect a horse, because horses are recognized as property everywhere." mr. president, the same fallacy lurks at the bottom of this argument, as of all the rest. let pennsylvania exercise her undoubted jurisdiction over persons and things within her own boundary, let her do as she has a perfect right to do--declare that hereafter, within the state of pennsylvania, there shall be no property in horses, and that no man shall maintain a suit in her courts for the recovery of property in a horse, and where will your horse owner be then? just where the english poet is now; just where the slaveholder and the inventor would be if the constitution, foreseeing a difference of opinion in relation to rights in these subject-matters, had not provided the remedy in relation to such property as might easily be plundered. slaves, if you please, are not property like other property in this, that you can easily rob us of them; but as to the right in them, that man has to overthrow the whole history of the world, he has to overthrow every treatise on jurisprudence, he has to ignore the common sentiment of mankind, he has to repudiate the authority of all that is considered sacred with man, ere he can reach the conclusion that the person who owns a slave, in a country where slavery has been established for ages, has no other property in that slave than the mere title which is given by the statute law of the land where it is found. model speeches for practise by grenville kleiser _formerly instructor in public speaking at yale divinity school, yale university. author of "how to speak in public," "great speeches and how to make them," "complete guide to public speaking," "how to build mental power," "talks on talking," etc., etc._ [illustration: publisher's logo] funk & wagnalls company new york and london copyright, , by grenville kleiser [_printed in the united states of america_] published, february, copyright under the articles of the copyright convention of the pan-american republics and the united states, august , preface this book contains a varied representation of successful speeches by eminently successful speakers. they furnish, in convenient form, useful material for study and practise. the student is earnestly recommended to select one speech at a time, analyze it carefully, note its special features, practise it aloud, and then proceed to another. in this way he will cover the principal forms of public speaking, and enable himself to apply his knowledge to any occasion. the cardinal rule is that a speaker learns to speak by speaking, hence a careful reading and study of these speeches will do much to develop the student's taste for correct literary and oratorical form. grenville kleiser. new york city, august, . contents page introduction--aims and purposes of speaking--_grenville kleiser_ after-dinner speaking--_james russell lowell_ england, mother of nations--_ralph waldo emerson_ the age of research--_william ewart gladstone_ address of welcome--_oliver wendell holmes_ good-will to america--_sir william harcourt_ the qualities that win--_charles sumner_ the english-speaking race--_george william curtis_ woman--_horace porter_ tribute to herbert spencer--_william m. evarts_ the empire state--_chauncey m. depew_ men of letters--_james anthony froude_ literature and politics--_john morley_ general sherman--_carl schurz_ oration over alexander hamilton--_gouverneur morris_ eulogy of mckinley--_grover cleveland_ decoration day--_thomas w. higginson_ faith in mankind--_arthur t. hadley_ washington and lincoln--_martin w. littleton_ characteristics of washington--_william mckinley_ let france be free--_george jacques danton_ sons of harvard--_charles devens_ wake up, england!--_king george_ introduction aims and purposes of speaking it is obvious that the style of your public speaking will depend upon the specific purpose you have in view. if you have important truths which you wish to make known, or a great and definite cause to serve, you are likely to speak about it with earnestness and probably with eloquence. if, however, your purpose in speaking is a selfish one--if your object is self-exploitation, or to serve some special interest of your own--if you regard your speaking as an irksome task, or are unduly anxious as to what your hearers will think of you and your effort--then you are almost sure to fail. on the other hand, if you have the interests of your hearers sincerely at heart--if you really wish to render a worthy public service--if you lose all thought of self in your heartfelt desire to serve others--then you will have the most essential requirements of true and enduring oratory. the necessity of a definite object it is of the highest importance for you to have in mind a clear conception of the end you wish to achieve by your speaking. this purpose should characterize all you say, so that at each step in your speech you will feel sure of making steady progress toward the desired object. as a public speaker you assume serious responsibility. you are to influence men for weal or woe. the words you speak are like so many seeds, planted in the minds of your hearers, there to grow and multiply according to their kind. what you say may have far-reaching effects, hence the importance of careful forethought in the planning and preparation of your speeches. _the highest aim of your public speaking is not merely to instruct or entertain, but to influence the wills of men, to make men think as you think, and to persuade them to act in the manner you desire._ this is a lofty aim, when supported by a good cause, and worthy of your greatest talents and efforts. the key to success in speaking the key to greatness of speech is sincerity. you must yourself be so thoroughly imbued with the truth and desirability of what you are urging upon others that they will be imprest by your integrity of purpose. to have their confidence and good will is almost to win your cause. but you must have deep and well-grounded convictions before you can hope to convince and influence other men. duty, necessity, magnanimity, innate conviction, and sincere interest in the welfare of others,--these beget true fervor and are essential to passionate and persuasive speaking. lord lytton emphasized the vital importance of earnest purpose in the speaker. referring to speech in the british parliament he said, "have but fair sense and a competent knowledge of your subject, and then be thoroughly in earnest to impress your own honest conviction upon others, and no matter what your delivery, tho your gestures shock every rule in quintilian, you will command the ear and influence the debates of the most accomplished, the most fastidious, and, take it altogether, the noblest assembly of freemen in the world." keep in mind that the purpose of your public speaking is not only to convince but also to persuade your hearers. it is not sufficient that they merely agree with what you say; you must persuade them also to act as you desire. hence you should aim to reach both their minds and hearts. solid argument, clear method, and indisputable facts are necessary for the first purpose; vivid imagination, concrete illustration, and animated feeling are necessary for the second. the need of a knowledge of human nature it will be of great practical value to you to have a knowledge of the average man comprising your audience, his tastes, preferences, prejudices, and proclivities. the more you adapt your speech to such an average man, the more successful are you likely to be in influencing the entire audience. aim, therefore, to use words, phrases, illustrations, and arguments such as you think the average man will readily understand. avoid anything which would cause confusion, distraction, or prejudice in his mind. use every reasonable means to win his good will and approval. your speech is not a monolog, but a dialog, in which you are the speaker, and the auditor a silent tho questioning listener. his mind is in a constant attitude of interrogation toward you. and upon the degree of your success in answering such silent but insistent questions will depend the ultimate success of your speaking. the process of persuading the hearer depends chiefly upon first being persuaded yourself. you may be devoid of feeling, and yet convince your hearers; but to reach their hearts and to move them surely toward the desired purpose, you must yourself be moved. your work as a public speaker is radically different from that of the actor or reciter. you are not impersonating some one else, nor interpreting the thought of another. you must above all things be natural, real, sincere and earnest. your work is creative and constructive. the right attitude of a speaker however much you may study, plan, or premeditate, there must be no indication of conscious or studied attempt in the act of speaking to an audience. at that time everything must be merged into your personality. your earnestness in speaking arises principally from having a distinct conception of the object aimed at and a strong desire to accomplish it. under these circumstances you summon to your aid all your available power of thought and feeling. your mental faculties are stimulated into their fullest activity, and you bend every effort toward the purpose before you. but however zealous you may feel about the truth or righteousness of the cause you espouse, you will do well always to keep within the bounds of moderation. you can be vigorous without violence, and enthusiastic without extravagance. you must not only thoroughly know yourself and your subject, but also your audience. you should carefully consider the best way to bring them and yourself into unity. you may do this by making an appeal to some principle commonly recognized and approved by men, such as patriotism, justice, humanity, courage, duty, or righteousness. what phillips brooks said about the preacher, applies with equal truth to other forms of public speaking: "_whatever is in the sermon must be in the preacher first; clearness, logicalness, vivacity, earnestness, sweetness, and light, must be personal qualities in him before they are qualities of thought and language in what he utters to his people._" after you have earnestly studied the principles of public speaking you should plan to have regular and frequent practise in addressing actual audiences. there are associations and societies everywhere, constantly in quest of good speakers. there will be ample opportunities for you if you have properly developed your speaking abilities. _and now to sum up some of the most essential things for you:_ . read aloud every day this is indispensable to your greatest progress in speech culture. reading aloud, properly done, compels you to pronounce the words, instead of skimming over them as in silent reading. it gives you the additional benefit of receiving a vocal impression of the rhythm and structure of the composition. _keep in mind the following purposes of your reading aloud:_ . to improve your speaking voice. . to acquire distinct enunciation. . to cultivate correct pronunciation. . to develop english style. . to increase your stock of words. . to store your memory with facts. . to analyze an author's thoughts. . to broaden your general knowledge. . form the note-book habit keep separate note-books for the subjects in which you are deeply interested and on which you intend some time to speak in public. write in them promptly any valuable ideas which come to you from the four principal sources--observation, conversation, reading, and meditation. you will be surprized to find how rapidly you can acquire useful data in this way. in an emergency you can turn to the speech-material you have accumulated and quickly solve the problem of "what to say." keep the contents of your note-books in systematic order. classify ideas under distinct headings. when possible write the ideas down in regular speech form. once a week read aloud the contents of your note-books. . daily study your dictionary read aloud each day from your dictionary for at least five minutes, and give special attention to the pronunciation and meaning of words. this is one of the most useful exercises for building a large vocabulary. develop the dictionary habit. be interested in words. study them in their contexts. make special lists of your own. select special words for special uses. note significant words in your general reading. think of words as important tools for public speaking. choose them with discrimination in your daily conversation. consult your dictionary for the meanings of words about which you are in doubt. be an earnest student of words. . systematically develop your mental powers give some time each day to the development of a judicial mind. learn to think deliberately and carefully. study causes and principles. look deeply into things. be impartial in your examination of a subject. study all sides of a question or problem. weigh the evidence with the purpose of ascertaining the truth. beware the peril of prejudice. keep your mind wide open to receive the facts. look at a subject from the other man's viewpoint. cultivate breadth of mind. do not let your personal interests or desires mislead you. insist upon securing the truth at all costs. . daily practise composition frequent use of the pen is essential to proficiency in speaking. write a little every day to form your english style. daily exercise in writing will rapidly develop felicity and fluency of speech. test your important ideas by putting them into writing. constantly cultivate clearness of expression. examine, criticize, and improve your own compositions. copy in your handwriting at least a page daily from one of the great english stylists. continue this exercise for a month and note the improvement in your speech and writing. . practise impromptu speaking at least once a day stand up, in the privacy of your room, and make an impromptu speech of two or three minutes. select any subject which interests you. aim at fluency of style rather than depth of thought. in these daily efforts, use the best chest voice at your command, enunciate clearly, open your mouth well, and imagine yourself addressing an actual audience. a month's regular practise of this exercise will convince you of its great value. . study successful public speakers hear the best public speakers available to you. observe them critically. ask yourself such questions as these: . how does this speaker impress me? . does he proceed in the most effective manner possible? . does he convince me of the truth of his statements? . does he persuade me to act as he wishes? . what are the elements of success in this speaker? as you faithfully apply these various suggestions, you will constantly improve in the art of public speaking, and so learn to wield this mighty power not simply for your personal gratification but for the inspiration and betterment of your fellow men. model speeches for practise after-dinner speaking by james russell lowell my lord coleridge, my lords, ladies and gentlemen:--i confess that my mind was a little relieved when i found that the toast to which i am to respond rolled three gentlemen, cerberus-like into one, and when i saw science pulling impatiently at the leash on my left, and art on my right, and that therefore the responsibility of only a third part of the acknowledgment has fallen to me. you, my lord, have alluded to the difficulties of after-dinner oratory. i must say that i am one of those who feel them more keenly the more after-dinner speeches i make. there are a great many difficulties in the way, and there are three principal ones, i think. the first is having too much to say, so that the words, hurrying to escape, bear down and trample out the life of each other. the second is when, having nothing to say, we are expected to fill a void in the minds of our hearers. and i think the third, and most formidable, is the necessity of following a speaker who is sure to say all the things you meant to say, and better than you, so that we are tempted to exclaim, with the old grammarian, "hang these fellows, who have said all our good things before us!" now the fourth of july has several times been alluded to, and i believe it is generally thought that on that anniversary the spirit of a certain bird known to heraldic ornithologists--and i believe to them alone--as the spread eagle, enters into every american's breast, and compels him, whether he will or no, to pour forth a flood of national self-laudation. this, i say, is the general superstition, and i hope that a few words of mine may serve in some sort to correct it. i ask you, if there is any other people who have confined their national self-laudation to one day in the year. i may be allowed to make one remark as a personal experience. fortune had willed it that i should see as many--perhaps more--cities and manners of men as ulysses; and i have observed one general fact, and that is, that the adjectival epithet which is prefixt to all the virtues is invariably the epithet which geographically describes the country that i am in. for instance, not to take any real name, if i am in the kingdom of lilliput, i hear of the lilliputian virtues. i hear courage, i hear common sense, and i hear political wisdom called by that name. if i cross to the neighboring republic blefusca--for since swift's time it has become a republic--i hear all these virtues suddenly qualified as blefuscan. i am very glad to be able to thank lord coleridge for having, i believe for the first time, coupled the name of the president of the united states with that of her majesty on an occasion like this. i was struck, both in what he said, and in what our distinguished guest of the evening said, with the frequent recurrence of an adjective which is comparatively new--i mean the word "english-speaking." we continually hear nowadays of the "english-speaking race," of the "english-speaking population." i think this implies, not that we are to forget, not that it would be well for us to forget, that national emulation and that national pride which is implied in the words "englishman" and "american," but the word implies that there are certain perennial and abiding sympathies between all men of a common descent and a common language. i am sure, my lord, that all you said with regard to the welcome which our distinguished guest will receive in america is true. his eminent talents as an orator, the dignified--i may say the illustrious--manner in which he has sustained the traditions of that succession of great actors who, from the time of burbage to his own, have illustrated the english stage, will be as highly appreciated there as here. and i am sure that i may also say that the chief magistrate of england will be welcomed by the bar of the united states, of which i am an unworthy member, and perhaps will be all the more warmly welcomed that he does not come among them to practise. he will find american law administered--and i think he will agree with me in saying ably administered--by judges who, i am sorry to say, sit without the traditional wig of england. i have heard since i came here friends of mine gravely lament this as something prophetic of the decay which was sure to follow so serious an innovation. i answered with a little story which i remember having heard from my father. he remembered the last clergyman in new england who still continued to wear the wig. at first it became a singularity and at last a monstrosity; and the good doctor concluded to leave it off. but there was one poor woman among his parishioners who lamented this sadly, and waylaying the clergyman as he came out of church she said, "oh, dear doctor, i have always listened to your sermon with the greatest edification and comfort, but now that the wig is gone all is gone." i have thought i have seen some signs of encouragement in the faces of my english friends after i have consoled them with this little story. but i must not allow myself to indulge in any further remarks. there is one virtue, i am sure, in after-dinner oratory, and that is brevity; and as to that i am reminded of a story. the lord chief justice has told you what are the ingredients of after-dinner oratory. they are the joke, the quotation, and the platitude; and the successful platitude, in my judgment, requires a very high order of genius. i believe that i have not given you a quotation, but i am reminded of something which i heard when very young--the story of a methodist clergyman in america. he was preaching at a camp meeting, and he was preaching upon the miracle of joshua, and he began his sermon with this sentence: "my hearers, there are three motions of the sun. the first is the straightforward or direct motion of the sun; the second is the retrograde or backward motion of the sun; and the third is the motion mentioned in our text--'the sun stood still.'" now, gentlemen, i don't know whether you see the application of the story--i hope you do. the after-dinner orator at first begins and goes straight forward--that is the straightforward motion of the sun. next he goes back and begins to repeat himself--that is the backward motion of the sun. at last he has the good sense to bring himself to the end, and that is the motion mentioned in our text, as the sun stood still. england, mother of nations by ralph waldo emerson mr. chairman and gentlemen:--it is pleasant to me to meet this great and brilliant company, and doubly pleasant to see the faces of so many distinguished persons on this platform. but i have known all these persons already. when i was at home, they were as near to me as they are to you. the arguments of the league and its leader are known to all friends of free trade. the gaieties and genius, the political, the social, the parietal wit of "punch" go duly every fortnight to every boy and girl in boston and new york. sir, when i came to sea, i found the "history of europe" on the ship's cabin table, the property of the captain;--a sort of program or play-bill to tell the seafaring new englander what he shall find on landing here. and as for dombey, sir, there is no land where paper exists to print on, where it is not found; no man who can read, that does not read it, and, if he can not, he finds some charitable pair of eyes that can, and hears it. but these things are not for me to say; these compliments tho true, would better come from one who felt and understood these merits more. i am not here to exchange civilities with you, but rather to speak on that which i am sure interests these gentlemen more than their own praises; of that which is good in holidays and working-days, the same in one century and in another century. that which lures a solitary american in the woods with the wish to see england, is the moral peculiarity of the saxon race,--its commanding sense of right and wrong,--the love and devotion to that,--this is the imperial trait, which arms them with the scepter of the globe. it is this which lies at the foundation of that aristocratic character, which certainly wanders into strange vagaries, so that its origin is often lost sight of, but which, if it should lose this, would find itself paralyzed; and in trade, and in the mechanic's shop, gives that honesty in performance, that thoroughness and solidity of work, which is a national characteristic. this conscience is one element, and the other is that loyal adhesion, that habit of friendship, that homage of man to man, running through all classes,--the electing of worthy persons to a certain fraternity, to acts of kindness and warm and staunch support, from year to year, from youth to age,--which is alike lovely and honorable to those who render and those who receive it;--which stands in strong contrast with the superficial attachments of other races, their excessive courtesy, and short-lived connection. you will think me very pedantic, gentlemen, but holiday tho it be, i have not the smallest interest in any holiday, except as it celebrates real and not pretended joys; and i think it just, in this time of gloom and commercial disaster, of affliction and beggary in these districts, that on these very accounts i speak of, you should not fail to keep your literary anniversary. i seem to hear you say that, for all that is come and gone, yet we will not reduce by one chaplet or one oak-leaf the braveries of our annual feast. for i must tell you, i was given to understand in my childhood that the british island, from which my forefathers came, was no lotus-garden, no paradise of serene sky and roses and music and merriment all the year round, no, but a cold, foggy, mournful country, where nothing grew well in the open air, but robust men and virtuous women and these of a wonderful fiber and endurance; that their best parts were slowly revealed; their virtues did not come out until they quarrelled; they did not strike twelve the first time; good lovers, good haters, and you could know little about them till you had seen them long, and little good of them till you had seen them in action; that in prosperity they were moody and dumpish, but in adversity they were grand. is it not true, sir, that the wise ancients did not praise the ship parting with flying colors from the port, but only that brave sailor which came back with torn sheets and battered sides, stript of her banners, but having ridden out the storm? and so, gentlemen, i feel in regard to this aged england, with the possessions, honors and trophies, and also with the infirmities of a thousand years gathering around her, irretrievably committed as she now is to many old customs which can not be suddenly changed; pressed upon by the transitions of trade, and new and all incalculable modes, fabrics, arts, machines and competing populations,--i see her not dispirited, not weak, but well remembering that she has seen dark days before; indeed with a kind of instinct that she sees a little better in a cloudy day, and that in storm of battle and calamity, she has a secret vigor and a pulse like a cannon. i see her in her old age, not decrepit, but young, and still daring to believe in her power of endurance and expansion. seeing this, i say, all hail! mother of nations, mother of heroes, with strength still equal to the time; still wise to entertain and swift to execute the policy which the mind and heart of mankind require in the present hour, and thus only hospitable to the foreigner, and truly a home to the thoughtful and generous who are born in the soil. so be it! so be it! if it be not so, if the courage of england goes with the chances of a commercial crisis, i will go back to the capes of massachusetts, and my own indian stream, and say to my countrymen, the old race are all gone and the elasticity and hope of mankind must henceforth remain on the alleghany ranges, or nowhere. the age of research by william ewart gladstone mr. chairman, your royal highness, my lords and gentlemen:--i think no question can be raised as to the just claims of literature to stand upon the list of toasts at the royal academy, and the sentiment is one to which, upon any one of the numerous occasions of my attendance at your hospitable board, i have always listened with the greatest satisfaction until the present day arrived, when i am bound to say that that satisfaction is extremely qualified by the arrangement less felicitous, i think, than any which preceded it that refers to me the duty of returning thanks for literature. however, obedience is the principle upon which we must proceed, and i have at least the qualification for discharging the duty you have been pleased to place in my hands--that no one has a deeper or more profound sense of the vital importance of the active and constant cultivation of letters as an essential condition of real progress and of the happiness of mankind, and here every one at once perceives that that sisterhood of which the poet spoke, whom you have quoted, is a real sisterhood, for literature and art are alike the votaries of beauty. of these votaries i may thankfully say that as regards art i trace around me no signs of decay, and none in that estimation in which the academy is held, unless to be sure, in the circumstance of your poverty of choice of one to reply to this toast. during the present century the artists of this country have gallantly and nobly endeavored to maintain and to elevate their standard, and have not perhaps in that great task always received that assistance which could be desired from the public taste which prevails around them. but no one can examine even superficially the works which adorn these walls without perceiving that british art retains all its fertility of invention, and this year as much as in any year that i can remember, exhibits in the department of landscape, that fundamental condition of all excellence, intimate and profound sympathy with nature. as regards literature one who is now beginning at any rate to descend the hill of life naturally looks backward as well as forward, and we must be becoming conscious that the early part of this century has witnessed in this and other countries what will be remembered in future times as a splendid literary age. the elder among us have lived in the lifetime of many great men who have passed to their rest--the younger have heard them familiarly spoken of and still have their works in their hands as i trust they will continue to be in the hands of all generations. i am afraid we can not hope for literature--it would be contrary to all the experience of former times were we to hope that it should be equally sustained at that extraordinarily high level which belongs, speaking roughly, to the first fifty years after the peace of . that was a great period--a great period in england, a great period in germany, a great period in france, and a great period, too, in italy. as i have said, i think we can hardly hope that it should continue on a perfect level at so high an elevation. undoubtedly the cultivation of literature will ever be dear to the people of this country; but we must remember what is literature and what is not. in the first place we should be all agreed that bookmaking is not literature. the business of bookmaking i have no doubt may thrive and will be continued upon a constantly extending scale from year to year. but that we may put aside. for my own part if i am to look a little forward, what i anticipate for the remainder of the century is an age not so much of literature proper--not so much of great, permanent and splendid additions to those works in which beauty is embodied as an essential condition of production, but rather look forward to an age of research. this is an age of great research--of great research in science, great research in history--an age of research in all the branches of inquiry that throw light upon the former condition whether of our race, or of the world which it inhabits; and it may be hoped that, even if the remaining years of the century be not so brilliant as some of its former periods, in the production of works great in themselves, and immortal,--still they may add largely to the knowledge of mankind; and if they make such additions to the knowledge of mankind, they will be preparing the materials of a new tone and of new splendors in the realm of literature. there is a sunrise and sunset. there is a transition from the light of the sun to the gentler light of the moon. there is a rest in nature which seems necessary in all her great operations. and so with all the great operations of the human mind. but do not let us despond if we seem to see a diminished efficacy in the production of what is essentially and immortally great. our sun is hidden only for a moment. it is like the day-star of milton:-- "which anon repairs his drooping head, and tricks his beams, and with new spangled ore, flames in the forehead of the morning sky." i rejoice in an occasion like this which draws the attention of the world to topics which illustrate the union of art with literature and of literature with science, because you have a hard race to run, you have a severe competition against the attraction of external pursuits, whether those pursuits take the form of business or pleasure. it is given to you to teach lessons of the utmost importance to mankind, in maintaining the principle that no progress can be real which is not equable, which is not proportionate, which does not develop all the faculties belonging to our nature. if a great increase of wealth in a country takes place, and with that increase of wealth a powerful stimulus to the invention of mere luxury, that, if it stands alone, is not, never can be, progress. it is only that one-sided development which is but one side of deformity. i hope we shall have no one-sided development. one mode of avoiding it is to teach the doctrine of that sisterhood you have asserted to-day, and confident i am that the good wishes you have exprest on behalf of literature will be re-echoed in behalf of art wherever men of letters are found. address of welcome[ ] by oliver wendell holmes brothers of the association of the alumni:--it is your misfortune and mine that you must accept my services as your presiding officer of the day in the place of your retiring president. i shall not be believed if i say how unwillingly it is that for the second time i find myself in this trying position; called upon to fill, as i best may, the place of one whose presence and bearing, whose courtesy, whose dignity, whose scholarship, whose standing among the distinguished children of the university, fit him alike to guide your councils and to grace your festivals. the name of winthrop has been so long associated with the state and with the college that to sit under his mild empire is like resting beneath one of these wide-branching elms the breadth of whose shade is only a measure of the hold its roots have taken in the soil. in the midst of civil strife we, the children of this our common mother, have come together in peace. and surely there never was a time when we more needed a brief respite in some chosen place of refuge, some unviolated sanctuary, from the cares and anxieties of our daily existence than at this very hour. our life has grown haggard with excitement. the rattle of drums, the march of regiments, the gallop of squadrons, the roar of artillery, seem to have been continually sounding in our ears day and night, sleeping and waking, for two long years and more. how few of us have not trembled and shuddered with fear over and over again for those whom we love. alas! how many that hear me have mourned over the lost--lost to earthly sight, but immortal in our love and their country's honor! we need a little breathing-space to rest from our anxious thoughts, and, as we look back to the tranquil days we passed in this still retreat, to dream of that future when in god's good time, and after his wise purpose is fulfilled, the fair angel who has so long left us shall lay her hand upon the leaping heart of this embattled nation and whisper, "peace! be still!" here of all places in the world we may best hope to find the peace we seek for. it seems as if nothing were left undisturbed in new england except here and there an old graveyard, and these dear old college buildings, with the trees in which they are embowered. the old state house is filled with those that sell oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money. the hancock house, the umbilical scar of the cord that held our city to the past, is vanishing like a dimple from the water. but massachusetts, venerable old massachusetts, stands as firm as ever; hollis, this very year a centenarian, is waiting with its honest red face in a glow of cordiality to welcome its hundredth set of inmates; holden chapel, with the skulls of its doric frieze and the unpunishable cherub over its portals, looks serenely to the sunsets; harvard, within whose ancient walls we are gathered, and whose morning bell has murdered sleep for so many generations of drowsy adolescents, is at its post, ready to startle the new-fledged freshmen from their first uneasy slumbers. all these venerable edifices stand as they did when we were boys,--when our grandfathers were boys. let not the rash hand of innovation violate their sanctities, for the cement that knits these walls is no vulgar mortar, but is tempered with associations and memories which are stronger than the parts they bind together! we meet on this auspicious morning forgetting all our lesser differences. as we enter these consecrated precincts, the livery of our special tribe in creed and in politics is taken from us at the door, and we put on the court dress of our gracious queen's own ordering, the academic robe, such as we wore in those bygone years scattered along the seven last decades. we are not forgetful of the honors which our fellow students have won since they received their college "parts,"--their orations, dissertations, disquisitions, colloquies, and greek dialogs. but to-day we have no rank; we are all first scholars. the hero in his laurels sits next to the divine rustling in the dry garlands of his doctorate. the poet in his crown of bays, the critic, in his wreath of ivy, clasp each other's hands, members of the same happy family. this is the birthday feast for every one of us whose forehead has been sprinkled from the font inscribed "_christo et ecclesioe_." we have no badges but our diplomas, no distinctions but our years of graduation. this is the republic carried into the university; all of us are born equal into this great fraternity. welcome, then, welcome, all of you, dear brothers, to this our joyous meeting! we must, we will call it joyous, tho it comes with many saddening thoughts. our last triennial meeting was a festival in a double sense, for the same day that brought us together at our family gathering gave a new head to our ancient household of the university. as i look to-day in vain for his stately presence and kindly smile, i am reminded of the touching words spoken by an early president of the university in the remembrance of a loss not unlike our own. it was at the commencement exercises of the year that the reverend president urian oakes thus mourned for his friend thomas shepard, the minister of charlestown, an overseer of the college: "_dici non potest quam me perorantem, in comitiis, conspectus ejus, multo jucundissimus, recrearit et refecerit. at non comparet hodie shepardus in his comitiis; oculos huc illuc torqueo; quocumque tamen inciderint, platonem meum intanta virorum illustrium frequentia requirunt; nusquam amicum et pernecessarium meum in hac solenni panegyric, inter nosce reverendos theologos, academiae curatores, reperire aut oculis vestigare possum_." almost two hundred years have gone by since these words were uttered by the fourth president of the college, which i repeat as no unfitting tribute to the memory of the twentieth, the rare and fully ripened scholar who was suddenly ravished from us as some richly freighted argosy that just reaches her harbor and sinks under a cloudless sky with all her precious treasures. but the great conflict through which we are passing has made sorrow too frequent a guest for us to linger on an occasion like this over every beloved name which the day recalls to our memory. many of the children whom our mother had trained to arts have given the freshness of their youth or the strength of their manhood to arms. how strangely frequent in our recent record is the sign interpreted by the words "_e vivis cesserunt stelligeri!_" it seems as if the red war-planet had replaced the peaceful star, and these pages blushed like a rubric with the long list of the martyr-children of our university. i can not speak their eulogy, for there are no phrases in my vocabulary fit to enshrine the memory of the christian warrior,--of him-- "who, doomed to go in company with pain and fear and bloodshed, miserable train, turns his necessity to glorious gain--" "who, whether praise of him must walk the earth forever, and to noble deeds give birth, or he must fall, to sleep without his fame, and leave a dead, unprofitable name, finds comfort in himself and in his cause; and while the mortal mist is gathering, draws his breath in confidence of heaven's applause." yet again, o brothers! this is not the hour for sorrow. month after month until the months became years we have cried to those who stood upon our walls: "watchmen, what of the night?" they have answered again and again, "the dawn is breaking,--it will soon be day." but the night has gathered round us darker than before. at last--glory be to god in the highest!--at last we ask no more tidings of the watchmen, for over both horizons east and west bursts forth in one overflowing tide of radiance the ruddy light of victory! we have no parties here to-day, but is there one breast that does not throb with joy as the banners of the conquering republic follow her retreating foes to the banks of the angry potomac? is there one heart that does not thrill in answer to the drum-beat that rings all over the world as the army of the west, on the morning of the nation's birth, swarms over the silent, sullen earthworks of captured vicksburg,--to the reveille that calls up our northern regiments this morning inside the fatal abatis of port hudson? we are scholars, we are graduates, we are alumni, we are a band of brothers, but beside all, above all, we are american citizens. and now that hope dawns upon our land--nay, bursts upon it in a flood of glory,--shall we not feel its splendors reflected upon our peaceful gathering, peaceful in spite of those disturbances which the strong hand of our citizen-soldiery has already strangled? welcome then, thrice welcome, scholarly soldiers who have fought for your and our rights and honor! welcome, soldierly scholars who are ready to fight whenever your country calls for your services! welcome, ye who preach courage as well as meekness, remembering that the prince of peace came also bringing a sword! welcome, ye who make and who interpret the statutes which are meant to guard our liberties in peace, but not to aid our foes in war! welcome, ye whose healing ministry soothes the anguish of the suffering and the dying with every aid of art and the tender accents of compassion! welcome, ye who are training the generous youths to whom our country looks as its future guardians! welcome, ye quiet scholars who in your lonely studies are unconsciously shaping the thought which law shall forge into its shield and war shall wield as its thunder-bolt! and to you, mr. president, called from one place of trust and honor to rule over the concerns of this our ancient and venerated institution, to you we offer our most cordial welcome with all our hopes and prayers for your long and happy administration. i give you, brothers, "the association of the alumni"; the children of our common mother recognize the man of her choice as their new father, and would like to hear him address a few words to his numerous family. footnote: [ ] delivered at an alumni dinner, cambridge, july , . good will to america[ ] by sir william harcourt gentlemen:--small as are the pretensions which, on any account, i can have to present myself to the attention of this remarkable assemblage, i have had no hesitation in answering the call which is just been made upon me by discharging a duty which is no less gratifying to me than i know it will be agreeable to you--that of proposing that the thanks of this meeting be offered to the chairman for his presidence over us to-day. every one who admires mr. garrison for the qualities on account of which we have met to do him honor on this occasion, must feel that there is a singular appropriateness in the selection of the person who has presided here to-day. no one can fail to perceive a striking similarity--i might almost say a real parallelism of greatness--in the careers of these two eminent persons. both are men who, by the great qualities of their minds, and the uncompromising spirit of justice which has animated them, have signally advanced the cause of truth and vindicated the rights of humanity. both have been fortunate enough in the span of their own lifetime to have seen their efforts in the promotion of great ends crowned by triumphs as great as they could have desired, and far greater than they could have hoped. there is no cause with which the name of mr. bright has been associated which has not sooner or later won its way to victory. i shall not go over the ground which has been so well dealt with by those who have preceded me. but tho there have been many abler interpreters of your wishes and aspirations to-day than i can hope to be, may i be permitted to join my voice to those which have been raised up in favor of the perpetual amity of england and america. it seems to me that with nations, as well as with individuals, greatness of character depends chiefly on the degree in which they are capable of rising above thee low, narrow, paltry interests of the present, and of looking forward with hope and with faith into the distance of a great futurity. and where, i will ask, is the future of our race to be found? i may extend the question--where is to be found the future of mankind? who that can forecast the fortunes of the ages to come will not answer--it is in that great nation which has sprung from our loins, which is flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone. the stratifications of history are full of the skeletons of ruined kingdoms and of races that are no more. where are assyria and egypt, the civilization of greece, the universal dominion of rome? they founded empires of conquest, which have perished by the sword by which they rose. is it to be with us as with them? i hope not--i think not. but if the day of our decline should arise, we shall at least have the consolation of knowing that we have left behind us a race which shall perpetuate our name and reproduce our greatness. was there ever parent who had juster reason to be proud of its offspring? was there ever child that had more cause for gratitude to its progenitor? from whom but us did america derive those institutions of liberty, those instincts of government, that capacity of greatness, which have made her what she is, and which will yet make her that which she is destined to become? these are things which it becomes us both to remember and to think upon. and, therefore, it is that, as our distinguished guest, with innate modesty, has already said, this is not a mere personal festivity--this is no occasional compliment. we see in it a deeper and wider significance. we celebrate in it the union of two nations. while i ask you to return your thanks to our chairman i think i may venture also to ask of our guest a boon which he will not refuse us. we have a great message to send, and we have here a messenger worthy to bear it. i will ask mr. garrison to carry back to his home the prayer of this assembly and of this nation that there may be forever and forever peace and good will between england and america. for the good will of america and england is nothing less than the evangel of liberty and of peace. and who more worthy to preside over such a gospel than the chairman to whom i ask you to return your thanks to-day? i beg to propose that the thanks of the meeting be given to mr. bright. footnote: [ ] speech at breakfast held in london in honor of mr. garrison, june , . the qualities that win by charles sumner mr. president and brothers of new england:--for the first time in my life i have the good fortune to enjoy this famous anniversary festival. tho often honored by your most tempting invitation, and longing to celebrate the day in this goodly company of which all have heard so much, i could never excuse myself from duties in another place. if now i yield to well-known attractions, and journey from washington for my first holiday during a protracted public service, it is because all was enhanced by the appeal of your excellent president, to whom i am bound by the friendship of many years in boston, in new york, and in a foreign land. it is much to be a brother of new england, but it is more to be a friend, and this tie i have pleasure in confessing to-night. it is with much doubt and humility that i venture to answer for the senate of the united states, and i believe the least i say on this head will be the most prudent. but i shall be entirely safe in expressing my doubt if there is a single senator who would not be glad of a seat at this generous banquet. what is the senate? it is a component part of the national government. but we celebrate to-day more than any component part of any government. we celebrate an epoch in the history of mankind--not only never to be forgotten, but to grow in grandeur as the world appreciates the elements of true greatness. of mankind i say--for the landing on plymouth rock, on december , , marks the origin of a new order of ages, which the whole human family will be elevated. then and there was the great beginning. throughout all time, from the dawn of history, men have swarmed to found new homes in distant lands. the tyrians, skirting northern africa, stopt at carthage; carthaginians dotted spain and even the distant coasts of britain and ireland; greeks gemmed italy and sicily with art-loving settlements; rome carried multitudinous colonies with her conquering eagles. saxons, danes, and normans violently mingled with the original britons. and in modern times, venice, genoa, portugal, spain, france, and england, all sent forth emigrants to people foreign shores. but in these various expeditions, trade or war was the impelling motive. too often commerce and conquest moved hand in hand, and the colony was incarnadined with blood. on the day we celebrate, the sun for the first time in his course looked down upon a different scene, begun and continued under a different inspiration. a few conscientious englishmen, in obedience to the monitor within, and that they might be free to worship god according to their own sense of duty, set sail for the unknown wilds of the north american continent. after a voyage of sixty-four days in the ship _mayflower_, with liberty at the prow and conscience at the helm, they sighted the white sandbanks of cape cod, and soon thereafter in the small cabin framed that brief compact, forever memorable, which is the first written constitution of government in human history, and the very corner-stone of the american republic; and then these pilgrims landed. this compact was not only foremost in time, it was also august in character, and worthy of perpetual example. never before had the object of the "civil body public" been announced as "to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices from time to time as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony." how lofty! how true! undoubtedly, these were the grandest words of government with the largest promise of any at that time uttered. if more were needed to illustrate the new epoch, it would be found in the parting words of the venerable pastor, john robinson, addrest to the pilgrims, as they were about to sail from delfshaven--words often quoted, yet never enough. how sweetly and beautifully he says: "and if god should reveal anything to you by any other instrument of his, be as ready to receive it as ever you were to receive any truth by my ministry; but i am confident that the lord hath more light and truth yet to break forth out of his holy word." and then how justly the good preacher rebukes those who close their souls to truth! "the lutherans, for example, can not be drawn to go beyond what luther saw, and whatever part of god's will he hath further imparted to calvin, they will rather die than embrace, and so the calvinists stick where he left them. this is a misery much to be lamented, for tho they were precious, shining lights in their times, god hath not revealed his whole will to them." beyond the merited rebuke, here is a plain recognition of the law of human progress little discerned at the time, which teaches the sure advance of the human family, and opens the vista of the ever-broadening, never-ending future on earth. our pilgrims were few and poor. the whole outfit of this historic voyage, including £ , of trading stock, was only £ , , and how little was required for their succor appears in the experience of the soldier captain miles standish, who, being sent to england for assistance--not military, but financial--(god save the mark!) succeeded in borrowing--how much do you suppose?--£ sterling. something in the way of help; and the historian adds, "tho at fifty per cent. interest." so much for a valiant soldier on a financial expedition. a later agent, allerton, was able to borrow for the colony £ at a reduced interest of thirty per cent. plainly, the money-sharks of our day may trace an undoubted pedigree to these london merchants. but i know not if any son of new england, opprest by exorbitant interest, will be consoled by the thought that the pilgrims paid the same. and yet this small people--so obscure and outcast in condition--so slender in numbers and in means--so entirely unknown to the proud and great--so absolutely without name in contemporary records--whose departure from the old world took little more than the breath of their bodies--are now illustrious beyond the lot of men; and the _mayflower_ is immortal beyond the grecian _argo_, or the stately ship of any victorious admiral. tho this was little foreseen in their day, it is plain now how it has come to pass. the highest greatness surviving time and storm is that which proceeds from the soul of man. monarchs and cabinets, generals and admirals, with the pomp of courts and the circumstance of war, in the gradual lapse of time disappear from sight; but the pioneers of truth, tho poor and lowly, especially those whose example elevates human nature and teaches the rights of man, so that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth, such harbingers can never be forgotten, and their renown spreads co-extensive with the cause they served. i know not if any whom i now have the honor of addressing have thought to recall the great in rank and power filling the gaze of the world as the _mayflower_ with her company fared forth on their adventurous voyage. the foolish james was yet on the english throne, glorying that he had "peppered the puritans." the morose louis xiii, through whom richelieu ruled, was king of france. the imbecile philip iii swayed spain and the indies. the persecuting ferdinand the second, tormentor of protestants, was emperor of germany. paul v, of the house of borghese, was pope of rome. in the same princely company and all contemporaries were christian iv, king of denmark, and his son christian, prince of norway; gustavus adolphus, king of sweden; sigmund the third, king of poland; frederick, king of bohemia, with his wife, the unhappy elizabeth of england, progenitor of the house of hanover; george william, margrave of brandenburg, and ancestor of the prussian house that has given an emperor to germany; maximilian, duke of bavaria; maurice, landgrave of hesse; christian, duke of brunswick and lunenburg; john frederick, duke of würtemberg and teck; john, count of nassau; henry, duke of lorraine; isabella, infanta of spain and ruler of the low countries; maurice, fourth prince of orange; charles emanuel, duke of savoy and ancestor of the king of united italy; cosmo dé medici, third grand duke of florence; antonio priuli, ninety-third doge of venice, just after the terrible tragedy commemorated on the english stage as "venice preserved"; bethlehem gabor, prince of unitarian transylvania, and elected king of hungary, with the countenance of an african; and the sultan mustapha, of constantinople, twentieth ruler of the turks. such at that time were the crowned sovereigns of europe, whose names were mentioned always with awe, and whose countenances are handed down by art, so that at this day they are visible to the curious as if they walked these streets. mark now the contrast. there was no artist for our forefathers, nor are their countenances now known to men; but more than any powerful contemporaries at whose tread the earth trembled is their memory sacred. pope, emperor, king, sultan, grand-duke, duke, doge, margrave, landgrave, count--what are they all by the side of the humble company that landed on plymouth rock? theirs indeed, were the ensigns of worldly power, but our pilgrims had in themselves that inborn virtue which was more than all else besides, and their landing was an epoch. who in the imposing troop of worldly grandeur is now remembered but with indifference or contempt? if i except gustavus adolphus, it is because he revealed a superior character. confront the _mayflower_ and the pilgrims with the potentates who occupied such space in the world. the former are ascending into the firmament, there to shine forever, while the latter have been long dropping into the darkness of oblivion, to be brought forth only to point a moral or illustrate the fame of contemporaries whom they regarded not. do i err in supposing this an illustration of the supremacy which belongs to the triumphs of the moral nature? at first impeded or postponed, they at last prevail. theirs is a brightness which, breaking through all clouds, will shine forth with ever-increasing splendor. i have often thought that if i were a preacher, if i had the honor to occupy the pulpit so grandly filled by my friend near me, one of my sermons should be from the text, "a little leaven shall leaven the whole lump." nor do i know a better illustration of these words than the influence exerted by our pilgrims. that small band, with the lesson of self-sacrifice, of just and equal laws, of the government of a majority, of unshrinking loyalty to principle, is now leavening this whole continent, and in the fulness of time will leaven the world. by their example, republican institutions have been commended, and in proportion as we imitate them will these institutions be assured. liberty, which we so much covet, is not a solitary plant. always by its side is justice. but justice is nothing but right applied to human affairs. do not forget, i entreat you, that with the highest morality is the highest liberty. a great poet, in one of his inspired sonnets, speaking of his priceless possession, has said, "but who loves that must first be wise and good." therefore do pilgrims in their beautiful example teach liberty, teach republican institutions, as at an earlier day, socrates and plato, in their lessons of wisdom, taught liberty and helped the idea of the republic. if republican government has thus far failed in any experiment, as, perhaps, somewhere in spanish america, it is because these lessons have been wanting. there have been no pilgrims to teach the moral law. mr. president, with these thoughts, which i imperfectly express, i confess my obligations to the forefathers of new england, and offer to them the homage of a grateful heart. but not in thanksgiving only would i celebrate their memory. i would if i could make their example a universal lesson, and stamp it upon the land. the conscience which directed them should be the guide for our public councils. the just and equal laws which they required should be ordained by us, and the hospitality to truth which was their rule should be ours. nor would i forget their courage and stedfastness. had they turned back or wavered, i know not what would have been the record of this continent, but i see clearly that a great example would have been lost. had columbus yielded to his mutinous crew and returned to spain without his great discovery; had washington shrunk away disheartened by british power and the snows of new jersey, these great instances would have been wanting for the encouragement of men. but our pilgrims belong to the same heroic company, and their example is not less precious. only a short time after the landing on plymouth rock, the great republican poet, john milton, wrote his "comus," so wonderful for beauty and truth. his nature was more refined than that of the pilgrims, and yet it requires little effort of imagination to catch from one of them, or at least from their beloved pastor, the exquisite, almost angelic words at the close-- "mortals, who would follow me, love virtue; she alone is free; she can teach ye how to climb higher than the sphery chime. or if virtue feeble were, heaven itself would stoop to her." the english-speaking race by george william curtis mr. chairman and gentlemen of the chamber of commerce:--i rise with some trepidation to respond to this toast, because we have been assured upon high authority, altho after what we have heard this evening we can not believe it, that the english-speaking race speaks altogether too much. our eloquent minister in england recently congratulated the mechanics' institute at nottingham that it had abolished its debating club, and said that he gladly anticipated the establishment in all great institutions of education of a professorship of silence. i confess that the proposal never seemed to me so timely and wise as at this moment. if i had only taken a high degree in silence, mr. chairman, how cordially you would congratulate me and this cheerful company! when mr. phelps proceeded to say that americans are not allowed to talk all the time, and that our orators are turned loose upon the public only once in four years, i was lost in admiration of the boundless sweep of his imagination. but when he said that the result of this quadrennial outburst was to make the country grateful that it did not come oftener, i saw that his case required heroic treatment, and must be turned over to dr. depew. i am sure, at least, that when our distinguished friends from england return to their native land they will hasten to besiege his excellency to tell them where the americans are kept who speak only once in four years. and if they will but remain through the winter, they will discover that if our orators are turned loose upon the public only once in four years, they are turned loose in private all the rest of the time; and if the experience and observation of our guests are as fortunate as mine, they will learn that there are certain orators of both branches of the english-speaking race--not one hundred miles from me at this moment--whom the public would gladly hear, if they were turned loose upon it every four hours. wendell phillips used to say that as soon as a yankee baby could sit up in his cradle, he called the nursery to order and proceeded to address the house. if this parliamentary instinct is irrepressible, if all the year round we are listening to orations, speeches, lectures, sermons, and the incessant, if not always soothing, oratory of the press, to which his honor the mayor is understood to be a closely attentive listener, we have at least the consolation of knowing that the talking countries are the free countries, and that the english-speaking races are the invincible legions of liberty. the sentiment which you have read, mr. chairman, describes in a few comprehensive words the historic characteristics of the english-speaking race. that it is the founder of commonwealths, let the miracle of empire which we have wrought upon the western continent attest:--its advance from the seaboard with the rifle and the ax, the plow and the shuttle, the teapot and the bible, the rocking-chair and the spelling-book, the bath-tub and a free constitution, sweeping across the alleghanies, over-spreading the prairies and pushing on until the dash of the atlantic in their ears dies in the murmur of the pacific; and as the wonderful goddess of the old mythology touched earth, flowers and fruits answered her footfall, so in the long trail of this advancing race, it has left clusters of happy states, teeming with a population, man by man, more intelligent and prosperous than ever before the sun shone upon, and each remoter camp of that triumphal march is but a further outpost of english-speaking civilization. that it is the pioneer of progress, is written all over the globe to the utmost islands of the sea, and upon every page of the history of civil and religious and commercial freedom. every factory that hums with marvelous machinery, every railway and steamer, every telegraph and telephone, the changed systems of agriculture, the endless and universal throb and heat of magical invention, are, in their larger part, but the expression of the genius of the race that with watts drew from the airiest vapor the mightiest of motive powers, with franklin leashed the lightning, and with morse outfabled fairy lore. the race that extorted from kings the charter of its political rights has won, from the princes and powers of the air, the earth and the water, the secret of supreme dominion, the illimitable franchise of beneficent progress. that it is the stubborn defender of liberty, let our own annals answer, for america sprang from the defense of english liberty in english colonies, by men of english blood, who still proudly speak the english language, cherish english traditions, and share of right, and as their own, the ancient glory of england. no english-speaking people could, if it would, escape its distinctive name, and, since greece and judea, no name has the same worth and honor among men. we americans may flout england a hundred times. we may oppose her opinions with reason, we may think her views unsound, her policy unwise; but from what country would the most american of americans prefer to have derived the characteristic impulse of american development and civilization rather than england? what language would we rather speak than the tongue of shakespeare and hampden, of the pilgrims and king james's version? what yachts, as a tribute to ourselves upon their own element, would we rather outsail than english yachts? in what national life, modes of thought, standards and estimates of character and achievement do we find our own so perfectly reflected as in the english house of commons, in english counting-rooms and workshops, and in english homes? no doubt the original stock has been essentially modified in the younger branch. the american, as he looks across the sea, to what hawthorne happily called "our old home," and contemplates himself, is disposed to murmur: "out of the eater shall come forth meat and out of the strength shall come forth sweetness." he left england a puritan iconoclast; he has developed in church and state into a constitutional reformer. he came hither a knotted club; he has been transformed into a damascus blade. he seized and tamed a continent with a hand of iron; he civilizes and controls it with a touch of velvet. no music is so sweet to his ear as the sound of the common-school bell; no principle so dear to his heart as the equal rights of all men; no vision so entrancing to his hope as those rights universally secured. this is the yankee; this is the younger branch; but a branch of no base or brittle fiber, but of the tough old english oak, which has weathered triumphantly the tempest of a thousand years. it is a noble contention whether the younger or the elder branch has further advanced the frontiers of liberty, but it is unquestionable that liberty, as we understand it on both sides of the sea, is an english tradition; we inherit it, we possess it, we transmit it, under forms peculiar to the english race. it is as mr. chamberlain has said, liberty under law. it is liberty, not license; civilization, not barbarism; it is liberty clad in the celestial robe of law, because law is the only authoritative expression of the will of the people, representative government, trial by jury, habeas corpus, freedom of speech and of the press--why, mr. chairman, they are the family heirlooms, the family diamonds, and they go wherever in the wide world go the family name and language and tradition. sir, with all my heart, and, i am sure, with the hearty assent of this great and representative company, i respond to the final aspiration of your toast: "may this great family in all its branches ever work together for the world's welfare." certainly its division and alienation would be the world's misfortune. that england and america have had sharp and angry quarrels is undeniable. party spirit in this country, recalling old animosity, has always stigmatized with the english name whatever it opposed. every difference, every misunderstanding with england has been ignobly turned to party account; but the two great branches of this common race have come of age, and wherever they may encounter a serious difficulty which must be accommodated they have but to thrust demagogues aside, to recall the sublime words of abraham lincoln, "with malice toward none, with charity for all," and in that spirit, and in the spirit and the emotion represented in this country by the gentlemen upon my right and my left, i make bold to say to mr. chamberlain, in your name, there can be no misunderstanding which may not be honorably and happily adjusted. for to our race, gentlemen of both countries, is committed not only the defense, but the illustration of constitutional liberty. the question is not what we did a century ago, or in the beginning of this century, with the lights that shone around us, but what is our duty to-day, in the light which is given to us of popular government under the republican form in this country, and the parliamentary form in england. if a sensitive public conscience, if general intelligence should not fail to secure us from unnatural conflict, then liberty will not be justified of her children, and the glory of the english-speaking race will decline. i do not believe it. i believe that it is constantly increasing, and that the colossal power which slumbers in the arms of a kindred people will henceforth be invoked, not to drive them further asunder, but to weld them more indissolubly together in the defense of liberty under law. woman by horace porter mr. president and gentlemen:--when this toast was proposed to me, i insisted that it ought to be responded to by a bachelor, by some one who is known as a ladies' man; but in these days of female proprietorship it is supposed that a married person is more essentially a ladies' man than anybody else, and it was thought that only one who had the courage to address a lady could have the courage, under these circumstances, to address the new england society. the toast, i see, is not in its usual order to-night. at public dinners this toast is habitually placed last on the list. it seems to be a benevolent provision of the committee on toasts in order to give man in replying to woman one chance at least in life of having the last word. at the new england dinners, unfortunately the most fruitful subject of remark regarding woman is not so much her appearance as her disappearance. i know that this was remedied a few years ago, when this grand annual gastronomic high carnival was held in the metropolitan concert hall. there, ladies were introduced into the galleries to grace the scene by their presence; and i am sure the experiment was sufficiently encouraging to warrant repetition, for it was beautiful to see the descendants of the pilgrims sitting with eyes upturned in true puritanic sanctity it was encouraging to see the sons of those pious sires devoting themselves, at least for one night, to setting their affections upon "things above." woman's first home was in the garden of eden. there man first married woman. strange that the incident should have suggested to milton the "paradise lost." man was placed in a profound sleep, a rib was taken from his side, a woman was created from it, and she became his wife. evil-minded persons constantly tell us that thus man's first sleep became his last repose. but if woman be given at times to that contrariety of thought and perversity of mind which sometimes passeth our understanding, it must be recollected in her favor that she was created out of the crookedest part of man. the rabbins have a different theory regarding creation. they go back to the time when we were all monkeys. they insist that man was originally created with a kind of darwinian tail, and that in the process of evolution this caudal appendage was removed and created into woman. this might better account for those caudle lectures which woman is in the habit of delivering, and some color is given to this theory, from the fact that husbands even down to the present day seem to inherit a general disposition to leave their wives behind. the first woman, finding no other man in that garden except her own husband, took to flirting even with the devil. the race might have been saved much tribulation if eden had been located in some calm and tranquil land--like ireland. there would at least have been no snakes there to get into the garden. now woman in her thirst after knowledge, showed her true female inquisitiveness in her cross-examination of the serpent, and, in commemoration of that circumstance the serpent seems to have been curled up and used in nearly all languages as a sign of interrogation. soon the domestic troubles of our first parents began. the first woman's favorite son was killed with a club, and married women even to this day seem to have an instinctive horror of clubs. the first woman learned that it was cain that raised a club. the modern woman has learned that it is a club that raises cain. yet, i think, i recognize faces here to-night that i see behind the windows of fifth avenue clubs of an afternoon, with their noses pressed flat against the broad plate glass, and as woman trips along the sidewalk, i have observed that these gentlemen appear to be more assiduously engaged than ever was a government scientific commission, in taking observations upon the transit of venus. before those windows passes many a face fairer than that of the ludovician juno or the venus of medici. there is the saxon blonde with the deep blue eye, whose glances return love for love, whose silken tresses rest upon her shoulders like a wealth of golden fleece, each thread of which looks like a ray of the morning sunbeam. there is the latin brunette with the deep, black, piercing eye, whose jetty lashes rest like a silken fringe upon the pearly texture of her dainty cheek, looking like raven's wings spread out upon new-fallen snow. and yet the club man is not happy. as the ages roll on woman has materially elevated herself in the scale of being. now she stops at nothing. she soars. she demands the co-education of sexes. she thinks nothing of delving into the most abstruse problems of the higher branches of analytical science. she can cipher out the exact hour of the night when her husband ought to be home, either according to the old or the recently adopted method of calculating time. i never knew of but one married man who gained any decided domestic advantage by this change in our time. he was a _habitué_ of a club situated next door to his house. his wife was always upbraiding him for coming home too late at night. fortunately, when they made this change of time, they placed one of those meridians from which our time is calculated right between the club and his house. every time he stept across that imaginary line it set him back a whole hour in time. he found that he could then leave his club at one o'clock and get home to his wife at twelve; and for the first time in twenty years peace reigned around the hearthstone. woman now revels even in the more complicated problems of mathematical astronomy. give a woman ten minutes and she will describe a heliocentric parallax of the heavens. give her twenty minutes and she will find astronomically the longitude of a place by means of lunar culminations. give that same woman an hour and a half with the present fashions, and she can not find the pocket in her dress. and yet man's admiration for woman never flags. he will give her half his fortune; he will give her his whole heart; he seems always willing to give her everything that he possesses, except his seat in a horse-car. every nation has had its heroines as well as its heroes. england, in her wars, had a florence nightingale; and the soldiers in the expression of their adoration, used to stoop and kiss the hem of her garment as she passed. america, in her war, had a dr. mary walker. nobody ever stooped to kiss the hem of her garment--because that was not exactly the kind of a garment she wore. but why should man stand here and attempt to speak for woman, when she is so abundantly equipped to speak for herself. i know that is the case in new england; and i am reminded, by seeing general grant here to-night, of an incident in proof of it which occurred when he was making that marvelous tour through new england, just after the war. the train stopt at a station in the state of maine. the general was standing on the rear platform of the last car. at that time, as you know, he had a great reputation for silence--for it was before he had made his series of brilliant speeches before the new england society. they spoke of his reticence--a quality which new englanders admire so much--in others. suddenly there was a commotion in the crowd, and as it opened a large, tall, gaunt-looking woman came rushing toward the car, out of breath. taking her spectacles off from the top of her head and putting them on her nose, she put her arms akimbo, and looking up, said: "well, i've just come down here a runnin' nigh onto two mile, right on the clean jump, just to get a look at the man that lets the women do all the talkin'." the first regular speaker of the evening (william m. evarts) touched upon woman, but only incidentally, only in reference to mormonism and that sad land of utah, where a single death may make a dozen widows. a speaker at the new england dinner in brooklyn last night (henry ward beecher) tried to prove that the mormons came originally from new hampshire and vermont. i know that a new englander sometimes in the course of his life marries several times; but he takes the precaution to take his wives in their proper order of legal succession. the difference is that he drives his team of wives tandem, while the mormon insists upon driving his abreast. but even the least serious of us, mr. president, have some serious moments in which to contemplate the true nobility of woman's character. if she were created from a rib, she was made from that part which lies nearest a man's heart. it has been beautifully said that man was fashioned out of the dust of the earth while woman was created from god's own image. it is our pride in this land that woman's honor is her own best defense; that here female virtue is not measured by the vigilance of detective nurses; that here woman may walk throughout the length and the breadth of this land, through its highways and byways, uninsulted, unmolested, clothed in the invulnerable panoply of her own woman's virtue; that even in places where crime lurks and vice prevails in the haunts of our great cities, and in the rude mining gulches of the west, owing to the noble efforts of our women, and the influence of their example, there are raised, even there, girls who are good daughters, loyal wives, and faithful mothers. they seem to rise in those rude surroundings as grows the pond lily, which is entangled by every species of rank growth, environed by poison, miasma and corruption, and yet which rises in the beauty of its purity and lifts its fair face unblushing to the sun. no one who has witnessed the heroism of america's daughters in the field should fail to pay a passing tribute to their worth. i do not speak alone of those trained sisters of charity, who in scenes of misery and woe seem heaven's chosen messengers on earth; but i would speak also of those fair daughters who come forth from the comfortable firesides of new england and other states, little trained to scenes of suffering, little used to the rudeness of a life in camp, who gave their all, their time, their health, and even life itself as a willing sacrifice in that cause which then moved the nation's soul. as one of these, with her graceful form, was seen moving silently through the darkened aisles of an army hospital, as the motion of her passing dress wafted a breeze across the face of the wounded, they felt that their parched brows had been fanned by the wings of the angel of mercy. ah! mr. president, woman is after all a mystery. it has been well said, that woman is the great conundrum of the nineteenth century; but if we can not guess her, we will never give her up. tribute to herbert spencer by william m. evarts gentlemen:--we are here to-night, to show the feeling of americans toward our distinguished guest. as no room and no city can hold all his friends and admirers, it was necessary that a company should be made up by some method out of the mass, and what so good a method as that of natural selection and the inclusion, within these walls, of the ladies? it is a little hard upon the rational instincts and experiences of man that we should take up the abstruse subjects of philosophy and of evolution, of all the great topics that make up mr. spencer's contribution to the learning and the wisdom of his time, at this end of the dinner. the most ancient nations, even in their primitive condition, saw the folly of this, and when one wished either to be inspired with the thoughts of others or to be himself a diviner of the thoughts of others, fasting was necessary, and a people from whom i think a great many things might be learned for the good of the people of the present time, have a maxim that will commend itself to your common-sense. they say the continually stuffed body can not see secret things. now, from my personal knowledge of the men i see at these tables, they are owners of continually stuffed bodies. i have addrest them at public dinners, on all topics and for all purposes, and whatever sympathy they may have shown with the divers occasions which brought them together, they come up to this notion of continually stuffed bodies. in primitive times they had a custom which we only under the system of differentiation practise now at this dinner. when men wished to possess themselves of the learning, the wisdom, the philosophy, the courage, the great traits of any person, they immediately proceeded to eat him up as soon as he was dead, having only this diversity in that early time that he should be either roasted or boiled according as he was fat or thin. now out of that narrow compass, see how by the process of differentiation and of multiplication of effects we have come to a dinner of a dozen courses and wines of as many varieties; and that simple process of appropriating the virtue and the wisdom of the great man that was brought before the feast is now diversified into an analysis of all the men here under the cunning management of many speakers. no doubt, preserving as we do the identity of all these institutions it is often considered a great art, or at least a great delight, to roast our friends and put in hot water those against whom we have a grudge. now, mr. spencer, we are glad to meet you here. we are glad to see you and we are glad to have you see us. we are glad to see you, for we recognize in the breadth of your knowledge, such knowledge as is useful to your race, a greater comprehension than any living man has presented to our generation. we are glad to see you, because in our judgment you have brought to the analysis and distribution of this vast knowledge a more penetrating intelligence and a more thorough insight than any living man has brought even to the minor topics of his special knowledge. in theology, in psychology, in natural science, in the knowledge of individual man and his exposition and in the knowledge of the world in the proper sense of society, which makes up the world, the world worth knowing, the world worth speaking of, the world worth planning for, the world worth working for, we acknowledge your labors as surpassing those of any of our kind. you seem to us to carry away and maintain in the future the same measure of fame among others that we are told was given in the middle ages to albertus magnus, the most learned man of those times, whose comprehension of theology, of psychology, of natural history, of politics, of history, and of learning, comprehended more than any man since the classic time certainly; and yet it was found of him that his knowledge was rather an accumulation, and that he had added no new processes and no new wealth to the learning which he had achieved. now, i have said that we are glad to have you see us. you have already treated us to a very unique piece of work in this reception, and we are expecting perhaps that the world may be instructed after you are safely on the other side of the atlantic in a more intimate and thorough manner concerning our merits and our few faults. this faculty of laying on a dissecting board an entire nation or an entire age and finding out all the arteries and veins and pulsations of their life is an extension beyond any that our own medical schools afford. you give us that knowledge of man which is practical and useful, and whatever the claims or the debates may be about your system or the system of those who agree with you, and however it may be compared with other competing systems that have preceded it, we must all agree that it is practical, that it is benevolent, that it is serious and that it is reverent; that it aims at the highest results in virtue; that it treats evil, not as eternal, but as evanescent, and that it expects to arrive at what is sought through the aid of the millennium--that condition of affairs in which there is the highest morality and the greatest happiness. and if we can come to that by these processes and these instructions, it matters little to the race whether it be called scientific morality and mathematical freedom or by another less pretentious name. you will please fill your glasses while we propose the health of our guest, herbert spencer. the empire state[ ] mr. chauncey m. depew mr. president and gentlemen:--it has been my lot from a time whence i can not remember to respond each year to this toast. when i received the invitation from the committee, its originality and ingenuity astonished and overwhelmed me. but there is one thing the committee took into consideration when they invited me to this platform. this is a presidential year, and it becomes men not to trust themselves talking on dangerous topics. the state of new york is eminently safe. ever since the present able and distinguished governor has held his place i have been called upon by the new england society to respond for him. it is probably due to that element in the new englander that he delights in provoking controversy. the governor is a democrat, and i am a republican. whatever he believes in i detest; whatever he admires i hate. the manner in which this toast is received leads me to believe that in the new england society his administration is unanimously approved. governor robinson, if i understand correctly his views, would rather that any other man should have been elected as chief magistrate than mr. john kelly. mr. kelly, if i interpret aright his public utterances, would prefer any other man for the governor of new york than lucius robinson, and therefore, in one of the most heated controversies we have ever had, we elected a governor by unanimous consent or assent in alonzo b. cornell. horace greeley once said to me, as we were returning from a state convention where he had been a candidate, but the delegates had failed to nominate the fittest man for the place: "i don't see why any man wants to be governor of the state of new york, for there is no one living who can name the last ten governors on a moment's notice." but tho there have been governors and governors, there is, when the gubernatorial office is mentioned, one figure that strides down the centuries before all the rest; that is the old dutch governor of new york, with his wooden leg--peter stuyvesant. there have been heroines, too, who have aroused the poetry and eloquence of all times, but none who have about them the substantial aroma of the dutch heroine, anneke jans. it is within the memory of men now living when the whole of american literature was dismissed with the sneer of the _edinburgh review_, "who reads an american book?" but out of the american wilderness a broad avenue to the highway which has been trod by the genius of all times in its march to fame was opened by washington irving, and in his footsteps have followed the men who are read of all the world, and who will receive the highest tributes in all times--longfellow, and whittier, and hawthorne and prescott. new york is not only imperial in all those material results which constitute and form the greatest commonwealth in this constellation of commonwealths, but in our political system she has become the arbiter of our national destiny. as goes new york so goes the union, and her voice indicates that the next president will be a man with new england blood in his veins or a representative of new england ideas. and for the gentleman who will not be elected i have a yankee story. in the berkshire hills there was a funeral, and as they gathered in the little parlor there came the typical new england female, who mingles curiosity with her sympathy, and as she glanced around the darkened room she said to the bereaved widow, "when did you get that new eight-day clock?" "we ain't got no new eight-day clock," was the reply. "you ain't? what's that in the corner there?" "why no, that's not an eight-day clock, that's the deceased; we stood him on end, to make room for the mourners." up to within fifty years ago all roads in new england led to boston; but within the last fifty years every byway and highway in new england leads to new york. new york has become the capital of new england, and within her limits are more yankees than in any three new england states combined. the boy who is to-day ploughing the stony hillside in new england, who is boarding around and teaching school, and who is to be the future merchant-prince or great lawyer, or wise statesman, looks not now to boston, but to new york, as the el dorado of his hopes. and how generously, sons of new england, have we treated you? we have put you in the best offices; we have made you our merchant-princes. where is the city or village in our state where you do not own the best houses, run the largest manufactories, and control the principal industries? we have several times made one of your number governor of the state, and we have placed you in positions where you honor us while we honor you. new york's choice in the national cabinet is the distinguished secretary of state, whose pure yankee blood renders him none the less a most fit and most eminent representative of the empire state. but while we have done our best to satisfy the yankee, there is one thing we have never been able to do. we can meet his ambition and fill his purse, but we never can satisfy his stomach. when the president stated to-night that plymouth rock celebrated this anniversary on the st, whilst we here did so on the d, he did not state the true reason. it is not as he said, a dispute about dates. the pork and beans of plymouth are insufficient for the cravings of the yankee appetite, and they chose the st, in order that, by the night train, they may get to new york on the d, to have once a year a square meal. from down to the opening of new york to their settlement, a constantly increasing void was growing inside the yankee diaphragm, and even now the native and imported yankee finds the best-appointed restaurant in the world sufficient for his wants; and he has migrated to this house, that he may annually have the sensation of sufficiency in the largest hotel in the united states. my friend, mr. curtis, has eloquently stated, in the beginning of his address, the dutchman's idea of the old puritan. he has stated, at the close of his address, the modern opinion of the old puritan. he was an uncomfortable man to live with, but two hundred years off a grand historic figure. if any one of you, gentlemen, was compelled to leave this festive board, and go back two hundred years and live with your ancestor of that day, eat his fare, drink his drink, and listen to his talk, what a time would be there, my countrymen! before the puritan was fitted to accomplish the work he did, with all the great opportunities that were in him, it was necessary that he should spend two years in leyden and learn from the dutch the important lesson of religious toleration, and the other fundamental lesson, that a common school education lies at the foundation of all civil and religious liberty. if the dutchman had conquered boston, it would have been a misfortune to this land, and to the world. it would have been like diedrich knickerbocker wrestling with an electric battery. but when the yankee conquered new york, his union with the dutch formed those sterling elements which have made the republic what it is. yankee ideas prevailed in this land in the grandest contest in the senate of the united states which has ever taken place, or ever will, in the victory of nationalism over sectionalism by the ponderous eloquence of that great defender of the constitution, daniel webster. and when failing in the forum, sectionalism took the field, yankee ideas conquered again in that historic meeting when lee gave up his sword to grant. and when, in the disturbance of credit and industry which followed, the twin heresies expansion and repudiation stalked abroad, yankee ideas conquered again in the policy of our distinguished guest, the secretary of the treasury. so great a triumph has never been won by any financial officer of the government before, as in the funding of our national debt at four per cent., and the restoration of the national credit, giving an impulse to our prosperity and industry that can neither be stayed nor stopt. when henry hudson sailed up the great harbor of new york, and saw with prophetic vision its magnificent opportunities, he could only emphasize his thought, with true dutch significance, in one sentence--"see here!" when the yankee came and settled in new york, he emphasized his coming with another sentence--"sit here!"--and he sat down upon the dutchman with such force that he squeezed him out of his cabbage-patch, and upon it he built his warehouse and his residence. he found this city laid out in a beautiful labyrinth of cow-patches, with the inhabitants and the houses all standing with their gable-ends to the street, and he turned them all to the avenue, and made new york a parallelogram of palaces; and he has multiplied to such an extent that now he fills every nook of our great state, and we recognize here to-night that, with no tariff, and free trade between new england and new york, the native specimen is an improvement upon the imported article. gentlemen, i beg leave to say, as a native new yorker of many generations, that by the influence, the hospitality, the liberal spirit, and the cosmopolitan influences of this great state, from the unlovable puritan of two hundred years ago you have become the most agreeable and companionable of men. new york to-day, the empire state of all the great states of the commonwealth, brings in through her grand avenue to the sea eighty per cent. of all the imports, and sends forth a majority of all the exports, of the republic. she collects and pays four-fifths of the taxes which carry on the government of the country. in the close competition to secure the great western commerce which is to-day feeding the world and seeking an outlet along three thousand miles of coast, she holds by her commercial prestige and enterprise more than all the ports from new orleans to portland combined. let us, whether native or adopted new yorkers, be true to the past, to the present, to the future, of this commercial and financial metropolis. let us enlarge our terminal facilities and bring the rail and the steamship close together. let us do away with the burdens that make new york the dearest, and make her the cheapest, port on the continent; and let us impress our commercial ideas upon the national legislature, so that the navigation laws, which have driven the merchant marine of the republic from the seas, shall be repealed, and the breezes of every clime shall unfurl, and the waves of every sea reflect, the flag of the republic. footnote: [ ] speech of chauncey m. depew at the seventy-fourth anniversary banquet of the new england society in the city of new york, december , . men of letters by james anthony froude sir francis grant, your royal highness, my lords, and gentlemen:--while i feel most keenly the honor which you confer upon me in connecting my name with the interests of literature, i am embarrassed, in responding, by the nature of my subject. what is literature, and who are men of letters? from one point of view we are the most unprofitable of mankind--engaged mostly in blowing soap-bubbles. from another point of view we are the most practical and energetic portion of the community. if literature be the art of employing words skilfully in representing facts, or thoughts, or emotions, you may see excellent specimens of it every day in the advertisements in our newspapers. every man who uses a pen to convey his meaning to others--the man of science, the man of business, the member of a learned profession--belongs to the community of letters. nay, he need not use his pen at all. the speeches of great orators are among the most treasured features of any national literature. the orations of mr. grattan are the text-books in the schools of rhetoric in the united states. mr. bright, under this aspect of him, holds a foremost place among the men of letters of england. again, sir, every eminent man, be he what he will, be he as unbookish as he pleases, so he is only eminent enough, so he holds a conspicuous place in the eyes of his countrymen, potentially belongs to us, and if not in life, then after he is gone, will be enrolled among us. the public insist on being admitted to his history, and their curiosity will not go unsatisfied. his letters are hunted up, his journals are sifted; his sayings in conversation, the doggerel which he writes to his brothers and sisters are collected, and stereotyped in print. his fate overtakes him. he can not escape from it. we cry out, but it does not appear that men sincerely resist the liberty which is taken with them. we never hear of them instructing their executors to burn their papers. they have enjoyed so much the exhibition that has been made of their contemporaries that they consent to be sacrificed themselves. again, sir, when we look for those who have been most distinguished as men of letters, in the usual sense of the word, where do we find them? the famous lawyer is found in his chambers, the famous artist is found in his studio. our foremost representatives we do not find always in their libraries; we find them, in the first place, in the service of their country. ("hear! hear!") owen meredith is viceroy of india, and all england has applauded the judgment that selected and sent him there. the right honorable gentleman (mr. gladstone) who three years ago was conducting the administration of this country with such brilliant success was first generally known to his countrymen as a remarkable writer. during forty years of arduous service he never wholly deserted his original calling. he is employing an interval of temporary retirement to become the interpreter of homer to the english race, or to break a lance with the most renowned theologians in defense of spiritual liberty. a great author, whose life we have been all lately reading with delight, contemplates the year as a period at which his works may still be studied. if any man might be led reasonably to form such an anticipation for himself by the admiration of his contemporaries, lord macaulay may be acquitted of vanity. the year is far away, much will happen between now and then; all that we can say with certainty of the year is that it will be something extremely different from what any one expects. i will not predict that men will then be reading lord macaulay's "history of england." i will not predict that they will then be reading "lothair." but this i will say, that if any statesman of the age of augustus or the antonines had left us a picture of patrician society at rome, drawn with the same skill, and with the same delicate irony with which mr. disraeli has described a part of english society in "lothair," no relic of antiquity would now be devoured with more avidity and interest. thus, sir, we are an anomalous body, with very ill-defined limits. but, such as we are, we are heartily obliged to you for wishing us well, and i give you our most sincere thanks. literature and politics by john morley mr. president, your royal highness, my lords, ladies and gentlemen:--i feel that i am more unworthy now than i was eight years ago to figure as the representative of literature before this brilliant gathering of all the most important intellectual and social interests of our time. i have not yet been able like the prime minister, to go round this exhibition and see the works of art that glorify your walls; but i am led by him to expect that i shall see the pictures of liberal leaders, including m. rochefort. i am not sure whether m. rochefort will figure as a man of letters or as a liberal leader, but i can understand that his portrait would attract the prime minister because m. rochefort is a politician who was once a liberal leader, and who has now seen occasion to lose his faith in parliamentary government. nor have i seen the picture of "the flowing tide," but i shall expect to find in that picture when i do see it a number of bathing-machines in which, not the younger generation, but the elder generation, as i understand are waiting confidently--for the arrival of the "flowing tide," and when it arrives, the elderly gentlemen who are incarcerated in those machines will be only too anxious for a man and a horse to come and deliver them from their imminent peril. i thought that i detected in the last words of your speech, in proposing this toast, mr. president, an accent of gentle reproach that any one should desert the high and pleasant ways of literature for the turmoil and the everlasting contention of public life. i do not suppose that there has ever been a time in which there was less of divorce between literature and public life than the present time. there have been in the reign of the queen two eminent statesmen who have thrice had the distinction of being prime minister, and oddly enough, one of those statesman (lord derby) has left behind him a most spirited version of homer, while the other eminent statesman (william e. gladstone)--happily still among us, still examines the legends and the significance of homer. then when we come to a period nearer to ourselves, and look at those gentlemen who have in the last six years filled the office of minister for ireland, we find that no fewer than three (george otto trevelyan, john morley, and arthur balfour) were authors of books before they engaged in the very ticklish business of the government of men. and one of these three ministers for ireland embarked upon his literary career--which promised ample distinction--under the editorial auspices of another of the three. we possess in one branch of the legislature the author of the most fascinating literary biography in our language. we possess also another writer whose range of knowledge and of intellectual interest is so great that he has written the most important book upon the american commonwealth (james bryce). the first canon in literature was announced one hundred years ago by an eminent frenchman who said that in literature it is your business to have preferences but no exclusions. in politics it appears to be our business to have very stiff and unchangeable preferences, and exclusion is one of the systematic objects of our life. in literature, according to another canon, you must have a free and open mind and it has been said: "never be the prisoner of your own opinions." in politics you are very lucky if you do not have the still harder fate--(and i think that the gentlemen on the president's right hand will assent to that as readily as the gentlemen who sit on his left) of being the prisoner of other people's opinions. of course no one can doubt for a moment that the great achievements of literature--those permanent and vital works which we will never let die--require a devotion as unceasing, as patient, as inexhaustible, as the devotion that is required for the works that adorn your walls; and we have luckily in our age--tho it may not be a literary age--masters of prose and masters of verse. no prose more winning has ever been written than that of cardinal newman; no verse finer, more polished, more melodious has ever been written than that of lord tennyson and mr. swinburne. it seems to me that one of the greatest functions of literature at this moment is not merely to produce great works, but also to protect the english language--that noble, that most glorious instrument--against those hosts of invaders which i observe have in these days sprung up. i suppose that every one here has noticed the extraordinary list of names suggested lately in order to designate motion by electricity; that list of names only revealed what many of us had been observing for a long time--namely, the appalling forces that are ready at a moment's notice to deface and deform our english tongue. these strange, fantastic, grotesque, and weird titles open up to my prophetic vision a most unwelcome prospect. i tremble to see the day approach--and i am not sure that it is not approaching--when the humorists of the headlines of american journalism shall pass current as models of conciseness, energy, and color of style. even in our social speech this invasion seems to be taking place in an alarming degree, and i wonder what the pilgrim fathers of the seventeenth century would say if they could hear their pilgrim children of the nineteenth century who come over here, on various missions, and among others, "on the make." this is only one of the thousand such-like expressions which are invading the puritan simplicity of our tongue. i will only say that i should like, for my own part, to see in every library and in every newspaper office that admirable passage in which milton--who knew so well how to handle both the great instrument of prose and the nobler instrument of verse--declared that next to the man who furnished courage and intrepid counsels against an enemy he placed the man who should enlist small bands of good authors to resist that barbarism which invades the minds and the speech of men in methods and habits of speaking and writing. i thank you for having allowed me the honor of saying a word as to the happiest of all callings and the most imperishable of all arts. general sherman by carl schurz gentlemen:--the adoption by the chamber of commerce of these resolutions which i have the honor to second, is no mere perfunctory proceeding. we have been called here by a genuine impulse of the heart. to us general sherman was not a great man like other great men, honored and revered at a distance. we had the proud and happy privilege of calling him one of us. only a few months ago, at the annual meeting of this chamber, we saw the familiar face of our honorary member on this platform by the side of our president. only a few weeks ago he sat at our banquet table, as he had often before, in the happiest mood of conviviality, and contributed to the enjoyment of the night with his always unassuming and always charming speech. and as he moved among us without the slightest pomp of self-conscious historic dignity, only with the warm and simple geniality of his nature, it would cost us sometimes an effort of the memory to recollect that he was the renowned captain who had marshaled mighty armies victoriously on many a battlefield, and whose name stood, and will forever stand, in the very foremost rank of the saviors of this republic, and of the great soldiers of the world's history. indeed, no american could have forgotten this for a moment; but the affection of those who were so happy as to come near to him, would sometimes struggle to outrun their veneration and gratitude. death has at last conquered the hero of so many campaigns; our cities and towns and villages are decked with flags at half-mast; the muffled drum and the funeral cannon boom will resound over the land as his dead body passes to the final resting-place; and the american people stand mournfully gazing into the void left by the sudden disappearance of the last of the greatest men brought forth by our war of regeneration--and this last also finally become, save abraham lincoln alone, the most widely beloved. he is gone; but as we of the present generation remember it, history will tell all coming centuries the romantic story of the famous "march to the sea"--how, in the dark days of , sherman, having worked his bloody way to atlanta, then cast off all his lines of supply and communication, and, like a bold diver into the dark unknown, seemed to vanish with all his hosts from the eyes of the world, until his triumphant reappearance on the shores of the ocean proclaimed to the anxiously expecting millions, that now the final victory was no longer doubtful, and that the republic would surely be saved. nor will history fail to record that this great general was, as a victorious soldier, a model of republican citizenship. when he had done his illustrious deeds, he rose step by step to the highest rank in the army, and then, grown old, he retired. the republic made provision for him in modest republican style. he was satisfied. he asked for no higher reward. altho the splendor of his achievements, and the personal affection for him, which every one of his soldiers carried home, made him the most popular american of his day, and altho the most glittering prizes were not seldom held up before his eyes, he remained untroubled by ulterior ambition. no thought that the republic owed him more ever darkened his mind. no man could have spoken to him of the "ingratitude of republics," without meeting from him a stern rebuke. and so, content with the consciousness of a great duty nobly done, he was happy in the love of his fellow citizens. indeed, he may truly be said to have been in his old age, not only the most beloved, but also the happiest of americans. many years he lived in the midst of posterity. his task was finished, and this he wisely understood. his deeds had been passed upon by the judgment of history, and irrevocably registered among the glories of his country and his age. his generous heart envied no one, and wished every one well; and ill-will had long ceased to pursue him. beyond cavil his fame was secure, and he enjoyed it as that which he had honestly earned, with a genuine and ever fresh delight, openly avowed by the charming frankness of his nature. he dearly loved to be esteemed and cherished by his fellow men, and what he valued most, his waning years brought him in ever increasing abundance. thus he was in truth a most happy man, and his days went down like an evening sun in a cloudless autumn sky. and when now the american people, with that peculiar tenderness of affection which they have long borne him, lay him in his grave, the happy ending of his great life may soothe the pang of bereavement they feel in their hearts at the loss of the old hero who was so dear to them, and of whom they were and always will be so proud. his memory will ever be bright to us all; his truest monument will be the greatness of the republic he served so well; and his fame will never cease to be prized by a grateful country, as one of its most precious possessions. oration over alexander hamilton[ ] by gouverneur morris my friends:--if on this sad, this solemn occasion, i should endeavor to move your commiseration, it would be doing injustice to that sensibility which has been so generally and so justly manifested. far from attempting to excite your emotions, i must try to repress my own; and yet, i fear, that instead of the language of a public speaker, you will hear only the lamentations of a wailing friend. but i will struggle with my bursting heart, to portray that heroic spirit, which has flown to the mansions of bliss. students of columbia--he was in the ardent pursuit of knowledge in your academic shades when the first sound of the american war called him to the field. a young and unprotected volunteer, such was his zeal, and so brilliant his service, that we heard his name before we knew his person. it seemed as if god had called him suddenly into existence, that he might assist to save a world! the penetrating eye of washington soon perceived the manly spirit which animated his youthful bosom. by that excellent judge of men he was selected as an aid, and thus he became early acquainted with, and was a principal actor in the more important scenes of our revolution. at the siege of york he pertinaciously insisted on, and he obtained the command of a forlorn hope. he stormed the redoubt; but let it be recorded that not one single man of the enemy perished. his gallant troops, emulating the heroism of their chief checked the uplifted arm, and spared a foe no longer resisting. here closed his military career. shortly after the war, your favor--no, your discernment, called him to public office. you sent him to the convention at philadelphia; he there assisted in forming the constitution which is now the bond of our union, the shield of our defense, and the source of our prosperity. in signing the compact, he exprest his apprehension that it did not contain sufficient means of strength for its own preservation; and that in consequence we should share the fate of many other republics, and pass through anarchy to despotism. we hoped better things. we confided in the good sense of the american people; and, above all, we trusted in the protecting providence of the almighty. on this important subject he never concealed his opinion. he disdained concealment. knowing the purity of his heart, he bore it as it were in his hand, exposing to every passenger its inmost recesses. this generous indiscretion subjected him to censure from misrepresentation. his speculative opinions were treated as deliberate designs; and yet you all know how strenuous, how unremitting were his efforts to establish and to preserve the constitution. if, then, his opinion was wrong, pardon, o pardon, that single error, in a life devoted to your service. at the time when our government was organized, we were without funds, tho not without resources. to call them into action, and establish order in the finances, washington sought for splendid talents, for extensive information, and above all, he sought for sterling, incorruptible integrity. all these he found in hamilton. the system then adopted, has been the subject of much animadversion. if it be not without a fault, let it be remembered that nothing human is perfect. recollect the circumstances of the moment--recollect the conflict of opinion--and, above all, remember that a minister of a republic must bend to the will of the people. the administration which washington formed was one of the most efficient, one of the best that any country was ever blessed with. and the result was a rapid advance in power and prosperity of which there is no example in any other age or nation. the part which hamilton bore is universally known. his unsuspecting confidence in professions, which he believed to be sincere, led him to trust too much to the undeserving. this exposed him to misrepresentation. he felt himself obliged to resign. the care of a rising family, and the narrowness of his fortune, made it a duty to return to his profession for their support. but tho he was compelled to abandon public life, never, no, never for a moment did he abandon the public service. he never lost sight of your interests. i declare to you, before that god in whose presence we are now especially assembled, that in his most private and confidential conversations, the single objects of discussion and consideration were your freedom and happiness. you well remember the state of things which again called forth washington from his retreat to lead your armies. you know that he asked for hamilton to be his second in command. that venerable sage knew well the dangerous incidents of a military profession, and he felt the hand of time pinching life at its source. it was probable that he would soon be removed from the scene, and that his second would succeed to the command. he knew by experience the importance of that place--and he thought the sword of america might safely be confided to the hand which now lies cold in that coffin. oh! my fellow citizens, remember this solemn testimonial that he was not ambitious. yet he was charged with ambition, and, wounded by the imputation, when he laid down his command he declared in the proud independence of his soul, that he never would accept any office, unless in a foreign war he should be called on to expose his life in defense of his country. this determination was immovable. it was his fault that his opinions and his resolutions could not be changed. knowing his own firm purpose, he was indignant at the charge that he sought for place or power. he was ambitious only for glory, but he was deeply solicitous for you. for himself he feared nothing; but he feared that bad men might, by false professions, acquire your confidence, and abuse it to your ruin. brethren of the cincinnati--there lies our chief! let him still be our model. like him, after long and faithful public services, let us cheerfully perform the social duties of private life. oh! he was mild and gentle. in him there was no offense; no guile. his generous hand and heart were open to all. gentlemen of the bar--you have lost your brightest ornament. cherish and imitate his example. while, like him, with justifiable and laudable zeal, you pursue the interests of your clients, remember, like him, the eternal principle of justice. fellow citizens--you have long witnessed his professional conduct, and felt his unrivaled eloquence. you know how well he performed the duties of a citizen--you know that he never courted your favor by adulation or the sacrifice of his own judgment. you have seen him contending against you, and saving your dearest interests, as it were, in spite of yourselves. and you now feel and enjoy the benefits resulting from the firm energy of his conduct. bear this testimony to the memory of my departed friend. i charge you to protect his fame. it is all he has left--all that these poor orphan children will inherit from their father. but, my countrymen, that fame may be a rich treasure to you also. let it be the test by which to examine those who solicit your favor. disregarding professions, view their conduct, and on a doubtful occasion ask, "would hamilton have done this thing?" you all know how he perished. on this last scene i can not, i must not dwell. it might excite emotions too strong for your better judgment. suffer not your indignation to lead to any act which might again offend the insulted majesty of the laws. on his part, as from his lips, tho with my voice--for his voice you will hear no more--let me entreat you to respect yourselves. and now, ye ministers of the everlasting god, perform your holy office, and commit these ashes of our departed brother to the bosom of the grave. footnote: [ ] funeral oration by gouverneur morris, statesman and man of affairs, pronounced before the porch of trinity church, new york city, over the body of alexander hamilton, just prior to the interment, july , . eulogy of mckinley by grover cleveland to-day the grave closes over the dead body of the man but lately chosen by the people of the united states from among their number to represent their nationality, preserve, protect and defend their constitution, to faithfully execute the laws ordained for their welfare, and safely to hold and keep the honor and integrity of the republic. his time of service is ended, not by the expiration of time, but by the tragedy of assassination. he has passed from public sight, not joyously bearing the garlands and wreaths of his countrymen's approving acclaim, but amid the sobs and tears of a mourning nation. he has gone to his home, not the habitation of earthly peace and quiet, bright with domestic comfort and joy, but to the dark and narrow house appointed for all the sons of men, there to rest until the morning light of the resurrection shall gleam in the east. all our people loved their dead president. his kindly nature and lovable traits of character and his amiable consideration for all about him will long be in the minds and hearts of his countrymen. he loved them in return with such patriotism and unselfishness that in the hour of their grief and humiliation he would say to them: "it is god's will; i am content. if there is a lesson in my life or death, let it be taught to those who still live and have the destiny of their country in their keeping." let us, then, as our dead is buried out of our sight, seek for the lessons and the admonitions that may be suggested by the life and death which constitute our theme. first in my thoughts are the lessons to be learned from the career of william mckinley by the young men who make up the student body of our university. these lessons are not obscure or difficult. they teach the value of study and mental training, but they teach more impressively that the road to usefulness and to the only success worth having, will be missed or lost except it is sought and kept by the light of those qualities of heart, which it is sometimes supposed may safely be neglected or subordinated in university surroundings. this is a great mistake. study and study hard, but never let the thought enter your mind that study alone or the greatest possible accumulation of learning alone will lead you to the heights of usefulness and success. the man who is universally mourned to-day achieved the highest distinction which his great country can confer on any man, and he lived a useful life. he was not deficient in education, but with all you will hear of his grand career, and of his services to his country and his fellow citizens, you will not hear that either the high place he reached or what he accomplished was due entirely to his education. you will instead constantly hear as accounting for his great success that he was obedient and affectionate as a son, patriotic and faithful as a soldier, honest and upright as a citizen, tender and devoted as a husband, and truthful, generous, unselfish, moral and clean in every relation of life. he never thought any of these things too weak for manliness. make no mistake. here was a most distinguished man, a great man, a useful man--who became distinguished, great and useful, because he had, and retained unimpaired, the qualities of heart which i fear university students sometimes feel like keeping in the background or abandoning. there is a most serious lesson for all of us in the tragedy of our late president's death. the shock of it is so great that it is hard at this time to read this lesson calmly. we can hardly fail to see, however, behind the bloody deed of the assassin, horrible figures and faces from which it will not do to turn away. if we are to escape further attack upon our peace and security, we must boldly and resolutely grapple with the monster of anarchy. it is not a thing that we can safely leave to be dealt with by party or partizanship. nothing can guarantee us against its menace except the teaching and the practise of the best citizenship, the exposure of the ends and aims of the gospel of discontent and hatred of social order, and the brave enactment and execution of repressive laws. our universities and colleges can not refuse to join in the battle against the tendencies of anarchy. their help in discovering and warning against the relationship between the vicious councils and deeds of blood, and their unsteadying influence upon the elements of unrest, can not fail to be of inestimable value. by the memory of our murdered president, let us resolve to cultivate and preserve the qualities that made him great and useful; and let us determine to meet the call of patriotic duty in every time of our country's danger or need. decoration day[ ] by thomas w. higginson friends:--we meet to-day for a purpose that has the dignity and the tenderness of funeral rites without their sadness. it is not a new bereavement, but one which has softened, that brings us here. we meet not around a newly opened grave, but among those which nature has already decorated with the memorials of her love. above every tomb her daily sunshine has smiled, her tears have wept; over the humblest she has bidden some grasses nestle, some vines creep, and the butterfly,--ancient emblem of immortality--waves his little wings above every sod. to nature's signs of tenderness we add our own. not "ashes to ashes, dust to dust," but blossoms to blossoms, laurels to the laureled. the great civil war has passed by--its great armies were disbanded, their tents struck, their camp-fires put out, their muster-rolls laid away. but there is another army whose numbers no presidential proclamation could reduce, no general orders disband. this is their camping-ground--these white stones are their tents--this list of names we bear is their muster-roll--their camp-fires yet burn in our hearts. i remember this "sweet auburn" when no sacred associations made it sweeter, and when its trees looked down on no funerals but those of the bird and the bee. time has enriched its memories since those days. and especially during our great war, as the nation seemed to grow impoverished in men, these hills grow richer in associations, until their multiplying wealth took in that heroic boy who fell in almost the last battle of the war. now that roll of honor has closed, and the work of commemoration begun. without distinction of nationality, of race, of religion, they gave their lives to their country. without distinction of religion, of race, of nationality, we garland their graves to-day. the young roman catholic convert who died exclaiming "mary! pardon!" and the young protestant theological student, whose favorite place of study was this cemetery, and who asked only that no words of praise might be engraven on his stone--these bore alike the cross in their lifetime, and shall bear it alike in flowers to-day. they gave their lives that we might remain one nation, and the nation holds their memory alike in its arms. and so the little distinctions of rank that separated us in the service are nothing here. death has given the same brevet to all. the brilliant young cavalry general who rode into his last action, with stars on his shoulders and his death-wound on his breast, is to us no more precious than that sergeant of sharpshooters who followed the line unarmed at antietam, waiting to take the rifle of some one who should die, because his own had been stolen; or that private who did the same thing in the same battle, leaving the hospital service to which he had been assigned. nature has been equally tender to the graves of all, and our love knows no distinction. what a wonderful embalmer is death! we who survive grow daily older. since the war closed the youngest has gained some new wrinkle, the oldest some added gray hair. a few years more and only a few tattering figures shall represent the marching files of the grand army; a year or two beyond that, and there shall flutter by the window the last empty sleeve. but these who are here are embalmed forever in our imaginations; they will not change; they never will seem to us less young, less fresh, less daring, than when they sallied to their last battle. they will always have the dew of their youth; it is we alone who shall grow old. and, again, what a wonderful purifier is death! these who fell beside us varied in character; like other men, they had their strength and their weaknesses, their merits and their faults. yet now all stains seem washed away; their life ceased at its climax, and the ending sanctioned all that went before. they died for their country; that is their record. they found their way to heaven equally short, it seems to us, from every battle-field, and with equal readiness our love seeks them to-day. "what is a victory like?" said a lady to the duke of wellington. "the greatest tragedy in the world, madam, except a defeat." even our great war would be but a tragedy were it not for the warm feeling of brotherhood it has left behind it, based on the hidden emotions of days like these. the war has given peace to the nation; it has given union, freedom, equal rights; and in addition to that, it has given to you and me the sacred sympathy of these graves. no matter what it has cost us individually--health or worldly fortunes--it is our reward that we can stand to-day among these graves and yet not blush that we survive. the great french soldier, de latour d'auvergne, was the hero of many battles, but remained by his own choice in the ranks. napoleon gave him a sword and the official title "the first grenadier of france." when he was killed, the emperor ordered that his heart should be intrusted to the keeping of his regiment--that his name should be called at every roll-call, and that his next comrade should make answer, "dead upon the field of honor." in our memories are the names of many heroes; we treasure all their hearts in this consecrated ground, and when the name of each is called, we answer in flowers, "dead upon the field of honor." footnote: [ ] delivered at mount auburn cemetery, cambridge, mass., decoration day, may , . faith in mankind[ ] by arthur t. hadley in order to accomplish anything great, a man must have two sides to his greatness: a personal side and a social side. he must be upright himself, and he must believe in the good intentions and possibilities of others about him. the scholars and scientific men of the country have sometimes been reproached with a certain indifference to the feelings and sentiments of their fellow men. it has been said that their critical faculty is developed more strongly than their constructive instinct; that their brain has been nourished at the expense of their heart; that what they have gained in breadth of vision has been outweighed by a loss of human sympathy. it is for you to prove the falseness of this charge. it is for you to show by your life and utterances that you believe in the men who are working with you and about you. there will probably be times when this is a hard task. if you have studied history or literature or science aright, some things which look large to other people will look small to you. you will frequently be called upon to give the unwelcome advice that a desired end can not be reached by a short cut; and this may cause some of your enthusiastic friends to lose confidence in your leadership. there are always times when a man who is clear-headed is reproached with being hard-hearted. but if you yourselves keep your faith in your fellow men, these things, tho they be momentary hindrances, will in the long run make for your power of christian leadership. there was a time, not so very long ago, when the people distrusted the guidance of scientific men in things material. they believed that they could do their business best without advice of the theorists. when it came to the conduct of business, scientific men and practical men eyed each other with mutual distrust. as long as the scientific men remained mere critics this distrust remained. when they came to take up the practical problems of applied mechanics and physics and solve them positively in a large way, they became the trusted leaders of modern material development. it is for you to deal with the profounder problems of human life in the same way. it is for you to prove your right to take the lead in the political and social and spiritual development of the country, as well as in its mechanical and material development. to do this you must take hold of these social problems with the same positive faith with which your fathers took hold of the problems of applied science. to the man who believes in his fellow men, who has faith in his country, and in whom the love of god whom he hath not seen is but an outgrowth of a love for his fellow men whom he hath seen, the opening years of the twentieth century are years of unrivaled promise. we already know that a man can learn to love god by loving his fellow men. equally true we shall find it that a man learns to believe in god by believing in his fellow men. footnote: [ ] the concluding part of a baccalaureate address to the graduating class of yale university, june , . washington and lincoln[ ] by martin w. littleton the strongest thing about the character of the two greatest men in american history is the fact that they did not surrender to the passion of the time. washington withstood the french radicalism of jefferson and the british conservatism of hamilton. he invited each of them into his cabinet; he refused to allow either of them to dictate his policy. his enemies could not terrify him by assault; his friends could not deceive him with flattery. in this respect he resembled in marked degree the splendid character of lincoln. the single light that led lincoln's feet along the hard highway of life was justice; the single thought that throbbed his brain to sleep at night was justice; the single prayer that put in whispered words the might and meaning of his soul was justice; the single impulse that lingered in a heart already wrung by a nation's grief was justice; in every word that fell from him in touching speech there was the sad and sober spirit of justice. he sat upon the storm when the nation shook with passion. treason, wrong, injustice, crime, graft, a thousand wrongs in system and in single added to the burden of this melancholy spirit. silently, as the soul of the just makes war on sin; silently, as the spirit of the mighty withstands the spite of wrong; silently, as the heart of the truly brave resists the assault of the coward, this prince of patience and peace endured the calumny of the country he died to save. lincoln blazed the way from the cabin to the crown; working away in the silence of the woods, he heard the murmur of a storm; toiling in the forest of flashing leaf and armored oak, he heard lexington calling unto sumter, valley forge crying unto gettysburg, and yorktown shouting unto appomattox. lingering before the dying fires in a humble hut, he saw with sorrowful heart the blazing camps of virginia, and felt the awful stillness of slumbering armies. beneath it all he saw the strained muscles of the slave, the broken spirit of the serf, the bondage of immortal souls; and beyond it all, looking through the tears that broke from a breaking heart, he saw the widow by the empty chair, the aged father's fruitless vigil at the gate, the daughter's dreary watch beside the door, and the son's solemn step from boyhood to old age. and behind this picture he saw the lonely family altar upon which was offered the incense of tears coming from millions of broken hearts; and looking still beyond he saw the battle-fields where silent slabs told of the death of those who died in deathless valor. he saw the desolated earth, where golden grain no more broke from the rich, resourceful soil, where the bannered wheat no longer rose from the productive earth; he saw the south with its smoking chimneys, its deserted hearthstones, its maimed and wounded trudging with bowed heads and bent forms back to their homes, there to want and to waste and to struggle and to build up again; he saw the north recover itself from the awful shock of arms and start anew to unite the arteries of commerce that had been cut by the cruel sword of war. and with this gentle hand, and as a last act of his sacrificial life, he dashed the awful cup of brother's blood from the lustful lip of war and shattered the cannons' roar into nameless notes of song. then turn to the vision of washington leaving a plantation of peace and plenty to suffer on the blood-stained battle-field, surrendering the dominion over the princely domain of a virginia gentleman to accept the privations of an unequal war--the vision of patriotism over against the vision of greed. oh, my friends, we must live so that the spirit of these men shall settle all about our lives and deeds; so that the patriotism of their service shall burn as a fire in the hearts of all who shall follow them. the constitution which came from one, the universal liberty which came from the other, must be set in our hearts as institutions in the blood of our race, so that this government shall not perish until every drop of that blood has been shed in its defense; and we shall behold the flag of our country as the beautiful emblem of their unselfish lives, whose red ran out of a soldier's heart, whose white was bleached by a nation's tears, whose stars were hung there to sing together until the eternal morning when all the world shall be free. footnote: [ ] extract from an address on the occasion of the celebration of washington's birthday by the ellicott club of buffalo, new york, february , . characteristics of washington[ ] by william mckinley fellow citizens:--there is a peculiar and tender sentiment connected with this memorial. it expresses not only the gratitude and reverence of the living, but is a testimonial of affection and homage from the dead. the comrades of washington projected this monument. their love inspired it. their contributions helped to build it. past and present share in its completion, and future generations will profit by its lessons. to participate in the dedication of such a monument is a rare and precious privilege. every monument to washington is a tribute to patriotism. every shaft and statue to his memory helps to inculcate love of country, encourage loyalty and establish a better citizenship. god bless every undertaking which revives patriotism and rebukes the indifferent and lawless! a critical study of washington's career only enhances our estimation of his vast and varied abilities. as commander-in-chief of the colonial armies from the beginning of the war to the proclamation of peace, as president of the convention which framed the constitution of the united states, and as the first president of the united states under that constitution, washington has a distinction differing from that of all other illustrious americans. no other name bears or can bear such a relation to the government. not only by his military genius--his patience, his sagacity, his courage, and his skill--was our national independence won, but he helped in largest measure to draft the chart by which the nation was guided; and he was the first chosen by the people to put in motion the new government. his was not the boldness of martial display or the charm of captivating oratory, but his calm and steady judgment won men's support and commanded their confidence by appealing to their best and noblest aspirations. and withal washington was ever so modest that at no time in his career did his personality seem in the least intrusive. he was above the temptation of power. he spurned any suggested crown. he would have no honor which the people did not bestow. an interesting fact--and one which i love to recall--is that the only time washington formally addrest the constitutional convention during all its sessions over which he presided in this city, he appealed for a larger representation of the people in the national house of representatives, and his appeal was instantly heeded. thus was he ever keenly watchful of the rights of the people in whose hands was the destiny of our government then as now. masterful as were his military campaigns, his civil administration commands equal admiration. his foresight was marvelous; his conception of the philosophy of government, his insistence upon the necessity of education, morality, and enlightened citizenship to the progress and permanence of the republic, can not be contemplated even at this period without filling us with astonishment at the breadth of his comprehension and the sweep of his vision. his was no narrow view of government. the immediate present was not his sole concern, but our future good his constant theme of study. he blazed the path of liberty. he laid the foundation upon which we have grown from weak and scattered colonial governments to a united republic whose domains and power as well as whose liberty and freedom have become the admiration of the world. distance and time have not detracted from the fame and force of his achievements or diminished the grandeur of his life and work. great deeds do not stop in their growth, and those of washington will expand in influence in all the centuries to follow. the bequest washington has made to civilization is rich beyond computation. the obligations under which he has placed mankind are sacred and commanding. the responsibility he has left for the american people to preserve and perfect what he accomplished is exacting and solemn. let us rejoice in every new evidence that the people realize what they enjoy and cherish with affection the illustrious heroes of revolutionary story whose valor and sacrifices made us a nation. they live in us, and their memory will help us keep the covenant entered into for the maintenance of the freest government of the earth. the nation and the name of washington are inseparable. one is linked indissolubly with the other. both are glorious, both triumphant. washington lives and will live because what he did was for the exaltation of man, the enthronement of conscience, and the establishment of a government which recognizes all the governed. and so, too, will the nation live victorious over all obstacles, adhering to the immortal principles which washington taught and lincoln sustained. footnote: [ ] address by william mckinley, twenty-fourth president of the united states, delivered at the unveiling of the washington statue, by the society of cincinnati, in philadelphia, may , . "let france be free!"[ ] by george jacques danton the general considerations that have been presented to you are true; but at this moment it is less necessary to examine the causes of the disasters that have struck us than to apply their remedy rapidly. when the edifice is on fire, i do not join the rascals who would steal the furniture, i extinguish the flames. i tell you therefore you should be convinced by the despatches of dumouriez that you have not a moment to spare in saving the republic. dumouriez conceived a plan which did honor to his genius. i would render him greater justice and praise than i did recently. but three months ago he announced to the executive power, your general committee of defense, that if we were not audacious enough to invade holland in the middle of winter, to declare instantly against england the war which actually we had long been making, that we would double the difficulties of our campaign, in giving our enemies the time to deploy their forces. since we failed to recognize this stroke of his genius we must now repair our faults. dumouriez is not discouraged; he is in the middle of holland, where he will find munitions of war; to overthrow all our enemies, he wants but frenchmen, and france is filled with citizens. would we be free? if we no longer desire it, let us perish, for we have all sworn it. if we wish it, let all march to defend our independence. your enemies are making their last efforts. pitt, recognizing he has all to lose, dares spare nothing. take holland, and carthage is destroyed and england can no longer exist but for liberty! let holland be conquered to liberty; and even the commercial aristocracy itself, which at the moment dominates the english people, would rise against the government which had dragged it into this despotic war against a free people. they would overthrow this ministry of stupidity who thought the methods of the _ancien régime_ could smother the genius of liberty breathing in france. this ministry once overthrown in the interests of commerce the party of liberty would show itself; for it is not dead! and if you know your duties, if your commissioners leave at once, if you extend the hand to the strangers aspiring to destroy all forms of tyranny, france is saved and the world is free. expedite, then, your commissioners; sustain them with your energy; let them leave this very night, this very evening. let them say to the opulent classes, the aristocracy of europe must succumb to our efforts, and pay our debt, or you will have to pay it! the people have nothing but blood--they lavish it! go, then, ingrates, and lavish your wealth! see, citizens, the fair destinies that await you. what! you have a whole nation as a lever, its reason as your fulcrum, and you have not yet upturned the world! to do this we need firmness and character, and of a truth we lack it. i put to one side all passions. they are all strangers to me save a passion for the public good. in the most difficult situations, when the enemy was at the gates of paris, i said to those governing: "your discussions are shameful, i can see but the enemy. you tire me by squabbling in place of occupying yourselves with the safety of the republic! i repudiate you all as traitors to our country! i place you all in the same line!" i said to them: "what care i for my reputation! let france be free, tho my name were accurst! what care i that i am called 'a blood-drinker!'" well, let us drink the blood of the enemies of humanity, if needful; but let us struggle, let us achieve freedom. some fear the departure of the commissioners may weaken one or the other section of this convention. vain fears! carry your energy everywhere. the pleasantest declaration will be to announce to the people that the terrible debt weighing upon them will be wrested from their enemies or that the rich will shortly have to pay it. the national situation is cruel. the representatives of value are no longer in equilibrium in the circulation. the day of the workingman is lengthened beyond necessity. a great corrective measure is necessary! conquerors of holland reanimate in england the republican party; let us advance, france, and we shall go glorified to posterity. achieve these grand destinies; no more debates, no more quarrels, and the fatherland is saved. footnote: [ ] on the disasters on the frontier--delivered in convention, march , . sons of harvard[ ] by charles devens the sons of harvard who have served their country on field and flood, in deep thankfulness to almighty god, who has covered their heads in the day of battle and permitted them to stand again in these ancient halls and under these leafy groves, sacred to so many memories of youth and learning, and in yet deeper thankfulness for the crowning mercy which has been vouchsafed in the complete triumph of our arms over rebellion, return home to-day. educated only in the arts of peace, unlearned in all that pertained especially to the science of war, the emergency of the hour threw upon them the necessity of grasping the sword. claiming only that they have striven to do their duty they come only to ask their share in the common joy and happiness which our victory has diffused and meet this imposing reception. when they remember in whose presence they stand; that of all the great crowd of the sons of harvard who are here to-day there is not one who has not contributed his utmost to the glorious consummation; that those who have been blessed with opulence have expended with the largest and most lavish hand in supplying the government with the sinews of war and sustaining everywhere the distrest upon whom the woes of war fell; that those less large in means altho not in heart have not failed to pour out most tenderly of time and care, of affection and love, in the thousand channels that have been opened; that the statesmen and legislators whose wise counsels and determined spirit have brought us thus far in safety and honor are here,--would that their task were as completely done as ours!--yet sure i am that in their hands "the pen will not lose by writing what the sword has won by fighting;" that the poets whose fiery lyrics roused us as when "tyrtæus called aloud to arms," and who have animated the living and celebrated the dead in the noblest strains are here; that our orators whose burning words have so cheered the gloom of the long controversy are here, altho withal we lament that one voice so often heard through the long night of gloom was not permitted to greet with us the morning. surrounded by memories such as his, surrounded by men such as these, we may well feel at receiving this noble testimonial of your regard that it is rather you who are generous in bestowing than we who are rich in deserving. nor do we forget the guests who honor us by their presence to-day, chief among whom we recognize his excellency the governor of massachusetts, who altho he wears the civilian's coat bears as stout a heart as beats under any soldier's jacket, and who has sent his men by the thousands and tens of thousands to fight in this great battle; and the late commanding general of the army of the potomac under whom so many of us have fought. if the whole and comprehensive plans of our great lieutenant-general have marked him as the ulysses of a holier and mightier epic than homer ever dreamed, in the presence of the great captain who fairly turned the tide of the rebellion on the hills above gettysburg, we shall not have to look far for its achilles. yet, sir, speaking always of others as you have called on me to speak for them, it seems to me that the record of the sons of the university who have served in the war is not unworthy of her. in any capacity where service was honorable or useful they have rendered it. in the departments of science they have been conspicuous and the skill of the engineer upon whom we so often depended was not seldom derived from the schools of this university. in surgery they have by learning and judgment alleviated the woes of thousands. and in the ministration of that religion in whose name this university was founded they have not been less devoted; not only have cheering words gone forth from their pulpits, but they have sought the hospitals where the wounded were dying, or like fuller at fredericksburg, have laid down their lives on the field where armed hosts were contending. all these were applying the principles of their former education to new sets of circumstances; but, as you will remember, by far the larger portion of our number were of the combatants of the army, and the facility they displayed in adopting the profession of arms affords an admirable addition to the argument by which it has been heretofore maintained that the general education of our college was best for all who could obtain it, as affording a basis upon which any superstructure of usefulness might be raised. readily mastering the tactics and detail of the profession, proving themselves able to grapple with its highest problems, their courage and gallantry were proverbial. it would be a great mistake to suppose that all that was added to our army by such men as these was merely what it gained in physical force and manly prowess. our neighbors on the other side of the water, whose attachment to monarchy is so strong that it sometimes makes them unjust to republics, have sometimes attacked the character and discipline of our army. nothing could be more unjust. the federal army was noble, self-sacrificing, devoted always, and to the discipline of that army no men contributed more than the members of this university and men such as they. they bore always with them the loftiest principle in the contest and the highest honor in all their personal relations. disorder in camp, pillage and plunder, found in them stern and unrelenting foes. they fought in a cause too sacred, they wore a robe too white, to be willing to stain or sully it with such corruption. mr. president i should ill do the duty you have called on me to perform if i forgot that this ceremonial is not only a reception of those who return, but a commemoration of those who have laid down their lives for the service of the country. he who should have properly spoken for us, the oldest of our graduates, altho not of our members who have fought in this war,--webster of the class of , sealed his faith with his life on the bloody field of the second manassas, dying for the constitution of which his great father was the noblest expounder. for those of us who return to-day, whatever our perils and dangers may have been, we can not feel that we have done enough to merit what you so generously bestow; but for those with whom the work of this life is finished and yet who live forever inseparably linked with the great names of the founders of the republic, and not them alone, but the heroes and martyrs of liberty everywhere, we know that no honor can be too much. the voices which rang out so loud and clear upon the charging cheer that heralded the final assault in the hour of victory, that in the hour of disaster were so calm and resolute as they sternly struggled to stay the slow retreat are not silent yet. to us and to those who will come after us, they will speak of comfort and home relinquished, of toil nobly borne, of danger manfully encountered, of life generously surrendered and this not for pelf or ambition, but in the spirit of the noblest self-devotion and the most exalted patriotism. proud as we who are here to-day have a right to be that we are the sons of this university, and not deemed unworthy of her when these are remembered, we may well say, "sparta had many a worthier son than we." footnote: [ ] speech at commemoration exercises held at cambridge, july , . wake up, england![ ] by king george in the name of the queen and the other members of my family, on behalf of the princess and for myself, i thank you most sincerely for your enthusiastic reception of this toast, proposed by you, my lord mayor, in such kind and generous terms. your feeling allusion to our recent long absence from our happy family circle gives expression to that sympathy which has been so universally extended to my dear parents, whether in times of joy or sorrow, by the people of this country, and upon which my dear mother felt she could ever reckon from the first days of her life here amongst them. as to ourselves, we are deeply sensible of the great honor done us on this occasion, and our hearts are moved by the splendid reception which to-day has been accorded us by the authorities and inhabitants of the city of london. and i desire to take this opportunity to express our deepest gratitude for the sympathetic interest with which our journey was followed by our fellow countrymen at home, and for the warm welcome with which we were greeted on our return. you were good enough, my lord mayor, to refer to his majesty having marked our home-coming by creating me prince of wales. i only hope that i may be worthy to hold that ancient and historic title, which was borne by my dear father for upward of fifty-nine years. my lord mayor, you have attributed to us more credit than i think we deserve. for i feel that the debt of gratitude is not the nation's to us, but ours to the king and government for having made it possible for us to carry out, with every consideration for our comfort and convenience, a voyage unique in its character, rich in the experience gained and in memories of warm and affectionate greetings from the many races of his majesty's subjects in his great dominions beyond the seas. and here in the capital of our great empire i would repeat how profoundly touched and gratified we have been by the loyalty, affection and enthusiasm which invariably characterized the welcome extended to us throughout our long and memorable tour. it may interest you to know that we travelled over , miles, of which , were by sea, and i think it is a matter of which all may feel proud that, with the exception of port said, we never set foot on any land where the union jack did not fly. leaving england in the middle of march, we first touched at gibraltar and malta, where, as a sailor, i was proud to meet the two great fleets of the channel and mediterranean. passing through the suez canal--a monument of the genius and courage of a gifted son of the great friendly nation across the channel--we entered at aden the gateway of the east. we stayed for a short time to enjoy the unrivaled scenery of ceylon and the malay peninsula, the gorgeous displays of their native races, and to see in what happy contentment these various peoples live and prosper under british rule. perhaps there was something still more striking in the fact that the government, the commerce, and every form of enterprise in these countries are under the leadership and direction of but a handful of our countrymen, and to realize the high qualities of the men who have won and kept for us that splendid condition. australia saw the consummation of the great mission which was the more immediate object of our journey, and you can imagine the feelings of pride with which i presided over the inauguration of the first representative assembly of the new-born australian commonwealth, in whose hands are placed the destinies of the great island continent. during a happy stay of many weeks in the different states, we were able to gain an insight into the working of the commercial, social and political institutions of which the country justly boasts, and to see something of the great progress which it has already made, and of its great capabilities, while making the acquaintance of the warm-hearted and large-minded men to whose personality and energy so much of that progress is due. new zealand afforded us a striking example of a vigorous, independent and prosperous people, living in the full enjoyment of free and liberal institutions, and where many interesting social experiments are being put to the test of experience. here we had the satisfaction of meeting large gatherings of the maori people--once a brave and resolute foe, now peaceful and devoted subjects of the king. tasmania, which in natural characteristics and climate reminded us of the old country, was visited when our faces were at length turned homeward. mauritius, with its beautiful tropical scenery, its classical, literary and naval historical associations, and its population gifted with all the charming characteristics of old france, was our first halting-place, on our way to receive, in natal and cape colony, a welcome remarkable in its warmth and enthusiasm, which appeared to be accentuated by the heavy trial of the long and grievous war under which they have suffered. to canada was borne the message--already conveyed to australia and new zealand--of the motherland's loving appreciation of the services rendered by her gallant sons. in a journey from ocean to ocean, marvelous in its comfort and organization, we were enabled to see something of its matchless scenery, the richness of its soil, the boundless possibilities of that vast and but partly explored territory. we saw, too, the success which has crowned the efforts to weld into one community the peoples of its two great races. our final halting-place was, by the express desire of the king, newfoundland, the oldest of our colonies and the first visited by his majesty in . the hearty seafaring population of this island gave us a reception the cordiality of which is still fresh in our memories. if i were asked to specify any particular impressions derived from our journey, i should unhesitatingly place before all others that of loyalty to the crown and of attachment to the country; and it was touching to hear the invariable reference to home, even from the lips of those who never had been or were never likely to be in these islands. and with this loyalty were unmistakable evidences of the consciousness of strength; of a true and living membership in the empire, and of power and readiness to share the burden and responsibility of that membership. and were i to seek for the causes which have created and fostered this spirit, i should venture to attribute them, in a very large degree, to the light and example of our late beloved sovereign. it would be difficult to exaggerate the signs of genuine sorrow for her loss and of love for her memory which we found among all races, even in the most remote districts which we visited. besides this, may we not find another cause--the wise and just policy which in the last half century has been continuously maintained toward our colonies? as a result of the happy relations thus created between the mother country and her colonies we have seen their spontaneous rally round the old flag in defense of the nation's honor in south africa. i had ample opportunities to form some estimate of the military strength of australia, new zealand, and canada, having reviewed upward of , troops. abundant and excellent material is available, requiring only that molding into shape which can be readily effected by the hands of capable and experienced officers. i am anxious to refer to an admirable movement which has taken strong root in both australia and new zealand--and that is the cadet corps. on several occasions i had the gratification of seeing march past several thousand cadets, armed and equipped, and who at the expense of their respective governments are able to go through a military course, and in some cases with an annual grant of practise ammunition. i will not presume, in these days of army reform, to do more than call the attention of my friend, the secretary of state for war, to this interesting fact. to the distinguished representatives of the commercial interests of the empire, whom i have the pleasure of seeing here to-day, i venture to allude to the impression which seemed generally to prevail among their brethren across the seas, that _the old country must wake up_ if she intends to maintain her old position of pre-eminence in her colonial trade against foreign competitors. no one who had the privilege of enjoying the experiences which we have had during our tour could fail to be struck with one all-prevailing and pressing demand: the want of population. even in the oldest of our colonies there were abundant signs of this need. boundless tracts of country yet unexplored, hidden mineral wealth calling for development, vast expanses of virgin soil ready to yield profitable crops to the settlers. and these can be enjoyed under conditions of healthy living, liberal laws, free institutions, in exchange for the over-crowded cities and the almost hopeless struggle for existence which, alas, too often is the lot of many in the old country. but one condition, and one only, is made by our colonial brethren, and that is, "send us suitable emigrants." i would go further, and appeal to my fellow countrymen at home to prove the strength of the attachment of the motherland to her children by sending to them only of her best. by this means we may still further strengthen, or at all events pass on unimpaired, that pride of race, that unity of sentiment and purpose, that feeling of common loyalty and obligation which knit together and alone can maintain the integrity of our empire. footnote: [ ] a speech delivered by his majesty king george when prince of wales, at the guildhall, london, december , , on his return from his tour of the empire. with the permission of the proprietors of _the times_ the report which appeared in that paper has been followed. advertisements ----------------------------------------------------- | _by grenville kleiser_ | ----------------------------------------------------- |inspiration and ideals | | | |how to build mental power | | | |how to develop self-confidence in speech and manner| | | |how to read and declaim | | | |how to 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yet upon this faculty more than any other depends the power of the lawyer, business man, preacher, politician, salesman, and teacher. the desire to win is characteristic of all men. 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by mail, $ . _ funk & wagnalls company, publishers new york and london none none none mr. vice president, mr. speaker, members of the senate, and of the house of representatives: yesterday, december th, -- a date which will live in infamy -- the united states of america was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the empire of japan. the united states was at peace with that nation and, at the solicitation of japan, was still in conversation with its government and its emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the pacific. indeed, one hour after japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in the american island of oahu, the japanese ambassador to the united states and his colleague delivered to our secretary of state a formal reply to a recent american message. and while this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or of armed attack. it will be recorded that the distance of hawaii from japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. during the intervening time, the japanese government has deliberately sought to deceive the united states by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace. the attack yesterday on the hawaiian islands has caused severe damage to american naval and military forces. i regret to tell you that very many american lives have been lost. in addition, american ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between san francisco and honolulu. yesterday, the japanese government also launched an attack against malaya. last night, japanese forces attacked hong kong. last night, japanese forces attacked guam. last night, japanese forces attacked the philippine islands. last night, the japanese attacked wake island. and this morning, the japanese attacked midway island. japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the pacific area. the facts of yesterday and today speak for themselves. the people of the united states have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our nation. as commander in chief of the army and navy, i have directed that all measures be taken for our defense. but always will our whole nation remember the character of the onslaught against us. no matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the american people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory. i believe that i interpret the will of the congress and of the people when i assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us. hostilities exist. there is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory, and our interests are in grave danger. with confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph -- so help us god. i ask that the congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by japan on sunday, december th, , a state of war has existed between the united states and the japanese empire. [transcriber's note: this lecture was taken from volume iii of _the complete works of friedrich nietzsche_, dr. oscar levy, ed., j. m. kennedy, translator, ] homer and classical philology. (_inaugural address delivered at bâle university, th of may ._) at the present day no clear and consistent opinion seems to be held regarding classical philology. we are conscious of this in the circles of the learned just as much as among the followers of that science itself. the cause of this lies in its many-sided character, in the lack of an abstract unity, and in the inorganic aggregation of heterogeneous scientific activities which are connected with one another only by the name "philology." it must be freely admitted that philology is to some extent borrowed from several other sciences, and is mixed together like a magic potion from the most outlandish liquors, ores, and bones. it may even be added that it likewise conceals within itself an artistic element, one which, on æsthetic and ethical grounds, may be called imperatival--an element that acts in opposition to its purely scientific behaviour. philology is composed of history just as much as of natural science or æsthetics: history, in so far as it endeavours to comprehend the manifestations of the individualities of peoples in ever new images, and the prevailing law in the disappearance of phenomena; natural science, in so far as it strives to fathom the deepest instinct of man, that of speech; æsthetics, finally, because from various antiquities at our disposal it endeavours to pick out the so-called "classical" antiquity, with the view and pretension of excavating the ideal world buried under it, and to hold up to the present the mirror of the classical and everlasting standards. that these wholly different scientific and æsthetico-ethical impulses have been associated under a common name, a kind of sham monarchy, is shown especially by the fact that philology at every period from its origin onwards was at the same time pedagogical. from the standpoint of the pedagogue, a choice was offered of those elements which were of the greatest educational value; and thus that science, or at least that scientific aim, which we call philology, gradually developed out of the practical calling originated by the exigencies of that science itself. these philological aims were pursued sometimes with greater ardour and sometimes with less, in accordance with the degree of culture and the development of the taste of a particular period; but, on the other hand, the followers of this science are in the habit of regarding the aims which correspond to their several abilities as _the_ aims of philology; whence it comes about that the estimation of philology in public opinion depends upon the weight of the personalities of the philologists! at the present time--that is to say, in a period which has seen men distinguished in almost every department of philology--a general uncertainty of judgment has increased more and more, and likewise a general relaxation of interest and participation in philological problems. such an undecided and imperfect state of public opinion is damaging to a science in that its hidden and open enemies can work with much better prospects of success. and philology has a great many such enemies. where do we not meet with them, these mockers, always ready to aim a blow at the philological "moles," the animals that practise dust-eating _ex professo_, and that grub up and eat for the eleventh time what they have already eaten ten times before. for opponents of this sort, however, philology is merely a useless, harmless, and inoffensive pastime, an object of laughter and not of hate. but, on the other hand, there is a boundless and infuriated hatred of philology wherever an ideal, as such, is feared, where the modern man falls down to worship himself, and where hellenism is looked upon as a superseded and hence very insignificant point of view. against these enemies, we philologists must always count upon the assistance of artists and men of artistic minds; for they alone can judge how the sword of barbarism sweeps over the head of every one who loses sight of the unutterable simplicity and noble dignity of the hellene; and how no progress in commerce or technical industries, however brilliant, no school regulations, no political education of the masses, however widespread and complete, can protect us from the curse of ridiculous and barbaric offences against good taste, or from annihilation by the gorgon head of the classicist. whilst philology as a whole is looked on with jealous eyes by these two classes of opponents, there are numerous and varied hostilities in other directions of philology; philologists themselves are quarrelling with one another; internal dissensions are caused by useless disputes about precedence and mutual jealousies, but especially by the differences--even enmities--comprised in the name of philology, which are not, however, by any means naturally harmonised instincts. science has this in common with art, that the most ordinary, everyday thing appears to it as something entirely new and attractive, as if metamorphosed by witchcraft and now seen for the first time. life is worth living, says art, the beautiful temptress; life is worth knowing, says science. with this contrast the so heartrending and dogmatic tradition follows in a _theory_, and consequently in the practice of classical philology derived from this theory. we may consider antiquity from a scientific point of view; we may try to look at what has happened with the eye of a historian, or to arrange and compare the linguistic forms of ancient masterpieces, to bring them at all events under a morphological law; but we always lose the wonderful creative force, the real fragrance, of the atmosphere of antiquity; we forget that passionate emotion which instinctively drove our meditation and enjoyment back to the greeks. from this point onwards we must take notice of a clearly determined and very surprising antagonism which philology has great cause to regret. from the circles upon whose help we must place the most implicit reliance--the artistic friends of antiquity, the warm supporters of hellenic beauty and noble simplicity--we hear harsh voices crying out that it is precisely the philologists themselves who are the real opponents and destroyers of the ideals of antiquity. schiller upbraided the philologists with having scattered homer's laurel crown to the winds. it was none other than goethe who, in early life a supporter of wolf's theories regarding homer, recanted in the verses-- with subtle wit you took away our former adoration: the iliad, you may us say, was mere conglomeration. think it not crime in any way: youth's fervent adoration leads us to know the verity, and feel the poet's unity. the reason of this want of piety and reverence must lie deeper; and many are in doubt as to whether philologists are lacking in artistic capacity and impressions, so that they are unable to do justice to the ideal, or whether the spirit of negation has become a destructive and iconoclastic principle of theirs. when, however, even the friends of antiquity, possessed of such doubts and hesitations, point to our present classical philology as something questionable, what influence may we not ascribe to the outbursts of the "realists" and the claptrap of the heroes of the passing hour? to answer the latter on this occasion, especially when we consider the nature of the present assembly, would be highly injudicious; at any rate, if i do not wish to meet with the fate of that sophist who, when in sparta, publicly undertook to praise and defend herakles, when he was interrupted with the query: "but who then has found fault with him?" i cannot help thinking, however, that some of these scruples are still sounding in the ears of not a few in this gathering; for they may still be frequently heard from the lips of noble and artistically gifted men--as even an upright philologist must feel them, and feel them most painfully, at moments when his spirits are downcast. for the single individual there is no deliverance from the dissensions referred to; but what we contend and inscribe on our banner is the fact that classical philology, as a whole, has nothing whatsoever to do with the quarrels and bickerings of its individual disciples. the entire scientific and artistic movement of this peculiar centaur is bent, though with cyclopic slowness, upon bridging over the gulf between the ideal antiquity--which is perhaps only the magnificent blossoming of the teutonic longing for the south--and the real antiquity; and thus classical philology pursues only the final end of its own being, which is the fusing together of primarily hostile impulses that have only forcibly been brought together. let us talk as we will about the unattainability of this goal, and even designate the goal itself as an illogical pretension--the aspiration for it is very real; and i should like to try to make it clear by an example that the most significant steps of classical philology never lead away from the ideal antiquity, but to it; and that, just when people are speaking unwarrantably of the overthrow of sacred shrines, new and more worthy altars are being erected. let us then examine the so-called _homeric question_ from this standpoint, a question the most important problem of which schiller called a scholastic barbarism. the important problem referred to is _the question of the personality of homer_. we now meet everywhere with the firm opinion that the question of homer's personality is no longer timely, and that it is quite a different thing from the real "homeric question." it may be added that, for a given period--such as our present philological period, for example--the centre of discussion may be removed from the problem of the poet's personality; for even now a painstaking experiment is being made to reconstruct the homeric poems without the aid of personality, treating them as the work of several different persons. but if the centre of a scientific question is rightly seen to be where the swelling tide of new views has risen up, i.e. where individual scientific investigation comes into contact with the whole life of science and culture--if any one, in other words, indicates a historico-cultural valuation as the central point of the question, he must also, in the province of homeric criticism, take his stand upon the question of personality as being the really fruitful oasis in the desert of the whole argument. for in homer the modern world, i will not say has learnt, but has examined, a great historical point of view; and, even without now putting forward my own opinion as to whether this examination has been or can be happily carried out, it was at all events the first example of the application of that productive point of view. by it scholars learnt to recognise condensed beliefs in the apparently firm, immobile figures of the life of ancient peoples; by it they for the first time perceived the wonderful capability of the soul of a people to represent the conditions of its morals and beliefs in the form of a personality. when historical criticism has confidently seized upon this method of evaporating apparently concrete personalities, it is permissible to point to the first experiment as an important event in the history of sciences, without considering whether it was successful in this instance or not. it is a common occurrence for a series of striking signs and wonderful emotions to precede an epoch-making discovery. even the experiment i have just referred to has its own attractive history; but it goes back to a surprisingly ancient era. friedrich august wolf has exactly indicated the spot where greek antiquity dropped the question. the zenith of the historico-literary studies of the greeks, and hence also of their point of greatest importance--the homeric question--was reached in the age of the alexandrian grammarians. up to this time the homeric question had run through the long chain of a uniform process of development, of which the standpoint of those grammarians seemed to be the last link, the last, indeed, which was attainable by antiquity. they conceived the _iliad_ and the _odyssey_ as the creations of _one single_ homer; they declared it to be psychologically possible for two such different works to have sprung from the brain of _one_ genius, in contradiction to the chorizontes, who represented the extreme limit of the scepticism of a few detached individuals of antiquity rather than antiquity itself considered as a whole. to explain the different general impression of the two books on the assumption that _one_ poet composed them both, scholars sought assistance by referring to the seasons of the poet's life, and compared the poet of the _odyssey_ to the setting sun. the eyes of those critics were tirelessly on the lookout for discrepancies in the language and thoughts of the two poems; but at this time also a history of the homeric poem and its tradition was prepared, according to which these discrepancies were not due to homer, but to those who committed his words to writing and those who sang them. it was believed that homer's poem was passed from one generation to another _viva voce_, and faults were attributed to the improvising and at times forgetful bards. at a certain given date, about the time of pisistratus, the poems which had been repeated orally were said to have been collected in manuscript form; but the scribes, it is added, allowed themselves to take some liberties with the text by transposing some lines and adding extraneous matter here and there. this entire hypothesis is the most important in the domain of literary studies that antiquity has exhibited; and the acknowledgment of the dissemination of the homeric poems by word of mouth, as opposed to the habits of a book-learned age, shows in particular a depth of ancient sagacity worthy of our admiration. from those times until the generation that produced friedrich august wolf we must take a jump over a long historical vacuum; but in our own age we find the argument left just as it was at the time when the power of controversy departed from antiquity, and it is a matter of indifference to us that wolf accepted as certain tradition what antiquity itself had set up only as a hypothesis. it may be remarked as most characteristic of this hypothesis that, in the strictest sense, the personality of homer is treated seriously; that a certain standard of inner harmony is everywhere presupposed in the manifestations of the personality; and that, with these two excellent auxiliary hypotheses, whatever is seen to be below this standard and opposed to this inner harmony is at once swept aside as un-homeric. but even this distinguishing characteristic, in place of wishing to recognise the supernatural existence of a tangible personality, ascends likewise through all the stages that lead to that zenith, with ever-increasing energy and clearness. individuality is ever more strongly felt and accentuated; the psychological possibility of a _single_ homer is ever more forcibly demanded. if we descend backwards from this zenith, step by step, we find a guide to the understanding of the homeric problem in the person of aristotle. homer was for him the flawless and untiring artist who knew his end and the means to attain it; but there is still a trace of infantile criticism to be found in aristotle--i.e., in the naive concession he made to the public opinion that considered homer as the author of the original of all comic epics, the _margites_. if we go still further backwards from aristotle, the inability to create a personality is seen to increase; more and more poems are attributed to homer; and every period lets us see its degree of criticism by how much and what it considers as homeric. in this backward examination, we instinctively feel that away beyond herodotus there lies a period in which an immense flood of great epics has been identified with the name of homer. let us imagine ourselves as living in the time of pisistratus: the word "homer" then comprehended an abundance of dissimilarities. what was meant by "homer" at that time? it is evident that that generation found itself unable to grasp a personality and the limits of its manifestations. homer had now become of small consequence. and then we meet with the weighty question: what lies before this period? has homer's personality, because it cannot be grasped, gradually faded away into an empty name? or had all the homeric poems been gathered together in a body, the nation naively representing itself by the figure of homer? _was the person created out of a conception, or the conception out of a person?_ this is the real "homeric question," the central problem of the personality. the difficulty of answering this question, however, is increased when we seek a reply in another direction, from the standpoint of the poems themselves which have come down to us. as it is difficult for us at the present day, and necessitates a serious effort on our part, to understand the law of gravitation clearly--that the earth alters its form of motion when another heavenly body changes its position in space, although no material connection unites one to the other--it likewise costs us some trouble to obtain a clear impression of that wonderful problem which, like a coin long passed from hand to hand, has lost its original and highly conspicuous stamp. poetical works, which cause the hearts of even the greatest geniuses to fail when they endeavour to vie with them, and in which unsurpassable images are held up for the admiration of posterity--and yet the poet who wrote them with only a hollow, shaky name, whenever we do lay hold on him; nowhere the solid kernel of a powerful personality. "for who would wage war with the gods: who, even with the one god?" asks goethe even, who, though a genius, strove in vain to solve that mysterious problem of the homeric inaccessibility. the conception of popular poetry seemed to lead like a bridge over this problem--a deeper and more original power than that of every single creative individual was said to have become active; the happiest people, in the happiest period of its existence, in the highest activity of fantasy and formative power, was said to have created those immeasurable poems. in this universality there is something almost intoxicating in the thought of a popular poem: we feel, with artistic pleasure, the broad, overpowering liberation of a popular gift, and we delight in this natural phenomenon as we do in an uncontrollable cataract. but as soon as we examine this thought at close quarters, we involuntarily put a poetic _mass of people_ in the place of the poetising _soul of the people_: a long row of popular poets in whom individuality has no meaning, and in whom the tumultuous movement of a people's soul, the intuitive strength of a people's eye, and the unabated profusion of a people's fantasy, were once powerful: a row of original geniuses, attached to a time, to a poetic genus, to a subject-matter. such a conception justly made people suspicious. could it be possible that that same nature who so sparingly distributed her rarest and most precious production--genius--should suddenly take the notion of lavishing her gifts in one sole direction? and here the thorny question again made its appearance: could we not get along with one genius only, and explain the present existence of that unattainable excellence? and now eyes were keenly on the lookout for whatever that excellence and singularity might consist of. impossible for it to be in the construction of the complete works, said one party, for this is far from faultless; but doubtless to be found in single songs: in the single pieces above all; not in the whole. a second party, on the other hand, sheltered themselves beneath the authority of aristotle, who especially admired homer's "divine" nature in the choice of his entire subject, and the manner in which he planned and carried it out. if, however, this construction was not clearly seen, this fault was due to the way the poems were handed down to posterity and not to the poet himself--it was the result of retouchings and interpolations, owing to which the original setting of the work gradually became obscured. the more the first school looked for inequalities, contradictions, perplexities, the more energetically did the other school brush aside what in their opinion obscured the original plan, in order, if possible, that nothing might be left remaining but the actual words of the original epic itself. the second school of thought of course held fast by the conception of an epoch-making genius as the composer of the great works. the first school, on the other hand, wavered between the supposition of one genius plus a number of minor poets, and another hypothesis which assumed only a number of superior and even mediocre individual bards, but also postulated a mysterious discharging, a deep, national, artistic impulse, which shows itself in individual minstrels as an almost indifferent medium. it is to this latter school that we must attribute the representation of the homeric poems as the expression of that mysterious impulse. all these schools of thought start from the assumption that the problem of the present form of these epics can be solved from the standpoint of an æsthetic judgment--but we must await the decision as to the authorised line of demarcation between the man of genius and the poetical soul of the people. are there characteristic differences between the utterances of the _man of genius_ and the _poetical soul of the people_? this whole contrast, however, is unjust and misleading. there is no more dangerous assumption in modern æsthetics than that of _popular poetry_ and _individual poetry_, or, as it is usually called, _artistic poetry_. this is the reaction, or, if you will, the superstition, which followed upon the most momentous discovery of historico-philological science, the discovery and appreciation of the _soul of the people_. for this discovery prepared the way for a coming scientific view of history, which was until then, and in many respects is even now, a mere collection of materials, with the prospect that new materials would continue to be added, and that the huge, overflowing pile would never be systematically arranged. the people now understood for the first time that the long-felt power of greater individualities and wills was larger than the pitifully small will of an individual man;[ ] they now saw that everything truly great in the kingdom of the will could not have its deepest root in the inefficacious and ephemeral individual will; and, finally, they now discovered the powerful instincts of the masses, and diagnosed those unconscious impulses to be the foundations and supports of the so-called universal history. but the newly-lighted flame also cast its shadow: and this shadow was none other than that superstition already referred to, which popular poetry set up in opposition to individual poetry, and thus enlarged the comprehension of the people's soul to that of the people's mind. by the misapplication of a tempting analogical inference, people had reached the point of applying in the domain of the intellect and artistic ideas that principle of greater individuality which is truly applicable only in the domain of the will. the masses have never experienced more flattering treatment than in thus having the laurel of genius set upon their empty heads. it was imagined that new shells were forming round a small kernel, so to speak, and that those pieces of popular poetry originated like avalanches, in the drift and flow of tradition. they were, however, ready to consider that kernel as being of the smallest possible dimensions, so that they might occasionally get rid of it altogether without losing anything of the mass of the avalanche. according to this view, the text itself and the stories built round it are one and the same thing. [ ] of course nietzsche saw afterwards that this was not so.--tr. now, however, such a contrast between popular poetry and individual poetry does not exist at all; on the contrary, all poetry, and of course popular poetry also, requires an intermediary individuality. this much-abused contrast, therefore, is necessary only when the term _individual poem_ is understood to mean a poem which has not grown out of the soil of popular feeling, but which has been composed by a non-popular poet in a non-popular atmosphere--something which has come to maturity in the study of a learned man, for example. with the superstition which presupposes poetising masses is connected another: that popular poetry is limited to one particular period of a people's history and afterwards dies out--which indeed follows as a consequence of the first superstition i have mentioned. according to this school, in the place of the gradually decaying popular poetry we have artistic poetry, the work of individual minds, not of masses of people. but the same powers which were once active are still so; and the form in which they act has remained exactly the same. the great poet of a literary period is still a popular poet in no narrower sense than the popular poet of an illiterate age. the difference between them is not in the way they originate, but it is their diffusion and propagation, in short, _tradition_. this tradition is exposed to eternal danger without the help of handwriting, and runs the risk of including in the poems the remains of those individualities through whose oral tradition they were handed down. if we apply all these principles to the homeric poems, it follows that we gain nothing with our theory of the poetising soul of the people, and that we are always referred back to the poetical individual. we are thus confronted with the task of distinguishing that which can have originated only in a single poetical mind from that which is, so to speak, swept up by the tide of oral tradition, and which is a highly important constituent part of the homeric poems. since literary history first ceased to be a mere collection of names, people have attempted to grasp and formulate the individualities of the poets. a certain mechanism forms part of the method: it must be explained--i.e., it must be deduced from principles--why this or that individuality appears in this way and not in that. people now study biographical details, environment, acquaintances, contemporary events, and believe that by mixing all these ingredients together they will be able to manufacture the wished-for individuality. but they forget that the _punctum saliens_, the indefinable individual characteristics, can never be obtained from a compound of this nature. the less there is known about the life and times of the poet, the less applicable is this mechanism. when, however, we have merely the works and the name of the writer, it is almost impossible to detect the individuality, at all events, for those who put their faith in the mechanism in question; and particularly when the works are perfect, when they are pieces of popular poetry. for the best way for these mechanicians to grasp individual characteristics is by perceiving deviations from the genius of the people; the aberrations and hidden allusions: and the fewer discrepancies to be found in a poem the fainter will be the traces of the individual poet who composed it. all those deviations, everything dull and below the ordinary standard which scholars think they perceive in the homeric poems, were attributed to tradition, which thus became the scapegoat. what was left of homer's own individual work? nothing but a series of beautiful and prominent passages chosen in accordance with subjective taste. the sum total of æsthetic singularity which every individual scholar perceived with his own artistic gifts, he now called homer. this is the central point of the homeric errors. the name of homer, from the very beginning, has no connection either with the conception of æsthetic perfection or yet with the _iliad_ and the _odyssey_. homer as the composer of the _iliad_ and the _odyssey_ is not a historical tradition, but an _æsthetic judgment_. the only path which leads back beyond the time of pisistratus and helps us to elucidate the meaning of the name homer, takes its way on the one hand through the reports which have reached us concerning homer's birthplace: from which we see that, although his name is always associated with heroic epic poems, he is on the other hand no more referred to as the composer of the _iliad_ and the _odyssey_ than as the author of the _thebais_ or any other cyclical epic. on the other hand, again, an old tradition tells of the contest between homer and hesiod, which proves that when these two names were mentioned people instinctively thought of two epic tendencies, the heroic and the didactic; and that the signification of the name "homer" was included in the material category and not in the formal. this imaginary contest with hesiod did not even yet show the faintest presentiment of individuality. from the time of pisistratus onwards, however, with the surprisingly rapid development of the greek feeling for beauty, the differences in the æsthetic value of those epics continued to be felt more and more: the _iliad_ and the _odyssey_ arose from the depths of the flood and have remained on the surface ever since. with this process of æsthetic separation, the conception of homer gradually became narrower: the old material meaning of the name "homer" as the father of the heroic epic poem, was changed into the æsthetic meaning of homer, the father of poetry in general, and likewise its original prototype. this transformation was contemporary with the rationalistic criticism which made homer the magician out to be a possible poet, which vindicated the material and formal traditions of those numerous epics as against the unity of the poet, and gradually removed that heavy load of cyclical epics from homer's shoulders. so homer, the poet of the _iliad_ and the _odyssey_, is an æsthetic judgment. it is, however, by no means affirmed against the poet of these epics that he was merely the imaginary being of an æsthetic impossibility, which can be the opinion of only very few philologists indeed. the majority contend that a single individual was responsible for the general design of a poem such as the _iliad_, and further that this individual was homer. the first part of this contention may be admitted; but, in accordance with what i have said, the latter part must be denied. and i very much doubt whether the majority of those who adopt the first part of the contention have taken the following considerations into account. the design of an epic such as the _iliad_ is not an entire _whole_, not an organism; but a number of pieces strung together, a collection of reflections arranged in accordance with æsthetic rules. it is certainly the standard of an artist's greatness to note what he can take in with a single glance and set out in rhythmical form. the infinite profusion of images and incidents in the homeric epic must force us to admit that such a wide range of vision is next to impossible. where, however, a poet is unable to observe artistically with a single glance, he usually piles conception on conception, and endeavours to adjust his characters according to a comprehensive scheme. he will succeed in this all the better the more he is familiar with the fundamental principles of æsthetics: he will even make some believe that he made himself master of the entire subject by a single powerful glance. the _iliad_ is not a garland, but a bunch of flowers. as many pictures as possible are crowded on one canvas; but the man who placed them there was indifferent as to whether the grouping of the collected pictures was invariably suitable and rhythmically beautiful. he well knew that no one would ever consider the collection as a whole; but would merely look at the individual parts. but that stringing together of some pieces as the manifestations of a grasp of art which was not yet highly developed, still less thoroughly comprehended and generally esteemed, cannot have been the real homeric deed, the real homeric epoch-making event. on the contrary, this design is a later product, far later than homer's celebrity. those, therefore, who look for the "original and perfect design" are looking for a mere phantom; for the dangerous path of oral tradition had reached its end just as the systematic arrangement appeared on the scene; the disfigurements which were caused on the way could not have affected the design, for this did not form part of the material handed down from generation to generation. the relative imperfection of the design must not, however, prevent us from seeing in the designer a different personality from the real poet. it is not only probable that everything which was created in those times with conscious æsthetic insight, was infinitely inferior to the songs that sprang up naturally in the poet's mind and were written down with instinctive power: we can even take a step further. if we include the so-called cyclic poems in this comparison, there remains for the designer of the _iliad_ and the _odyssey_ the indisputable merit of having done something relatively great in this conscious technical composing: a merit which we might have been prepared to recognise from the beginning, and which is in my opinion of the very first order in the domain of instinctive creation. we may even be ready to pronounce this synthetisation of great importance. all those dull passages and discrepancies--deemed of such importance, but really only subjective, which we usually look upon as the petrified remains of the period of tradition--are not these perhaps merely the almost necessary evils which must fall to the lot of the poet of genius who undertakes a composition virtually without a parallel, and, further, one which proves to be of incalculable difficulty? let it be noted that the insight into the most diverse operations of the instinctive and the conscious changes the position of the homeric problem; and in my opinion throws light upon it. we believe in a great poet as the author of the _iliad_ and the _odyssey--but not that homer was this poet_. the decision on this point has already been given. the generation that invented those numerous homeric fables, that poetised the myth of the contest between homer and hesiod, and looked upon all the poems of the epic cycle as homeric, did not feel an æsthetic but a material singularity when it pronounced the name "homer." this period regards homer as belonging to the ranks of artists like orpheus, eumolpus, dædalus, and olympus, the mythical discoverers of a new branch of art, to whom, therefore, all the later fruits which grew from the new branch were thankfully dedicated. and that wonderful genius to whom we owe the _iliad_ and the _odyssey_ belongs to this thankful posterity: he, too, sacrificed his name on the altar of the primeval father of the homeric epic, homeros. up to this point, gentlemen, i think i have been able to put before you the fundamental philosophical and æsthetic characteristics of the problem of the personality of homer, keeping all minor details rigorously at a distance, on the supposition that the primary form of this widespread and honeycombed mountain known as the homeric question can be most clearly observed by looking down at it from a far-off height. but i have also, i imagine, recalled two facts to those friends of antiquity who take such delight in accusing us philologists of lack of piety for great conceptions and an unproductive zeal for destruction. in the first place, those "great" conceptions--such, for example, as that of the indivisible and inviolable poetic genius, homer--were during the pre-wolfian period only too great, and hence inwardly altogether empty and elusive when we now try to grasp them. if classical philology goes back again to the same conceptions, and once more tries to pour new wine into old bottles, it is only on the surface that the conceptions are the same: everything has really become new; bottle and mind, wine and word. we everywhere find traces of the fact that philology has lived in company with poets, thinkers, and artists for the last hundred years: whence it has now come about that the heap of ashes formerly pointed to as classical philology is now turned into fruitful and even rich soil.[ ] [ ] nietzsche perceived later on that this statement was, unfortunately, not justified.--tr. and there is a second fact which i should like to recall to the memory of those friends of antiquity who turn their dissatisfied backs on classical philology. you honour the immortal masterpieces of the hellenic mind in poetry and sculpture, and think yourselves so much more fortunate than preceding generations, which had to do without them; but you must not forget that this whole fairyland once lay buried under mountains of prejudice, and that the blood and sweat and arduous labour of innumerable followers of our science were all necessary to lift up that world from the chasm into which it had sunk. we grant that philology is not the creator of this world, not the composer of that immortal music; but is it not a merit, and a great merit, to be a mere virtuoso, and let the world for the first time hear that music which lay so long in obscurity, despised and undecipherable? who was homer previously to wolf's brilliant investigations? a good old man, known at best as a "natural genius," at all events the child of a barbaric age, replete with faults against good taste and good morals. let us hear how a learned man of the first rank writes about homer even so late as : "where does the good man live? why did he remain so long incognito? apropos, can't you get me a silhouette of him?" we demand _thanks_--not in our own name, for we are but atoms--but in the name of philology itself, which is indeed neither a muse nor a grace, but a messenger of the gods: and just as the muses descended upon the dull and tormented boeotian peasants, so philology comes into a world full of gloomy colours and pictures, full of the deepest, most incurable woes; and speaks to men comfortingly of the beautiful and godlike figure of a distant, rosy, and happy fairyland. it is time to close; yet before i do so a few words of a personal character must be added, justified, i hope, by the occasion of this lecture. it is but right that a philologist should describe his end and the means to it in the short formula of a confession of faith; and let this be done in the saying of seneca which i thus reverse-- "philosophia facta est quæ philologia fuit." by this i wish to signify that all philological activities should be enclosed and surrounded by a philosophical view of things, in which everything individual and isolated is evaporated as something detestable, and in which great homogeneous views alone remain. now, therefore, that i have enunciated my philological creed, i trust you will give me cause to hope that i shall no longer be a stranger among you: give me the assurance that in working with you towards this end i am worthily fulfilling the confidence with which the highest authorities of this community have honoured me. none transcribed from the edition by david price, email ccx @coventry.ac.uk miscellanies by oscar wilde dedication: to walter ledger since these volumes are sure of a place in your marvellous library i trust that with your unrivalled knowledge of the various editions of wilde you may not detect any grievous error whether of taste or type, of omission or commission. but should you do so you must blame the editor, and not those who so patiently assisted him, the proof readers, the printers, or the publishers. some day, however, i look forward to your bibliography of the author, in which you will be at liberty to criticise my capacity for anything except regard and friendship for yourself.--sincerely yours, robert ross may , . introduction the concluding volume of any collected edition is unavoidably fragmentary and desultory. and if this particular volume is no exception to a general tendency, it presents points of view in the author's literary career which may have escaped his greatest admirers and detractors. the wide range of his knowledge and interests is more apparent than in some of his finished work. what i believed to be only the fragment of an essay on historical criticism was already in the press, when accidentally i came across the remaining portions, in wilde's own handwriting; it is now complete though unhappily divided in this edition. { a} any doubt as to its authenticity, quite apart from the calligraphy, would vanish on reading such a characteristic passage as the following:--' . . . for, it was in vain that the middle ages strove to guard the buried spirit of progress. when the dawn of the greek spirit arose, the sepulchre was empty, the grave clothes laid aside. humanity had risen from the dead.' it was only wilde who could contrive a literary conceit of that description; but readers will observe with different feelings, according to their temperament, that he never followed up the particular trend of thought developed in the essay. it is indeed more the work of the berkeley gold medallist at dublin, or the brilliant young magdalen demy than of the dramatist who was to write salome. the composition belongs to his oxford days when he was the unsuccessful competitor for the chancellor's english essay prize. perhaps magdalen, which has never forgiven herself for nurturing the author of ravenna, may be felicitated on having escaped the further intolerable honour that she might have suffered by seeing crowned again with paltry academic parsley the most highly gifted of all her children in the last century. compared with the crude criticism on the grosvenor gallery (one of the earliest of wilde's published prose writings), historical criticism is singularly advanced and mature. apart from his mere scholarship wilde developed his literary and dramatic talent slowly. he told me that he was never regarded as a particularly precocious or clever youth. indeed many old family friends and contemporary journalists maintain sturdily that the talent of his elder brother william was much more remarkable. in this opinion they are fortified, appropriately enough, by the late clement scott. i record this interesting view because it symbolises the familiar phenomenon that those nearest the mountain cannot appreciate its height. the exiguous fragment of la sainte courtisane is the next unpublished work of importance. at the time of wilde's trial the nearly completed drama was entrusted to mrs. leverson, who in went to paris on purpose to restore it to the author. wilde immediately left the manuscript in a cab. a few days later he laughingly informed me of the loss, and added that a cab was a very proper place for it. i have explained elsewhere that he looked on his plays with disdain in his last years, though he was always full of schemes for writing others. all my attempts to recover the lost work failed. the passages here reprinted are from some odd leaves of a first draft. the play is of course not unlike salome, though it was written in english. it expanded wilde's favourite theory that when you convert some one to an idea, you lose your faith in it; the same motive runs through mr. w. h. honorius the hermit, so far as i recollect the story, falls in love with the courtesan who has come to tempt him, and he reveals to her the secret of the love of god. she immediately becomes a christian, and is murdered by robbers; honorius the hermit goes back to alexandria to pursue a life of pleasure. two other similar plays wilde invented in prison, ahab and isabel and pharaoh; he would never write them down, though often importuned to do so. pharaoh was intensely dramatic and perhaps more original than any of the group. none of these works must be confused with the manuscripts stolen from tite street in --namely the enlarged version of mr. w. h., the completed form of a florentine tragedy, and the duchess of padua (which existing in a prompt copy was of less importance than the others); nor with the cardinal of arragon, the manuscript of which i never saw. i scarcely think it ever existed, though wilde used to recite proposed passages for it. in regard to printing the lectures i have felt some diffidence: the majority of them were delivered from notes, and the same lectures were repeated in different towns in england and america. the reports of them in the papers are never trustworthy; they are often grotesque travesties, like the reports of after-dinner speeches in the london press of today. i have included only those lectures of which i possess or could obtain manuscript. the aim of this edition has been completeness; and it is complete so far as human effort can make it; but besides the lost manuscripts there must be buried in the contemporary press many anonymous reviews which i have failed to identify. the remaining contents of this book do not call for further comment, other than a reminder that wilde would hardly have consented to their republication. but owing to the number of anonymous works wrongly attributed to him, chiefly in america, and spurious works published in his name, i found it necessary to violate the laws of friendship by rejecting nothing i knew to be authentic. it will be seen on reference to the letters on the ethics of journalism that wilde's name appearing at the end of poems and articles was not always a proof of authenticity even in his lifetime. of the few letters wilde wrote to the press, those addressed to whistler i have included with greater misgiving than anything else in this volume. they do not seem to me more amusing than those to which they were the intended rejoinders. but the dates are significant. wilde was at one time always accused of plagiarising his ideas and his epigrams from whistler, especially those with which he decorated his lectures, the accusation being brought by whistler himself and his various disciples. it should be noted that all the works by which wilde is known throughout europe were written _after_ the two friends quarrelled. that wilde derived a great deal from the older man goes without saying, just as he derived much in a greater degree from pater, ruskin, arnold and burne- jones. yet the tedious attempt to recognise in every jest of his some original by whistler induces the criticism that it seems a pity the great painter did not get them off on the public before he was forestalled. reluctance from an appeal to publicity was never a weakness in either of the men. some of wilde's more frequently quoted sayings were made at the old bailey (though their provenance is often forgotten) or on his death- bed. as a matter of fact, the genius of the two men was entirely different. wilde was a humourist and a humanist before everything; and his wittiest jests have neither the relentlessness nor the keenness characterising those of the clever american artist. again, whistler could no more have obtained the berkeley gold medal for greek, nor have written the importance of being earnest, nor the soul of man, than wilde, even if equipped as a painter, could ever have evinced that superb restraint distinguishing the portraits of 'miss alexander,' 'carlyle,' and other masterpieces. wilde, though it is not generally known, was something of a draughtsman in his youth. i possess several of his drawings. a complete bibliography including all the foreign translations and american piracies would make a book of itself much larger than the present one. in order that wilde collectors (and there are many, i believe) may know the authorised editions and authentic writings from the spurious, mr. stuart mason, whose work on this edition i have already acknowledged, has supplied a list which contains every _genuine_ and _authorised_ english edition. this of course does not preclude the chance that some of the american editions are authorised, and that some of wilde's genuine works even are included in the pirated editions. i am indebted to the editors and proprietors of the queen for leave to reproduce the article on 'english poetesses'; to the editor and proprietors of the sunday times for the article entitled 'art at willis's rooms'; and to mr. william waldorf astor for those from the pall mall gazette. robert ross the tomb of keats (irish monthly, july .) as one enters rome from the via ostiensis by the porta san paolo, the first object that meets the eye is a marble pyramid which stands close at hand on the left. there are many egyptian obelisks in rome--tall, snakelike spires of red sandstone, mottled with strange writings, which remind us of the pillars of flame which led the children of israel through the desert away from the land of the pharaohs; but more wonderful than these to look upon is this gaunt, wedge-shaped pyramid standing here in this italian city, unshattered amid the ruins and wrecks of time, looking older than the eternal city itself, like terrible impassiveness turned to stone. and so in the middle ages men supposed this to be the sepulchre of remus, who was slain by his own brother at the founding of the city, so ancient and mysterious it appears; but we have now, perhaps unfortunately, more accurate information about it, and know that it is the tomb of one caius cestius, a roman gentleman of small note, who died about b.c. yet though we cannot care much for the dead man who lies in lonely state beneath it, and who is only known to the world through his sepulchre, still this pyramid will be ever dear to the eyes of all english-speaking people, because at evening its shadows fall on the tomb of one who walks with spenser, and shakespeare, and byron, and shelley, and elizabeth barrett browning in the great procession of the sweet singers of england. for at its foot there is a green, sunny slope, known as the old protestant cemetery, and on this a common-looking grave, which bears the following inscription: this grave contains all that was mortal of a young english poet, who on his deathbed, in the bitterness of his heart, desired these words to be engraven on his tombstone: here lies one whose name was writ in water. february , . and the name of the young english poet is john keats. lord houghton calls this cemetery 'one of the most beautiful spots on which the eye and heart of man can rest,' and shelley speaks of it as making one 'in love with death, to think that one should be buried in so sweet a place'; and indeed when i saw the violets and the daisies and the poppies that overgrow the tomb, i remembered how the dead poet had once told his friend that he thought the 'intensest pleasure he had received in life was in watching the growth of flowers,' and how another time, after lying a while quite still, he murmured in some strange prescience of early death, 'i feel the flowers growing over me.' but this time-worn stone and these wildflowers are but poor memorials { } of one so great as keats; most of all, too, in this city of rome, which pays such honour to her dead; where popes, and emperors, and saints, and cardinals lie hidden in 'porphyry wombs,' or couched in baths of jasper and chalcedony and malachite, ablaze with precious stones and metals, and tended with continual service. for very noble is the site, and worthy of a noble monument; behind looms the grey pyramid, symbol of the world's age, and filled with memories of the sphinx, and the lotus leaf, and the glories of old nile; in front is the monte testaccio, built, it is said, with the broken fragments of the vessels in which all the nations of the east and the west brought their tribute to rome; and a little distance off, along the slope of the hill under the aurelian wall, some tall gaunt cypresses rise, like burnt-out funeral torches, to mark the spot where shelley's heart (that 'heart of hearts'!) lies in the earth; and, above all, the soil on which we tread is very rome! as i stood beside the mean grave of this divine boy, i thought of him as of a priest of beauty slain before his time; and the vision of guido's st. sebastian came before my eyes as i saw him at genoa, a lovely brown boy, with crisp, clustering hair and red lips, bound by his evil enemies to a tree, and though pierced by arrows, raising his eyes with divine, impassioned gaze towards the eternal beauty of the opening heavens. and thus my thoughts shaped themselves to rhyme: heu miserande puer rid of the world's injustice and its pain, he rests at last beneath god's veil of blue; taken from life while life and love were new the youngest of the martyrs here is lain, fair as sebastian and as foully slain. no cypress shades his grave, nor funeral yew, but red-lipped daisies, violets drenched with dew, and sleepy poppies, catch the evening rain. o proudest heart that broke for misery! o saddest poet that the world hath seen! o sweetest singer of the english land! thy name was writ in water on the sand, but our tears shall keep thy memory green, and make it flourish like a basil-tree. borne, . note.--a later version of this sonnet, under the title of 'the grave of keats,' is given in the poems, page . the grosvenor gallery, (dublin university magazine, july .) that 'art is long and life is short' is a truth which every one feels, or ought to feel; yet surely those who were in london last may, and had in one week the opportunities of hearing rubenstein play the sonata impassionata, of seeing wagner conduct the spinning-wheel chorus from the flying dutchman, and of studying art at the grosvenor gallery, have very little to complain of as regards human existence and art-pleasures. descriptions of music are generally, perhaps, more or less failures, for music is a matter of individual feeling, and the beauties and lessons that one draws from hearing lovely sounds are mainly personal, and depend to a large extent on one's own state of mind and culture. so leaving rubenstein and wagner to be celebrated by franz huffer, or mr. haweis, or any other of our picturesque writers on music, i will describe some of the pictures now being shown in the grosvenor gallery. the origin of this gallery is as follows: about a year ago the idea occurred to sir coutts lindsay of building a public gallery, in which, untrammelled by the difficulties or meannesses of 'hanging committees,' he could exhibit to the lovers of art the works of certain great living artists side by side: a gallery in which the student would not have to struggle through an endless monotony of mediocre works in order to reach what was worth looking at; one in which the people of england could have the opportunity of judging of the merits of at least one great master of painting, whose pictures had been kept from public exhibition by the jealousy and ignorance of rival artists. accordingly, last may, in new bond street, the grosvenor gallery was opened to the public. as far as the gallery itself is concerned, there are only three rooms, so there is no fear of our getting that terrible weariness of mind and eye which comes on after the 'forced marches' through ordinary picture galleries. the walls are hung with scarlet damask above a dado of dull green and gold; there are luxurious velvet couches, beautiful flowers and plants, tables of gilded and inlaid marbles, covered with japanese china and the latest 'minton,' globes of 'rainbow glass' like large soap-bubbles, and, in fine, everything in decoration that is lovely to look on, and in harmony with the surrounding works of art. burne-jones and holman hunt are probably the greatest masters of colour that we have ever had in england, with the single exception of turner, but their styles differ widely. to draw a rough distinction, holman hunt studies and reproduces the colours of natural objects, and deals with historical subjects, or scenes of real life, mostly from the east, touched occasionally with a certain fancifulness, as in the shadow of the cross. burne-jones, on the contrary, is a dreamer in the land of mythology, a seer of fairy visions, a symbolical painter. he is an imaginative colourist too, knowing that all colour is no mere delightful quality of natural things, but a 'spirit upon them by which they become expressive to the spirit,' as mr. pater says. watts's power, on the other hand, lies in his great originative and imaginative genius, and he reminds us of aeschylus or michael angelo in the startling vividness of his conceptions. although these three painters differ much in aim and in result, they yet are one in their faith, and love, and reverence, the three golden keys to the gate of the house beautiful. on entering the west gallery the first picture that meets the eye is mr. watts's love and death, a large painting, representing a marble doorway, all overgrown with white-starred jasmine and sweet brier-rose. death, a giant form, veiled in grey draperies, is passing in with inevitable and mysterious power, breaking through all the flowers. one foot is already on the threshold, and one relentless hand is extended, while love, a beautiful boy with lithe brown limbs and rainbow-coloured wings, all shrinking like a crumpled leaf, is trying, with vain hands, to bar the entrance. a little dove, undisturbed by the agony of the terrible conflict, waits patiently at the foot of the steps for her playmate; but will wait in vain, for though the face of death is hidden from us, yet we can see from the terror in the boy's eyes and quivering lips, that, medusa-like, this grey phantom turns all it looks upon to stone; and the wings of love are rent and crushed. except on the ceiling of the sistine chapel in rome, there are perhaps few paintings to compare with this in intensity of strength and in marvel of conception. it is worthy to rank with michael angelo's god dividing the light from the darkness. next to it are hung five pictures by millais. three of them are portraits of the three daughters of the duke of westminster, all in white dresses, with white hats and feathers; the delicacy of the colour being rather injured by the red damask background. these pictures do not possess any particular merit beyond that of being extremely good likenesses, especially the one of the marchioness of ormonde. over them is hung a picture of a seamstress, pale and vacant-looking, with eyes red from tears and long watchings in the night, hemming a shirt. it is meant to illustrate hood's familiar poem. as we look on it, a terrible contrast strikes us between this miserable pauper-seamstress and the three beautiful daughters of the richest duke in the world, which breaks through any artistic reveries by its awful vividness. the fifth picture is a profile head of a young man with delicate aquiline nose, thoughtful oval face, and artistic, abstracted air, which will be easily recognised as a portrait of lord ronald gower, who is himself known as an artist and sculptor. but no one would discern in these five pictures the genius that painted the home at bethlehem and the portrait of john ruskin which is at oxford. then come eight pictures by alma tadema, good examples of that accurate drawing of inanimate objects which makes his pictures so real from an antiquarian point of view, and of the sweet subtlety of colouring which gives to them a magic all their own. one represents some roman girls bathing in a marble tank, and the colour of the limbs in the water is very perfect indeed; a dainty attendant is tripping down a flight of steps with a bundle of towels, and in the centre a great green sphinx in bronze throws forth a shower of sparkling water for a very pretty laughing girl, who stoops gleefully beneath it. there is a delightful sense of coolness about the picture, and one can almost imagine that one hears the splash of water, and the girls' chatter. it is wonderful what a world of atmosphere and reality may be condensed into a very small space, for this picture is only about eleven by two and a half inches. the most ambitious of these pictures is one of phidias showing the frieze of the parthenon to his friends. we are supposed to be on a high scaffolding level with the frieze, and the effect of great height produced by glimpses of light between the planking of the floor is very cleverly managed. but there is a want of individuality among the connoisseurs clustered round phidias, and the frieze itself is very inaccurately coloured. the greek boys who are riding and leading the horses are painted egyptian red, and the whole design is done in this red, dark blue, and black. this sombre colouring is un-greek; the figures of these boys were undoubtedly tinted with flesh colour, like the ordinary greek statues, and the whole tone of the colouring of the original frieze was brilliant and light; while one of its chief beauties, the reins and accoutrements of burnished metal, is quite omitted. this painter is more at home in the greco-roman art of the empire and later republic than he is in the art of the periclean age. the most remarkable of mr. richmond's pictures exhibited here is his electra at the tomb of agamemnon--a very magnificent subject, to which, however, justice is not done. electra and her handmaidens are grouped gracefully around the tomb of the murdered king; but there is a want of humanity in the scene: there is no trace of that passionate asiatic mourning for the dead to which the greek women were so prone, and which aeschylus describes with such intensity; nor would greek women have come to pour libations to the dead in such bright-coloured dresses as mr. richmond has given them; clearly this artist has not studied aeschylus' play of the choephori, in which there is an elaborate and pathetic account of this scene. the tall, twisted tree-stems, however, that form the background are fine and original in effect, and mr. richmond has caught exactly that peculiar opal-blue of the sky which is so remarkable in greece; the purple orchids too, and daffodil and narcissi that are in the foreground are all flowers which i have myself seen at argos. sir coutts lindsay sends a life-size portrait of his wife, holding a violin, which has some good points of colour and position, and four other pictures, including an exquisitely simple and quaint little picture of the dower house at balcarres, and a daphne with rather questionable flesh- painting, and in whom we miss the breathlessness of flight. i saw the blush come o'er her like a rose; the half-reluctant crimson comes and goes; her glowing limbs make pause, and she is stayed wondering the issue of the words she prayed. it is a great pity that holman hunt is not represented by any of his really great works, such as the finding of christ in the temple, or isabella mourning over the pot of basil, both of which are fair samples of his powers. four pictures of his are shown here: a little italian child, painted with great love and sweetness, two street scenes in cairo full of rich oriental colouring, and a wonderful work called the afterglow in egypt. it represents a tall swarthy egyptian woman, in a robe of dark and light blue, carrying a green jar on her shoulder, and a sheaf of grain on her head; around her comes fluttering a flock of beautiful doves of all colours, eager to be fed. behind is a wide flat river, and across the river a stretch of ripe corn, through which a gaunt camel is being driven; the sun has set, and from the west comes a great wave of red light like wine poured out on the land, yet not crimson, as we see the afterglow in northern europe, but a rich pink like that of a rose. as a study of colour it is superb, but it is difficult to feel a human interest in this egyptian peasant. mr. albert moore sends some of his usual pictures of women, which as studies of drapery and colour effects are very charming. one of them, a tall maiden, in a robe of light blue clasped at the neck with a glowing sapphire, and with an orange headdress, is a very good example of the highest decorative art, and a perfect delight in colour. mr. spencer stanhope's picture of eve tempted is one of the remarkable pictures of the gallery. eve, a fair woman, of surpassing loveliness, is leaning against a bank of violets, underneath the apple tree; naked, except for the rich thick folds of gilded hair which sweep down from her head like the bright rain in which zeus came to danae. the head is drooped a little forward as a flower droops when the dew has fallen heavily, and her eyes are dimmed with the haze that comes in moments of doubtful thought. one arm falls idly by her side; the other is raised high over her head among the branches, her delicate fingers just meeting round one of the burnished apples that glow amidst the leaves like 'golden lamps in a green night.' an amethyst-coloured serpent, with a devilish human head, is twisting round the trunk of the tree and breathes into the woman's ear a blue flame of evil counsel. at the feet of eve bright flowers are growing, tulips, narcissi, lilies, and anemones, all painted with a loving patience that reminds us of the older florentine masters; after whose example, too, mr. stanhope has used gilding for eve's hair and for the bright fruits. next to it is another picture by the same artist, entitled love and the maiden. a girl has fallen asleep in a wood of olive trees, through whose branches and grey leaves we can see the glimmer of sky and sea, with a little seaport town of white houses shining in the sunlight. the olive wood is ever sacred to the virgin pallas, the goddess of wisdom; and who would have dreamed of finding eros hidden there? but the girl wakes up, as one wakes from sleep one knows not why, to see the face of the boy love, who, with outstretched hands, is leaning towards her from the midst of a rhododendron's crimson blossoms. a rose-garland presses the boy's brown curls, and he is clad in a tunic of oriental colours, and delicately sensuous are his face and his bared limbs. his boyish beauty is of that peculiar type unknown in northern europe, but common in the greek islands, where boys can still be found as beautiful as the charmides of plato. guido's st. sebastian in the palazzo rosso at genoa is one of those boys, and perugino once drew a greek ganymede for his native town, but the painter who most shows the influence of this type is correggio, whose lily-bearer in the cathedral at parma, and whose wild- eyed, open-mouthed st. johns in the 'incoronata madonna' of st. giovanni evangelista, are the best examples in art of the bloom and vitality and radiance of this adolescent beauty. and so there is extreme loveliness in this figure of love by mr. stanhope, and the whole picture is full of grace, though there is, perhaps, too great a luxuriance of colour, and it would have been a relief had the girl been dressed in pure white. mr. frederick burton, of whom all irishmen are so justly proud, is represented by a fine water-colour portrait of mrs. george smith; one would almost believe it to be in oils, so great is the lustre on this lady's raven-black hair, and so rich and broad and vigorous is the painting of a japanese scarf she is wearing. then as we turn to the east wall of the gallery we see the three great pictures of burne-jones, the beguiling of merlin, the days of creation, and the mirror of venus. the version of the legend of merlin's beguiling that mr. burne-jones has followed differs from mr. tennyson's and from the account in the morte d'arthur. it is taken from the romance of merlin, which tells the story in this wise: it fell on a day that they went through the forest of breceliande, and found a bush that was fair and high, of white hawthorn, full of flowers, and there they sat in the shadow. and merlin fell on sleep; and when she felt that he was on sleep she arose softly, and began her enchantments, such as merlin had taught her, and made the ring nine times, and nine times the enchantments. . . . . . and then he looked about him, and him seemed he was in the fairest tower of the world, and the most strong; neither of iron was it fashioned, nor steel, nor timber, nor of stone, but of the air, without any other thing; and in sooth so strong it is that it may never be undone while the world endureth. so runs the chronicle; and thus mr. burne-jones, the 'archimage of the esoteric unreal,' treats the subject. stretched upon a low branch of the tree, and encircled with the glory of the white hawthorn-blossoms, half sits, half lies, the great enchanter. he is not drawn as mr. tennyson has described him, with the 'vast and shaggy mantle of a beard,' which youth gone out had left in ashes; smooth and clear-cut and very pale is his face; time has not seared him with wrinkles or the signs of age; one would hardly know him to be old were it not that he seems very weary of seeking into the mysteries of the world, and that the great sadness that is born of wisdom has cast a shadow on him. but now what availeth him his wisdom or his arts? his eyes, that saw once so clear, are dim and glazed with coming death, and his white and delicate hands that wrought of old such works of marvel, hang listlessly. vivien, a tall, lithe woman, beautiful and subtle to look on, like a snake, stands in front of him, reading the fatal spell from the enchanted book; mocking the utter helplessness of him whom once her lying tongue had called her lord and liege, her seer, her bard, her silver star of eve, her god, her merlin, the one passionate love of her whole life. in her brown crisp hair is the gleam of a golden snake, and she is clad in a silken robe of dark violet that clings tightly to her limbs, more expressing than hiding them; the colour of this dress is like the colour of a purple sea-shell, broken here and there with slight gleams of silver and pink and azure; it has a strange metallic lustre like the iris-neck of the dove. were this mr. burne-jones's only work it would be enough of itself to make him rank as a great painter. the picture is full of magic; and the colour is truly a spirit dwelling on things and making them expressive to the spirit, for the delicate tones of grey, and green, and violet seem to convey to us the idea of languid sleep, and even the hawthorn-blossoms have lost their wonted brightness, and are more like the pale moonlight to which shelley compared them, than the sheet of summer snow we see now in our english fields. the next picture is divided into six compartments, each representing a day in the creation of the world, under the symbol of an angel holding a crystal globe, within which is shown the work of a day. in the first compartment stands the lonely angel of the first day, and within the crystal ball light is being separated from darkness. in the fourth compartment are four angels, and the crystal glows like a heated opal, for within it the creation of the sun, moon, and stars is passing; the number of the angels increases, and the colours grow more vivid till we reach the sixth compartment, which shines afar off like a rainbow. within it are the six angels of the creation, each holding its crystal ball; and within the crystal of the sixth angel one can see adam's strong brown limbs and hero form, and the pale, beautiful body of eve. at the feet also of these six winged messengers of the creator is sitting the angel of the seventh day, who on a harp of gold is singing the glories of that coming day which we have not yet seen. the faces of the angels are pale and oval-shaped, in their eyes is the light of wisdom and love, and their lips seem as if they would speak to us; and strength and beauty are in their wings. they stand with naked feet, some on shell-strewn sands whereon tide has never washed nor storm broken, others it seems on pools of water, others on strange flowers; and their hair is like the bright glory round a saint's head. the scene of the third picture is laid on a long green valley by the sea; eight girls, handmaidens of the goddess of love, are collected by the margin of a long pool of clear water, whose surface no wandering wind or flapping bird has ruffled; but the large flat leaves of the water-lily float on it undisturbed, and clustering forget-me-nots rise here and there like heaps of scattered turquoise. in this mirror of venus each girl is reflected as in a mirror of polished steel. some of them bend over the pool in laughing wonder at their own beauty, others, weary of shadows, are leaning back, and one girl is standing straight up; and nothing of her is reflected in the pool but a glimmer of white feet. this picture, however, has not the intense pathos and tragedy of the beguiling of merlin, nor the mystical and lovely symbolism of the days of the creation. above these three pictures are hung five allegorical studies of figures by the same artist, all worthy of his fame. mr. walter crane, who has illustrated so many fairy tales for children, sends an ambitious work called the renaissance of venus, which in the dull colour of its 'sunless dawn,' and in its general want of all the glow and beauty and passion that one associates with this scene reminds one of botticelli's picture of the same subject. after mr. swinburne's superb description of the sea-birth of the goddess in his hymn to proserpine, it is very strange to find a cultured artist of feeling producing such a vapid venus as this. the best thing in it is the painting of an apple tree: the time of year is spring, and the leaves have not yet come, but the tree is laden with pink and white blossoms, which stand out in beautiful relief against the pale blue of the sky, and are very true to nature. m. alphonse legros sends nine pictures, and there is a natural curiosity to see the work of a gentleman who holds at cambridge the same professorship as mr. ruskin does at oxford. four of these are studies of men's heads, done in two hours each for his pupils at the slade schools. there is a good deal of vigorous, rough execution about them, and they are marvels of rapid work. his portrait of mr. carlyle is unsatisfactory; and even in no. , a picture of two scarlet-robed bishops, surrounded by spanish monks, his colour is very thin and meagre. a good bit of painting is of some metal pots in a picture called le chaudronnier. mr. leslie, unfortunately, is represented only by one small work, called palm-blossom. it is a picture of a perfectly lovely child that reminds one of sir joshua's cherubs in the national gallery, with a mouth like two petals of a rose; the under-lip, as rossetti says quaintly somewhere, 'sucked in, as if it strove to kiss itself.' then we come to the most abused pictures in the whole exhibition--the 'colour symphonies' of the 'great dark master,' mr. whistler, who deserves the name of '[greek] as much as heraclitus ever did. their titles do not convey much information. no. is called nocturne in black and gold, no. a nocturne in blue and silver, and so on. the first of these represents a rocket of golden rain, with green and red fires bursting in a perfectly black sky, two large black smudges on the picture standing, i believe, for a tower which is in 'cremorne gardens' and for a crowd of lookers-on. the other is rather prettier; a rocket is breaking in a pale blue sky over a large dark blue bridge and a blue and silver river. these pictures are certainly worth looking at for about as long as one looks at a real rocket, that is, for somewhat less than a quarter of a minute. no. is called arrangement in black no. , apparently some pseudonym for our greatest living actor, for out of black smudgy clouds comes looming the gaunt figure of mr. henry irving, with the yellow hair and pointed beard, the ruff, short cloak, and tight hose in which he appeared as philip ii. in tennyson's play queen mary. one hand is thrust into his breast, and his legs are stuck wide apart in a queer stiff position that mr. irving often adopts preparatory to one of his long, wolflike strides across the stage. the figure is life-size, and, though apparently one- armed, is so ridiculously like the original that one cannot help almost laughing when one sees it. and we may imagine that any one who had the misfortune to be shut up at night in the grosvenor gallery would hear this arrangement in black no. murmuring in the well-known lyceum accents: by st. james, i do protest, upon the faith and honour of a spaniard, i am vastly grieved to leave your majesty. simon, is supper ready? nos. and are life-size portraits of two young ladies, evidently caught in a black london fog; they look like sisters, but are not related probably, as one is a harmony in amber and black, the other only an arrangement in brown. mr. whistler, however, sends one really good picture to this exhibition, a portrait of mr. carlyle, which is hung in the entrance hall; the expression on the old man's face, the texture and colour of his grey hair, and the general sympathetic treatment, show mr. whistler { } to be an artist of very great power when he likes. there is not so much in the east gallery that calls for notice. mr. leighton is unfortunately represented only by two little heads, one of an italian girl, the other called a study. there is some delicate flesh painting of red and brown in these works that reminds one of a russet apple, but of course they are no samples of this artist's great strength. there are two good portraits--one of mrs. burne-jones, by mr. poynter. this lady has a very delicate, artistic face, reminding us, perhaps, a little of one of the angels her husband has painted. she is represented in a white dress, with a perfectly gigantic old-fashioned watch hung to her waist, drinking tea from an old blue china cup. the other is a head of the duchess of westminster by mr. forbes-robertson, who both as an actor and an artist has shown great cleverness. he has succeeded very well in reproducing the calm, beautiful profile and lustrous golden hair, but the shoulders are ungraceful, and very unlike the original. the figure of a girl leaning against a wonderful screen, looking terribly 'misunderstood,' and surrounded by any amount of artistic china and furniture, by mrs. louise jopling, is worth looking at too. it is called it might have been, and the girl is quite fit to be the heroine of any sentimental novel. the two largest contributors to this gallery are mr. ferdinand heilbuth and mr. james tissot. the first of these two artists sends some delightful pictures from rome, two of which are particularly pleasing. one is of an old cardinal in the imperial scarlet of the caesars meeting a body of young italian boys in purple soutanes, students evidently in some religious college, near the church of st. john lateran. one of the boys is being presented to the cardinal, and looks very nervous under the operation; the rest gaze in wonder at the old man in his beautiful dress. the other picture is a view in the gardens of the villa borghese; a cardinal has sat down on a marble seat in the shade of the trees, and is suspending his meditation for a moment to smile at a pretty child to whom a french bonne is pointing out the gorgeously dressed old gentleman; a flunkey in attendance on the cardinal looks superciliously on. nearly all of mr. tissot's pictures are deficient in feeling and depth; his young ladies are too fashionably over-dressed to interest the artistic eye, and he has a hard unscrupulousness in painting uninteresting objects in an uninteresting way. there is some good colour and drawing, however, in his painting of a withered chestnut tree, with the autumn sun glowing through the yellow leaves, in a picnic scene, no. ; the remainder of the picture being something in the photographic style of frith. what a gap in art there is between such a picture as the banquet of the civic guard in holland, with its beautiful grouping of noble-looking men, its exquisite venetian glass aglow with light and wine, and mr. tissot's over-dressed, common-looking people, and ugly, painfully accurate representation of modern soda-water bottles! mr. tissot's widower, however, shines in qualities which his other pictures lack; it is full of depth and suggestiveness; the grasses and wild, luxuriant growth of the foreground are a revel of natural life. we must notice besides in this gallery mr. watts's two powerful portraits of mr. burne-jones and lady lindsay. to get to the water-colour room we pass through a small sculpture gallery, which contains some busts of interest, and a pretty terra-cotta figure of a young sailor, by count gleichen, entitled cheeky, but it is not remarkable in any way, and contrasts very unfavourably with the exhibition of sculpture at the royal academy, in which are three really fine works of art--mr. leighton's man struggling with a snake, which may be thought worthy of being looked on side by side with the laocoon of the vatican, and lord ronald gower's two statues, one of a dying french guardsman at the battle of waterloo, the other of marie antoinette being led to execution with bound hands, queenlike and noble to the last. the collection of water-colours is mediocre; there is a good effect of mr. poynter's, the east wind seen from a high cliff sweeping down on the sea like the black wings of some god; and some charming pictures of fairy land by mr. richard doyle, which would make good illustrations for one of mr. allingham's fairy-poems, but the tout-ensemble is poor. taking a general view of the works exhibited here, we see that this dull land of england, with its short summer, its dreary rains and fogs, its mining districts and factories, and vile deification of machinery, has yet produced very great masters of art, men with a subtle sense and love of what is beautiful, original, and noble in imagination. nor are the art-treasures of this country at all exhausted by this exhibition; there are very many great pictures by living artists hidden away in different places, which those of us who are yet boys have never seen, and which our elders must wish to see again. holman hunt has done better work than the afterglow in egypt; neither millais, leighton, nor poynter has sent any of the pictures on which his fame rests; neither burne-jones nor watts shows us here all the glories of his art; and the name of that strange genius who wrote the vision of love revealed in sleep, and the names of dante rossetti and of the marchioness of waterford, cannot be found in the catalogue. and so it is to be hoped that this is not the only exhibition of paintings that we shall see in the grosvenor gallery; and sir coutts lindsay, in showing us great works of art, will be most materially aiding that revival of culture and love of beauty which in great part owes its birth to mr. ruskin, and which mr. swinburne, and mr. pater, and mr. symonds, and mr. morris, and many others, are fostering and keeping alive, each in his own peculiar fashion. the grosvenor gallery (saunders' irish daily news, may , .) while the yearly exhibition of the royal academy may be said to present us with the general characteristics of ordinary english art at its most commonplace level, it is at the grosvenor gallery that we are enabled to see the highest development of the modern artistic spirit as well as what one might call its specially accentuated tendencies. foremost among the great works now exhibited at this gallery are mr. burne-jones's annunciation and his four pictures illustrating the greek legend of pygmalion--works of the very highest importance in our aesthetic development as illustrative of some of the more exquisite qualities of modern culture. in the first the virgin mary, a passionless, pale woman, with that mysterious sorrow whose meaning she was so soon to learn mirrored in her wan face, is standing, in grey drapery, by a marble fountain, in what seems the open courtyard of an empty and silent house, while through the branches of a tall olive tree, unseen by the virgin's tear-dimmed eyes, is descending the angel gabriel with his joyful and terrible message, not painted as angelico loved to do, in the varied splendour of peacock-like wings and garments of gold and crimson, but somewhat sombre in colour, set with all the fine grace of nobly-fashioned drapery and exquisitely ordered design. in presence of what may be called the mediaeval spirit may be discerned both the idea and the technique of the work, and even still more so in the four pictures of the story of pygmalion, where the sculptor is represented in dress and in looks rather as a christian st. francis, than as a pure greek artist in the first morning tide of art, creating his own ideal, and worshipping it. for delicacy and melody of colour these pictures are beyond praise, nor can anything exceed the idyllic loveliness of aphrodite waking the statue into sensuous life: the world above her head like a brittle globe of glass, her feet resting on a drift of the blue sky, and a choir of doves fluttering around her like a fall of white snow. following in the same school of ideal and imaginative painting is miss evelyn pickering, whose picture of st. catherine, in the dudley of some years ago, attracted such great attention. to the present gallery she has contributed a large picture of night and sleep, twin brothers floating over the world in indissoluble embrace, the one spreading the cloak of darkness, while from the other's listless hands the leathean poppies fall in a scarlet shower. mr. strudwich sends a picture of isabella, which realises in some measure the pathos of keats's poem, and another of the lover in the lily garden from the song of solomon, both works full of delicacy of design and refinement of detail, yet essentially weak in colour, and in comparison with the splendid giorgione-like work of mr. fairfax murray, are more like the coloured drawings of the modern german school than what we properly call a painting. the last-named artist, while essentially weak in draughtsmanship, yet possesses the higher quality of noble colour in the fullest degree. the draped figures of men and women in his garland makers, and pastoral, some wrought in that single note of colour which the earlier florentines loved, others with all the varied richness and glow of the venetian school, show what great results may be brought about by a youth spent in italian cities. and finally i must notice the works contributed to this gallery by that most powerful of all our english artists, mr. g. f. watts, the extraordinary width and reach of whose genius were never more illustrated than by the various pictures bearing his name which are here exhibited. his paolo and francesca, and his orpheus and eurydice, are creative visions of the very highest order of imaginative painting; marked as it is with all the splendid vigour of nobly ordered design, the last-named picture possesses qualities of colour no less great. the white body of the dying girl, drooping like a pale lily, and the clinging arms of her lover, whose strong brown limbs seem filled with all the sensuous splendour of passionate life, form a melancholy and wonderful note of colour to which the eye continually returns as indicating the motive of the conception. yet here i would dwell rather on two pictures which show the splendid simplicity and directness of his strength, the one a portrait of himself, the other that of a little child called dorothy, who has all that sweet gravity and look of candour which we like to associate with that old-fashioned name: a child with bright rippling hair, tangled like floss silk, open brown eyes and flower-like mouth; dressed in faded claret, with little lace about the neck and throat, toned down to a delicate grey--the hands simply clasped before her. this is the picture; as truthful and lovely as any of those brignoli children which vandyke has painted in genoa. nor is his own picture of himself--styled in the catalogue merely a portrait--less wonderful, especially the luminous treatment of the various shades of black as shown in the hat and cloak. it would be quite impossible, however, to give any adequate account or criticism of the work now exhibited in the grosvenor gallery within the limits of a single notice. richmond's noble picture of sleep and death bearing the slain body of sarpedon, and his bronze statue of the greek athlete, are works of the very highest order of artistic excellence, but i will reserve for another occasion the qualities of his power. mr. whistler, whose wonderful and eccentric genius is better appreciated in france than in england, sends a very wonderful picture entitled the golden girl, a life-size study in amber, yellow and browns, of a child dancing with a skipping-rope, full of birdlike grace and exquisite motion; as well as some delightful specimens of etching (an art of which he is the consummate master), one of which, called the little forge, entirely done with the dry point, possesses extraordinary merit; nor have the philippics of the fors clavigera deterred him from exhibiting some more of his 'arrangements in colour,' one of which, called a harmony in green and gold, i would especially mention as an extremely good example of what ships lying at anchor on a summer evening are from the 'impressionist point of view.' mr. eugene benson, one of the most cultured of those many americans who seem to have found their mecca in modern rome, has sent a picture of narcissus, a work full of the true theocritean sympathy for the natural picturesqueness of shepherd life, and entirely delightful to all who love the peculiar qualities of italian scenery. the shadows of the trees drifting across the grass, the crowding together of the sheep, and the sense of summer air and light which fills the picture, are full of the highest truth and beauty; and mr. forbes-robertson, whose picture of phelps as cardinal wolsey has just been bought by the garrick club, and who is himself so well known as a young actor of the very highest promise, is represented by a portrait of mr. hermann vezin which is extremely clever and certainly very lifelike. nor amongst the minor works must i omit to notice miss stuart-wortley's view on the river cherwell, taken from the walks of magdalen college, oxford,--a little picture marked by great sympathy for the shade and coolness of green places and for the stillness of summer waters; or mrs. valentine bromley's misty day, remarkable for the excellent drawing of a breaking wave, as well as for a great delicacy of tone. besides the marchioness of waterford, whose brilliant treatment of colour is so well known, and mr. richard doyle, whose water-colour drawings of children and of fairy scenes are always so fresh and bright, the qualities of the irish genius in the field of art find an entirely adequate exponent in mr. wills, who as a dramatist and a painter has won himself such an honourable name. three pictures of his are exhibited here: the spirit of the shell, which is perhaps too fanciful and vague in design; the nymph and satyr, where the little goat-footed child has all the sweet mystery and romance of the woodlands about him; and the parting of ophelia and laertes, a work not only full of very strong drawing, especially in the modelling of the male figure, but a very splendid example of the power of subdued and reserved colour, the perfect harmony of tone being made still more subtle by the fitful play of reflected light on the polished armour. i shall reserve for another notice the wonderful landscapes of mr. cecil lawson, who has caught so much of turner's imagination and mode of treatment, as well as a consideration of the works of herkomer, tissot and legros, and others of the modern realistic school. note.--the other notice mentioned above did not appear. l'envoi an introduction to rose leaf and apple leaf by rennell rodd, published by j. m. stoddart and co., philadelphia, . amongst the many young men in england who are seeking along with me to continue and to perfect the english renaissance--jeunes guerriers du drapeau romantique, as gautier would have called us--there is none whose love of art is more flawless and fervent, whose artistic sense of beauty is more subtle and more delicate--none, indeed, who is dearer to myself--than the young poet whose verses i have brought with me to america; verses full of sweet sadness, and yet full of joy; for the most joyous poet is not he who sows the desolate highways of this world with the barren seed of laughter, but he who makes his sorrow most musical, this indeed being the meaning of joy in art--that incommunicable element of artistic delight which, in poetry, for instance, comes from what keats called the 'sensuous life of verse,' the element of song in the singing, made so pleasurable to us by that wonder of motion which often has its origin in mere musical impulse, and in painting is to be sought for, from the subject never, but from the pictorial charm only--the scheme and symphony of the colour, the satisfying beauty of the design: so that the ultimate expression of our artistic movement in painting has been, not in the spiritual visions of the pre-raphaelites, for all their marvel of greek legend and their mystery of italian song, but in the work of such men as whistler and albert moore, who have raised design and colour to the ideal level of poetry and music. for the quality of their exquisite painting comes from the mere inventive and creative handling of line and colour, from a certain form and choice of beautiful workmanship, which, rejecting all literary reminiscence and all metaphysical idea, is in itself entirely satisfying to the aesthetic sense--is, as the greeks would say, an end in itself; the effect of their work being like the effect given to us by music; for music is the art in which form and matter are always one--the art whose subject cannot be separated from the method of its expression; the art which most completely realises for us the artistic ideal, and is the condition to which all the other arts are constantly aspiring. now, this increased sense of the absolutely satisfying value of beautiful workmanship, this recognition of the primary importance of the sensuous element in art, this love of art for art's sake, is the point in which we of the younger school have made a departure from the teaching of mr. ruskin,--a departure definite and different and decisive. master indeed of the knowledge of all noble living and of the wisdom of all spiritual things will he be to us ever, seeing that it was he who by the magic of his presence and the music of his lips taught us at oxford that enthusiasm for beauty which is the secret of hellenism, and that desire for creation which is the secret of life, and filled some of us, at least, with the lofty and passionate ambition to go forth into far and fair lands with some message for the nations and some mission for the world, and yet in his art criticism, his estimate of the joyous element of art, his whole method of approaching art, we are no longer with him; for the keystone to his aesthetic system is ethical always. he would judge of a picture by the amount of noble moral ideas it expresses; but to us the channels by which all noble work in painting can touch, and does touch, the soul are not those of truths of life or metaphysical truths. to him perfection of workmanship seems but the symbol of pride, and incompleteness of technical resource the image of an imagination too limitless to find within the limits of form its complete expression, or of a love too simple not to stammer in its tale. but to us the rule of art is not the rule of morals. in an ethical system, indeed, of any gentle mercy good intentions will, one is fain to fancy, have their recognition; but of those that would enter the serene house of beauty the question that we ask is not what they had ever meant to do, but what they have done. their pathetic intentions are of no value to us, but their realised creations only. pour moi je prefere les poetes qui font des vers, les medecins qui sachent guerir, les peintres qui sachent peindre. nor, in looking at a work of art, should we be dreaming of what it symbolises, but rather loving it for what it is. indeed, the transcendental spirit is alien to the spirit of art. the metaphysical mind of asia may create for itself the monstrous and many-breasted idol, but to the greek, pure artist, that work is most instinct with spiritual life which conforms most closely to the perfect facts of physical life also. nor, in its primary aspect, has a painting, for instance, any more spiritual message or meaning for us than a blue tile from the wall of damascus, or a hitzen vase. it is a beautifully coloured surface, nothing more, and affects us by no suggestion stolen from philosophy, no pathos pilfered from literature, no feeling filched from a poet, but by its own incommunicable artistic essence--by that selection of truth which we call style, and that relation of values which is the draughtsmanship of painting, by the whole quality of the workmanship, the arabesque of the design, the splendour of the colour, for these things are enough to stir the most divine and remote of the chords which make music in our soul, and colour, indeed, is of itself a mystical presence on things, and tone a kind of sentiment. this, then--the new departure of our younger school--is the chief characteristic of mr. rennell rodd's poetry; for, while there is much in his work that may interest the intellect, much that will excite the emotions, and many-cadenced chords of sweet and simple sentiment--for to those who love art for its own sake all other things are added--yet, the effect which they pre-eminently seek to produce is purely an artistic one. such a poem as the sea-king's grave, with all its majesty of melody as sonorous and as strong as the sea by whose pine-fringed shores it was thus nobly conceived and nobly fashioned; or the little poem that follows it, whose cunning workmanship, wrought with such an artistic sense of limitation, one might liken to the rare chasing of the mirror that is its motive; or in a church, pale flower of one of those exquisite moments when all things except the moment itself seem so curiously real, and when the old memories of forgotten days are touched and made tender, and the familiar place grows fervent and solemn suddenly with a vision of the undying beauty of the gods that died; or the scene in chartres cathedral, sombre silence brooding on vault and arch, silent people kneeling on the dust of the desolate pavement as the young priest lifts lord christ's body in a crystal star, and then the sudden beams of scarlet light that break through the blazoned window and smite on the carven screen, and sudden organ peals of mighty music rolling and echoing from choir to canopy, and from spire to shaft, and over all the clear glad voice of a singing boy, affecting one as a thing over-sweet, and striking just the right artistic keynote for one's emotions; or at lanuvium, through the music of whose lines one seems to hear again the murmur of the mantuan bees straying down from their own green valleys and inland streams to find what honeyed amber the sea-flowers might be hiding; or the poem written in the coliseum, which gives one the same artistic joy that one gets watching a handicraftsman at his work, a goldsmith hammering out his gold into those thin plates as delicate as the petals of a yellow rose, or drawing it out into the long wires like tangled sunbeams, so perfect and precious is the mere handling of it; or the little lyric interludes that break in here and there like the singing of a thrush, and are as swift and as sure as the beating of a bird's wing, as light and bright as the apple-blossoms that flutter fitfully down to the orchard grass after a spring shower, and look the lovelier for the rain's tears lying on their dainty veinings of pink and pearl; or the sonnets--for mr. rodd is one of those qui sonnent le sonnet, as the ronsardists used to say--that one called on the border hills, with its fiery wonder of imagination and the strange beauty of its eighth line; or the one which tells of the sorrow of the great king for the little dead child--well, all these poems aim, as i said, at producing a purely artistic effect, and have the rare and exquisite quality that belongs to work of that kind; and i feel that the entire subordination in our aesthetic movement of all merely emotional and intellectual motives to the vital informing poetic principle is the surest sign of our strength. but it is not enough that a work of art should conform to the aesthetic demands of the age: there should be also about it, if it is to give us any permanent delight, the impress of a distinct individuality. whatever work we have in the nineteenth century must rest on the two poles of personality and perfection. and so in this little volume, by separating the earlier and more simple work from the work that is later and stronger and possesses increased technical power and more artistic vision, one might weave these disconnected poems, these stray and scattered threads, into one fiery-coloured strand of life, noting first a boy's mere gladness of being young, with all its simple joy in field and flower, in sunlight and in song, and then the bitterness of sudden sorrow at the ending by death of one of the brief and beautiful friendships of one's youth, with all those unanswered longings and questionings unsatisfied by which we vex, so uselessly, the marble face of death; the artistic contrast between the discontented incompleteness of the spirit and the complete perfection of the style that expresses it forming the chief element of the aesthetic charm of these particular poems;--and then the birth of love, and all the wonder and the fear and the perilous delight of one on whose boyish brows the little wings of love have beaten for the first time; and the love-songs, so dainty and delicate, little swallow- flights of music, and full of such fragrance and freedom that they might all be sung in the open air and across moving water; and then autumn, coming with its choirless woods and odorous decay and ruined loveliness, love lying dead; and the sense of the mere pity of it. one might stop there, for from a young poet one should ask for no deeper chords of life than those that love and friendship make eternal for us; and the best poems in the volume belong clearly to a later time, a time when these real experiences become absorbed and gathered up into a form which seems from such real experiences to be the most alien and the most remote; when the simple expression of joy or sorrow suffices no longer, and lives rather in the stateliness of the cadenced metre, in the music and colour of the linked words, than in any direct utterance; lives, one might say, in the perfection of the form more than in the pathos of the feeling. and yet, after the broken music of love and the burial of love in the autumn woods, we can trace that wandering among strange people, and in lands unknown to us, by which we try so pathetically to heal the hurts of the life we know, and that pure and passionate devotion to art which one gets when the harsh reality of life has too suddenly wounded one, and is with discontent or sorrow marring one's youth, just as often, i think, as one gets it from any natural joy of living; and that curious intensity of vision by which, in moments of overmastering sadness and despair ungovernable, artistic things will live in one's memory with a vivid realism caught from the life which they help one to forget--an old grey tomb in flanders with a strange legend on it, making one think how, perhaps, passion does live on after death; a necklace of blue and amber beads and a broken mirror found in a girl's grave at rome, a marble image of a boy habited like eros, and with the pathetic tradition of a great king's sorrow lingering about it like a purple shadow,--over all these the tired spirit broods with that calm and certain joy that one gets when one has found something that the ages never dull and the world cannot harm; and with it comes that desire of greek things which is often an artistic method of expressing one's desire for perfection; and that longing for the old dead days which is so modern, so incomplete, so touching, being, in a way, the inverted torch of hope, which burns the hand it should guide; and for many things a little sadness, and for all things a great love; and lastly, in the pinewood by the sea, once more the quick and vital pulse of joyous youth leaping and laughing in every line, the frank and fearless freedom of wave and wind waking into fire life's burnt-out ashes and into song the silent lips of pain,--how clearly one seems to see it all, the long colonnade of pines with sea and sky peeping in here and there like a flitting of silver; the open place in the green, deep heart of the wood with the little moss-grown altar to the old italian god in it; and the flowers all about, cyclamen in the shadowy places, and the stars of the white narcissus lying like snow-flakes over the grass, where the quick, bright-eyed lizard starts by the stone, and the snake lies coiled lazily in the sun on the hot sand, and overhead the gossamer floats from the branches like thin, tremulous threads of gold,--the scene is so perfect for its motive, for surely here, if anywhere, the real gladness of life might be revealed to one's youth--the gladness that comes, not from the rejection, but from the absorption, of all passion, and is like that serene calm that dwells in the faces of the greek statues, and which despair and sorrow cannot touch, but intensify only. in some such way as this we could gather up these strewn and scattered petals of song into one perfect rose of life, and yet, perhaps, in so doing, we might be missing the true quality of the poems; one's real life is so often the life that one does not lead; and beautiful poems, like threads of beautiful silks, may be woven into many patterns and to suit many designs, all wonderful and all different: and romantic poetry, too, is essentially the poetry of impressions, being like that latest school of painting, the school of whistler and albert moore, in its choice of situation as opposed to subject; in its dealing with the exceptions rather than with the types of life; in its brief intensity; in what one might call its fiery-coloured momentariness, it being indeed the momentary situations of life, the momentary aspects of nature, which poetry and painting now seek to render for us. sincerity and constancy will the artist, indeed, have always; but sincerity in art is merely that plastic perfection of execution without which a poem or a painting, however noble its sentiment or human its origin, is but wasted and unreal work, and the constancy of the artist cannot be to any definite rule or system of living, but to that principle of beauty only through which the inconstant shadows of his life are in their most fleeting moment arrested and made permanent. he will not, for instance, in intellectual matters acquiesce in that facile orthodoxy of our day which is so reasonable and so artistically uninteresting, nor yet will he desire that fiery faith of the antique time which, while it intensified, yet limited the vision; still less will he allow the calm of his culture to be marred by the discordant despair of doubt or the sadness of a sterile scepticism; for the valley perilous, where ignorant armies clash by night, is no resting- place meet for her to whom the gods have assigned the clear upland, the serene height, and the sunlit air,--rather will he be always curiously testing new forms of belief, tinging his nature with the sentiment that still lingers about some beautiful creeds, and searching for experience itself, and not for the fruits of experience; when he has got its secret, he will leave without regret much that was once very precious to him. 'i am always insincere,' says emerson somewhere, 'as knowing that there are other moods': 'les emotions,' wrote theophile gautier once in a review of arsene houssaye, 'les emotions ne se ressemblent pas, mais etre emu--voila l'important.' now, this is the secret of the art of the modern romantic school, and gives one the right keynote for its apprehension; but the real quality of all work which, like mr. rodd's, aims, as i said, at a purely artistic effect, cannot be described in terms of intellectual criticism; it is too intangible for that. one can perhaps convey it best in terms of the other arts, and by reference to them; and, indeed, some of these poems are as iridescent and as exquisite as a lovely fragment of venetian glass; others as delicate in perfect workmanship and as single in natural motive as an etching by whistler is, or one of those beautiful little greek figures which in the olive woods round tanagra men can still find, with the faint gilding and the fading crimson not yet fled from hair and lips and raiment; and many of them seem like one of corot's twilights just passing into music; for not merely in visible colour, but in sentiment also--which is the colour of poetry--may there be a kind of tone. but i think that the best likeness to the quality of this young poet's work i ever saw was in the landscape by the loire. we were staying once, he and i, at amboise, that little village with its grey slate roofs and steep streets and gaunt, grim gateway, where the quiet cottages nestle like white pigeons into the sombre clefts of the great bastioned rock, and the stately renaissance houses stand silent and apart--very desolate now, but with some memory of the old days still lingering about the delicately-twisted pillars, and the carved doorways, with their grotesque animals, and laughing masks, and quaint heraldic devices, all reminding one of a people who could not think life real till they had made it fantastic. and above the village, and beyond the bend of the river, we used to go in the afternoon, and sketch from one of the big barges that bring the wine in autumn and the wood in winter down to the sea, or lie in the long grass and make plans pour la gloire, et pour ennuyer les philistins, or wander along the low, sedgy banks, 'matching our reeds in sportive rivalry,' as comrades used in the old sicilian days; and the land was an ordinary land enough, and bare, too, when one thought of italy, and how the oleanders were robing the hillsides by genoa in scarlet, and the cyclamen filling with its purple every valley from florence to rome; for there was not much real beauty, perhaps, in it, only long, white dusty roads and straight rows of formal poplars; but, now and then, some little breaking gleam of broken light would lend to the grey field and the silent barn a secret and a mystery that were hardly their own, would transfigure for one exquisite moment the peasants passing down through the vineyard, or the shepherd watching on the hill, would tip the willows with silver and touch the river into gold; and the wonder of the effect, with the strange simplicity of the material, always seemed to me to be a little like the quality of these the verses of my friend. mrs. langtry as hester grazebrook (new york world, november , .) it is only in the best greek gems, on the silver coins of syracuse, or among the marble figures of the parthenon frieze, that one can find the ideal representation of the marvellous beauty of that face which laughed through the leaves last night as hester grazebrook. pure greek it is, with the grave low forehead, the exquisitely arched brow; the noble chiselling of the mouth, shaped as if it were the mouthpiece of an instrument of music; the supreme and splendid curve of the cheek; the augustly pillared throat which bears it all: it is greek, because the lines which compose it are so definite and so strong, and yet so exquisitely harmonised that the effect is one of simple loveliness purely: greek, because its essence and its quality, as is the quality of music and of architecture, is that of beauty based on absolutely mathematical laws. but while art remains dumb and immobile in its passionless serenity, with the beauty of this face it is different: the grey eyes lighten into blue or deepen into violet as fancy succeeds fancy; the lips become flower- like in laughter or, tremulous as a bird's wing, mould themselves at last into the strong and bitter moulds of pain or scorn. and then motion comes, and the statue wakes into life. but the life is not the ordinary life of common days; it is life with a new value given to it, the value of art: and the charm to me of hester grazebrook's acting in the first scene of the play { } last night was that mingling of classic grace with absolute reality which is the secret of all beautiful art, of the plastic work of the greeks and of the pictures of jean francois millet equally. i do not think that the sovereignty and empire of women's beauty has at all passed away, though we may no longer go to war for them as the greeks did for the daughter of leda. the greatest empire still remains for them--the empire of art. and, indeed, this wonderful face, seen last night for the first time in america, has filled and permeated with the pervading image of its type the whole of our modern art in england. last century it was the romantic type which dominated in art, the type loved by reynolds and gainsborough, of wonderful contrasts of colour, of exquisite and varying charm of expression, but without that definite plastic feeling which divides classic from romantic work. this type degenerated into mere facile prettiness in the hands of lesser masters, and, in protest against it, was created by the hands of the pre-raphaelites a new type, with its rare combination of greek form with florentine mysticism. but this mysticism becomes over-strained and a burden, rather than an aid to expression, and a desire for the pure hellenic joy and serenity came in its place; and in all our modern work, in the paintings of such men as albert moore and leighton and whistler, we can trace the influence of this single face giving fresh life and inspiration in the form of a new artistic ideal. as regards hester grazebrook's dresses, the first was a dress whose grace depended entirely on the grace of the person who wore it. it was merely the simple dress of a village girl in england. the second was a lovely combination of blue and creamy lace. but the masterpiece was undoubtedly the last, a symphony in silver-grey and pink, a pure melody of colour which i feel sure whistler would call a scherzo, and take as its visible motive the moonlight wandering in silver mist through a rose-garden; unless indeed he saw this dress, in which case he would paint it and nothing else, for it is a dress such as velasquez only could paint, and whistler very wisely always paints those things which are within reach of velasquez only. the scenery was, of course, prepared in a hurry. still, much of it was very good indeed: the first scene especially, with its graceful trees and open forge and cottage porch, though the roses were dreadfully out of tone and, besides their crudity of colour, were curiously badly grouped. the last scene was exceedingly clever and true to nature as well, being that combination of lovely scenery and execrable architecture which is so specially characteristic of a german spa. as for the drawing-room scene, i cannot regard it as in any way a success. the heavy ebony doors are entirely out of keeping with the satin panels; the silk hangings and festoons of black and yellow are quite meaningless in their position and consequently quite ugly; the carpet is out of all colour relation with the rest of the room, and the table-cover is mauve. still, to have decorated ever so bad a room in six days must, i suppose, be a subject of respectful wonder, though i should have fancied that mr. wallack had many very much better sets in his own stock. but i am beginning to quarrel generally with most modern scene-painting. a scene is primarily a decorative background for the actors, and should always be kept subordinate, first to the players, their dress, gesture, and action; and secondly, to the fundamental principle of decorative art, which is not to imitate but to suggest nature. if the landscape is given its full realistic value, the value of the figures to which it serves as a background is impaired and often lost, and so the painted hangings of the elizabethan age were a far more artistic, and so a far more rational form of scenery than most modern scene-painting is. from the same master- hand which designed the curtain of madison square theatre i should like very much to see a good decorative landscape in scene-painting; for i have seen no open-air scene in any theatre which did not really mar the value of the actors. one must either, like titian, make the landscape subordinate to the figures, or, like claude, the figures subordinate to the landscape; for if we desire realistic acting we cannot have realistic scene-painting. i need not describe, however, how the beauty of hester grazebrook survived the crude roses and the mauve tablecloth triumphantly. that it is a beauty that will be appreciated to the full in america i do not doubt for a moment, for it is only countries which possess great beauty that can appreciate beauty at all. it may also influence the art of america as it has influenced the art of england, for of the rare greek type it is the most absolutely perfect example. the philistine may, of course, object that to be absolutely perfect is impossible. well, that is so: but then it is only the impossible things that are worth doing nowadays! woman's dress (pall mall gazette, october , .) mr. oscar wilde, who asks us to permit him 'that most charming of all pleasures, the pleasure of answering one's critics,' sends us the following remarks:-- the 'girl graduate' must of course have precedence, not merely for her sex but for her sanity: her letter is extremely sensible. she makes two points: that high heels are a necessity for any lady who wishes to keep her dress clean from the stygian mud of our streets, and that without a tight corset 'the ordinary number of petticoats and etceteras' cannot be properly or conveniently held up. now, it is quite true that as long as the lower garments are suspended from the hips a corset is an absolute necessity; the mistake lies in not suspending all apparel from the shoulders. in the latter case a corset becomes useless, the body is left free and unconfined for respiration and motion, there is more health, and consequently more beauty. indeed all the most ungainly and uncomfortable articles of dress that fashion has ever in her folly prescribed, not the tight corset merely, but the farthingale, the vertugadin, the hoop, the crinoline, and that modern monstrosity the so-called 'dress improver' also, all of them have owed their origin to the same error, the error of not seeing that it is from the shoulders, and from the shoulders only, that all garments should be hung. and as regards high heels, i quite admit that some additional height to the shoe or boot is necessary if long gowns are to be worn in the street; but what i object to is that the height should be given to the heel only, and not to the sole of the foot also. the modern high-heeled boot is, in fact, merely the clog of the time of henry vi., with the front prop left out, and its inevitable effect is to throw the body forward, to shorten the steps, and consequently to produce that want of grace which always follows want of freedom. why should clogs be despised? much art has been expended on clogs. they have been made of lovely woods, and delicately inlaid with ivory, and with mother-of-pearl. a clog might be a dream of beauty, and, if not too high or too heavy, most comfortable also. but if there be any who do not like clogs, let them try some adaptation of the trouser of the turkish lady, which is loose round the limb and tight at the ankle. the 'girl graduate,' with a pathos to which i am not insensible, entreats me not to apotheosise 'that awful, befringed, beflounced, and bekilted divided skirt.' well, i will acknowledge that the fringes, the flounces, and the kilting do certainly defeat the whole object of the dress, which is that of ease and liberty; but i regard these things as mere wicked superfluities, tragic proofs that the divided skirt is ashamed of its own division. the principle of the dress is good, and, though it is not by any means perfection, it is a step towards it. here i leave the 'girl graduate,' with much regret, for mr. wentworth huyshe. mr. huyshe makes the old criticism that greek dress is unsuited to our climate, and, to me the somewhat new assertion, that the men's dress of a hundred years ago was preferable to that of the second part of the seventeenth century, which i consider to have been the exquisite period of english costume. now, as regards the first of these two statements, i will say, to begin with, that the warmth of apparel does not depend really on the number of garments worn, but on the material of which they are made. one of the chief faults of modern dress is that it is composed of far too many articles of clothing, most of which are of the wrong substance; but over a substratum of pure wool, such as is supplied by dr. jaeger under the modern german system, some modification of greek costume is perfectly applicable to our climate, our country and our century. this important fact has already been pointed out by mr. e. w. godwin in his excellent, though too brief, handbook on dress, contributed to the health exhibition. i call it an important fact because it makes almost any form of lovely costume perfectly practicable in our cold climate. mr. godwin, it is true, points out that the english ladies of the thirteenth century abandoned after some time the flowing garments of the early renaissance in favour of a tighter mode, such as northern europe seems to demand. this i quite admit, and its significance; but what i contend, and what i am sure mr. godwin would agree with me in, is that the principles, the laws of greek dress may be perfectly realised, even in a moderately tight gown with sleeves: i mean the principle of suspending all apparel from the shoulders, and of relying for beauty of effect not on the stiff ready- made ornaments of the modern milliner--the bows where there should be no bows, and the flounces where there should be no flounces--but on the exquisite play of light and line that one gets from rich and rippling folds. i am not proposing any antiquarian revival of an ancient costume, but trying merely to point out the right laws of dress, laws which are dictated by art and not by archaeology, by science and not by fashion; and just as the best work of art in our days is that which combines classic grace with absolute reality, so from a continuation of the greek principles of beauty with the german principles of health will come, i feel certain, the costume of the future. and now to the question of men's dress, or rather to mr. huyshe's claim of the superiority, in point of costume, of the last quarter of the eighteenth century over the second quarter of the seventeenth. the broad- brimmed hat of kept the rain of winter and the glare of summer from the face; the same cannot be said of the hat of one hundred years ago, which, with its comparatively narrow brim and high crown, was the precursor of the modern 'chimney-pot': a wide turned-down collar is a healthier thing than a strangling stock, and a short cloak much more comfortable than a sleeved overcoat, even though the latter may have had 'three capes'; a cloak is easier to put on and off, lies lightly on the shoulder in summer, and wrapped round one in winter keeps one perfectly warm. a doublet, again, is simpler than a coat and waistcoat; instead of two garments one has one; by not being open also it protects the chest better. short loose trousers are in every way to be preferred to the tight knee- breeches which often impede the proper circulation of the blood; and finally, the soft leather boots which could be worn above or below the knee, are more supple, and give consequently more freedom, than the stiff hessian which mr. huyshe so praises. i say nothing about the question of grace and picturesqueness, for i suppose that no one, not even mr. huyshe, would prefer a maccaroni to a cavalier, a lawrence to a vandyke, or the third george to the first charles; but for ease, warmth and comfort this seventeenth-century dress is infinitely superior to anything that came after it, and i do not think it is excelled by any preceding form of costume. i sincerely trust that we may soon see in england some national revival of it. more radical ideas upon dress reform (pall mall gazette, november , .) i have been much interested at reading the large amount of correspondence that has been called forth by my recent lecture on dress. it shows me that the subject of dress reform is one that is occupying many wise and charming people, who have at heart the principles of health, freedom, and beauty in costume, and i hope that 'h. b. t.' and 'materfamilias' will have all the real influence which their letters--excellent letters both of them--certainly deserve. i turn first to mr. huyshe's second letter, and the drawing that accompanies it; but before entering into any examination of the theory contained in each, i think i should state at once that i have absolutely no idea whether this gentleman wears his hair longer short, or his cuffs back or forward, or indeed what he is like at all. i hope he consults his own comfort and wishes in everything which has to do with his dress, and is allowed to enjoy that individualism in apparel which he so eloquently claims for himself, and so foolishly tries to deny to others; but i really could not take mr. wentworth huyshe's personal appearance as any intellectual basis for an investigation of the principles which should guide the costume of a nation. i am not denying the force, or even the popularity, of the ''eave arf a brick' school of criticism, but i acknowledge it does not interest me. the gamin in the gutter may be a necessity, but the gamin in discussion is a nuisance. so i will proceed at once to the real point at issue, the value of the late eighteenth-century costume over that worn in the second quarter of the seventeenth: the relative merits, that is, of the principles contained in each. now, as regards the eighteenth-century costume, mr. wentworth huyshe acknowledges that he has had no practical experience of it at all; in fact, he makes a pathetic appeal to his friends to corroborate him in his assertion, which i do not question for a moment, that he has never been 'guilty of the eccentricity' of wearing himself the dress which he proposes for general adoption by others. there is something so naive and so amusing about this last passage in mr. huyshe's letter that i am really in doubt whether i am not doing him a wrong in regarding him as having any serious, or sincere, views on the question of a possible reform in dress; still, as irrespective of any attitude of mr. huyshe's in the matter, the subject is in itself an interesting one, i think it is worth continuing, particularly as i have myself worn this late eighteenth- century dress many times, both in public and in private, and so may claim to have a very positive right to speak on its comfort and suitability. the particular form of the dress i wore was very similar to that given in mr. godwin's handbook, from a print of northcote's, and had a certain elegance and grace about it which was very charming; still, i gave it up for these reasons:--after a further consideration of the laws of dress i saw that a doublet is a far simpler and easier garment than a coat and waistcoat, and, if buttoned from the shoulder, far warmer also, and that tails have no place in costume, except on some darwinian theory of heredity; from absolute experience in the matter i found that the excessive tightness of knee-breeches is not really comfortable if one wears them constantly; and, in fact, i satisfied myself that the dress is not one founded on any real principles. the broad-brimmed hat and loose cloak, which, as my object was not, of course, historical accuracy but modern ease, i had always worn with the costume in question, i have still retained, and find them most comfortable. well, although mr. huyshe has no real experience of the dress he proposes, he gives us a drawing of it, which he labels, somewhat prematurely, 'an ideal dress.' an ideal dress of course it is not; 'passably picturesque,' he says i may possibly think it; well, passably picturesque it may be, but not beautiful, certainly, simply because it is not founded on right principles, or, indeed, on any principles at all. picturesqueness one may get in a variety of ways; ugly things that are strange, or unfamiliar to us, for instance, may be picturesque, such as a late sixteenth-century costume, or a georgian house. ruins, again, may be picturesque, but beautiful they never can be, because their lines are meaningless. beauty, in fact, is to be got only from the perfection of principles; and in 'the ideal dress' of mr. huyshe there are no ideas or principles at all, much less the perfection of either. let us examine it, and see its faults; they are obvious to any one who desires more than a 'fancy-dress ball' basis for costume. to begin with, the hat and boots are all wrong. whatever one wears on the extremities, such as the feet and head, should, for the sake of comfort, be made of a soft material, and for the sake of freedom should take its shape from the way one chooses to wear it, and not from any stiff, stereotyped design of hat or boot maker. in a hat made on right principles one should be able to turn the brim up or down according as the day is dark or fair, dry or wet; but the hat brim of mr. huyshe's drawing is perfectly stiff, and does not give much protection to the face, or the possibility of any at all to the back of the head or the ears, in case of a cold east wind; whereas the bycocket, a hat made in accordance with the right laws, can be turned down behind and at the sides, and so give the same warmth as a hood. the crown, again, of mr. huyshe's hat is far too high; a high crown diminishes the stature of a small person, and in the case of any one who is tall is a great inconvenience when one is getting in and out of hansoms and railway carriages, or passing under a street awning: in no case is it of any value whatsoever, and being useless it is of course against the principles of dress. as regards the boots, they are not quite so ugly or so uncomfortable as the hat; still they are evidently made of stiff leather, as otherwise they would fall down to the ankle, whereas the boot should be made of soft leather always, and if worn high at all must be either laced up the front or carried well over the knee: in the latter case one combines perfect freedom for walking together with perfect protection against rain, neither of which advantages a short stiff boot will ever give one, and when one is resting in the house the long soft boot can be turned down as the boot of was. then there is the overcoat: now, what are the right principles of an overcoat? to begin with, it should be capable of being easily put on or off, and worn over any kind of dress; consequently it should never have narrow sleeves, such as are shown in mr. huyshe's drawing. if an opening or slit for the arm is required it should be made quite wide, and may be protected by a flap, as in that excellent overall the modern inverness cape; secondly, it should not be too tight, as otherwise all freedom of walking is impeded. if the young gentleman in the drawing buttons his overcoat he may succeed in being statuesque, though that i doubt very strongly, but he will never succeed in being swift; his super-totus is made for him on no principle whatsoever; a super-totus, or overall, should be capable of being worn long or short, quite loose or moderately tight, just as the wearer wishes; he should be able to have one arm free and one arm covered, or both arms free or both arms covered, just as he chooses for his convenience in riding, walking, or driving; an overall again should never be heavy, and should always be warm: lastly, it should be capable of being easily carried if one wants to take it off; in fact, its principles are those of freedom and comfort, and a cloak realises them all, just as much as an overcoat of the pattern suggested by mr. huyshe violates them. the knee-breeches are of course far too tight; any one who has worn them for any length of time--any one, in fact, whose views on the subject are not purely theoretical--will agree with me there; like everything else in the dress, they are a great mistake. the substitution of the jacket for the coat and waistcoat of the period is a step in the right direction, which i am glad to see; it is, however, far too tight over the hips for any possible comfort. whenever a jacket or doublet comes below the waist it should be slit at each side. in the seventeenth century the skirt of the jacket was sometimes laced on by points and tags, so that it could be removed at will, sometimes it was merely left open at the sides: in each case it exemplified what are always the true principles of dress, i mean freedom and adaptability to circumstances. finally, as regards drawings of this kind, i would point out that there is absolutely no limit at all to the amount of 'passably picturesque' costumes which can be either revived or invented for us; but that unless a costume is founded on principles and exemplified laws, it never can be of any real value to us in the reform of dress. this particular drawing of mr. huyshe's, for instance, proves absolutely nothing, except that our grandfathers did not understand the proper laws of dress. there is not a single rule of right costume which is not violated in it, for it gives us stiffness, tightness and discomfort instead of comfort, freedom and ease. now here, on the other hand, is a dress which, being founded on principles, can serve us as an excellent guide and model; it has been drawn for me, most kindly, by mr. godwin from the duke of newcastle's delightful book on horsemanship, a book which is one of our best authorities on our best era of costume. i do not of course propose it necessarily for absolute imitation; that is not the way in which one should regard it; it is not, i mean, a revival of a dead costume, but a realisation of living laws. i give it as an example of a particular application of principles which are universally right. this rationally dressed young man can turn his hat brim down if it rains, and his loose trousers and boots down if he is tired--that is, he can adapt his costume to circumstances; then he enjoys perfect freedom, the arms and legs are not made awkward or uncomfortable by the excessive tightness of narrow sleeves and knee-breeches, and the hips are left quite untrammelled, always an important point; and as regards comfort, his jacket is not too loose for warmth, nor too close for respiration; his neck is well protected without being strangled, and even his ostrich feathers, if any philistine should object to them, are not merely dandyism, but fan him very pleasantly, i am sure, in summer, and when the weather is bad they are no doubt left at home, and his cloak taken out. _the value of the dress is simply that every separate article of it expresses a law_. my young man is consequently apparelled with ideas, while mr. huyshe's young man is stiffened with facts; the latter teaches one nothing; from the former one learns everything. i need hardly say that this dress is good, not because it is seventeenth century, but because it is constructed on the true principles of costume, just as a square lintel or a pointed arch is good, not because one may be greek and the other gothic, but because each of them is the best method of spanning a certain-sized opening, or resisting a certain weight. the fact, however, that this dress was generally worn in england two centuries and a half ago shows at least this, that the right laws of dress have been understood and realised in our country, and so in our country may be realised and understood again. as regards the absolute beauty of this dress and its meaning, i should like to say a few words more. mr. wentworth huyshe solemnly announces that 'he and those who think with him' cannot permit this question of beauty to be imported into the question of dress; that he and those who think with him take 'practical views on the subject,' and so on. well, i will not enter here into a discussion as to how far any one who does not take beauty and the value of beauty into account can claim to be practical at all. the word practical is nearly always the last refuge of the uncivilised. of all misused words it is the most evilly treated. but what i want to point out is that beauty is essentially organic; that is, it comes, not from without, but from within, not from any added prettiness, but from the perfection of its own being; and that consequently, as the body is beautiful, so all apparel that rightly clothes it must be beautiful also in its construction and in its lines. i have no more desire to define ugliness than i have daring to define beauty; but still i would like to remind those who mock at beauty as being an unpractical thing of this fact, that an ugly thing is merely a thing that is badly made, or a thing that does not serve its purpose; that ugliness is want of fitness; that ugliness is failure; that ugliness is uselessness, such as ornament in the wrong place, while beauty, as some one finely said, is the purgation of all superfluities. there is a divine economy about beauty; it gives us just what is needful and no more, whereas ugliness is always extravagant; ugliness is a spendthrift and wastes its material; in fine, ugliness--and i would commend this remark to mr. wentworth huyshe--ugliness, as much in costume as in anything else, is always the sign that somebody has been unpractical. so the costume of the future in england, if it is founded on the true laws of freedom, comfort, and adaptability to circumstances, cannot fail to be most beautiful also, because beauty is the sign always of the rightness of principles, the mystical seal that is set upon what is perfect, and upon what is perfect only. as for your other correspondent, the first principle of dress that all garments should be hung from the shoulders and not from the waist seems to me to be generally approved of, although an 'old sailor' declares that no sailors or athletes ever suspend their clothes from the shoulders, but always from the hips. my own recollection of the river and running ground at oxford--those two homes of hellenism in our little gothic town--is that the best runners and rowers (and my own college turned out many) wore always a tight jersey, with short drawers attached to it, the whole costume being woven in one piece. as for sailors it is true, i admit, and the bad custom seems to involve that constant 'hitching up' of the lower garments which, however popular in transpontine dramas, cannot, i think, but be considered an extremely awkward habit; and as all awkwardness comes from discomfort of some kind, i trust that this point in our sailor's dress will be looked to in the coming reform of our navy, for, in spite of all protests, i hope we are about to reform everything, from torpedoes to top-hats, and from crinolettes to cruises. then as regards clogs, my suggestion of them seems to have aroused a great deal of terror. fashion in her high-heeled boots has screamed, and the dreadful word 'anachronism' has been used. now, whatever is useful cannot be an anachronism. such a word is applicable only to the revival of some folly; and, besides, in the england of our own day clogs are still worn in many of our manufacturing towns, such as oldham. i fear that in oldham they may not be dreams of beauty; in oldham the art of inlaying them with ivory and with pearl may possibly be unknown; yet in oldham they serve their purpose. nor is it so long since they were worn by the upper classes of this country generally. only a few days ago i had the pleasure of talking to a lady who remembered with affectionate regret the clogs of her girlhood; they were, according to her, not too high nor too heavy, and were provided, besides, with some kind of spring in the sole so as to make them the more supple for the foot in walking. personally, i object to all additional height being given to a boot or shoe; it is really against the proper principles of dress, although, if any such height is to be given it should be by means of two props, not one; but what i should prefer to see is some adaptation of the divided skirt or long and moderately loose knickerbockers. if, however, the divided skirt is to be of any positive value, it must give up all idea of 'being identical in appearance with an ordinary skirt'; it must diminish the moderate width of each of its divisions, and sacrifice its foolish frills and flounces; the moment it imitates a dress it is lost; but let it visibly announce itself as what it actually is, and it will go far towards solving a real difficulty. i feel sure that there will be found many graceful and charming girls ready to adopt a costume founded on these principles, in spite of mr. wentworth huyshe's terrible threat that he will not propose to them as long as they wear it, for all charges of a want of womanly character in these forms of dress are really meaningless; every right article of apparel belongs equally to both sexes, and there is absolutely no such thing as a definitely feminine garment. one word of warning i should like to be allowed to give: the over-tunic should be made full and moderately loose; it may, if desired, be shaped more or less to the figure, but in no case should it be confined at the waist by any straight band or belt; on the contrary, it should fall from the shoulder to the knee, or below it, in fine curves and vertical lines, giving more freedom and consequently more grace. few garments are so absolutely unbecoming as a belted tunic that reaches to the knees, a fact which i wish some of our rosalinds would consider when they don doublet and hose; indeed, to the disregard of this artistic principle is due the ugliness, the want of proportion, in the bloomer costume, a costume which in other respects is sensible. mr. whistler's ten o'clock (pall mall gazette, february , .) last night, at prince's hall, mr. whistler made his first public appearance as a lecturer on art, and spoke for more than an hour with really marvellous eloquence on the absolute uselessness of all lectures of the kind. mr. whistler began his lecture with a very pretty aria on prehistoric history, describing how in earlier times hunter and warrior would go forth to chase and foray, while the artist sat at home making cup and bowl for their service. rude imitations of nature they were first, like the gourd bottle, till the sense of beauty and form developed and, in all its exquisite proportions, the first vase was fashioned. then came a higher civilisation of architecture and armchairs, and with exquisite design, and dainty diaper, the useful things of life were made lovely; and the hunter and the warrior lay on the couch when they were tired, and, when they were thirsty, drank from the bowl, and never cared to lose the exquisite proportion of the one, or the delightful ornament of the other; and this attitude of the primitive anthropophagous philistine formed the text of the lecture and was the attitude which mr. whistler entreated his audience to adopt towards art. remembering, no doubt, many charming invitations to wonderful private views, this fashionable assemblage seemed somewhat aghast, and not a little amused, at being told that the slightest appearance among a civilised people of any joy in beautiful things is a grave impertinence to all painters; but mr. whistler was relentless, and, with charming ease and much grace of manner, explained to the public that the only thing they should cultivate was ugliness, and that on their permanent stupidity rested all the hopes of art in the future. the scene was in every way delightful; he stood there, a miniature mephistopheles, mocking the majority! he was like a brilliant surgeon lecturing to a class composed of subjects destined ultimately for dissection, and solemnly assuring them how valuable to science their maladies were, and how absolutely uninteresting the slightest symptoms of health on their part would be. in fairness to the audience, however, i must say that they seemed extremely gratified at being rid of the dreadful responsibility of admiring anything, and nothing could have exceeded their enthusiasm when they were told by mr. whistler that no matter how vulgar their dresses were, or how hideous their surroundings at home, still it was possible that a great painter, if there was such a thing, could, by contemplating them in the twilight and half closing his eyes, see them under really picturesque conditions, and produce a picture which they were not to attempt to understand, much less dare to enjoy. then there were some arrows, barbed and brilliant, shot off, with all the speed and splendour of fireworks, and the archaeologists, who spend their lives in verifying the birthplaces of nobodies, and estimate the value of a work of art by its date or its decay; at the art critics who always treat a picture as if it were a novel, and try and find out the plot; at dilettanti in general and amateurs in particular; and (o mea culpa!) at dress reformers most of all. 'did not velasquez paint crinolines? what more do you want?' having thus made a holocaust of humanity, mr. whistler turned to nature, and in a few moments convicted her of the crystal palace, bank holidays, and a general overcrowding of detail, both in omnibuses and in landscapes, and then, in a passage of singular beauty, not unlike one that occurs in corot's letters, spoke of the artistic value of dim dawns and dusks, when the mean facts of life are lost in exquisite and evanescent effects, when common things are touched with mystery and transfigured with beauty, when the warehouses become as palaces and the tall chimneys of the factory seem like campaniles in the silver air. finally, after making a strong protest against anybody but a painter judging of painting, and a pathetic appeal to the audience not to be lured by the aesthetic movement into having beautiful things about them, mr. whistler concluded his lecture with a pretty passage about fusiyama on a fan, and made his bow to an audience which he had succeeded in completely fascinating by his wit, his brilliant paradoxes, and, at times, his real eloquence. of course, with regard to the value of beautiful surroundings i differ entirely from mr. whistler. an artist is not an isolated fact; he is the resultant of a certain milieu and a certain entourage, and can no more be born of a nation that is devoid of any sense of beauty than a fig can grow from a thorn or a rose blossom from a thistle. that an artist will find beauty in ugliness, le beau dans l'horrible, is now a commonplace of the schools, the argot of the atelier, but i strongly deny that charming people should be condemned to live with magenta ottomans and albert-blue curtains in their rooms in order that some painter may observe the side-lights on the one and the values of the other. nor do i accept the dictum that only a painter is a judge of painting. i say that only an artist is a judge of art; there is a wide difference. as long as a painter is a painter merely, he should not be allowed to talk of anything but mediums and megilp, and on those subjects should be compelled to hold his tongue; it is only when he becomes an artist that the secret laws of artistic creation are revealed to him. for there are not many arts, but one art merely--poem, picture and parthenon, sonnet and statue--all are in their essence the same, and he who knows one knows all. but the poet is the supreme artist, for he is the master of colour and of form, and the real musician besides, and is lord over all life and all arts; and so to the poet beyond all others are these mysteries known; to edgar allan poe and to baudelaire, not to benjamin west and paul delaroche. however, i should not enjoy anybody else's lectures unless in a few points i disagreed with them, and mr. whistler's lecture last night was, like everything that he does, a masterpiece. not merely for its clever satire and amusing jests will it be remembered, but for the pure and perfect beauty of many of its passages--passages delivered with an earnestness which seemed to amaze those who had looked on mr. whistler as a master of persiflage merely, and had not known him as we do, as a master of painting also. for that he is indeed one of the very greatest masters of painting is my opinion. and i may add that in this opinion mr. whistler himself entirely concurs. the relation of dress to art: a note in black and white on mr. whistler's lecture (pall mall gazette, february , .) 'how can you possibly paint these ugly three-cornered hats?' asked a reckless art critic once of sir joshua reynolds. 'i see light and shade in them,' answered the artist. 'les grands coloristes,' says baudelaire, in a charming article on the artistic value of frock coats, 'les grands coloristes savent faire de la couleur avec un habit noir, une cravate blanche, et un fond gris.' 'art seeks and finds the beautiful in all times, as did her high priest rembrandt, when he saw the picturesque grandeur of the jews' quarter of amsterdam, and lamented not that its inhabitants were not greeks,' were the fine and simple words used by mr. whistler in one of the most valuable passages of his lecture. the most valuable, that is, to the painter: for there is nothing of which the ordinary english painter needs more to be reminded than that the true artist does not wait for life to be made picturesque for him, but sees life under picturesque conditions always--under conditions, that is to say, which are at once new and delightful. but between the attitude of the painter towards the public and the attitude of a people towards art, there is a wide difference. that, under certain conditions of light and shade, what is ugly in fact may in its effect become beautiful, is true; and this, indeed, is the real modernite of art: but these conditions are exactly what we cannot be always sure of, as we stroll down piccadilly in the glaring vulgarity of the noonday, or lounge in the park with a foolish sunset as a background. were we able to carry our chiaroscuro about with us, as we do our umbrellas, all would be well; but this being impossible, i hardly think that pretty and delightful people will continue to wear a style of dress as ugly as it is useless and as meaningless as it is monstrous, even on the chance of such a master as mr. whistler spiritualising them into a symphony or refining them into a mist. for the arts are made for life, and not life for the arts. nor do i feel quite sure that mr. whistler has been himself always true to the dogma he seems to lay down, that a painter should paint only the dress of his age and of his actual surroundings: far be it from me to burden a butterfly with the heavy responsibility of its past: i have always been of opinion that consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative: but have we not all seen, and most of us admired, a picture from his hand of exquisite english girls strolling by an opal sea in the fantastic dresses of japan? has not tite street been thrilled with the tidings that the models of chelsea were posing to the master, in peplums, for pastels? whatever comes from mr whistler's brush is far too perfect in its loveliness to stand or fall by any intellectual dogmas on art, even by his own: for beauty is justified of all her children, and cares nothing for explanations: but it is impossible to look through any collection of modern pictures in london, from burlington house to the grosvenor gallery, without feeling that the professional model is ruining painting and reducing it to a condition of mere pose and pastiche. are we not all weary of him, that venerable impostor fresh from the steps of the piazza di spagna, who, in the leisure moments that he can spare from his customary organ, makes the round of the studios and is waited for in holland park? do we not all recognise him, when, with the gay insouciance of his nation, he reappears on the walls of our summer exhibitions as everything that he is not, and as nothing that he is, glaring at us here as a patriarch of canaan, here beaming as a brigand from the abruzzi? popular is he, this poor peripatetic professor of posing, with those whose joy it is to paint the posthumous portrait of the last philanthropist who in his lifetime had neglected to be photographed,--yet he is the sign of the decadence, the symbol of decay. for all costumes are caricatures. the basis of art is not the fancy ball. where there is loveliness of dress, there is no dressing up. and so, were our national attire delightful in colour, and in construction simple and sincere; were dress the expression of the loveliness that it shields and of the swiftness and motion that it does not impede; did its lines break from the shoulder instead of bulging from the waist; did the inverted wineglass cease to be the ideal of form; were these things brought about, as brought about they will be, then would painting be no longer an artificial reaction against the ugliness of life, but become, as it should be, the natural expression of life's beauty. nor would painting merely, but all the other arts also, be the gainers by a change such as that which i propose; the gainers, i mean, through the increased atmosphere of beauty by which the artists would be surrounded and in which they would grow up. for art is not to be taught in academies. it is what one looks at, not what one listens to, that makes the artist. the real schools should be the streets. there is not, for instance, a single delicate line, or delightful proportion, in the dress of the greeks, which is not echoed exquisitely in their architecture. a nation arrayed in stove-pipe hats and dress-improvers might have built the pantechnichon possibly, but the parthenon never. and finally, there is this to be said: art, it is true, can never have any other claim but her own perfection, and it may be that the artist, desiring merely to contemplate and to create, is wise in not busying himself about change in others: yet wisdom is not always the best; there are times when she sinks to the level of common-sense; and from the passionate folly of those--and there are many--who desire that beauty shall be confined no longer to the bric- a-brac of the collector and the dust of the museum, but shall be, as it should be, the natural and national inheritance of all,--from this noble unwisdom, i say, who knows what new loveliness shall be given to life, and, under these more exquisite conditions, what perfect artist born? le milieu se renouvelant, l'art se renouvelle. speaking, however, from his own passionless pedestal, mr. whistler, in pointing out that the power of the painter is to be found in his power of vision, not in his cleverness of hand, has expressed a truth which needed expression, and which, coming from the lord of form and colour, cannot fail to have its influence. his lecture, the apocrypha though it be for the people, yet remains from this time as the bible for the painter, the masterpiece of masterpieces, the song of songs. it is true he has pronounced the panegyric of the philistine, but i fancy ariel praising caliban for a jest: and, in that he has read the commination service over the critics, let all men thank him, the critics themselves, indeed, most of all, for he has now relieved them from the necessity of a tedious existence. considered, again, merely as an orator, mr. whistler seems to me to stand almost alone. indeed, among all our public speakers i know but few who can combine so felicitously as he does the mirth and malice of puck with the style of the minor prophets. keats's sonnet on blue (century guild hobby horse, july .) during my tour in america i happened one evening to find myself in louisville, kentucky. the subject i had selected to speak on was the mission of art in the nineteenth century, and in the course of my lecture i had occasion to quote keats's sonnet on blue as an example of the poet's delicate sense of colour-harmonies. when my lecture was concluded there came round to see me a lady of middle age, with a sweet gentle manner and a most musical voice. she introduced herself to me as mrs. speed, the daughter of george keats, and invited me to come and examine the keats manuscripts in her possession. i spent most of the next day with her, reading the letters of keats to her father, some of which were at that time unpublished, poring over torn yellow leaves and faded scraps of paper, and wondering at the little dante in which keats had written those marvellous notes on milton. some months afterwards, when i was in california, i received a letter from mrs. speed asking my acceptance of the original manuscript of the sonnet which i had quoted in my lecture. this manuscript i have had reproduced here, as it seems to me to possess much psychological interest. it shows us the conditions that preceded the perfected form, the gradual growth, not of the conception but of the expression, and the workings of that spirit of selection which is the secret of style. in the case of poetry, as in the case of the other arts, what may appear to be simply technicalities of method are in their essence spiritual, not mechanical, and although, in all lovely work, what concerns us is the ultimate form, not the conditions that necessitate that form, yet the preference that precedes perfection, the evolution of the beauty, and the mere making of the music, have, if not their artistic value, at least their value to the artist. it will be remembered that this sonnet was first published in by lord houghton in his life, letters, and literary remains of john keats. lord houghton does not definitely state where he found it, but it was probably among the keats manuscripts belonging to mr. charles brown. it is evidently taken from a version later than that in my possession, as it accepts all the corrections, and makes three variations. as in my manuscript the first line is torn away, i give the sonnet here as it appears in lord houghton's edition. answer to a sonnet ending thus: dark eyes are dearer far than those that make the hyacinthine bell. { } by j. h. reynolds. blue! 'tis the life of heaven,--the domain of cynthia,--the wide palace of the sun,-- the tent of hesperus and all his train,-- the bosomer of clouds, gold, grey and dun. blue! 'tis the life of waters--ocean and all its vassal streams: pools numberless may rage, and foam, and fret, but never can subside if not to dark-blue nativeness. blue! gentle cousin of the forest green, married to green in all the sweetest flowers, forget-me-not,--the blue-bell,--and, that queen of secrecy, the violet: what strange powers hast thou, as a mere shadow! but how great, when in an eye thou art alive with fate! feb. . in the athenaeum of the rd of june , appeared a letter from mr. a. j. horwood, stating that he had in his possession a copy of the garden of florence in which this sonnet was transcribed. mr. horwood, who was unaware that the sonnet had been already published by lord houghton, gives the transcript at length. his version reads hue for life in the first line, and bright for wide in the second, and gives the sixth line thus: with all his tributary streams, pools numberless, a foot too long: it also reads to for of in the ninth line. mr. buxton forman is of opinion that these variations are decidedly genuine, but indicative of an earlier state of the poem than that adopted in lord houghton's edition. however, now that we have before us keats's first draft of his sonnet, it is difficult to believe that the sixth line in mr. horwood's version is really a genuine variation. keats may have written, ocean his tributary streams, pools numberless, and the transcript may have been carelessly made, but having got his line right in his first draft, keats probably did not spoil it in his second. the athenaeum version inserts a comma after art in the last line, which seems to me a decided improvement, and eminently characteristic of keats's method. i am glad to see that mr. buxton forman has adopted it. as for the corrections that lord houghton's version shows keats to have made in the eighth and ninth lines of this sonnet, it is evident that they sprang from keats's reluctance to repeat the same word in consecutive lines, except in cases where a word's music or meaning was to be emphasised. the substitution of 'its' for 'his' in the sixth line is more difficult of explanation. it was due probably to a desire on keats's part not to mar by any echo the fine personification of hesperus. it may be noticed that keats's own eyes were brown, and not blue, as stated by mrs. proctor to lord houghton. mrs. speed showed me a note to that effect written by mrs. george keats on the margin of the page in lord houghton's life (p. , vol. i.), where mrs. proctor's description is given. cowden clarke made a similar correction in his recollections, and in some of the later editions of lord houghton's book the word 'blue' is struck out. in severn's portraits of keats also the eyes are given as brown. the exquisite sense of colour expressed in the ninth and tenth lines may be paralleled by the ocean with its vastness, its blue green, of the sonnet to george keats. the american invasion (court and society review, march , .) a terrible danger is hanging over the americans in london. their future and their reputation this season depend entirely on the success of buffalo bill and mrs. brown-potter. the former is certain to draw; for english people are far more interested in american barbarism than they are in american civilisation. when they sight sandy hook they look to their rifles and ammunition; and, after dining once at delmonico's, start off for colorado or california, for montana or the yellow stone park. rocky mountains charm them more than riotous millionaires; they have been known to prefer buffaloes to boston. why should they not? the cities of america are inexpressibly tedious. the bostonians take their learning too sadly; culture with them is an accomplishment rather than an atmosphere; their 'hub,' as they call it, is the paradise of prigs. chicago is a sort of monster-shop, full of bustle and bores. political life at washington is like political life in a suburban vestry. baltimore is amusing for a week, but philadelphia is dreadfully provincial; and though one can dine in new york one could not dwell there. better the far west with its grizzly bears and its untamed cow-boys, its free open- air life and its free open-air manners, its boundless prairie and its boundless mendacity! this is what buffalo bill is going to bring to london; and we have no doubt that london will fully appreciate his show. with regard to mrs. brown-potter, as acting is no longer considered absolutely essential for success on the english stage, there is really no reason why the pretty bright-eyed lady who charmed us all last june by her merry laugh and her nonchalant ways, should not--to borrow an expression from her native language--make a big boom and paint the town red. we sincerely hope she will; for, on the whole, the american invasion has done english society a great deal of good. american women are bright, clever, and wonderfully cosmopolitan. their patriotic feelings are limited to an admiration for niagara and a regret for the elevated railway; and, unlike the men, they never bore us with bunkers hill. they take their dresses from paris and their manners from piccadilly, and wear both charmingly. they have a quaint pertness, a delightful conceit, a native self-assertion. they insist on being paid compliments and have almost succeeded in making englishmen eloquent. for our aristocracy they have an ardent admiration; they adore titles and are a permanent blow to republican principles. in the art of amusing men they are adepts, both by nature and education, and can actually tell a story without forgetting the point--an accomplishment that is extremely rare among the women of other countries. it is true that they lack repose and that their voices are somewhat harsh and strident when they land first at liverpool; but after a time one gets to love these pretty whirlwinds in petticoats that sweep so recklessly through society and are so agitating to all duchesses who have daughters. there is something fascinating in their funny, exaggerated gestures and their petulant way of tossing the head. their eyes have no magic nor mystery in them, but they challenge us for combat; and when we engage we are always worsted. their lips seem made for laughter and yet they never grimace. as for their voices, they soon get them into tune. some of them have been known to acquire a fashionable drawl in two seasons; and after they have been presented to royalty they all roll their r's as vigorously as a young equerry or an old lady-in-waiting. still, they never really lose their accent; it keeps peeping out here and there, and when they chatter together they are like a bevy of peacocks. nothing is more amusing than to watch two american girls greeting each other in a drawing-room or in the row. they are like children with their shrill staccato cries of wonder, their odd little exclamations. their conversation sounds like a series of exploding crackers; they are exquisitely incoherent and use a sort of primitive, emotional language. after five minutes they are left beautifully breathless and look at each other half in amusement and half in affection. if a stolid young englishman is fortunate enough to be introduced to them he is amazed at their extraordinary vivacity, their electric quickness of repartee, their inexhaustible store of curious catchwords. he never really understands them, for their thoughts flutter about with the sweet irresponsibility of butterflies; but he is pleased and amused and feels as if he were in an aviary. on the whole, american girls have a wonderful charm and, perhaps, the chief secret of their charm is that they never talk seriously except about amusements. they have, however, one grave fault--their mothers. dreary as were those old pilgrim fathers who left our shores more than two centuries ago to found a new england beyond seas, the pilgrim mothers who have returned to us in the nineteenth century are drearier still. here and there, of course, there are exceptions, but as a class they are either dull, dowdy or dyspeptic. it is only fair to the rising generation of america to state that they are not to blame for this. indeed, they spare no pains at all to bring up their parents properly and to give them a suitable, if somewhat late, education. from its earliest years every american child spends most of its time in correcting the faults of its father and mother; and no one who has had the opportunity of watching an american family on the deck of an atlantic steamer, or in the refined seclusion of a new york boarding-house, can fail to have been struck by this characteristic of their civilisation. in america the young are always ready to give to those who are older than themselves the full benefits of their inexperience. a boy of only eleven or twelve years of age will firmly but kindly point out to his father his defects of manner or temper; will never weary of warning him against extravagance, idleness, late hours, unpunctuality, and the other temptations to which the aged are so particularly exposed; and sometimes, should he fancy that he is monopolising too much of the conversation at dinner, will remind him, across the table, of the new child's adage, 'parents should be seen, not heard.' nor does any mistaken idea of kindness prevent the little american girl from censuring her mother whenever it is necessary. often, indeed, feeling that a rebuke conveyed in the presence of others is more truly efficacious than one merely whispered in the quiet of the nursery, she will call the attention of perfect strangers to her mother's general untidiness, her want of intellectual boston conversation, immoderate love of iced water and green corn, stinginess in the matter of candy, ignorance of the usages of the best baltimore society, bodily ailments and the like. in fact, it may be truly said that no american child is ever blind to the deficiencies of its parents, no matter how much it may love them. yet, somehow, this educational system has not been so successful as it deserved. in many cases, no doubt, the material with which the children had to deal was crude and incapable of real development; but the fact remains that the american mother is a tedious person. the american father is better, for he is never seen in london. he passes his life entirely in wall street and communicates with his family once a month by means of a telegram in cipher. the mother, however, is always with us, and, lacking the quick imitative faculty of the younger generation, remains uninteresting and provincial to the last. in spite of her, however, the american girl is always welcome. she brightens our dull dinner parties for us and makes life go pleasantly by for a season. in the race for coronets she often carries off the prize; but, once she has gained the victory, she is generous and forgives her english rivals everything, even their beauty. warned by the example of her mother that american women do not grow old gracefully, she tries not to grow old at all and often succeeds. she has exquisite feet and hands, is always bien chaussee et bien gantee and can talk brilliantly upon any subject, provided that she knows nothing about it. her sense of humour keeps her from the tragedy of a grande passion, and, as there is neither romance nor humility in her love, she makes an excellent wife. what her ultimate influence on english life will be it is difficult to estimate at present; but there can be no doubt that, of all the factors that have contributed to the social revolution of london, there are few more important, and none more delightful, than the american invasion. sermons in stones at bloomsbury: the new sculpture room at the british museum (pall mall gazette, october , .) through the exertions of sir charles newton, to whom every student of classic art should be grateful, some of the wonderful treasures so long immured in the grimy vaults of the british museum have at last been brought to light, and the new sculpture room now opened to the public will amply repay the trouble of a visit, even from those to whom art is a stumbling-block and a rock of offence. for setting aside the mere beauty of form, outline and mass, the grace and loveliness of design and the delicacy of technical treatment, here we have shown to us what the greeks and romans thought about death; and the philosopher, the preacher, the practical man of the world, and even the philistine himself, cannot fail to be touched by these 'sermons in stones,' with their deep significance, their fertile suggestion, their plain humanity. common tombstones they are, most of them, the work not of famous artists but of simple handicraftsmen, only they were wrought in days when every handicraft was an art. the finest specimens, from the purely artistic point of view, are undoubtedly the two stelai found at athens. they are both the tombstones of young greek athletes. in one the athlete is represented handing his strigil to his slave, in the other the athlete stands alone, strigil in hand. they do not belong to the greatest period of greek art, they have not the grand style of the phidian age, but they are beautiful for all that, and it is impossible not to be fascinated by their exquisite grace and by the treatment which is so simple in its means, so subtle in its effect. all the tombstones, however, are full of interest. here is one of two ladies of smyrna who were so remarkable in their day that the city voted them honorary crowns; here is a greek doctor examining a little boy who is suffering from indigestion; here is the memorial of xanthippus who, probably, was a martyr to gout, as he is holding in his hand the model of a foot, intended, no doubt, as a votive offering to some god. a lovely stele from rhodes gives us a family group. the husband is on horseback and is bidding farewell to his wife, who seems as if she would follow him but is being held back by a little child. the pathos of parting from those we love is the central motive of greek funeral art. it is repeated in every possible form, and each mute marble stone seems to murmur [greek]. roman art is different. it introduces vigorous and realistic portraiture and deals with pure family life far more frequently than greek art does. they are very ugly, those stern-looking roman men and women whose portraits are exhibited on their tombs, but they seem to have been loved and respected by their children and their servants. here is the monument of aphrodisius and atilia, a roman gentleman and his wife, who died in britain many centuries ago, and whose tombstone was found in the thames; and close by it stands a stele from rome with the busts of an old married couple who are certainly marvellously ill-favoured. the contrast between the abstract greek treatment of the idea of death and the roman concrete realisation of the individuals who have died is extremely curious. besides the tombstones, the new sculpture room contains some most fascinating examples of roman decorative art under the emperors. the most wonderful of all, and this alone is worth a trip to bloomsbury, is a bas-relief representing a marriage scene. juno pronuba is joining the hands of a handsome young noble and a very stately lady. there is all the grace of perugino in this marble, all the grace of raphael even. the date of it is uncertain, but the particular cut of the bridegroom's beard seems to point to the time of the emperor hadrian. it is clearly the work of greek artists and is one of the most beautiful bas-reliefs in the whole museum. there is something in it which reminds one of the music and the sweetness of propertian verse. then we have delightful friezes of children. one representing children playing on musical instruments might have suggested much of the plastic art of florence. indeed, as we view these marbles it is not difficult to see whence the renaissance sprang and to what we owe the various forms of renaissance art. the frieze of the muses, each of whom wears in her hair a feather plucked from the wings of the vanquished sirens, is extremely fine; there is a lovely little bas-relief of two cupids racing in chariots; and the frieze of recumbent amazons has some splendid qualities of design. a frieze of children playing with the armour of the god mars should also be mentioned. it is full of fancy and delicate humour. on the whole, sir charles newton and mr. murray are warmly to be congratulated on the success of the new room. we hope, however, that some more of the hidden treasures will shortly be catalogued and shown. in the vaults at present there is a very remarkable bas-relief of the marriage of cupid and psyche, and another representing the professional mourners weeping over the body of the dead. the fine cast of the lion of chaeronea should also be brought up, and so should the stele with the marvellous portrait of the roman slave. economy is an excellent public virtue, but the parsimony that allows valuable works of art to remain in the grime and gloom of a damp cellar is little short of a detestable public vice. the unity of the arts: a lecture and a five o'clock (pall mall gazette, december , .) last saturday afternoon, at willis's rooms, mr. selwyn image delivered the first of a series of four lectures on modern art before a select and distinguished audience. the chief point on which he dwelt was the absolute unity of all the arts and, in order to convey this idea, he framed a definition wide enough to include shakespeare's king lear and michael angelo's creation, paul veronese's picture of alexander and darius, and gibbon's description of the entry of heliogabalus into rome. all these he regarded as so many expressions of man's thoughts and emotions on fine things, conveyed through visible or audible modes; and starting from this point he approached the question of the true relation of literature to painting, always keeping in view the central motive of his creed, credo in unam artem multipartitam, indivisibilem, and dwelling on resemblances rather than differences. the result at which he ultimately arrived was this: the impressionists, with their frank artistic acceptance of form and colour as things absolutely satisfying in themselves, have produced very beautiful work, but painting has something more to give us than the mere visible aspect of things. the lofty spiritual visions of william blake, and the marvellous romance of dante gabriel rossetti, can find their perfect expression in painting; every mood has its colour and every dream has its form. the chief quality of mr. image's lecture was its absolute fairness, but this was, to a certain portion of the audience, its chief defect. 'sweet reasonableness,' said one, 'is always admirable in a spectator, but from a leader we want something more.' 'it is only an auctioneer who should admire all schools of art,' said another; while a third sighed over what he called 'the fatal sterility of the judicial mind,' and expressed a perfectly groundless fear that the century guild was becoming rational. for, with a courtesy and a generosity that we strongly recommend to other lecturers, mr. image provided refreshments for his audience after his address was over, and it was extremely interesting to listen to the various opinions expressed by the great five-o'clock-tea school of criticism which was largely represented. for our own part, we found mr. image's lecture extremely suggestive. it was sometimes difficult to understand in what exact sense he was using the word 'literary,' and we do not think that a course of drawing from the plaster cast of the dying gaul would in the slightest degree improve the ordinary art critic. the true unity of the arts is to be found, not in any resemblance of one art to another, but in the fact that to the really artistic nature all the arts have the same message and speak the same language though with different tongues. no amount of daubing on a cellar wall will make a man understand the mystery of michael angelo's sybils, nor is it necessary to write a blank verse drama before one can appreciate the beauty of hamlet. it is essential that an art critic should have a nature receptive of beautiful impressions, and sufficient intuition to recognise style when he meets with it, and truth when it is shown to him; but, if he does not possess these qualities, a reckless career of water-colour painting will not give them to him, for, if from the incompetent critic all things be hidden, to the bad painter nothing shall be revealed. art at willis's rooms (sunday times, december , .) accepting a suggestion made by a friendly critic last week, mr. selwyn image began his second lecture by explaining more fully what he meant by literary art, and pointed out the difference between an ordinary illustration to a book and such creative and original works as michael angelo's fresco of the expulsion from eden and rossetti's beata beatrix. in the latter case the artist treats literature as if it were life itself, and gives a new and delightful form to what seer or singer has shown us; in the former we have merely a translation which misses the music and adds no marvel. as for subject, mr. image protested against the studio-slang that no subject is necessary, defining subject as the thought, emotion or impression which a man desires to embody in form and colour, and admitting mr. whistler's fireworks as readily as giotto's angels, and van huysum's roses no less than mantegna's gods. here, we think that mr. image might have pointed out more clearly the contrast between the purely pictorial subject and the subject that includes among its elements such things as historical associations or poetic memories; the contrast, in fact, between impressive art and the art that is expressive also. however, the topics he had to deal with were so varied that it was, no doubt, difficult for him to do more than suggest. from subject he passed to style, which he described as 'that masterful but restrained individuality of manner by which one artist is differentiated from another.' the true qualities of style he found in restraint which is submission to law; simplicity which is unity of vision; and severity, for le beau est toujours severe. the realist he defined as one who aims at reproducing the external phenomena of nature, while the idealist is the man who 'imagines things of fine interest.' yet, while he defined them he would not separate them. the true artist is a realist, for he recognises an external world of truth; an idealist, for he has selection, abstraction and the power of individualisation. to stand apart from the world of nature is fatal, but it is no less fatal merely to reproduce facts. art, in a word, must not content itself simply with holding the mirror up to nature, for it is a re-creation more than a reflection, and not a repetition but rather a new song. as for finish, it must not be confused with elaboration. a picture, said mr. image, is finished when the means of form and colour employed by the artist are adequate to convey the artist's intention; and, with this definition and a peroration suitable to the season, he concluded his interesting and intellectual lecture. light refreshments were then served to the audience, and the five-o'clock- tea school of criticism came very much to the front. mr. image's entire freedom from dogmatism and self-assertion was in some quarters rather severely commented on, and one young gentleman declared that such virtuous modesty as the lecturer's might easily become a most vicious mannerism. everybody, however, was extremely pleased to learn that it is no longer the duty of art to hold the mirror up to nature, and the few philistines who dissented from this view received that most terrible of all punishments--the contempt of the highly cultured. mr. image's third lecture will be delivered on january and will, no doubt, be largely attended, as the subjects advertised are full of interest, and though 'sweet reasonableness' may not convert, it always charms. mr. morris on tapestry (pall mall gazette, november , .) yesterday evening mr. william morris delivered a most interesting and fascinating lecture on carpet and tapestry weaving at the arts and crafts exhibition now held at the new gallery. mr. morris had small practical models of the two looms used, the carpet loom where the weaver sits in front of his work; the more elaborate tapestry loom where the weaver sits behind, at the back of the stuff, has his design outlined on the upright threads and sees in a mirror the shadow of the pattern and picture as it grows gradually to perfection. he spoke at much length on the question of dyes--praising madder and kermes for reds, precipitate of iron or ochre for yellows, and for blue either indigo or woad. at the back of the platform hung a lovely flemish tapestry of the fourteenth century, and a superb persian carpet about two hundred and fifty years old. mr. morris pointed out the loveliness of the carpet--its delicate suggestion of hawthorn blossom, iris and rose, its rejection of imitation and shading; and showed how it combined the great quality of decorative design--being at once clear and well defined in form: each outline exquisitely traced, each line deliberate in its intention and its beauty, and the whole effect being one of unity, of harmony, almost of mystery, the colours being so perfectly harmonised together and the little bright notes of colour being so cunningly placed either for tone or brilliancy. tapestries, he said, were to the north of europe what fresco was to the south--our climate, amongst other reasons, guiding us in our choice of material for wall-covering. england, france, and flanders were the three great tapestry countries--flanders with its great wool trade being the first in splendid colours and superb gothic design. the keynote of tapestry, the secret of its loveliness, was, he told the audience, the complete filling up of every corner and square inch of surface with lovely and fanciful and suggestive design. hence the wonder of those great gothic tapestries where the forest trees rise in different places, one over the other, each leaf perfect in its shape and colour and decorative value, while in simple raiment of beautiful design knights and ladies wandered in rich flower gardens, and rode with hawk on wrist through long green arcades, and sat listening to lute and viol in blossom- starred bowers or by cool gracious water springs. upon the other hand, when the gothic feeling died away, and boucher and others began to design, they gave us wide expanses of waste sky, elaborate perspective, posing nymphs and shallow artificial treatment. indeed, boucher met with scant mercy at mr. morris's vigorous hands and was roundly abused, and modern gobelins, with m. bougereau's cartoons, fared no better. mr. morris told some delightful stories about old tapestry work from the days when in the egyptian tombs the dead were laid wrapped in picture cloths, some of which are now in the south kensington museum, to the time of the great turk bajazet who, having captured some christian knights, would accept nothing for their ransom but the 'storied tapestries of france' and gerfalcons. as regards the use of tapestry in modern days, he pointed out that we were richer than the middle ages, and so should be better able to afford this form of lovely wall-covering, which for artistic tone is absolutely without rival. he said that the very limitation of material and form forced the imaginative designer into giving us something really beautiful and decorative. 'what is the use of setting an artist in a twelve-acre field and telling him to design a house? give him a limited space and he is forced by its limitation to concentrate, and to fill with pure loveliness the narrow surface at his disposal.' the worker also gives to the original design a very perfect richness of detail, and the threads with their varying colours and delicate reflections convey into the work a new source of delight. here, he said, we found perfect unity between the imaginative artist and the handicraftsman. the one was not too free, the other was not a slave. the eye of the artist saw, his brain conceived, his imagination created, but the hand of the weaver had also its opportunity for wonderful work, and did not copy what was already made, but re-created and put into a new and delightful form a design that for its perfection needed the loom to aid, and had to pass into a fresh and marvellous material before its beauty came to its real flower and blossom of absolutely right expression and artistic effect. but, said mr. morris in conclusion, to have great work we must be worthy of it. commercialism, with its vile god cheapness, its callous indifference to the worker, its innate vulgarity of temper, is our enemy. to gain anything good we must sacrifice something of our luxury--must think more of others, more of the state, the commonweal: 'we cannot have riches and wealth both,' he said; we must choose between them. the lecture was listened to with great attention by a very large and distinguished audience, and mr. morris was loudly applauded. the next lecture will be on sculpture by mr. george simonds, and if it is half so good as mr. morris it will well repay a visit to the lecture-room. mr. crane deserves great credit for his exertions in making this exhibition what it should be, and there is no doubt but that it will exercise an important and a good influence on all the handicrafts of our country. sculpture at the arts and crafts (pall mall gazette, november , .) the most satisfactory thing in mr. simonds' lecture last night was the peroration, in which he told the audience that 'an artist cannot be made.' but for this well-timed warning some deluded people might have gone away under the impression that sculpture was a sort of mechanical process within the reach of the meanest capabilities. for it must be confessed that mr. simonds' lecture was at once too elementary and too elaborately technical. the ordinary art student, even the ordinary studio-loafer, could not have learned anything from it, while the 'cultured person,' of whom there were many specimens present, could not but have felt a little bored at the careful and painfully clear descriptions given by the lecturer of very well-known and uninteresting methods of work. however, mr. simonds did his best. he described modelling in clay and wax; casting in plaster and in metal; how to enlarge and how to diminish to scale; bas-reliefs and working in the round; the various kinds of marble, their qualities and characteristics; how to reproduce in marble the plaster or clay bust; how to use the point, the drill, the wire and the chisel; and the various difficulties attending each process. he exhibited a clay bust of mr. walter crane on which he did some elementary work; a bust of mr. parsons; a small statuette; several moulds, and an interesting diagram of the furnace used by balthasar keller for casting a great equestrian statue of louis xiv. in - . what his lecture lacked were ideas. of the artistic value of each material; of the correspondence between material or method and the imaginative faculty seeking to find expression; of the capacities for realism and idealism that reside in each material; of the historical and human side of the art--he said nothing. he showed the various instruments and how they are used, but he treated them entirely as instruments for the hand. he never once brought his subject into any relation either with art or with life. he explained forms of labour and forms of saving labour. he showed the various methods as they might be used by an artisan. mr. morris, last week, while explaining the technical processes of weaving, never forgot that he was lecturing on an art. he not merely taught his audience, but he charmed them. however, the audience gathered together last night at the arts and crafts exhibition seemed very much interested; at least, they were very attentive; and mr. walter crane made a short speech at the conclusion, in which he expressed his satisfaction that in spite of modern machinery sculpture had hardly altered one of its tools. for our own part we cannot help regretting the extremely commonplace character of the lecture. if a man lectures on poets he should not confine his remarks purely to grammar. next week mr. emery walker lectures on printing. we hope--indeed we are sure, that he will not forget that it is an art, or rather it was an art once, and can be made so again. printing and printers (pall mall gazette, november , .) nothing could have been better than mr. emery walker's lecture on letterpress printing and illustration, delivered last night at the arts and crafts. a series of most interesting specimens of old printed books and manuscripts was displayed on the screen by means of the magic-lantern, and mr. walker's explanations were as clear and simple as his suggestions were admirable. he began by explaining the different kinds of type and how they are made, and showed specimens of the old block-printing which preceded the movable type and is still used in china. he pointed out the intimate connection between printing and handwriting--as long as the latter was good the printers had a living model to go by, but when it decayed printing decayed also. he showed on the screen a page from gutenberg's bible (the first printed book, date about - ) and a manuscript of columella; a printed livy of , with the abbreviations of handwriting, and a manuscript of the history of pompeius by justin of . the latter he regarded as an example of the beginning of the roman type. the resemblance between the manuscripts and the printed books was most curious and suggestive. he then showed a page out of john of spier's edition of cicero's letters, the first book printed at venice, an edition of the same book by nicholas jansen in , and a wonderful manuscript petrarch of the sixteenth century. he told the audience about aldus, who was the first publisher to start cheap books, who dropped abbreviations and had his type cut by francia pictor et aurifex, who was said to have taken it from petrarch's handwriting. he exhibited a page of the copy-book of vicentino, the great venetian writing-master, which was greeted with a spontaneous round of applause, and made some excellent suggestions about improving modern copy-books and avoiding slanting writing. a superb plautus printed at florence in for lorenzo di medici, polydore virgil's history with the fine holbein designs, printed at basle in , and other interesting books, were also exhibited on the screen, the size, of course, being very much enlarged. he spoke of elzevir in the seventeenth century when handwriting began to fall off, and of the english printer caslon, and of baskerville whose type was possibly designed by hogarth, but is not very good. latin, he remarked, was a better language to print than english, as the tails of the letters did not so often fall below the line. the wide spacing between lines, occasioned by the use of a lead, he pointed out, left the page in stripes and made the blanks as important as the lines. margins should, of course, be wide except the inner margins, and the headlines often robbed the page of its beauty of design. the type used by the pall mall was, we are glad to say, rightly approved of. with regard to illustration, the essential thing, mr. walker said, is to have harmony between the type and the decoration. he pleaded for true book ornament as opposed to the silly habit of putting pictures where they are not wanted, and pointed out that mechanical harmony and artistic harmony went hand in hand. no ornament or illustration should be used in a book which cannot be printed in the same way as the type. for his warnings he produced rogers's italy with a steel-plate engraving, and a page from an american magazine which being florid, pictorial and bad, was greeted with some laughter. for examples we had a lovely boccaccio printed at ulm, and a page out of la mer des histoires printed in . blake and bewick were also shown, and a page of music designed by mr. horne. the lecture was listened to with great attention by a large audience, and was certainly most attractive. mr. walker has the keen artistic instinct that comes out of actually working in the art of which he spoke. his remarks about the pictorial character of modern illustration were well timed, and we hope that some of the publishers in the audience will take them to heart. next thursday mr. cobden-sanderson lectures on bookbinding, a subject on which few men in england have higher qualifications for speaking. we are glad to see these lectures are so well attended. the beauties of bookbinding (pall mall gazette, november , .) 'the beginning of art,' said mr. cobden-sanderson last night in his charming lecture on bookbinding, 'is man thinking about the universe.' he desires to give expression to the joy and wonder that he feels at the marvels that surround him, and invents a form of beauty through which he utters the thought or feeling that is in him. and bookbinding ranks amongst the arts: 'through it a man expresses himself.' this elegant and pleasantly exaggerated exordium preceded some very practical demonstrations. 'the apron is the banner of the future!' exclaimed the lecturer, and he took his coat off and put his apron on. he spoke a little about old bindings for the papyrus roll, about the ivory or cedar cylinders round which old manuscripts were wound, about the stained covers and the elaborate strings, till binding in the modern sense began with literature in a folded form, with literature in pages. a binding, he pointed out, consists of two boards, originally of wood, now of mill-board, covered with leather, silk or velvet. the use of these boards is to protect the 'world's written wealth.' the best material is leather, decorated with gold. the old binders used to be given forests that they might always have a supply of the skins of wild animals; the modern binder has to content himself with importing morocco, which is far the best leather there is, and is very much to be preferred to calf. mr. sanderson mentioned by name a few of the great binders such as le gascon, and some of the patrons of bookbinding like the medicis, grolier, and the wonderful women who so loved books that they lent them some of the perfume and grace of their own strange lives. however, the historical part of the lecture was very inadequate, possibly necessarily so through the limitations of time. the really elaborate part of the lecture was the practical exposition. mr. sanderson described and illustrated the various processes of smoothing, pressing, cutting, paring, and the like. he divided bindings into two classes, the useful and the beautiful. among the former he reckoned paper covers such as the french use, paper boards and cloth boards, and half leather or calf bindings. cloth he disliked as a poor material, the gold on which soon fades away. as for beautiful bindings, in them 'decoration rises into enthusiasm.' a beautiful binding is 'a homage to genius.' it has its ethical value, its spiritual effect. 'by doing good work we raise life to a higher plane,' said the lecturer, and he dwelt with loving sympathy on the fact that a book is 'sensitive by nature,' that it is made by a human being for a human being, that the design must 'come from the man himself, and express the moods of his imagination, the joy of his soul.' there must, consequently, be no division of labour. 'i make my own paste and enjoy doing it,' said mr. sanderson as he spoke of the necessity for the artist doing the whole work with his own hands. but before we have really good bookbinding we must have a social revolution. as things are now, the worker diminished to a machine is the slave of the employer, and the employer bloated into a millionaire is the slave of the public, and the public is the slave of its pet god, cheapness. the bookbinder of the future is to be an educated man who appreciates literature and has freedom for his fancy and leisure for his thought. all this is very good and sound. but in treating bookbinding as an imaginative, expressive human art we must confess that we think that mr. sanderson made something of an error. bookbinding is essentially decorative, and good decoration is far more often suggested by material and mode of work than by any desire on the part of the designer to tell us of his joy in the world. hence it comes that good decoration is always traditional. where it is the expression of the individual it is usually either false or capricious. these handicrafts are not primarily expressive arts; they are impressive arts. if a man has any message for the world he will not deliver it in a material that always suggests and always conditions its own decoration. the beauty of bookbinding is abstract decorative beauty. it is not, in the first instance, a mode of expression for a man's soul. indeed, the danger of all these lofty claims for handicraft is simply that they show a desire to give crafts the province and motive of arts such as poetry, painting and sculpture. such province and such motive they have not got. their aim is different. between the arts that aim at annihilating their material and the arts that aim at glorifying it there is a wide gulf. however, it was quite right of mr. cobden-sanderson to extol his own art, and though he seemed often to confuse expressive and impressive modes of beauty, he always spoke with great sincerity. next week mr. crane delivers the final lecture of this admirable 'arts and crafts' series and, no doubt, he will have much to say on a subject to which he has devoted the whole of his fine artistic life. for ourselves, we cannot help feeling that in bookbinding art expresses primarily not the feeling of the worker but simply itself, its own beauty, its own wonder. the close of the arts and crafts (pall mall gazette, november , .) mr. walter crane, the president of the society of arts and crafts, was greeted last night by such an enormous audience that at one time the honorary secretary became alarmed for the safety of the cartoons, and many people were unable to gain admission at all. however, order was soon established, and mr. cobden-sanderson stepped up on to the platform and in a few pleasantly sententious phrases introduced mr. crane as one who had always been 'the advocate of great and unpopular causes,' and the aim of whose art was 'joy in widest commonalty spread.' mr. crane began his lecture by pointing out that art had two fields, aspect and adaptation, and that it was primarily with the latter that the designer was concerned, his object being not literal fact but ideal beauty. with the unstudied and accidental effects of nature the designer had nothing to do. he sought for principles and proceeded by geometric plan and abstract line and colour. pictorial art is isolated and unrelated, and the frame is the last relic of the old connection between painting and architecture. but the designer does not desire primarily to produce a picture. he aims at making a pattern and proceeds by selection; he rejects the 'hole in the wall' idea, and will have nothing to do with the 'false windows of a picture.' three things differentiate designs. first, the spirit of the artist, that mode and manner by which durer is separated from flaxman, by which we recognise the soul of a man expressing itself in the form proper to it. next comes the constructive idea, the filling of spaces with lovely work. last is the material which, be it leather or clay, ivory or wood, often suggests and always controls the pattern. as for naturalism, we must remember that we see not with our eyes alone but with our whole faculties. feeling and thought are part of sight. mr. crane then drew on a blackboard the naturalistic oak-tree of the landscape painter and the decorative oak-tree of the designer. he showed that each artist is looking for different things, and that the designer always makes appearance subordinate to decorative motive. he showed also the field daisy as it is in nature and the same flower treated for panel decoration. the designer systematises and emphasises, chooses and rejects, and decorative work bears the same relation to naturalistic presentation that the imaginative language of the poetic drama bears to the language of real life. the decorative capabilities of the square and the circle were then shown on the board, and much was said about symmetry, alternation and radiation, which last principle mr. crane described as 'the home rule of design, the perfection of local self-government,' and which, he pointed out, was essentially organic, manifesting itself in the bird's wing as well as in the tudor vaulting of gothic architecture. mr. crane then passed to the human figure, 'that expressive unit of design,' which contains all the principles of decoration, and exhibited a design of a nude figure with an axe couched in an architectural spandrel, a figure which he was careful to explain was, in spite of the axe, not that of mr. gladstone. the designer then leaving chiaroscuro, shading and other 'superficial facts of life' to take care of themselves, and keeping the idea of space limitation always before him, then proceeds to emphasise the beauty of his material, be it metal with its 'agreeable bossiness,' as ruskin calls it, or leaded glass with its fine dark lines, or mosaic with its jewelled tesserae, or the loom with its crossed threads, or wood with its pleasant crispness. much bad art comes from one art trying to borrow from another. we have sculptors who try to be pictorial, painters who aim at stage effects, weavers who seek for pictorial motives, carvers who make life and not art their aim, cotton printers 'who tie up bunches of artificial flowers with streamers of artificial ribbons' and fling them on the unfortunate textile. then came the little bit of socialism, very sensible and very quietly put. 'how can we have fine art when the worker is condemned to monotonous and mechanical labour in the midst of dull or hideous surroundings, when cities and nature are sacrificed to commercial greed, when cheapness is the god of life?' in old days the craftsman was a designer; he had his 'prentice days of quiet study; and even the painter began by grinding colours. some little old ornament still lingers, here and there, on the brass rosettes of cart-horses, in the common milk-cans of antwerp, in the water-vessels of italy. but even this is disappearing. 'the tourist passes by' and creates a demand that commerce satisfies in an unsatisfactory manner. we have not yet arrived at a healthy state of things. there is still the tottenham court road and a threatened revival of louis seize furniture, and the 'popular pictorial print struggles through the meshes of the antimacassar.' art depends on life. we cannot get it from machines. and yet machines are bad only when they are our masters. the printing press is a machine that art values because it obeys her. true art must have the vital energy of life itself, must take its colours from life's good or evil, must follow angels of light or angels of darkness. the art of the past is not to be copied in a servile spirit. for a new age we require a new form. mr. crane's lecture was most interesting and instructive. on one point only we would differ from him. like mr. morris he quite underrates the art of japan, and looks on the japanese as naturalists and not as decorative artists. it is true that they are often pictorial, but by the exquisite finesse of their touch, the brilliancy and beauty of their colour, their perfect knowledge of how to make a space decorative without decorating it (a point on which mr. crane said nothing, though it is one of the most important things in decoration), and by their keen instinct of where to place a thing, the japanese are decorative artists of a high order. next year somebody must lecture the arts and crafts on japanese art. in the meantime, we congratulate mr. crane and mr. cobden-sanderson on the admirable series of lectures that has been delivered at this exhibition. their influence for good can hardly be over-estimated. the exhibition, we are glad to hear, has been a financial success. it closes tomorrow, but is to be only the first of many to come. english poetesses (queen, december , .) england has given to the world one great poetess, elizabeth barrett browning. by her side mr. swinburne would place miss christina rossetti, whose new year hymn he describes as so much the noblest of sacred poems in our language, that there is none which comes near it enough to stand second. 'it is a hymn,' he tells us, 'touched as with the fire, and bathed as in the light of sunbeams, tuned as to chords and cadences of refluent sea-music beyond reach of harp and organ, large echoes of the serene and sonorous tides of heaven.' much as i admire miss rossetti's work, her subtle choice of words, her rich imagery, her artistic naivete, wherein curious notes of strangeness and simplicity are fantastically blended together, i cannot but think that mr. swinburne has, with noble and natural loyalty, placed her on too lofty a pedestal. to me, she is simply a very delightful artist in poetry. this is indeed something so rare that when we meet it we cannot fail to love it, but it is not everything. beyond it and above it are higher and more sunlit heights of song, a larger vision, and an ampler air, a music at once more passionate and more profound, a creative energy that is born of the spirit, a winged rapture that is born of the soul, a force and fervour of mere utterance that has all the wonder of the prophet, and not a little of the consecration of the priest. mrs. browning is unapproachable by any woman who has ever touched lyre or blown through reed since the days of the great aeolian poetess. but sappho, who, to the antique world was a pillar of flame, is to us but a pillar of shadow. of her poems, burnt with other most precious work by byzantine emperor and by roman pope, only a few fragments remain. possibly they lie mouldering in the scented darkness of an egyptian tomb, clasped in the withered hands of some long-dead lover. some greek monk at athos may even now be poring over an ancient manuscript, whose crabbed characters conceal lyric or ode by her whom the greeks spoke of as 'the poetess' just as they termed homer 'the poet,' who was to them the tenth muse, the flower of the graces, the child of eros, and the pride of hellas--sappho, with the sweet voice, the bright, beautiful eyes, the dark hyacinth-coloured hair. but, practically, the work of the marvellous singer of lesbos is entirely lost to us. we have a few rose-leaves out of her garden, that is all. literature nowadays survives marble and bronze, but in old days, in spite of the roman poet's noble boast, it was not so. the fragile clay vases of the greeks still keep for us pictures of sappho, delicately painted in black and red and white; but of her song we have only the echo of an echo. of all the women of history, mrs. browning is the only one that we could name in any possible or remote conjunction with sappho. sappho was undoubtedly a far more flawless and perfect artist. she stirred the whole antique world more than mrs. browning ever stirred our modern age. never had love such a singer. even in the few lines that remain to us the passion seems to scorch and burn. but, as unjust time, who has crowned her with the barren laurels of fame, has twined with them the dull poppies of oblivion, let us turn from the mere memory of a poetess to one whose song still remains to us as an imperishable glory to our literature; to her who heard the cry of the children from dark mine and crowded factory, and made england weep over its little ones; who, in the feigned sonnets from the portuguese, sang of the spiritual mystery of love, and of the intellectual gifts that love brings to the soul; who had faith in all that is worthy, and enthusiasm for all that is great, and pity for all that suffers; who wrote the vision of poets and casa guidi windows and aurora leigh. as one, to whom i owe my love of poetry no less than my love of country, has said of her: still on our ears the clear 'excelsior' from a woman's lip rings out across the apennines, although the woman's brow lies pale and cold in death with all the mighty marble dead in florence. for while great songs can stir the hearts of men, spreading their full vibrations through the world in ever-widening circles till they reach the throne of god, and song becomes a prayer, and prayer brings down the liberating strength that kindles nations to heroic deeds, she lives--the great-souled poetess who saw from casa guidi windows freedom dawn on italy, and gave the glory back in sunrise hymns to all humanity! she lives indeed, and not alone in the heart of shakespeare's england, but in the heart of dante's italy also. to greek literature she owed her scholarly culture, but modern italy created her human passion for liberty. when she crossed the alps she became filled with a new ardour, and from that fine, eloquent mouth, that we can still see in her portraits, broke forth such a noble and majestic outburst of lyrical song as had not been heard from woman's lips for more than two thousand years. it is pleasant to think that an english poetess was to a certain extent a real factor in bringing about that unity of italy that was dante's dream, and if florence drove her great singer into exile, she at least welcomed within her walls the later singer that england had sent to her. if one were asked the chief qualities of mrs. browning's work, one would say, as mr. swinburne said of byron's, its sincerity and its strength. faults it, of course, possesses. 'she would rhyme moon to table,' used to be said of her in jest; and certainly no more monstrous rhymes are to be found in all literature than some of those we come across in mrs. browning's poems. but her ruggedness was never the result of carelessness. it was deliberate, as her letters to mr. horne show very clearly. she refused to sandpaper her muse. she disliked facile smoothness and artificial polish. in her very rejection of art she was an artist. she intended to produce a certain effect by certain means, and she succeeded; and her indifference to complete assonance in rhyme often gives a splendid richness to her verse, and brings into it a pleasurable element of surprise. in philosophy she was a platonist, in politics an opportunist. she attached herself to no particular party. she loved the people when they were king-like, and kings when they showed themselves to be men. of the real value and motive of poetry she had a most exalted idea. 'poetry,' she says, in the preface of one of her volumes, 'has been as serious a thing to me as life itself; and life has been a very serious thing. there has been no playing at skittles for me in either. i never mistook pleasure for the final cause of poetry, nor leisure for the hour of the poet. i have done my work so far, not as mere hand and head work apart from the personal being, but as the completest expression of that being to which i could attain.' it certainly is her completest expression, and through it she realises her fullest perfection. 'the poet,' she says elsewhere, 'is at once richer and poorer than he used to be; he wears better broadcloth, but speaks no more oracles.' these words give us the keynote to her view of the poet's mission. he was to utter divine oracles, to be at once inspired prophet and holy priest; and as such we may, i think, without exaggeration, conceive her. she was a sibyl delivering a message to the world, sometimes through stammering lips, and once at least with blinded eyes, yet always with the true fire and fervour of lofty and unshaken faith, always with the great raptures of a spiritual nature, the high ardours of an impassioned soul. as we read her best poems we feel that, though apollo's shrine be empty and the bronze tripod overthrown, and the vale of delphi desolate, still the pythia is not dead. in our own age she has sung for us, and this land gave her new birth. indeed, mrs. browning is the wisest of the sibyls, wiser even than that mighty figure whom michael angelo has painted on the roof of the sistine chapel at rome, poring over the scroll of mystery, and trying to decipher the secrets of fate; for she realised that, while knowledge is power, suffering is part of knowledge. to her influence, almost as much as to the higher education of women, i would be inclined to attribute the really remarkable awakening of woman's song that characterises the latter half of our century in england. no country has ever had so many poetesses at once. indeed, when one remembers that the greeks had only nine muses, one is sometimes apt to fancy that we have too many. and yet the work done by women in the sphere of poetry is really of a very high standard of excellence. in england we have always been prone to underrate the value of tradition in literature. in our eagerness to find a new voice and a fresh mode of music, we have forgotten how beautiful echo may be. we look first for individuality and personality, and these are, indeed, the chief characteristics of the masterpieces of our literature, either in prose or verse; but deliberate culture and a study of the best models, if united to an artistic temperament and a nature susceptible of exquisite impressions, may produce much that is admirable, much that is worthy of praise. it would be quite impossible to give a complete catalogue of all the women who since mrs. browning's day have tried lute and lyre. mrs. pfeiffer, mrs. hamilton king, mrs. augusta webster, graham tomson, miss mary robinson, jean ingelow, miss may kendall, miss nesbit, miss may probyn, mrs. craik, mrs. meynell, miss chapman, and many others have done really good work in poetry, either in the grave dorian mode of thoughtful and intellectual verse, or in the light and graceful forms of old french song, or in the romantic manner of antique ballad, or in that 'moment's monument,' as rossetti called it, the intense and concentrated sonnet. occasionally one is tempted to wish that the quick, artistic faculty that women undoubtedly possess developed itself somewhat more in prose and somewhat less in verse. poetry is for our highest moods, when we wish to be with the gods, and in our poetry nothing but the very best should satisfy us; but prose is for our daily bread, and the lack of good prose is one of the chief blots on our culture. french prose, even in the hands of the most ordinary writers, is always readable, but english prose is detestable. we have a few, a very few, masters, such as they are. we have carlyle, who should not be imitated; and mr. pater, who, through the subtle perfection of his form, is inimitable absolutely; and mr. froude, who is useful; and matthew arnold, who is a model; and mr. george meredith, who is a warning; and mr. lang, who is the divine amateur; and mr. stevenson, who is the humane artist; and mr. ruskin, whose rhythm and colour and fine rhetoric and marvellous music of words are entirely unattainable. but the general prose that one reads in magazines and in newspapers is terribly dull and cumbrous, heavy in movement and uncouth or exaggerated in expression. possibly some day our women of letters will apply themselves more definitely to prose. their light touch, and exquisite ear, and delicate sense of balance and proportion would be of no small service to us. i can fancy women bringing a new manner into our literature. however, we have to deal here with women as poetesses, and it is interesting to note that, though mrs. browning's influence undoubtedly contributed very largely to the development of this new song-movement, if i may so term it, still there seems to have been never a time during the last three hundred years when the women of this kingdom did not cultivate, if not the art, at least the habit, of writing poetry. who the first english poetess was i cannot say. i believe it was the abbess juliana berners, who lived in the fifteenth century; but i have no doubt that mr. freeman would be able at a moment's notice to produce some wonderful saxon or norman poetess, whose works cannot be read without a glossary, and even with its aid are completely unintelligible. for my own part, i am content with the abbess juliana, who wrote enthusiastically about hawking; and after her i would mention anne askew, who in prison and on the eve of her fiery martyrdom wrote a ballad that has, at any rate, a pathetic and historical interest. queen elizabeth's 'most sweet and sententious ditty' on mary stuart is highly praised by puttenham, a contemporary critic, as an example of 'exargasia, or the gorgeous in literature,' which somehow seems a very suitable epithet for such a great queen's poems. the term she applies to the unfortunate queen of scots, 'the daughter of debate,' has, of course, long since passed into literature. the countess of pembroke, sir philip sidney's sister, was much admired as a poetess in her day. in the 'learned, virtuous, and truly noble ladie,' elizabeth carew, published a tragedie of marian, the faire queene of jewry, and a few years later the 'noble ladie diana primrose' wrote a chain of pearl, which is a panegyric on the 'peerless graces' of gloriana. mary morpeth, the friend and admirer of drummond of hawthornden; lady mary wroth, to whom ben jonson dedicated the alchemist; and the princess elizabeth, the sister of charles i., should also be mentioned. after the restoration women applied themselves with still greater ardour to the study of literature and the practice of poetry. margaret, duchess of newcastle, was a true woman of letters, and some of her verses are extremely pretty and graceful. mrs. aphra behn was the first englishwoman who adopted literature as a regular profession. mrs. katharine philips, according to mr. gosse, invented sentimentality. as she was praised by dryden, and mourned by cowley, let us hope she may be forgiven. keats came across her poems at oxford when he was writing endymion, and found in one of them 'a most delicate fancy of the fletcher kind'; but i fear nobody reads the matchless orinda now. of lady winchelsea's nocturnal reverie wordsworth said that, with the exception of pope's windsor forest, it was the only poem of the period intervening between paradise lost and thomson's seasons that contained a single new image of external nature. lady rachel russell, who may be said to have inaugurated the letter-writing literature of england; eliza haywood, who is immortalised by the badness of her work, and has a niche in the dunciad; and the marchioness of wharton, whose poems waller said he admired, are very remarkable types, the finest of them being, of course, the first named, who was a woman of heroic mould and of a most noble dignity of nature. indeed, though the english poetesses up to the time of mrs. browning cannot be said to have produced any work of absolute genius, they are certainly interesting figures, fascinating subjects for study. amongst them we find lady mary wortley montague, who had all the caprice of cleopatra, and whose letters are delightful reading; mrs. centlivre, who wrote one brilliant comedy; lady anne barnard, whose auld robin gray was described by sir walter scott as 'worth all the dialogues corydon and phillis have together spoken from the days of theocritus downwards,' and is certainly a very beautiful and touching poem; esther vanhomrigh and hester johnson, the vanessa and the stella of dean swift's life; mrs. thrale, the friend of the great lexicographer; the worthy mrs. barbauld; the excellent mrs. hannah more; the industrious joanna baillie; the admirable mrs. chapone, whose ode to solitude always fills me with the wildest passion for society, and who will at least be remembered as the patroness of the establishment at which becky sharp was educated; miss anna seward, who was called 'the swan of lichfield'; poor l. e. l., whom disraeli described in one of his clever letters to his sister as 'the personification of brompton--pink satin dress, white satin shoes, red cheeks, snub nose, and her hair a la sappho'; mrs. ratcliffe, who introduced the romantic novel, and has consequently much to answer for; the beautiful duchess of devonshire, of whom gibbon said that she was 'made for something better than a duchess'; the two wonderful sisters, lady dufferin and mrs. norton; mrs. tighe, whose psyche keats read with pleasure; constantia grierson, a marvellous blue-stocking in her time; mrs. hemans; pretty, charming 'perdita,' who flirted alternately with poetry and the prince regent, played divinely in the winter's tale, was brutally attacked by gifford, and has left us a pathetic little poem on the snowdrop; and emily bronte, whose poems are instinct with tragic power, and seem often on the verge of being great. old fashions in literature are not so pleasant as old fashions in dress. i like the costume of the age of powder better than the poetry of the age of pope. but if one adopts the historical standpoint--and this is, indeed, the only standpoint from which we can ever form a fair estimate of work that is not absolutely of the highest order--we cannot fail to see that many of the english poetesses who preceded mrs. browning were women of no ordinary talent, and that if the majority of them looked upon poetry simply as a department of belles lettres, so in most cases did their contemporaries. since mrs. browning's day our woods have become full of singing birds, and if i venture to ask them to apply themselves more to prose and less to song, it is not that i like poetical prose, but that i love the prose of poets. london models (english illustrated magazine, january .) professional models are a purely modern invention. to the greeks, for instance, they were quite unknown. mr. mahaffy, it is true, tells us that pericles used to present peacocks to the great ladies of athenian society in order to induce them to sit to his friend phidias, and we know that polygnotus introduced into his picture of the trojan women the face of elpinice, the celebrated sister of the great conservative leader of the day, but these grandes dames clearly do not come under our category. as for the old masters, they undoubtedly made constant studies from their pupils and apprentices, and even their religious pictures are full of the portraits of their friends and relations, but they do not seem to have had the inestimable advantage of the existence of a class of people whose sole profession is to pose. in fact the model, in our sense of the word, is the direct creation of academic schools. every country now has its own models, except america. in new york, and even in boston, a good model is so great a rarity that most of the artists are reduced to painting niagara and millionaires. in europe, however, it is different. here we have plenty of models, and of every nationality. the italian models are the best. the natural grace of their attitudes, as well as the wonderful picturesqueness of their colouring, makes them facile--often too facile--subjects for the painter's brush. the french models, though not so beautiful as the italian, possess a quickness of intellectual sympathy, a capacity, in fact, of understanding the artist, which is quite remarkable. they have also a great command over the varieties of facial expression, are peculiarly dramatic, and can chatter the argot of the atelier as cleverly as the critic of the gil bias. the english models form a class entirely by themselves. they are not so picturesque as the italian, nor so clever as the french, and they have absolutely no tradition, so to speak, of their order. now and then some old veteran knocks at a studio door, and proposes to sit as ajax defying the lightning, or as king lear upon the blasted heath. one of them some time ago called on a popular painter who, happening at the moment to require his services, engaged him, and told him to begin by kneeling down in the attitude of prayer. 'shall i be biblical or shakespearean, sir?' asked the veteran. 'well--shakespearean,' answered the artist, wondering by what subtle nuance of expression the model would convey the difference. 'all right, sir,' said the professor of posing, and he solemnly knelt down and began to wink with his left eye! this class, however, is dying out. as a rule the model, nowadays, is a pretty girl, from about twelve to twenty-five years of age, who knows nothing about art, cares less, and is merely anxious to earn seven or eight shillings a day without much trouble. english models rarely look at a picture, and never venture on any aesthetic theories. in fact, they realise very completely mr. whistler's idea of the function of an art critic, for they pass no criticisms at all. they accept all schools of art with the grand catholicity of the auctioneer, and sit to a fantastic young impressionist as readily as to a learned and laborious academician. they are neither for the whistlerites nor against them; the quarrel between the school of facts and the school of effects touches them not; idealistic and naturalistic are words that convey no meaning to their ears; they merely desire that the studio shall be warm, and the lunch hot, for all charming artists give their models lunch. as to what they are asked to do they are equally indifferent. on monday they will don the rags of a beggar-girl for mr. pumper, whose pathetic pictures of modern life draw such tears from the public, and on tuesday they will pose in a peplum for mr. phoebus, who thinks that all really artistic subjects are necessarily b.c. they career gaily through all centuries and through all costumes, and, like actors, are interesting only when they are not themselves. they are extremely good-natured, and very accommodating. 'what do you sit for?' said a young artist to a model who had sent him in her card (all models, by the way, have cards and a small black bag). 'oh, for anything you like, sir,' said the girl, 'landscape if necessary!' intellectually, it must be acknowledged, they are philistines, but physically they are perfect--at least some are. though none of them can talk greek, many can look greek, which to a nineteenth-century painter is naturally of great importance. if they are allowed, they chatter a great deal, but they never say anything. their observations are the only banalites heard in bohemia. however, though they cannot appreciate the artist as artist, they are quite ready to appreciate the artist as a man. they are very sensitive to kindness, respect and generosity. a beautiful model who had sat for two years to one of our most distinguished english painters, got engaged to a street vendor of penny ices. on her marriage the painter sent her a pretty wedding present, and received in return a nice letter of thanks with the following remarkable postscript: 'never eat the green ices!' when they are tired a wise artist gives them a rest. then they sit in a chair and read penny dreadfuls, till they are roused from the tragedy of literature to take their place again in the tragedy of art. a few of them smoke cigarettes. this, however, is regarded by the other models as showing a want of seriousness, and is not generally approved of. they are engaged by the day and by the half-day. the tariff is a shilling an hour, to which great artists usually add an omnibus fare. the two best things about them are their extraordinary prettiness, and their extreme respectability. as a class they are very well behaved, particularly those who sit for the figure, a fact which is curious or natural according to the view one takes of human nature. they usually marry well, and sometimes they marry the artist. for an artist to marry his model is as fatal as for a gourmet to marry his cook: the one gets no sittings, and the other gets no dinners. on the whole the english female models are very naive, very natural, and very good-humoured. the virtues which the artist values most in them are prettiness and punctuality. every sensible model consequently keeps a diary of her engagements, and dresses neatly. the bad season is, of course, the summer, when the artists are out of town. however, of late years some artists have engaged their models to follow them, and the wife of one of our most charming painters has often had three or four models under her charge in the country, so that the work of her husband and his friends should not be interrupted. in france the models migrate en masse to the little seaport villages or forest hamlets where the painters congregate. the english models, however, wait patiently in london, as a rule, till the artists come back. nearly all of them live with their parents, and help to support the house. they have every qualification for being immortalised in art except that of beautiful hands. the hands of the english model are nearly always coarse and red. as for the male models, there is the veteran whom we have mentioned above. he has all the traditions of the grand style, and is rapidly disappearing with the school he represents. an old man who talks about fuseli is, of course, unendurable, and, besides, patriarchs have ceased to be fashionable subjects. then there is the true academy model. he is usually a man of thirty, rarely good-looking, but a perfect miracle of muscles. in fact he is the apotheosis of anatomy, and is so conscious of his own splendour that he tells you of his tibia and his thorax, as if no one else had anything of the kind. then come the oriental models. the supply of these is limited, but there are always about a dozen in london. they are very much sought after as they can remain immobile for hours, and generally possess lovely costumes. however, they have a very poor opinion of english art, which they regard as something between a vulgar personality and a commonplace photograph. next we have the italian youth who has come over specially to be a model, or takes to it when his organ is out of repair. he is often quite charming with his large melancholy eyes, his crisp hair, and his slim brown figure. it is true he eats garlic, but then he can stand like a faun and couch like a leopard, so he is forgiven. he is always full of pretty compliments, and has been known to have kind words of encouragement for even our greatest artists. as for the english lad of the same age, he never sits at all. apparently he does not regard the career of a model as a serious profession. in any case he is rarely, if ever, to be got hold of. english boys, too, are difficult to find. sometimes an ex-model who has a son will curl his hair, and wash his face, and bring him the round of the studios, all soap and shininess. the young school don't like him, but the older school do, and when he appears on the walls of the royal academy he is called the infant samuel. occasionally also an artist catches a couple of gamins in the gutter and asks them to come to his studio. the first time they always appear, but after that they don't keep their appointments. they dislike sitting still, and have a strong and perhaps natural objection to looking pathetic. besides, they are always under the impression that the artist is laughing at them. it is a sad fact, but there is no doubt that the poor are completely unconscious of their own picturesqueness. those of them who can be induced to sit do so with the idea that the artist is merely a benevolent philanthropist who has chosen an eccentric method of distributing alms to the undeserving. perhaps the school board will teach the london gamin his own artistic value, and then they will be better models than they are now. one remarkable privilege belongs to the academy model, that of extorting a sovereign from any newly elected associate or r.a. they wait at burlington house till the announcement is made, and then race to the hapless artist's house. the one who arrives first receives the money. they have of late been much troubled at the long distances they have had to run, and they look with disfavour on the election of artists who live at hampstead or at bedford park, for it is considered a point of honour not to employ the underground railway, omnibuses, or any artificial means of locomotion. the race is to the swift. besides the professional posers of the studio there are posers of the row, the posers at afternoon teas, the posers in politics and the circus posers. all four classes are delightful, but only the last class is ever really decorative. acrobats and gymnasts can give the young painter infinite suggestions, for they bring into their art an element of swiftness of motion and of constant change that the studio model necessary lacks. what is interesting in these 'slaves of the ring' is that with them beauty is an unconscious result not a conscious aim, the result in fact of the mathematical calculation of curves and distances, of absolute precision of eye, of the scientific knowledge of the equilibrium of forces, and of perfect physical training. a good acrobat is always graceful, though grace is never his object; he is graceful because he does what he has to do in the best way in which it can be done--graceful because he is natural. if an ancient greek were to come to life now, which considering the probable severity of his criticisms would be rather trying to our conceit, he would be found far oftener at the circus than at the theatre. a good circus is an oasis of hellenism in a world that reads too much to be wise, and thinks too much to be beautiful. if it were not for the running-ground at eton, the towing- path at oxford, the thames swimming-baths, and the yearly circuses, humanity would forget the plastic perfection of its own form, and degenerate into a race of short-sighted professors and spectacled precieuses. not that the circus proprietors are, as a rule, conscious of their high mission. do they not bore us with the haute ecole, and weary us with shakespearean clowns?--still, at least, they give us acrobats, and the acrobat is an artist. the mere fact that he never speaks to the audience shows how well he appreciates the great truth that the aim of art is not to reveal personality but to please. the clown may be blatant, but the acrobat is always beautiful. he is an interesting combination of the spirit of greek sculpture with the spangles of the modern costumier. he has even had his niche in the novels of our age, and if manette salomon be the unmasking of the model, les freres zemganno is the apotheosis of the acrobat. as regards the influence of the ordinary model on our english school of painting, it cannot be said that it is altogether good. it is, of course, an advantage for the young artist sitting in his studio to be able to isolate 'a little corner of life,' as the french say, from disturbing surroundings, and to study it under certain effects of light and shade. but this very isolation leads often to mere mannerism in the painter, and robs him of that broad acceptance of the general facts of life which is the very essence of art. model-painting, in a word, while it may be the condition of art, is not by any means its aim. it is simply practice, not perfection. its use trains the eye and the hand of the painter, its abuse produces in his work an effect of mere posing and prettiness. it is the secret of much of the artificiality of modern art, this constant posing of pretty people, and when art becomes artificial it becomes monotonous. outside the little world of the studio, with its draperies and its bric-a-brac, lies the world of life with its infinite, its shakespearean variety. we must, however, distinguish between the two kinds of models, those who sit for the figure and those who sit for the costume. the study of the first is always excellent, but the costume- model is becoming rather wearisome in modern pictures. it is really of very little use to dress up a london girl in greek draperies and to paint her as a goddess. the robe may be the robe of athens, but the face is usually the face of brompton. now and then, it is true, one comes across a model whose face is an exquisite anachronism, and who looks lovely and natural in the dress of any century but her own. this, however, is rather rare. as a rule models are absolutely de notre siecle, and should be painted as such. unfortunately they are not, and, as a consequence, we are shown every year a series of scenes from fancy dress balls which are called historical pictures, but are little more than mediocre representations of modern people masquerading. in france they are wiser. the french painter uses the model simply for study; for the finished picture he goes direct to life. however, we must not blame the sitters for the shortcomings of the artists. the english models are a well-behaved and hard-working class, and if they are more interested in artists than in art, a large section of the public is in the same condition, and most of our modern exhibitions seem to justify its choice. letter to joaquin miller written to mr. joaquin miller in reply to a letter, dated february , , in reference to the behaviour of a section of the audience at wilde's lecture on the english renaissance at the grand opera house, rochester, new york state, on february . it was first published in a volume called decorative art in america, containing unauthorised reprints of certain reviews and letters contributed by wilde to english newspapers. (new york: brentano's, .) st. louis, february , . my dear joaquin miller,--i thank you for your chivalrous and courteous letter. believe me, i would as lief judge of the strength and splendour of sun and sea by the dust that dances in the beam and the bubble that breaks on the wave, as take the petty and profitless vulgarity of one or two insignificant towns as any test or standard of the real spirit of a sane, strong and simple people, or allow it to affect my respect for the many noble men or women whom it has been my privilege in this great country to know. for myself and the cause which i represent i have no fears as regards the future. slander and folly have their way for a season, but for a season only; while, as touching the few provincial newspapers which have so vainly assailed me, or that ignorant and itinerant libeller of new england who goes lecturing from village to village in such open and ostentatious isolation, be sure i have no time to waste on them. youth being so glorious, art so godlike, and the very world about us so full of beautiful things, and things worthy of reverence, and things honourable, how should one stop to listen to the lucubrations of a literary gamin, to the brawling and mouthing of a man whose praise would be as insolent as his slander is impotent, or to the irresponsible and irrepressible chatter of the professionally unproductive? it is a great advantage, i admit, to have done nothing, but one must not abuse even that advantage. who, after all, that i should write of him, is this scribbling anonymuncule in grand old massachusetts who scrawls and screams so glibly about what he cannot understand? this apostle of inhospitality, who delights to defile, to desecrate, and to defame the gracious courtesies he is unworthy to enjoy? who are these scribes who, passing with purposeless alacrity from the police news to the parthenon, and from crime to criticism, sway with such serene incapacity the office which they so lately swept? 'narcissuses of imbecility,' what should they see in the clear waters of beauty and in the well undefiled of truth but the shifting and shadowy image of their own substantial stupidity? secure of that oblivion for which they toil so laboriously and, i must acknowledge, with such success, let them peer at us through their telescopes and report what they like of us. but, my dear joaquin, should we put them under the microscope there would be really nothing to be seen. i look forward to passing another delightful evening with you on my return to new york, and i need not tell you that whenever you visit england you will be received with that courtesy with which it is our pleasure to welcome all americans, and that honour with which it is our privilege to greet all poets.--most sincerely and affectionately yours, oscar wilde. notes on whistler i. (world, november , .) from oscar wilde, exeter, to j. m'neill whistler, tite street.--punch too ridiculous--when you and i are together we never talk about anything except ourselves. ii. (world, february , .) dear butterfly,--by the aid of a biographical dictionary i made the discovery that there were once two painters, called benjamin west and paul delaroche, who rashly lectured upon art. as of their works nothing at all remains, i conclude that they explained themselves away. be warned in time, james; and remain, as i do, incomprehensible. to be great is to be misunderstood.--tout a vous, oscar wilde. iii. (world, november , .) atlas,--this is very sad! with our james vulgarity begins at home, and should be allowed to stay there.--a vous, oscar wilde. reply to whistler (truth, january , .) to the editor of truth. sir,--i can hardly imagine that the public is in the very smallest degree interested in the shrill shrieks of 'plagiarism' that proceed from time to time out of the lips of silly vanity or incompetent mediocrity. however, as mr. james whistler has had the impertinence to attack me with both venom and vulgarity in your columns, i hope you will allow me to state that the assertions contained in his letter are as deliberately untrue as they are deliberately offensive. the definition of a disciple as one who has the courage of the opinions of his master is really too old even for mr. whistler to be allowed to claim it, and as for borrowing mr. whistler's ideas about art, the only thoroughly original ideas i have ever heard him express have had reference to his own superiority as a painter over painters greater than himself. it is a trouble for any gentleman to have to notice the lucubrations of so ill-bred and ignorant a person as mr. whistler, but your publication of his insolent letter left me no option in the matter.--i remain, sir, faithfully yours, oscar wilde. tite street, chelsea, s. w. letters on dorian gray i. mr. wilde's bad case (st. james's gazette, june , .) to the editor of the st. james's gazette. sir,--i have read your criticism of my story, the picture of dorian gray; and i need hardly say that i do not propose to discuss its merits or demerits, its personalities or its lack of personality. england is a free country, and ordinary english criticism is perfectly free and easy. besides, i must admit that, either from temperament or taste, or from both, i am quite incapable of understanding how any work of art can be criticised from a moral standpoint. the sphere of art and the sphere of ethics are absolutely distinct and separate; and it is to the confusion between the two that we owe the appearance of mrs. grundy, that amusing old lady who represents the only original form of humour that the middle classes of this country have been able to produce. what i do object to most strongly is that you should have placarded the town with posters on which was printed in large letters:-- mr. oscar wilde's latest advertisement: a bad case. whether the expression 'a bad case' refers to my book or to the present position of the government, i cannot tell. what was silly and unnecessary was the use of the term 'advertisement.' i think i may say without vanity--though i do not wish to appear to run vanity down--that of all men in england i am the one who requires least advertisement. i am tired to death of being advertised--i feel no thrill when i see my name in a paper. the chronicle does not interest me any more. i wrote this book entirely for my own pleasure, and it gave me very great pleasure to write it. whether it becomes popular or not is a matter of absolute indifference to me. i am afraid, sir, that the real advertisement is your cleverly written article. the english public, as a mass, takes no interest in a work of art until it is told that the work in question is immoral, and your reclame will, i have no doubt, largely increase the sale of the magazine; in which sale i may mention with some regret, i have no pecuniary interest.--i remain, sir, your obedient servant, oscar wilde. tite street, chelsea, june . ii. mr. oscar wilde again (st. james's gazette, june , .) sir,--in your issue of today you state that my brief letter published in your columns is the 'best reply' i can make to your article upon dorian gray. this is not so. i do not propose to discuss fully the matter here, but i feel bound to say that your article contains the most unjustifiable attack that has been made upon any man of letters for many years. the writer of it, who is quite incapable of concealing his personal malice, and so in some measure destroys the effect he wishes to produce, seems not to have the slightest idea of the temper in which a work of art should be approached. to say that such a book as mine should be 'chucked into the fire' is silly. that is what one does with newspapers. of the value of pseudo-ethical criticism in dealing with artistic work i have spoken already. but as your writer has ventured into the perilous grounds of literary criticism i ask you to allow me, in fairness not merely to myself but to all men to whom literature is a fine art, to say a few words about his critical method. he begins by assailing me with much ridiculous virulence because the chief personages in my story are puppies. they _are_ puppies. does he think that literature went to the dogs when thackeray wrote about puppydom? i think that puppies are extremely interesting from an artistic as well as from a psychological point of view. they seem to me to be certainly far more interesting than prigs; and i am of opinion that lord henry wotton is an excellent corrective of the tedious ideal shadowed forth in the semi-theological novels of our age. he then makes vague and fearful insinuations about my grammar and my erudition. now, as regards grammar, i hold that, in prose at any rate, correctness should always be subordinate to artistic effect and musical cadence; and any peculiarities of syntax that may occur in dorian gray are deliberately intended, and are introduced to show the value of the artistic theory in question. your writer gives no instance of any such peculiarity. this i regret, because i do not think that any such instances occur. as regards erudition, it is always difficult, even for the most modest of us, to remember that other people do not know quite as much as one does one's self. i myself frankly admit i cannot imagine how a casual reference to suetonius and petronius arbiter can be construed into evidence of a desire to impress an unoffending and ill-educated public by an assumption of superior knowledge. i should fancy that the most ordinary of scholars is perfectly well acquainted with the lives of the caesars and with the satyricon. the lives of the caesars, at any rate, forms part of the curriculum at oxford for those who take the honour school of literae humaniores; and as for the satyricon it is popular even among pass-men, though i suppose they are obliged to read it in translations. the writer of the article then suggests that i, in common with that great and noble artist count tolstoi, take pleasure in a subject because it is dangerous. about such a suggestion there is this to be said. romantic art deals with the exception and with the individual. good people, belonging as they do to the normal, and so, commonplace, type, are artistically uninteresting. bad people are, from the point of view of art, fascinating studies. they represent colour, variety and strangeness. good people exasperate one's reason; bad people stir one's imagination. your critic, if i must give him so honourable a title, states that the people in my story have no counterpart in life; that they are, to use his vigorous if somewhat vulgar phrase, 'mere catchpenny revelations of the non-existent.' quite so. if they existed they would not be worth writing about. the function of the artist is to invent, not to chronicle. there are no such people. if there were i would not write about them. life by its realism is always spoiling the subject-matter of art. the superior pleasure in literature is to realise the non-existent. and finally, let me say this. you have reproduced, in a journalistic form, the comedy of much ado about nothing and have, of course, spoilt it in your reproduction. the poor public, hearing, from an authority so high as your own, that this is a wicked book that should be coerced and suppressed by a tory government, will, no doubt, rush to it and read it. but, alas! they will find that it is a story with a moral. and the moral is this: all excess, as well as all renunciation, brings its own punishment. the painter, basil hallward, worshipping physical beauty far too much, as most painters do, dies by the hand of one in whose soul he has created a monstrous and absurd vanity. dorian gray, having led a life of mere sensation and pleasure, tries to kill conscience, and at that moment kills himself. lord henry wotton seeks to be merely the spectator of life. he finds that those who reject the battle are more deeply wounded than those who take part in it. yes, there is a terrible moral in dorian gray--a moral which the prurient will not be able to find in it, but it will be revealed to all whose minds are healthy. is this an artistic error? i fear it is. it is the only error in the book.--i remain, sir, your obedient servant, oscar wilde. tite street, chelsea, june . iii. mr. oscar wilde's defence (st. james's gazette, june , .) to the editor of the st. james's gazette. sir,--as you still keep up, though in a somewhat milder form than before, your attacks on me and my book, you not only confer on me the right, but you impose upon me the duty of reply. you state, in your issue of today, that i misrepresented you when i said that you suggested that a book so wicked as mine should be 'suppressed and coerced by a tory government.' now, you did not propose this, but you did suggest it. when you declare that you do not know whether or not the government will take action about my book, and remark that the authors of books much less wicked have been proceeded against in law, the suggestion is quite obvious. in your complaint of misrepresentation you seem to me, sir, to have been not quite candid. however, as far as i am concerned, this suggestion is of no importance. what is of importance is that the editor of a paper like yours should appear to countenance the monstrous theory that the government of a country should exercise a censorship over imaginative literature. this is a theory against which i, and all men of letters of my acquaintance, protest most strongly; and any critic who admits the reasonableness of such a theory shows at once that he is quite incapable of understanding what literature is, and what are the rights that literature possesses. a government might just as well try to teach painters how to paint, or sculptors how to model, as attempt to interfere with the style, treatment and subject-matter of the literary artist, and no writer, however eminent or obscure, should ever give his sanction to a theory that would degrade literature far more than any didactic or so-called immoral book could possibly do. you then express your surprise that 'so experienced a literary gentleman' as myself should imagine that your critic was animated by any feeling of personal malice towards him. the phrase 'literary gentleman' is a vile phrase, but let that pass. i accept quite readily your assurance that your critic was simply criticising a work of art in the best way that he could, but i feel that i was fully justified in forming the opinion of him that i did. he opened his article by a gross personal attack on myself. this, i need hardly say, was an absolutely unpardonable error of critical taste. there is no excuse for it except personal malice; and you, sir, should not have sanctioned it. a critic should be taught to criticise a work of art without making any reference to the personality of the author. this, in fact, is the beginning of criticism. however, it was not merely his personal attack on me that made me imagine that he was actuated by malice. what really confirmed me in my first impression was his reiterated assertion that my book was tedious and dull. now, if i were criticising my book, which i have some thoughts of doing, i think i would consider it my duty to point out that it is far too crowded with sensational incident, and far too paradoxical in style, as far, at any rate, as the dialogue goes. i feel that from a standpoint of art these are true defects in the book. but tedious and dull the book is not. your critic has cleared himself of the charge of personal malice, his denial and yours being quite sufficient in the matter; but he has done so only by a tacit admission that he has really no critical instinct about literature and literary work, which, in one who writes about literature, is, i need hardly say, a much graver fault than malice of any kind. finally, sir, allow me to say this. such an article as you have published really makes me despair of the possibility of any general culture in england. were i a french author, and my book brought out in paris, there is not a single literary critic in france on any paper of high standing who would think for a moment of criticising it from an ethical standpoint. if he did so he would stultify himself, not merely in the eyes of all men of letters, but in the eyes of the majority of the public. you have yourself often spoken against puritanism. believe me, sir, puritanism is never so offensive and destructive as when it deals with art matters. it is there that it is radically wrong. it is this puritanism, to which your critic has given expression, that is always marring the artistic instinct of the english. so far from encouraging it, you should set yourself against it, and should try to teach your critics to recognise the essential difference between art and life. the gentleman who criticised my book is in a perfectly hopeless confusion about it, and your attempt to help him out by proposing that the subject- matter of art should be limited does not mend matters. it is proper that limitation should be placed on action. it is not proper that limitation should be placed on art. to art belong all things that are and all things that are not, and even the editor of a london paper has no right to restrain the freedom of art in the selection of subject-matter. i now trust, sir, that these attacks on me and on my book will cease. there are forms of advertisement that are unwarranted and unwarrantable.--i am, sir, your obedient servant, oscar wilde. tite street, s. w., june . iv. (st. james's gazette, june , .) to the editor of the st. james's gazette. sir,--in your issue of this evening you publish a letter from 'a london editor' which clearly insinuates in the last paragraph that i have in some way sanctioned the circulation of an expression of opinion, on the part of the proprietors of lippincott's magazine, of the literary and artistic value of my story of the picture of dorian gray. allow me, sir, to state that there are no grounds for this insinuation. i was not aware that any such document was being circulated; and i have written to the agents, messrs. ward and lock--who cannot, i feel sure, be primarily responsible for its appearance--to ask them to withdraw it at once. no publisher should ever express an opinion of the value of what he publishes. that is a matter entirely for the literary critic to decide. i must admit, as one to whom contemporary literature is constantly submitted for criticism, that the only thing that ever prejudices me against a book is the lack of literary style; but i can quite understand how any ordinary critic would be strongly prejudiced against a work that was accompanied by a premature and unnecessary panegyric from the publisher. a publisher is simply a useful middleman. it is not for him to anticipate the verdict of criticism. i may, however, while expressing my thanks to the 'london editor' for drawing my attention to this, i trust, purely american method of procedure, venture to differ from him in one of his criticisms. he states that he regards the expression 'complete' as applied to a story, as a specimen of the 'adjectival exuberance of the puffer.' here, it seems to me, he sadly exaggerates. what my story is is an interesting problem. what my story is not is a 'novelette'--a term which you have more than once applied to it. there is no such word in the english language as novelette. it should not be used. it is merely part of the slang of fleet street. in another part of your paper, sir, you state that i received your assurance of the lack of malice in your critic 'somewhat grudgingly.' this is not so. i frankly said that i accepted that assurance 'quite readily,' and that your own denial and that of your own critic were 'sufficient.' nothing more generous could have been said. what i did feel was that you saved your critic from the charge of malice by convicting him of the unpardonable crime of lack of literary instinct. i still feel that. to call my book an ineffective attempt at allegory, that in the hands of mr. anstey might have been made striking, is absurd. mr. anstey's sphere in literature and my sphere are different. you then gravely ask me what rights i imagine literature possesses. that is really an extraordinary question for the editor of a newspaper such as yours to ask. the rights of literature, sir, are the rights of intellect. i remember once hearing m. renan say that he would sooner live under a military despotism than under the despotism of the church, because the former merely limited the freedom of action, while the latter limited the freedom of mind. you say that a work of art is a form of action. it is not. it is the highest mode of thought. in conclusion, sir, let me ask you not to force on me this continued correspondence by daily attacks. it is a trouble and a nuisance. as you assailed me first, i have a right to the last word. let that last word be the present letter, and leave my book, i beg you, to the immortality that it deserves.--i am, sir, your obedient servant, oscar wilde. tite street, s.w., june . v. 'dorian gray' (daily chronicle, july , .) to the editor of the daily chronicle. sir,--will you allow me to correct some errors into which your critic has fallen in his review of my story, the picture of dorian gray, published in today's issue of your paper? your critic states, to begin with, that i make desperate attempts to 'vamp up' a moral in my story. now, i must candidly confess that i do not know what 'vamping' is. i see, from time to time, mysterious advertisements in the newspapers about 'how to vamp,' but what vamping really means remains a mystery to me--a mystery that, like all other mysteries, i hope some day to explore. however, i do not propose to discuss the absurd terms used by modern journalism. what i want to say is that, so far from wishing to emphasise any moral in my story, the real trouble i experienced in writing the story was that of keeping the extremely obvious moral subordinate to the artistic and dramatic effect. when i first conceived the idea of a young man selling his soul in exchange for eternal youth--an idea that is old in the history of literature, but to which i have given new form--i felt that, from an aesthetic point of view, it would be difficult to keep the moral in its proper secondary place; and even now i do not feel quite sure that i have been able to do so. i think the moral too apparent. when the book is published in a volume i hope to correct this defect. as for what the moral is, your critic states that it is this--that when a man feels himself becoming 'too angelic' he should rush out and make a 'beast of himself.' i cannot say that i consider this a moral. the real moral of the story is that all excess, as well as all renunciation, brings its punishment, and this moral is so far artistically and deliberately suppressed that it does not enunciate its law as a general principle, but realises itself purely in the lives of individuals, and so becomes simply a dramatic element in a work of art, and not the object of the work of art itself. your critic also falls into error when he says that dorian gray, having a 'cool, calculating, conscienceless character,' was inconsistent when he destroyed the picture of his own soul, on the ground that the picture did not become less hideous after he had done what, in his vanity, he had considered his first good action. dorian gray has not got a cool, calculating, conscienceless character at all. on the contrary, he is extremely impulsive, absurdly romantic, and is haunted all through his life by an exaggerated sense of conscience which mars his pleasures for him and warns him that youth and enjoyment are not everything in the world. it is finally to get rid of the conscience that had dogged his steps from year to year that he destroys the picture; and thus in his attempt to kill conscience dorian gray kills himself. your critic then talks about 'obtrusively cheap scholarship.' now, whatever a scholar writes is sure to display scholarship in the distinction of style and the fine use of language; but my story contains no learned or pseudo-learned discussions, and the only literary books that it alludes to are books that any fairly educated reader may be supposed to be acquainted with, such as the satyricon of petronius arbiter, or gautier's emaux et camees. such books as le conso's clericalis disciplina belong not to culture, but to curiosity. anybody may be excused for not knowing them. finally, let me say this--the aesthetic movement produced certain curious colours, subtle in their loveliness and fascinating in their almost mystical tone. they were, and are, our reaction against the crude primaries of a doubtless more respectable but certainly less cultivated age. my story is an essay on decorative art. it reacts against the crude brutality of plain realism. it is poisonous if you like, but you cannot deny that it is also perfect, and perfection is what we artists aim at.--i remain, sir, your obedient servant, oscar wilde. tite street, june . vi. mr. wilde's rejoinder (scots observer, july , .) to the editor of the scots observer. sir,--you have published a review of my story, the picture of dorian gray. as this review is grossly unjust to me as an artist, i ask you to allow me to exercise in your columns my right of reply. your reviewer, sir, while admitting that the story in question is 'plainly the work of a man of letters,' the work of one who has 'brains, and art, and style,' yet suggests, and apparently in all seriousness, that i have written it in order that it should be read by the most depraved members of the criminal and illiterate classes. now, sir, i do not suppose that the criminal and illiterate classes ever read anything except newspapers. they are certainly not likely to be able to understand anything of mine. so let them pass, and on the broad question of why a man of letters writes at all let me say this. the pleasure that one has in creating a work of art is a purely personal pleasure, and it is for the sake of this pleasure that one creates. the artist works with his eye on the object. nothing else interests him. what people are likely to say does not even occur to him. he is fascinated by what he has in hand. he is indifferent to others. i write because it gives me the greatest possible artistic pleasure to write. if my work pleases the few i am gratified. if it does not, it causes me no pain. as for the mob, i have no desire to be a popular novelist. it is far too easy. your critic then, sir, commits the absolutely unpardonable crime of trying to confuse the artist with his subject-matter. for this, sir, there is no excuse at all. of one who is the greatest figure in the world's literature since greek days, keats remarked that he had as much pleasure in conceiving the evil as he had in conceiving the good. let your reviewer, sir, consider the bearings of keats's fine criticism, for it is under these conditions that every artist works. one stands remote from one's subject-matter. one creates it and one contemplates it. the further away the subject-matter is, the more freely can the artist work. your reviewer suggests that i do not make it sufficiently clear whether i prefer virtue to wickedness or wickedness to virtue. an artist, sir, has no ethical sympathies at all. virtue and wickedness are to him simply what the colours on his palette are to the painter. they are no more and they are no less. he sees that by their means a certain artistic effect can be produced and he produces it. iago may be morally horrible and imogen stainlessly pure. shakespeare, as keats said, had as much delight in creating the one as he had in creating the other. it was necessary, sir, for the dramatic development of this story to surround dorian gray with an atmosphere of moral corruption. otherwise the story would have had no meaning and the plot no issue. to keep this atmosphere vague and indeterminate and wonderful was the aim of the artist who wrote the story. i claim, sir, that he has succeeded. each man sees his own sin in dorian gray. what dorian gray's sins are no one knows. he who finds them has brought them. in conclusion, sir, let me say how really deeply i regret that you should have permitted such a notice as the one i feel constrained to write on to have appeared in your paper. that the editor of the st. james's gazette should have employed caliban as his art-critic was possibly natural. the editor of the scots observer should not have allowed thersites to make mows in his review. it is unworthy of so distinguished a man of letters.--i am, etc., oscar wilde. tite street, chelsea, july . vii. art and morality (scots observer, august , .) to the editor of the scots observer. sir,--in a letter dealing with the relations of art to morals recently published in your columns--a letter which i may say seems to me in many respects admirable, especially in its insistence on the right of the artist to select his own subject-matter--mr. charles whibley suggests that it must be peculiarly painful for me to find that the ethical import of dorian gray has been so strongly recognised by the foremost christian papers of england and america that i have been greeted by more than one of them as a moral reformer. allow me, sir, to reassure, on this point, not merely mr. charles whibley himself but also your, no doubt, anxious readers. i have no hesitation in saying that i regard such criticisms as a very gratifying tribute to my story. for if a work of art is rich, and vital and complete, those who have artistic instincts will see its beauty, and those to whom ethics appeal more strongly than aesthetics will see its moral lesson. it will fill the cowardly with terror, and the unclean will see in it their own shame. it will be to each man what he is himself. it is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. and so in the case of dorian gray the purely literary critic, as in the speaker and elsewhere, regards it as a 'serious' and 'fascinating' work of art: the critic who deals with art in its relation to conduct, as the christian leader and the christian world, regards it as an ethical parable: light, which i am told is the organ of the english mystics, regards it as a work of high spiritual import; the st. james's gazette, which is seeking apparently to be the organ of the prurient, sees or pretends to see in it all kinds of dreadful things, and hints at treasury prosecutions; and your mr. charles whibley genially says that he discovers in it 'lots of morality.' it is quite true that he goes on to say that he detects no art in it. but i do not think that it is fair to expect a critic to be able to see a work of art from every point of view. even gautier had his limitations just as much as diderot had, and in modern england goethes are rare. i can only assure mr. charles whibley that no moral apotheosis to which he has added the most modest contribution could possibly be a source of unhappiness to an artist.--i remain, sir, your obedient servant, oscar wilde. tite street, chelsea, july . viii. (scots observer, august , .) to the editor of the scots observer. sir,--i am afraid i cannot enter into any newspaper discussion on the subject of art with mr. whibley, partly because the writing of letters is always a trouble to me, and partly because i regret to say that i do not know what qualifications mr. whibley possesses for the discussion of so important a topic. i merely noticed his letter because, i am sure without in any way intending it, he made a suggestion about myself personally that was quite inaccurate. his suggestion was that it must have been painful to me to find that a certain section of the public, as represented by himself and the critics of some religious publications, had insisted on finding what he calls 'lots of morality' in my story of the picture of dorian gray. being naturally desirous of setting your readers right on a question of such vital interest to the historian, i took the opportunity of pointing out in your columns that i regarded all such criticisms as a very gratifying tribute to the ethical beauty of the story, and i added that i was quite ready to recognise that it was not really fair to ask of any ordinary critic that he should be able to appreciate a work of art from every point of view. i still hold this opinion. if a man sees the artistic beauty of a thing, he will probably care very little for its ethical import. if his temperament is more susceptible to ethical than to aesthetic influences, he will be blind to questions of style, treatment and the like. it takes a goethe to see a work of art fully, completely and perfectly, and i thoroughly agree with mr. whibley when he says that it is a pity that goethe never had an opportunity of reading dorian gray. i feel quite certain that he would have been delighted by it, and i only hope that some ghostly publisher is even now distributing shadowy copies in the elysian fields, and that the cover of gautier's copy is powdered with gilt asphodels. you may ask me, sir, why i should care to have the ethical beauty of my story recognised. i answer, simply because it exists, because the thing is there. the chief merit of madame bovary is not the moral lesson that can be found in it, any more than the chief merit of salammbo is its archaeology; but flaubert was perfectly right in exposing the ignorance of those who called the one immoral and the other inaccurate; and not merely was he right in the ordinary sense of the word, but he was artistically right, which is everything. the critic has to educate the public; the artist has to educate the critic. allow me to make one more correction, sir, and i will have done with mr. whibley. he ends his letter with the statement that i have been indefatigable in my public appreciation of my own work. i have no doubt that in saying this he means to pay me a compliment, but he really overrates my capacity, as well as my inclination for work. i must frankly confess that, by nature and by choice, i am extremely indolent. cultivated idleness seems to me to be the proper occupation for man. i dislike newspaper controversies of any kind, and of the two hundred and sixteen criticisms of dorian gray that have passed from my library table into the wastepaper basket i have taken public notice of only three. one was that which appeared in the scots observer. i noticed it because it made a suggestion, about the intention of the author in writing the book, which needed correction. the second was an article in the st. james's gazette. it was offensively and vulgarly written, and seemed to me to require immediate and caustic censure. the tone of the article was an impertinence to any man of letters. the third was a meek attack in a paper called the daily chronicle. i think my writing to the daily chronicle was an act of pure wilfulness. in fact, i feel sure it was. i quite forget what they said. i believe they said that dorian gray was poisonous, and i thought that, on alliterative grounds, it would be kind to remind them that, however that may be, it is at any rate perfect. that was all. of the other two hundred and thirteen criticisms i have taken no notice. indeed, i have not read more than half of them. it is a sad thing, but one wearies even of praise. as regards mr. brown's letter, it is interesting only in so far as it exemplifies the truth of what i have said above on the question of the two obvious schools of critics. mr. brown says frankly that he considers morality to be the 'strong point' of my story. mr. brown means well, and has got hold of a half truth, but when he proceeds to deal with the book from the artistic standpoint he, of course, goes sadly astray. to class dorian gray with m. zola's la terre is as silly as if one were to class musset's fortunio with one of the adelphi melodramas. mr. brown should be content with ethical appreciation. there he is impregnable. mr. cobban opens badly by describing my letter, setting mr. whibley right on a matter of fact, as an 'impudent paradox.' the term 'impudent' is meaningless, and the word 'paradox' is misplaced. i am afraid that writing to newspapers has a deteriorating influence on style. people get violent and abusive and lose all sense of proportion, when they enter that curious journalistic arena in which the race is always to the noisiest. 'impudent paradox' is neither violent nor abusive, but it is not an expression that should have been used about my letter. however, mr. cobban makes full atonement afterwards for what was, no doubt, a mere error of manner, by adopting the impudent paradox in question as his own, and pointing out that, as i had previously said, the artist will always look at the work of art from the standpoint of beauty of style and beauty of treatment, and that those who have not got the sense of beauty, or whose sense of beauty is dominated by ethical considerations, will always turn their attention to the subject-matter and make its moral import the test and touchstone of the poem or novel or picture that is presented to them, while the newspaper critic will sometimes take one side and sometimes the other, according as he is cultured or uncultured. in fact, mr. cobban converts the impudent paradox into a tedious truism, and, i dare say, in doing so does good service. the english public likes tediousness, and likes things to be explained to it in a tedious way. mr. cobban has, i have no doubt, already repented of the unfortunate expression with which he has made his debut, so i will say no more about it. as far as i am concerned he is quite forgiven. and finally, sir, in taking leave of the scots observer i feel bound to make a candid confession to you. it has been suggested to me by a great friend of mine, who is a charming and distinguished man of letters, and not unknown to you personally, that there have been really only two people engaged in this terrible controversy, and that those two people are the editor of the scots observer and the author of dorian gray. at dinner this evening, over some excellent chianti, my friend insisted that under assumed and mysterious names you had simply given dramatic expression to the views of some of the semi-educated classes of our community, and that the letters signed 'h.' were your own skilful, if somewhat bitter, caricature of the philistine as drawn by himself. i admit that something of the kind had occurred to me when i read 'h.'s' first letter--the one in which he proposes that the test of art should be the political opinions of the artist, and that if one differed from the artist on the question of the best way of misgoverning ireland, one should always abuse his work. still, there are such infinite varieties of philistines, and north britain is so renowned for seriousness, that i dismissed the idea as one unworthy of the editor of a scotch paper. i now fear that i was wrong, and that you have been amusing yourself all the time by inventing little puppets and teaching them how to use big words. well, sir, if it be so--and my friend is strong upon the point--allow me to congratulate you most sincerely on the cleverness with which you have reproduced that lack of literary style which is, i am told, essential for any dramatic and lifelike characterisation. i confess that i was completely taken in; but i bear no malice; and as you have, no doubt, been laughing at me up your sleeve, let me now join openly in the laugh, though it be a little against myself. a comedy ends when the secret is out. drop your curtain and put your dolls to bed. i love don quixote, but i do not wish to fight any longer with marionettes, however cunning may be the master-hand that works their wires. let them go, sir, on the shelf. the shelf is the proper place for them. on some future occasion you can re-label them and bring them out for our amusement. they are an excellent company, and go well through their tricks, and if they are a little unreal, i am not the one to object to unreality in art. the jest was really a good one. the only thing that i cannot understand is why you gave your marionettes such extraordinary and improbable names.--i remain, sir, your obedient servant, oscar wilde. tite street, chelsea, august . an anglo-indian's complaint (times, september , .) to the editor of the times. sir,--the writer of a letter signed 'an indian civilian' that appears in your issue of today makes a statement about me which i beg you to allow me to correct at once. he says i have described the anglo-indians as being vulgar. this is not the case. indeed, i have never met a vulgar anglo-indian. there may be many, but those whom i have had the pleasure of meeting here have been chiefly scholars, men interested in art and thought, men of cultivation; nearly all of them have been exceedingly brilliant talkers; some of them have been exceedingly brilliant writers. what i did say--i believe in the pages of the nineteenth century { }--was that vulgarity is the distinguishing note of those anglo-indians whom mr. rudyard kipling loves to write about, and writes about so cleverly. this is quite true, and there is no reason why mr. rudyard kipling should not select vulgarity as his subject-matter, or as part of it. for a realistic artist, certainly, vulgarity is a most admirable subject. how far mr. kipling's stories really mirror anglo- indian society i have no idea at all, nor, indeed, am i ever much interested in any correspondence between art and nature. it seems to me a matter of entirely secondary importance. i do not wish, however, that it should be supposed that i was passing a harsh and saugrenu judgment on an important and in many ways distinguished class, when i was merely pointing out the characteristic qualities of some puppets in a prose-play.--i remain, sir, your obedient servant, oscar wilde. september . a house of pomegranates i. (speaker, december , .) sir.--i have just purchased, at a price that for any other english sixpenny paper i would have considered exorbitant, a copy of the speaker at one of the charming kiosks that decorate paris; institutions, by the way, that i think we should at once introduce into london. the kiosk is a delightful object, and, when illuminated at night from within, as lovely as a fantastic chinese lantern, especially when the transparent advertisements are from the clever pencil of m. cheret. in london we have merely the ill-clad newsvendor, whose voice, in spite of the admirable efforts of the royal college of music to make england a really musical nation, is always out of tune, and whose rags, badly designed and badly worn, merely emphasise a painful note of uncomely misery, without conveying that impression of picturesqueness which is the only thing that makes the poverty of others at all bearable. it is not, however, about the establishment of kiosks in london that i wish to write to you, though i am of opinion that it is a thing that the county council should at once take in hand. the object of my letter is to correct a statement made in a paragraph of your interesting paper. the writer of the paragraph in question states that the decorative designs that make lovely my book, a house of pomegranates, are by the hand of mr. shannon, while the delicate dreams that separate and herald each story are by mr. ricketts. the contrary is the case. mr. shannon is the drawer of the dreams, and mr. ricketts is the subtle and fantastic decorator. indeed, it is to mr. ricketts that the entire decorative design of the book is due, from the selection of the type and the placing of the ornamentation, to the completely beautiful cover that encloses the whole. the writer of the paragraph goes on to state that he does not 'like the cover.' this is, no doubt, to be regretted, though it is not a matter of much importance, as there are only two people in the world whom it is absolutely necessary that the cover should please. one is mr. ricketts, who designed it, the other is myself, whose book it binds. we both admire it immensely! the reason, however, that your critic gives for his failure to gain from the cover any impression of beauty seems to me to show a lack of artistic instinct on his part, which i beg you will allow me to try to correct. he complains that a portion of the design on the left-hand side of the cover reminds him of an indian club with a house-painter's brush on top of it, while a portion of the design on the right-hand side suggests to him the idea of 'a chimney-pot hat with a sponge in it.' now, i do not for a moment dispute that these are the real impressions your critic received. it is the spectator, and the mind of the spectator, as i pointed out in the preface to the picture of dorian gray, that art really mirrors. what i want to indicate is this: the artistic beauty of the cover of my book resides in the delicate tracing, arabesques, and massing of many coral-red lines on a ground of white ivory, the colour effect culminating in certain high gilt notes, and being made still more pleasurable by the overlapping band of moss-green cloth that holds the book together. what the gilt notes suggest, what imitative parallel may be found to them in that chaos that is termed nature, is a matter of no importance. they may suggest, as they do sometimes to me, peacocks and pomegranates and splashing fountains of gold water, or, as they do to your critic, sponges and indian clubs and chimney-pot hats. such suggestions and evocations have nothing whatsoever to do with the aesthetic quality and value of the design. a thing in nature becomes much lovelier if it reminds us of a thing in art, but a thing in art gains no real beauty through reminding us of a thing in nature. the primary aesthetic impression of a work of art borrows nothing from recognition or resemblance. these belong to a later and less perfect stage of apprehension. properly speaking, they are no part of a real aesthetic impression at all, and the constant preoccupation with subject-matter that characterises nearly all our english art-criticism, is what makes our art- criticisms, especially as regards literature, so sterile, so profitless, so much beside the mark, and of such curiously little account.--i remain, sir, your obedient servant, oscar wilde. boulevard des capucines, paris. ii. (pall mall gazette, december , .) to the editor of the pall mall gazette. sir,--i have just had sent to me from london a copy of the pall mall gazette, containing a review of my book a house of pomegranates. { } the writer of this review makes a certain suggestion which i beg you will allow me to correct at once. he starts by asking an extremely silly question, and that is, whether or not i have written this book for the purpose of giving pleasure to the british child. having expressed grave doubts on this subject, a subject on which i cannot conceive any fairly educated person having any doubts at all, he proceeds, apparently quite seriously, to make the extremely limited vocabulary at the disposal of the british child the standard by which the prose of an artist is to be judged! now, in building this house of pomegranates, i had about as much intention of pleasing the british child as i had of pleasing the british public. mamilius is as entirely delightful as caliban is entirely detestable, but neither the standard of mamilius nor the standard of caliban is my standard. no artist recognises any standard of beauty but that which is suggested by his own temperament. the artist seeks to realise, in a certain material, his immaterial idea of beauty, and thus to transform an idea into an ideal. that is the way an artist makes things. that is why an artist makes things. the artist has no other object in making things. does your reviewer imagine that mr. shannon, for instance, whose delicate and lovely illustrations he confesses himself quite unable to see, draws for the purpose of giving information to the blind?--i remain, sir, your obedient servant, oscar wilde. boulevard des capucines, paris. puppets and actors (daily telegraph, february , .) to the editor of the daily telegraph. sir,--i have just been sent an article that seems to have appeared in your paper some days ago, { } in which it is stated that, in the course of some remarks addressed to the playgoers' club on the occasion of my taking the chair at their last meeting, i laid it down as an axiom that the stage is only 'a frame furnished with a set of puppets.' now, it is quite true that i hold that the stage is to a play no more than a picture-frame is to a painting, and that the actable value of a play has nothing whatsoever to do with its value as a work of art. in this century, in england, to take an obvious example, we have had only two great plays--one is shelley's cenci, the other mr. swinburne's atalanta in calydon, and neither of them is in any sense of the word an actable play. indeed, the mere suggestion that stage representation is any test of a work of art is quite ridiculous. in the production of browning's plays, for instance, in london and at oxford, what was being tested was obviously the capacity of the modern stage to represent, in any adequate measure or degree, works of introspective method and strange or sterile psychology. but the artistic value of strqfford or in a balcony was settled when robert browning wrote their last lines. it is not, sir, by the mimes that the muses are to be judged. so far, the writer of the article in question is right. where he goes wrong is in saying that i describe this frame--the stage--as being furnished with a set of puppets. he admits that he speaks only by report, but he should have remembered, sir, that report is not merely a lying jade, which, personally, i would willingly forgive her, but a jade who lies without lovely invention is a thing that i, at any rate, can forgive her, never. what i really said was that the frame we call the stage was 'peopled with either living actors or moving puppets,' and i pointed out briefly, of necessity, that the personality of the actor is often a source of danger in the perfect presentation of a work of art. it may distort. it may lead astray. it may be a discord in the tone or symphony. for anybody can act. most people in england do nothing else. to be conventional is to be a comedian. to act a particular part, however, is a very different thing, and a very difficult thing as well. the actor's aim is, or should be, to convert his own accidental personality into the real and essential personality of the character he is called upon to personate, whatever that character may be; or perhaps i should say that there are two schools of action--the school of those who attain their effect by exaggeration of personality, and the school of those who attain it by suppression. it would be too long to discuss these schools, or to decide which of them the dramatist loves best. let me note the danger of personality, and pass to my puppets. there are many advantages in puppets. they never argue. they have no crude views about art. they have no private lives. we are never bothered by accounts of their virtues, or bored by recitals of their vices; and when they are out of an engagement they never do good in public or save people from drowning, nor do they speak more than is set down for them. they recognise the presiding intellect of the dramatist, and have never been known to ask for their parts to be written up. they are admirably docile, and have no personalities at all. i saw lately, in paris, a performance by certain puppets of shakespeare's tempest, in m. maurice boucher's translation. miranda was the mirage of miranda, because an artist has so fashioned her; and ariel was true ariel, because so had she been made. their gestures were quite sufficient, and the words that seemed to come from their little lips were spoken by poets who had beautiful voices. it was a delightful performance, and i remember it still with delight, though miranda took no notice of the flowers i sent her after the curtain fell. for modern plays, however, perhaps we had better have living players, for in modern plays actuality is everything. the charm--the ineffable charm--of the unreal is here denied us, and rightly. suffer me one more correction. your writer describes the author of the brilliant fantastic lecture on 'the modern actor' as a protege of mine. allow me to state that my acquaintance with mr. john gray is, i regret to say, extremely recent, and that i sought it because he had already a perfected mode of expression both in prose and verse. all artists in this vulgar age need protection certainly. perhaps they have always needed it. but the nineteenth-century artist finds it not in prince, or pope, or patron, but in high indifference of temper, in the pleasure of the creation of beautiful things, and the long contemplation of them, in disdain of what in life is common and ignoble and in such felicitous sense of humour as enables one to see how vain and foolish is all popular opinion, and popular judgment, upon the wonderful things of art. these qualities mr. john gray possesses in a marked degree. he needs no other protection, nor, indeed, would he accept it.--i remain, sir, your obedient servant, oscar wilde. lady windermere's fan: an explanation (st. james's gazette, february , .) to the editor of the st. james's gazette. sir,--allow me to correct a statement put forward in your issue of this evening to the effect that i have made a certain alteration in my play in consequence of the criticism of some journalists who write very recklessly and very foolishly in the papers about dramatic art. this statement is entirely untrue and grossly ridiculous. the facts are as follows. on last saturday night, after the play was over, and the author, cigarette in hand, had delivered a delightful and immortal speech, i had the pleasure of entertaining at supper a small number of personal friends; and as none of them was older than myself i, naturally, listened to their artistic views with attention and pleasure. the opinions of the old on matters of art are, of course, of no value whatsoever. the artistic instincts of the young are invariably fascinating; and i am bound to state that all my friends, without exception, were of opinion that the psychological interest of the second act would be greatly increased by the disclosure of the actual relationship existing between lady windermere and mrs. erlynne--an opinion, i may add, that had previously been strongly held and urged by mr. alexander. as to those of us who do not look on a play as a mere question of pantomime and clowning psychological interest is everything, i determined, consequently, to make a change in the precise moment of revelation. this determination, however, was entered into long before i had the opportunity of studying the culture, courtesy, and critical faculty displayed in such papers as the referee, reynolds', and the sunday sun. when criticism becomes in england a real art, as it should be, and when none but those of artistic instinct and artistic cultivation is allowed to write about works of art, artists will, no doubt, read criticisms with a certain amount of intellectual interest. as things are at present, the criticisms of ordinary newspapers are of no interest whatsoever, except in so far as they display, in its crudest form, the boeotianism of a country that has produced some athenians, and in which some athenians have come to dwell.--i am, sir, your obedient servant, oscar wilde. february . salome (times, march , .) to the editor of the times. sir,--my attention has been drawn to a review of salome which was published in your columns last week. { } the opinions of english critics on a french work of mine have, of course, little, if any, interest for me. i write simply to ask you to allow me to correct a misstatement that appears in the review in question. the fact that the greatest tragic actress of any stage now living saw in my play such beauty that she was anxious to produce it, to take herself the part of the heroine, to lend to the entire poem the glamour of her personality, and to my prose the music of her flute-like voice--this was naturally, and always will be, a source of pride and pleasure to me, and i look forward with delight to seeing mme. bernhardt present my play in paris, that vivid centre of art, where religious dramas are often performed. but my play was in no sense of the words written for this great actress. i have never written a play for any actor or actress, nor shall i ever do so. such work is for the artisan in literature--not for the artist.--i remain, sir, your obedient servant, oscar wilde. the thirteen club (times, january , .) at a dinner of the thirteen club held at the holborn restaurant on january , , the chairman (mr. harry furniss) announced that from mr. oscar wilde the following letter had been received:-- i have to thank the members of your club for their kind invitation, for which convey to them, i beg you, my sincere thanks. but i love superstitions. they are the colour element of thought and imagination. they are the opponents of common sense. common sense is the enemy of romance. the aim of your society seems to be dreadful. leave us some unreality. do not make us too offensively sane. i love dining out, but with a society with so wicked an object as yours i cannot dine. i regret it. i am sure you will all be charming, but i could not come, though is a lucky number. the ethics of journalism i. (pall mall gazette, september , .) to the editor of the pall mall gazette. sir,--will you allow me to draw your attention to a very interesting example of the ethics of modern journalism, a quality of which we have all heard so much and seen so little? about a month ago mr. t. p. o'connor published in the sunday sun some doggerel verses entitled 'the shamrock,' and had the amusing impertinence to append my name to them as their author. as for some years past all kinds of scurrilous personal attacks had been made on me in mr. o'connor's newspapers, i determined to take no notice at all of the incident. enraged, however, by my courteous silence, mr. o'connor returns to the charge this week. he now solemnly accuses me of plagiarising the poem he had the vulgarity to attribute to me. { } this seems to me to pass beyond even those bounds of coarse humour and coarser malice that are, by the contempt of all, conceded to the ordinary journalist, and it is really very distressing to find so low a standard of ethics in a sunday newspaper.--i remain, sir, your obedient servant, oscar wilde. september . ii. (pall mall gazette, september , .) to the editor of the pall mall gazette. sir,--the assistant editor of the sunday sun, on whom seems to devolve the arduous duty of writing mr. t. p. o'connor's apologies for him, does not, i observe with regret, place that gentleman's conduct in any more attractive or more honourable light by the attempted explanation that appears in the letter published in your issue of today. for the future it would be much better if mr. o'connor would always write his own apologies. that he can do so exceedingly well no one is more ready to admit than myself. i happen to possess one from him. the assistant editor's explanation, stripped of its unnecessary verbiage, amounts to this: it is now stated that some months ago, somebody, whose name, observe, is not given, forwarded to the office of the sunday sun a manuscript in his own handwriting, containing some fifth-rate verses with my name appended to them as their author. the assistant editor frankly admits that they had grave doubts about my being capable of such an astounding production. to me, i must candidly say, it seems more probable that they never for a single moment believed that the verses were really from my pen. literary instinct is, of course, a very rare thing, and it would be too much to expect any true literary instinct to be found among the members of the staff of an ordinary newspaper; but had mr. o'connor really thought that the production, such as it is, was mine, he would naturally have asked my permission before publishing it. great licence of comment and attack of every kind is allowed nowadays to newspapers, but no respectable editor would dream of printing and publishing a man's work without first obtaining his consent. mr. o'connor's subsequent conduct in accusing me of plagiarism, when it was proved to him on unimpeachable authority that the verses he had vulgarly attributed to me were not by me at all, i have already commented on. it is perhaps best left to the laughter of the gods and the sorrow of men. i would like, however, to point out that when mr. o'connor, with the kind help of his assistant editor, states, as a possible excuse for his original sin, that he and the members of his staff 'took refuge' in the belief that the verses in question might conceivably be some very early and useful work of mine, he and the members of his staff showed a lamentable ignorance of the nature of the artistic temperament. only mediocrities progress. an artist revolves in a cycle of masterpieces, the first of which is no less perfect than the last. in conclusion, allow me to thank you for your courtesy in opening to me the columns of your valuable paper, and also to express the hope that the painful expose of mr. o'connor's conduct that i have been forced to make will have the good result of improving the standard of journalistic ethics in england.--i remain, sir, your obedient servant, oscar wilde. worthing, september . the green carnation (pall mall gazette, october , .) to the editor of the pall mall gazette. sir,--kindly allow me to contradict, in the most emphatic manner, the suggestion, made in your issue of thursday last, and since then copied into many other newspapers, that i am the author of the green carnation. i invented that magnificent flower. but with the middle-class and mediocre book that usurps its strangely beautiful name i have, i need hardly say, nothing whatsoever to do. the flower is a work of art. the book is not.--i remain, sir, your obedient servant, oscar wilde. worthing, october . phrases and philosophies for the use of the young (chameleon, december ) the first duty in life is to be as artificial as possible. what the second duty is no one has as yet discovered. wickedness is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attractiveness of others. if the poor only had profiles there would be no difficulty in solving the problem of poverty. those who see any difference between soul and body have neither. a really well-made buttonhole is the only link between art and nature. religions die when they are proved to be true. science is the record of dead religions. the well-bred contradict other people. the wise contradict themselves. nothing that actually occurs is of the smallest importance. dulness is the coming of age of seriousness. in all unimportant matters, style, not sincerity, is the essential. in all important matters, style, not sincerity, is the essential. if one tells the truth one is sure, sooner or later, to be found out. pleasure is the only thing one should live for. nothing ages like happiness. it is only by not paying one's bills that one can hope to live in the memory of the commercial classes. no crime is vulgar, but all vulgarity is crime. vulgarity is the conduct of others. only the shallow know themselves. time is waste of money. one should always be a little improbable. there is a fatality about all good resolutions. they are invariably made too soon. the only way to atone for being occasionally a little overdressed is by being always absolutely over-educated. to be premature is to be perfect. any preoccupation with ideas of what is right or wrong in conduct shows an arrested intellectual development. ambition is the last refuge of the failure. a truth ceases to be true when more than one person believes in it. in examinations the foolish ask questions that the wise cannot answer. greek dress was in its essence inartistic. nothing should reveal the body but the body. one should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art. it is only the superficial qualities that last. man's deeper nature is soon found out. industry is the root of all ugliness. the ages live in history through their anachronisms. it is only the gods who taste of death. apollo has passed away, but hyacinth, whom men say he slew, lives on. nero and narcissus are always with us. the old believe everything: the middle-aged suspect everything: the young know everything. the condition of perfection is idleness: the aim of perfection is youth. only the great masters of style ever succeed in being obscure. there is something tragic about the enormous number of young men there are in england at the present moment who start life with perfect profiles, and end by adopting some useful profession. to love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance. the rise of historical criticism the first portion of this essay is given at the end of the volume containing lord arthur savile's crime and other prose pieces. recently the remainder of the original manuscript has been discovered, and is here published for the first time. it was written for the chancellor's english essay prize at oxford in , the subject being 'historical criticism among the ancients.' the prize was not awarded. to professor j. w. mackail thanks are due for revising the proofs. iv. it is evident that here thucydides is ready to admit the variety of manifestations which external causes bring about in their workings on the uniform character of the nature of man. yet, after all is said, these are perhaps but very general statements: the ordinary effects of peace and war are dwelt on, but there is no real analysis of the immediate causes and general laws of the phenomena of life, nor does thucydides seem to recognise the truth that if humanity proceeds in circles, the circles are always widening. perhaps we may say that with him the philosophy of history is partly in the metaphysical stage, and see, in the progress of this idea from herodotus to polybius, the exemplification of the comtian law of the three stages of thought, the theological, the metaphysical, and the scientific: for truly out of the vagueness of theological mysticism this conception which we call the philosophy of history was raised to a scientific principle, according to which the past was explained and the future predicted by reference to general laws. now, just as the earliest account of the nature of the progress of humanity is to be found in plato, so in him we find the first explicit attempt to found a universal philosophy of history upon wide rational grounds. having created an ideally perfect state, the philosopher proceeds to give an elaborate theory of the complex causes which produce revolutions of the moral effects of various forms of government and education, of the rise of the criminal classes and their connection with pauperism, and, in a word, to create history by the deductive method and to proceed from a priori psychological principles to discover the governing laws of the apparent chaos of political life. there have been many attempts since plato to deduce from a single philosophical principle all the phenomena which experience subsequently verifies for us. fichte thought he could predict the world-plan from the idea of universal time. hegel dreamed he had found the key to the mysteries of life in the development of freedom, and krause in the categories of being. but the one scientific basis on which the true philosophy of history must rest is the complete knowledge of the laws of human nature in all its wants, its aspirations, its powers and its tendencies: and this great truth, which thucydides may be said in some measure to have apprehended, was given to us first by plato. now, it cannot be accurately said of this philosopher that either his philosophy or his history is entirely and simply a priori. on est de son siecle meme quand on y proteste, and so we find in him continual references to the spartan mode of life, the pythagorean system, the general characteristics of greek tyrannies and greek democracies. for while, in his account of the method of forming an ideal state, he says that the political artist is indeed to fix his gaze on the sun of abstract truth in the heavens of the pure reason, but is sometimes to turn to the realisation of the ideals on earth: yet, after all, the general character of the platonic method, which is what we are specially concerned with, is essentially deductive and a priori. and he himself, in the building up of his nephelococcygia, certainly starts with a [greek], making a clean sweep of all history and all experience; and it was essentially as an a priori theorist that he is criticised by aristotle, as we shall see later. to proceed to closer details regarding the actual scheme of the laws of political revolutions as drawn out by plato, we must first note that the primary cause of the decay of the ideal state is the general principle, common to the vegetable and animal worlds as well as to the world of history, that all created things are fated to decay--a principle which, though expressed in the terms of a mere metaphysical abstraction, is yet perhaps in its essence scientific. for we too must hold that a continuous redistribution of matter and motion is the inevitable result of the normal persistence of force, and that perfect equilibrium is as impossible in politics as it certainly is in physics. the secondary causes which mar the perfection of the platonic 'city of the sun' are to be found in the intellectual decay of the race consequent on injudicious marriages and in the philistine elevation of physical achievements over mental culture; while the hierarchical succession of timocracy and oligarchy, democracy and tyranny, is dwelt on at great length and its causes analysed in a very dramatic and psychological manner, if not in that sanctioned by the actual order of history. and indeed it is apparent at first sight that the platonic succession of states represents rather the succession of ideas in the philosophic mind than any historical succession of time. aristotle meets the whole simply by an appeal to facts. if the theory of the periodic decay of all created things, he urges, be scientific, it must be universal, and so true of all the other states as well as of the ideal. besides, a state usually changes into its contrary and not to the form next to it; so the ideal state would not change into timocracy; while oligarchy, more often than tyranny, succeeds democracy. plato, besides, says nothing of what a tyranny would change to. according to the cycle theory it ought to pass into the ideal state again, but as a fact one tyranny is changed into another as at sicyon, or into a democracy as at syracuse, or into an aristocracy as at carthage. the example of sicily, too, shows that an oligarchy is often followed by a tyranny, as at leontini and gela. besides, it is absurd to represent greed as the chief motive of decay, or to talk of avarice as the root of oligarchy, when in nearly all true oligarchies money-making is forbidden by law. and finally the platonic theory neglects the different kinds of democracies and of tyrannies. now nothing can be more important than this passage in aristotle's politics (v. .), which may be said to mark an era in the evolution of historical criticism. for there is nothing on which aristotle insists so strongly as that the generalisations from facts ought to be added to the data of the a priori method--a principle which we know to be true not merely of deductive speculative politics but of physics also: for are not the residual phenomena of chemists a valuable source of improvement in theory? his own method is essentially historical though by no means empirical. on the contrary, this far-seeing thinker, rightly styled il maestro di color che sanno, may be said to have apprehended clearly that the true method is neither exclusively empirical nor exclusively speculative, but rather a union of both in the process called analysis or the interpretation of facts, which has been defined as the application to facts of such general conceptions as may fix the important characteristics of the phenomena, and present them permanently in their true relations. he too was the first to point out, what even in our own day is incompletely appreciated, that nature, including the development of man, is not full of incoherent episodes like a bad tragedy, that inconsistency and anomaly are as impossible in the moral as they are in the physical world, and that where the superficial observer thinks he sees a revolution the philosophical critic discerns merely the gradual and rational evolution of the inevitable results of certain antecedents. and while admitting the necessity of a psychological basis for the philosophy of history, he added to it the important truth that man, to be apprehended in his proper position in the universe as well as in his natural powers, must be studied from below in the hierarchical progression of higher function from the lower forms of life. the important maxim, that to obtain a clear conception of anything we must 'study it in its growth from the very beginning' is formally set down in the opening of the politics, where, indeed, we shall find the other characteristic features of the modern evolutionary theory, such as the 'differentiation of function' and the 'survival of the fittest' explicitly set forth. what a valuable step this was in the improvement of the method of historical criticism it is needless to point out. by it, one may say, the true thread was given to guide one's steps through the bewildering labyrinth of facts. for history (to use terms with which aristotle has made us familiar) may be looked at from two essentially different standpoints; either as a work of art whose [greek] or final cause is external to it and imposed on it from without; or as an organism containing the law of its own development in itself, and working out its perfection merely by the fact of being what it is. now, if we adopt the former, which we may style the theological view, we shall be in continual danger of tripping into the pitfall of some a priori conclusion--that bourne from which, it has been truly said, no traveller ever returns. the latter is the only scientific theory and was apprehended in its fulness by aristotle, whose application of the inductive method to history, and whose employment of the evolutionary theory of humanity, show that he was conscious that the philosophy of history is nothing separate from the facts of history but is contained in them, and that the rational law of the complex phenomena of life, like the ideal in the world of thought, is to be reached through the facts, not superimposed on them-- [greek] not [greek]. and finally, in estimating the enormous debt which the science of historical criticism owes to aristotle, we must not pass over his attitude towards those two great difficulties in the formation of a philosophy of history on which i have touched above. i mean the assertion of extra-natural interference with the normal development of the world and of the incalculable influence exercised by the power of free will. now, as regards the former, he may be said to have neglected it entirely. the special acts of providence proceeding from god's immediate government of the world, which herodotus saw as mighty landmarks in history, would have been to him essentially disturbing elements in that universal reign of law, the extent of whose limitless empire he of all the great thinkers of antiquity was the first explicitly to recognise. standing aloof from the popular religion as well as from the deeper conceptions of herodotus and the tragic school, he no longer thought of god as of one with fair limbs and treacherous face haunting wood and glade, nor would he see in him a jealous judge continually interfering in the world's history to bring the wicked to punishment and the proud to a fall. god to him was the incarnation of the pure intellect, a being whose activity was the contemplation of his own perfection, one whom philosophy might imitate but whom prayers could never move, to the sublime indifference of whose passionless wisdom what were the sons of men, their desires or their sins? while, as regards the other difficulty and the formation of a philosophy of history, the conflict of free will with general laws appears first in greek thought in the usual theological form in which all great ideas seem to be cradled at their birth. it was such legends as those of oedipus and adrastus, exemplifying the struggles of individual humanity against the overpowering force of circumstances and necessity, which gave to the early greeks those same lessons which we of modern days draw, in somewhat less artistic fashion, from the study of statistics and the laws of physiology. in aristotle, of course, there is no trace of supernatural influence. the furies, which drive their victim into sin first and then punishment, are no longer 'viper-tressed goddesses with eyes and mouth aflame,' but those evil thoughts which harbour within the impure soul. in this, as in all other points, to arrive at aristotle is to reach the pure atmosphere of scientific and modern thought. but while he rejected pure necessitarianism in its crude form as essentially a reductio ad absurdum of life, he was fully conscious of the fact that the will is not a mysterious and ultimate unit of force beyond which we cannot go and whose special characteristic is inconsistency, but a certain creative attitude of the mind which is, from the first, continually influenced by habits, education and circumstance; so absolutely modifiable, in a word, that the good and the bad man alike seem to lose the power of free will; for the one is morally unable to sin, the other physically incapacitated for reformation. and of the influence of climate and temperature in forming the nature of man (a conception perhaps pressed too far in modern days when the 'race theory' is supposed to be a sufficient explanation of the hindoo, and the latitude and longitude of a country the best guide to its morals { }) aristotle is completely unaware. i do not allude to such smaller points as the oligarchical tendencies of a horse-breeding country and the democratic influence of the proximity of the sea (important though they are for the consideration of greek history), but rather to those wider views in the seventh book of his politics, where he attributes the happy union in the greek character of intellectual attainments with the spirit of progress to the temperate climate they enjoyed, and points out how the extreme cold of the north dulls the mental faculties of its inhabitants and renders them incapable of social organisation or extended empire; while to the enervating heat of eastern countries was due that want of spirit and bravery which then, as now, was the characteristic of the population in that quarter of the globe. thucydides has shown the causal connection between political revolutions and the fertility of the soil, but goes a step farther and points out the psychological influences on a people's character exercised by the various extremes of climate--in both cases the first appearance of a most valuable form of historical criticism. to the development of dialectic, as to god, intervals of time are of no account. from plato and aristotle we pass direct to polybius. the progress of thought from the philosopher of the academe to the arcadian historian may be best illustrated by a comparison of the method by which each of the three writers, whom i have selected as the highest expressions of the rationalism of his respective age, attained to his ideal state: for the latter conception may be in a measure regarded as representing the most spiritual principle which they could discern in history. now, plato created his on a priori principles: aristotle formed his by an analysis of existing constitutions; polybius found his realised for him in the actual world of fact. aristotle criticised the deductive speculations of plato by means of inductive negative instances, but polybius will not take the 'cloud city' of the republic into account at all. he compares it to an athlete who has never run on 'constitution hill,' to a statue so beautiful that it is entirely removed from the ordinary conditions of humanity, and consequently from the canons of criticism. the roman state had attained in his eyes, by means of the mutual counteraction of three opposing forces, { } that stable equilibrium in politics which was the ideal of all the theoretical writers of antiquity. and in connection with this point it will be convenient to notice here how much truth there is contained in the accusation so often brought against the ancients that they knew nothing of the idea of progress, for the meaning of many of their speculations will be hidden from us if we do not try and comprehend first what their aim was, and secondly why it was so. now, like all wide generalities, this statement is at least inaccurate. the prayer of plato's ideal city--[greek], might be written as a text over the door of the last temple to humanity raised by the disciples of fourier and saint simon, but it is certainly true that their ideal principle was order and permanence, not indefinite progress. for, setting aside the artistic prejudices which would have led the greeks to reject this idea of unlimited improvement, we may note that the modern conception of progress rests partly on the new enthusiasm and worship of humanity, partly on the splendid hopes of material improvements in civilisation which applied science has held out to us, two influences from which ancient greek thought seems to have been strangely free. for the greeks marred the perfect humanism of the great men whom they worshipped, by imputing to them divinity and its supernatural powers; while their science was eminently speculative and often almost mystic in its character, aiming at culture and not utility, at higher spirituality and more intense reverence for law, rather than at the increased facilities of locomotion and the cheap production of common things about which our modern scientific school ceases not to boast. and lastly, and perhaps chiefly, we must remember that the 'plague spot of all greek states,' as one of their own writers has called it, was the terrible insecurity to life and property which resulted from the factions and revolutions which ceased not to trouble greece at all times, raising a spirit of fanaticism such as religion raised in the middle ages of europe. these considerations, then, will enable us to understand first how it was that, radical and unscrupulous reformers as the greek political theorists were, yet, their end once attained, no modern conservatives raised such outcry against the slightest innovation. even acknowledged improvements in such things as the games of children or the modes of music were regarded by them with feelings of extreme apprehension as the herald of the drapeau rouge of reform. and secondly, it will show us how it was that polybius found his ideal in the commonwealth of rome, and aristotle, like mr. bright, in the middle classes. polybius, however, is not content merely with pointing out his ideal state, but enters at considerable length into the question of those general laws whose consideration forms the chief essential of the philosophy of history. he starts by accepting the general principle that all things are fated to decay (which i noticed in the case of plato), and that 'as iron produces rust and as wood breeds the animals that destroy it, so every state has in it the seeds of its own corruption.' he is not, however, content to rest there, but proceeds to deal with the more immediate causes of revolutions, which he says are twofold in nature, either external or internal. now, the former, depending as they do on the synchronous conjunction of other events outside the sphere of scientific estimation, are from their very character incalculable; but the latter, though assuming many forms, always result from the over-great preponderance of any single element to the detriment of the others, the rational law lying at the base of all varieties of political changes being that stability can result only from the statical equilibrium produced by the counteraction of opposing parts, since the more simple a constitution is the more it is insecure. plato had pointed out before how the extreme liberty of a democracy always resulted in despotism, but polybius analyses the law and shows the scientific principles on which it rests. the doctrine of the instability of pure constitutions forms an important era in the philosophy of history. its special applicability to the politics of our own day has been illustrated in the rise of the great napoleon, when the french state had lost those divisions of caste and prejudice, of landed aristocracy and moneyed interest, institutions in which the vulgar see only barriers to liberty but which are indeed the only possible defences against the coming of that periodic sirius of politics, the [greek] there is a principle which tocqueville never wearies of explaining, and which has been subsumed by mr. herbert spencer under that general law common to all organic bodies which we call the instability of the homogeneous. the various manifestations of this law, as shown in the normal, regular revolutions and evolutions of the different forms of government, { a} are expounded with great clearness by polybius, who claimed for his theory in the thucydidean spirit, that it is a [greek], not a mere [greek], and that a knowledge of it will enable the impartial observer { b} to discover at any time what period of its constitutional evolution any particular state has already reached and into what form it will be next differentiated, though possibly the exact time of the changes may be more or less uncertain. { c} now in this necessarily incomplete account of the laws of political revolutions as expounded by polybius enough perhaps has been said to show what is his true position in the rational development of the 'idea' which i have called the philosophy of history, because it is the unifying of history. seen darkly as it is through the glass of religion in the pages of herodotus, more metaphysical than scientific with thucydides, plato strove to seize it by the eagle-flight of speculation, to reach it with the eager grasp of a soul impatient of those slower and surer inductive methods which aristotle, in his trenchant criticism of his great master, showed were more brilliant than any vague theory, if the test of brilliancy is truth. what then is the position of polybius? does any new method remain for him? polybius was one of those many men who are born too late to be original. to thucydides belongs the honour of being the first in the history of greek thought to discern the supreme calm of law and order underlying the fitful storms of life, and plato and aristotle each represents a great new principle. to polybius belongs the office--how noble an office he made it his writings show--of making more explicit the ideas which were implicit in his predecessors, of showing that they were of wider applicability and perhaps of deeper meaning than they had seemed before, of examining with more minuteness the laws which they had discovered, and finally of pointing out more clearly than any one had done the range of science and the means it offered for analysing the present and predicting what was to come. his office thus was to gather up what they had left, to give their principles new life by a wider application. polybius ends this great diapason of greek thought. when the philosophy of history appears next, as in plutarch's tract on 'why god's anger is delayed,' the pendulum of thought had swung back to where it began. his theory was introduced to the romans under the cultured style of cicero, and was welcomed by them as the philosophical panegyric of their state. the last notice of it in latin literature is in the pages of tacitus, who alludes to the stable polity formed out of these elements as a constitution easier to commend than to produce and in no case lasting. yet polybius had seen the future with no uncertain eye, and had prophesied the rise of the empire from the unbalanced power of the ochlocracy fifty years and more before there was joy in the julian household over the birth of that boy who, borne to power as the champion of the people, died wearing the purple of a king. no attitude of historical criticism is more important than the means by which the ancients attained to the philosophy of history. the principle of heredity can be exemplified in literature as well as in organic life: aristotle, plato and polybius are the lineal ancestors of fichte and hegel, of vico and cousin, of montesquieu and tocqueville. as my aim is not to give an account of historians but to point out those great thinkers whose methods have furthered the advance of this spirit of historical criticism, i shall pass over those annalists and chroniclers who intervened between thucydides and polybius. yet perhaps it may serve to throw new light on the real nature of this spirit and its intimate connection with all other forms of advanced thought if i give some estimate of the character and rise of those many influences prejudicial to the scientific study of history which cause such a wide gap between these two historians. foremost among these is the growing influence of rhetoric and the isocratean school, which seems to have regarded history as an arena for the display of either pathos or paradoxes, not a scientific investigation into laws. the new age is the age of style. the same spirit of exclusive attention to form which made euripides often, like swinburne, prefer music to meaning and melody to morality, which gave to the later greek statues that refined effeminacy, that overstrained gracefulness of attitude, was felt in the sphere of history. the rules laid down for historical composition are those relating to the aesthetic value of digressions, the legality of employing more than one metaphor in the same sentence, and the like; and historians are ranked not by their power of estimating evidence but by the goodness of the greek they write. i must note also the important influence on literature exercised by alexander the great; for while his travels encouraged the more accurate research of geography, the very splendour of his achievements seems to have brought history again into the sphere of romance. the appearance of all great men in the world is followed invariably by the rise of that mythopoeic spirit and that tendency to look for the marvellous, which is so fatal to true historical criticism. an alexander, a napoleon, a francis of assisi and a mahomet are thought to be outside the limiting conditions of rational law, just as comets were supposed to be not very long ago. while the founding of that city of alexandria, in which western and eastern thought met with such strange result to both, diverted the critical tendencies of the greek spirit into questions of grammar, philology and the like, the narrow, artificial atmosphere of that university town (as we may call it) was fatal to the development of that independent and speculative spirit of research which strikes out new methods of inquiry, of which historical criticism is one. the alexandrines combined a great love of learning with an ignorance of the true principles of research, an enthusiastic spirit for accumulating materials with a wonderful incapacity to use them. not among the hot sands of egypt, or the sophists of athens, but from the very heart of greece rises the man of genius on whose influence in the evolution of the philosophy of history i have a short time ago dwelt. born in the serene and pure air of the clear uplands of arcadia, polybius may be said to reproduce in his work the character of the place which gave him birth. for, of all the historians--i do not say of antiquity but of all time--none is more rationalistic than he, none more free from any belief in the 'visions and omens, the monstrous legends, the grovelling superstitions and unmanly craving for the supernatural' ([greek] { a}) which he is compelled to notice himself as the characteristics of some of the historians who preceded him. fortunate in the land which bore him, he was no less blessed in the wondrous time of his birth. for, representing in himself the spiritual supremacy of the greek intellect and allied in bonds of chivalrous friendship to the world-conqueror of his day, he seems led as it were by the hand of fate 'to comprehend,' as has been said, 'more clearly than the romans themselves the historical position of rome,' and to discern with greater insight than all other men could those two great resultants of ancient civilisation, the material empire of the city of the seven hills, and the intellectual sovereignty of hellas. before his own day, he says, { b} the events of the world were unconnected and separate and the histories confined to particular countries. now, for the first time the universal empire of the romans rendered a universal history possible. { a} this, then, is the august motive of his work: to trace the gradual rise of this italian city from the day when the first legion crossed the narrow strait of messina and landed on the fertile fields of sicily to the time when corinth in the east and carthage in the west fell before the resistless wave of empire and the eagles of rome passed on the wings of universal victory from calpe and the pillars of hercules to syria and the nile. at the same time he recognised that the scheme of rome's empire was worked out under the aegis of god's will. { b} for, as one of the middle age scribes most truly says, the [greek] of polybius is that power which we christians call god; the second aim, as one may call it, of his history is to point out the rational and human and natural causes which brought this result, distinguishing, as we should say, between god's mediate and immediate government of the world. with any direct intervention of god in the normal development of man, he will have nothing to do: still less with any idea of chance as a factor in the phenomena of life. chance and miracles, he says, are mere expressions for our ignorance of rational causes. the spirit of rationalism which we recognised in herodotus as a vague uncertain attitude and which appears in thucydides as a consistent attitude of mind never argued about or even explained, is by polybius analysed and formulated as the great instrument of historical research. herodotus, while believing on principle in the supernatural, yet was sceptical at times. thucydides simply ignored the supernatural. he did not discuss it, but he annihilated it by explaining history without it. polybius enters at length into the whole question and explains its origin and the method of treating it. herodotus would have believed in scipio's dream. thucydides would have ignored it entirely. polybius explains it. he is the culmination of the rational progression of dialectic. 'nothing,' he says, 'shows a foolish mind more than the attempt to account for any phenomena on the principle of chance or supernatural intervention. history is a search for rational causes, and there is nothing in the world--even those phenomena which seem to us the most remote from law and improbable--which is not the logical and inevitable result of certain rational antecedents.' some things, of course, are to be rejected a priori without entering into the subject: 'as regards such miracles,' he says, { } 'as that on a certain statue of artemis rain or snow never falls though the statue stands in the open air, or that those who enter god's shrine in arcadia lose their natural shadows, i cannot really be expected to argue upon the subject. for these things are not only utterly improbable but absolutely impossible.' 'for us to argue reasonably on an acknowledged absurdity is as vain a task as trying to catch water in a sieve; it is really to admit the possibility of the supernatural, which is the very point at issue.' what polybius felt was that to admit the possibility of a miracle is to annihilate the possibility of history: for just as scientific and chemical experiments would be either impossible or useless if exposed to the chance of continued interference on the part of some foreign body, so the laws and principles which govern history, the causes of phenomena, the evolution of progress, the whole science, in a word, of man's dealings with his own race and with nature, will remain a sealed book to him who admits the possibility of extra-natural interference. the stories of miracles, then, are to be rejected on a priori rational grounds, but in the case of events which we know to have happened the scientific historian will not rest till he has discovered their natural causes which, for instance, in the case of the wonderful rise of the roman empire--the most marvellous thing, polybius says, which god ever brought about { a}--are to be found in the excellence of their constitution ([greek]), the wisdom of their advisers, their splendid military arrangements, and their superstition ([greek]). for while polybius regarded the revealed religion as, of course, objective reality of truth, { b} he laid great stress on its moral subjective influence, going, in one passage on the subject, even so far as almost to excuse the introduction of the supernatural in very small quantities into history on account of the extremely good effect it would have on pious people. but perhaps there is no passage in the whole of ancient and modern history which breathes such a manly and splendid spirit of rationalism as one preserved to us in the vatican--strange resting-place for it!--in which he treats of the terrible decay of population which had fallen on his native land in his own day, and which by the general orthodox public was regarded as a special judgment of god, sending childlessness on women as a punishment for the sins of the people. for it was a disaster quite without parallel in the history of the land, and entirely unforeseen by any of its political-economy writers who, on the contrary, were always anticipating that danger would arise from an excess of population overrunning its means of subsistence, and becoming unmanageable through its size. polybius, however, will have nothing to do with either priest or worker of miracles in this matter. he will not even seek that 'sacred heart of greece,' delphi, apollo's shrine, whose inspiration even thucydides admitted and before whose wisdom socrates bowed. how foolish, he says, were the man who on this matter would pray to god. we must search for the rational causes, and the causes are seen to be clear, and the method of prevention also. he then proceeds to notice how all this arose from the general reluctance to marriage and to bearing the expense of educating a large family which resulted from the carelessness and avarice of the men of his day, and he explains on entirely rational principles the whole of this apparently supernatural judgment. now, it is to be borne in mind that while his rejection of miracles as violation of inviolable laws is entirely a priori--for, discussion of such a matter is, of course, impossible for a rational thinker--yet his rejection of supernatural intervention rests entirely on the scientific grounds of the necessity of looking for natural causes. and he is quite logical in maintaining his position on these principles. for, where it is either difficult or impossible to assign any rational cause for phenomena, or to discover their laws, he acquiesces reluctantly in the alternative of admitting some extra-natural interference which his essentially scientific method of treating the matter has logically forced on him, approving, for instance, of prayers for rain, on the express ground that the laws of meteorology had not yet been ascertained. he would, of course, have been the first to welcome our modern discoveries in the matter. the passage in question is in every way one of the most interesting in his whole work, not, of course, as signifying any inclination on his part to acquiesce in the supernatural, but because it shows how essentially logical and rational his method of argument was, and how candid and fair his mind. having now examined polybius's attitude towards the supernatural and the general ideas which guided his research, i will proceed to examine the method he pursued in his scientific investigation of the complex phenomena of life. for, as i have said before in the course of this essay, what is important in all great writers is not so much the results they arrive at as the methods they pursue. the increased knowledge of facts may alter any conclusion in history as in physical science, and the canons of speculative historical credibility must be acknowledged to appeal rather to that subjective attitude of mind which we call the historic sense than to any formulated objective rules. but a scientific method is a gain for all time, and the true if not the only progress of historical criticism consists in the improvement of the instruments of research. now first, as regards his conception of history, i have already pointed out that it was to him essentially a search for causes, a problem to be solved, not a picture to be painted, a scientific investigation into laws and tendencies, not a mere romantic account of startling incident and wondrous adventure. thucydides, in the opening of his great work, had sounded the first note of the scientific conception of history. 'the absence of romance in my pages,' he says, 'will, i fear, detract somewhat from its value, but i have written my work not to be the exploit of a passing hour but as the possession of all time.' { } polybius follows with words almost entirely similar. if, he says, we banish from history the consideration of causes, methods and motives ([greek]), and refuse to consider how far the result of anything is its rational consequent, what is left is a mere [greek], not a [greek], an oratorical essay which may give pleasure for the moment, but which is entirely without any scientific value for the explanation of the future. elsewhere he says that 'history robbed of the exposition of its causes and laws is a profitless thing, though it may allure a fool.' and all through his history the same point is put forward and exemplified in every fashion. so far for the conception of history. now for the groundwork. as regards the character of the phenomena to be selected by the scientific investigator, aristotle had laid down the general formula that nature should be studied in her normal manifestations. polybius, true to his character of applying explicitly the principles implicit in the work of others, follows out the doctrine of aristotle, and lays particular stress on the rational and undisturbed character of the development of the roman constitution as affording special facilities for the discovery of the laws of its progress. political revolutions result from causes either external or internal. the former are mere disturbing forces which lie outside the sphere of scientific calculation. it is the latter which are important for the establishing of principles and the elucidation of the sequences of rational evolution. he thus may be said to have anticipated one of the most important truths of the modern methods of investigation: i mean that principle which lays down that just as the study of physiology should precede the study of pathology, just as the laws of disease are best discovered by the phenomena presented in health, so the method of arriving at all great social and political truths is by the investigation of those cases where development has been normal, rational and undisturbed. the critical canon that the more a people has been interfered with, the more difficult it becomes to generalise the laws of its progress and to analyse the separate forces of its civilisation, is one the validity of which is now generally recognised by those who pretend to a scientific treatment of all history: and while we have seen that aristotle anticipated it in a general formula, to polybius belongs the honour of being the first to apply it explicitly in the sphere of history. i have shown how to this great scientific historian the motive of his work was essentially the search for causes; and true to his analytical spirit he is careful to examine what a cause really is and in what part of the antecedents of any consequent it is to be looked for. to give an illustration: as regards the origin of the war with perseus, some assigned as causes the expulsion of abrupolis by perseus, the expedition of the latter to delphi, the plot against eumenes and the seizure of the ambassadors in boeotia; of these incidents the two former, polybius points out, were merely the pretexts, the two latter merely the occasions of the war. the war was really a legacy left to perseus by his father, who was determined to fight it out with rome. { } here as elsewhere he is not originating any new idea. thucydides had pointed out the difference between the real and the alleged cause, and the aristotelian dictum about revolutions, [greek], draws the distinction between cause and occasion with the brilliancy of an epigram. but the explicit and rational investigation of the difference between [greek] and [greek] was reserved for polybius. no canon of historical criticism can be said to be of more real value than that involved in this distinction, and the overlooking of it has filled our histories with the contemptible accounts of the intrigues of courtiers and of kings and the petty plottings of backstairs influence--particulars interesting, no doubt, to those who would ascribe the reformation to anne boleyn's pretty face, the persian war to the influence of a doctor or a curtain-lecture from atossa, or the french revolution to madame de maintenon, but without any value for those who aim at any scientific treatment of history. but the question of method, to which i am compelled always to return, is not yet exhausted. there is another aspect in which it may be regarded, and i shall now proceed to treat of it. one of the greatest difficulties with which the modern historian has to contend is the enormous complexity of the facts which come under his notice: d'alembert's suggestion that at the end of every century a selection of facts should be made and the rest burned (if it was really intended seriously) could not, of course, be entertained for a moment. a problem loses all its value when it becomes simplified, and the world would be all the poorer if the sybil of history burned her volumes. besides, as gibbon pointed out, 'a montesquieu will detect in the most insignificant fact relations which the vulgar overlook.' nor can the scientific investigator of history isolate the particular elements, which he desires to examine, from disturbing and extraneous causes, as the experimental chemist can do (though sometimes, as in the case of lunatic asylums and prisons, he is enabled to observe phenomena in a certain degree of isolation). so he is compelled either to use the deductive mode of arguing from general laws or to employ the method of abstraction which gives a fictitious isolation to phenomena never so isolated in actual existence. and this is exactly what polybius has done as well as thucydides. for, as has been well remarked, there is in the works of these two writers a certain plastic unity of type and motive; whatever they write is penetrated through and through with a specific quality, a singleness and concentration of purpose, which we may contrast with the more comprehensive width as manifested not merely in the modern mind, but also in herodotus. thucydides, regarding society as influenced entirely by political motives, took no account of forces of a different nature, and consequently his results, like those of most modern political economists, have to be modified largely { } before they come to correspond with what we know was the actual state of fact. similarly, polybius will deal only with those forces which tended to bring the civilised world under the dominion of rome (ix. ), and in the thucydidean spirit points out the want of picturesqueness and romance in his pages which is the result of the abstract method ([greek]), being careful also to tell us that his rejection of all other forces is essentially deliberate and the result of a preconceived theory and by no means due to carelessness of any kind. now, of the general value of the abstract method and the legality of its employment in the sphere of history, this is perhaps not the suitable occasion for any discussion. it is, however, in all ways worthy of note that polybius is not merely conscious of, but dwells with particular weight on, the fact which is usually urged as the strongest objection to the employment of the abstract method--i mean the conception of a society as a sort of human organism whose parts are indissolubly connected with one another and all affected when one member is in any way agitated. this conception of the organic nature of society appears first in plato and aristotle, who apply it to cities. polybius, as his wont is, expands it to be a general characteristic of all history. it is an idea of the very highest importance, especially to a man like polybius whose thoughts are continually turned towards the essential unity of history and the impossibility of isolation. farther, as regards the particular method of investigating that group of phenomena obtained for him by the abstract method, he will adopt, he tells us, neither the purely deductive nor the purely inductive mode but the union of both. in other words, he formally adopts that method of analysis upon the importance of which i have dwelt before. and lastly, while, without doubt, enormous simplicity in the elements under consideration is the result of the employment of the abstract method, even within the limit thus obtained a certain selection must be made, and a selection involves a theory. for the facts of life cannot be tabulated with as great an ease as the colours of birds and insects can be tabulated. now, polybius points out that those phenomena particularly are to be dwelt on which may serve as a [greek] or sample, and show the character of the tendencies of the age as clearly as 'a single drop from a full cask will be enough to disclose the nature of the whole contents.' this recognition of the importance of single facts, not in themselves but because of the spirit they represent, is extremely scientific; for we know that from the single bone, or tooth even, the anatomist can recreate entirely the skeleton of the primeval horse, and the botanist tell the character of the flora and fauna of a district from a single specimen. regarding truth as 'the most divine thing in nature,' the very 'eye and light of history without which it moves a blind thing,' polybius spared no pains in the acquisition of historical materials or in the study of the sciences of politics and war, which he considered were so essential to the training of the scientific historian, and the labour he took is mirrored in the many ways in which he criticises other authorities. there is something, as a rule, slightly contemptible about ancient criticism. the modern idea of the critic as the interpreter, the expounder of the beauty and excellence of the work he selects, seems quite unknown. nothing can be more captious or unfair, for instance, than the method by which aristotle criticised the ideal state of plato in his ethical works, and the passages quoted by polybius from timaeus show that the latter historian fully deserved the punning name given to him. but in polybius there is, i think, little of that bitterness and pettiness of spirit which characterises most other writers, and an incidental story he tells of his relations with one of the historians whom he criticised shows that he was a man of great courtesy and refinement of taste--as, indeed, befitted one who had lived always in the society of those who were of great and noble birth. now, as regards the character of the canons by which he criticises the works of other authors, in the majority of cases he employs simply his own geographical and military knowledge, showing, for instance, the impossibility in the accounts given of nabis's march from sparta simply by his acquaintance with the spots in question; or the inconsistency of those of the battle of issus; or of the accounts given by ephorus of the battles of leuctra and mantinea. in the latter case he says, if any one will take the trouble to measure out the ground of the site of the battle and then test the manoeuvres given, he will find how inaccurate the accounts are. in other cases he appeals to public documents, the importance of which he was always foremost in recognising; showing, for instance, by a document in the public archives of rhodes how inaccurate were the accounts given of the battle of lade by zeno and antisthenes. or he appeals to psychological probability, rejecting, for instance, the scandalous stories told of philip of macedon, simply from the king's general greatness of character, and arguing that a boy so well educated and so respectably connected as demochares (xii. ) could never have been guilty of that of which evil rumour accused him. but the chief object of his literary censure is timaeus, who had been so unsparing of his strictures on others. the general point which he makes against him, impugning his accuracy as a historian, is that he derived his knowledge of history not from the dangerous perils of a life of action but in the secure indolence of a narrow scholastic life. there is, indeed, no point on which he is so vehement as this. 'a history,' he says, 'written in a library gives as lifeless and as inaccurate a picture of history as a painting which is copied not from a living animal but from a stuffed one.' there is more difference, he says in another place, between the history of an eye-witness and that of one whose knowledge comes from books, than there is between the scenes of real life and the fictitious landscapes of theatrical scenery. besides this, he enters into somewhat elaborate detailed criticism of passages where he thought timaeus was following a wrong method and perverting truth, passages which it will be worth while to examine in detail. timaeus, from the fact of there being a roman custom to shoot a war-horse on a stated day, argued back to the trojan origin of that people. polybius, on the other hand, points out that the inference is quite unwarrantable, because horse-sacrifices are ordinary institutions common to all barbarous tribes. timaeus here, as was so common with greek writers, is arguing back from some custom of the present to an historical event in the past. polybius really is employing the comparative method, showing how the custom was an ordinary step in the civilisation of every early people. in another place, { } he shows how illogical is the scepticism of timaeus as regards the existence of the bull of phalaris simply by appealing to the statue of the bull, which was still to be seen in carthage; pointing out how impossible it was, on any other theory except that it belonged to phalaris, to account for the presence in carthage of a bull of this peculiar character with a door between his shoulders. but one of the great points which he uses against this sicilian historian is in reference to the question of the origin of the locrian colony. in accordance with the received tradition on the subject, aristotle had represented the locrian colony as founded by some parthenidae or slaves' children, as they were called, a statement which seems to have roused the indignation of timaeus, who went to a good deal of trouble to confute this theory. he does so on the following grounds:-- first of all, he points out that in the ancient days the greeks had no slaves at all, so the mention of them in the matter is an anachronism; and next he declares that he was shown in the greek city of locris certain ancient inscriptions in which their relation to the italian city was expressed in terms of the position between parent and child, which showed also that mutual rights of citizenship were accorded to each city. besides this, he appeals to various questions of improbability as regards their international relationship, on which polybius takes diametrically opposite grounds which hardly call for discussion. and in favour of his own view he urges two points more: first, that the lacedaemonians being allowed furlough for the purpose of seeing their wives at home, it was unlikely that the locrians should not have had the same privilege; and next, that the italian locrians knew nothing of the aristotelian version and had, on the contrary, very severe laws against adulterers, runaway slaves and the like. now, most of these questions rest on mere probability, which is always such a subjective canon that an appeal to it is rarely conclusive. i would note, however, as regards the inscriptions which, if genuine, would of course have settled the matter, that polybius looks on them as a mere invention on the part of timaeus, who, he remarks, gives no details about them, though, as a rule, he is so over- anxious to give chapter and verse for everything. a somewhat more interesting point is that where he attacks timaeus for the introduction of fictitious speeches into his narrative; for on this point polybius seems to be far in advance of the opinions held by literary men on the subject not merely in his own day, but for centuries after. herodotus had introduced speeches avowedly dramatic and fictitious. thucydides states clearly that, where he was unable to find out what people really said, he put down what they ought to have said. sallust alludes, it is true, to the fact of the speech he puts into the mouth of the tribune memmius being essentially genuine, but the speeches given in the senate on the occasion of the catilinarian conspiracy are very different from the same orations as they appear in cicero. livy makes his ancient romans wrangle and chop logic with all the subtlety of a hortensius or a scaevola. and even in later days, when shorthand reporters attended the debates of the senate and a daily news was published in rome, we find that one of the most celebrated speeches in tacitus (that in which the emperor claudius gives the gauls their freedom) is shown, by an inscription discovered recently at lugdunum, to be entirely fabulous. upon the other hand, it must be borne in mind that these speeches were not intended to deceive; they were regarded merely as a certain dramatic element which it was allowable to introduce into history for the purpose of giving more life and reality to the narration, and were to be criticised, not as we should, by arguing how in an age before shorthand was known such a report was possible or how, in the failure of written documents, tradition could bring down such an accurate verbal account, but by the higher test of their psychological probability as regards the persons in whose mouths they are placed. an ancient historian in answer to modern criticism would say, probably, that these fictitious speeches were in reality more truthful than the actual ones, just as aristotle claimed for poetry a higher degree of truth in comparison to history. the whole point is interesting as showing how far in advance of his age polybius may be said to have been. the last scientific historian, it is possible to gather from his writings what he considered were the characteristics of the ideal writer of history; and no small light will be thrown on the progress of historical criticism if we strive to collect and analyse what in polybius are more or less scattered expressions. the ideal historian must be contemporary with the events he describes, or removed from them by one generation only. where it is possible, he is to be an eye-witness of what he writes of; where that is out of his power he is to test all traditions and stories carefully and not to be ready to accept what is plausible in place of what is true. he is to be no bookworm living aloof from the experiences of the world in the artificial isolation of a university town, but a politician, a soldier, and a traveller, a man not merely of thought but of action, one who can do great things as well as write of them, who in the sphere of history could be what byron and aeschylus were in the sphere of poetry, at once le chantre et le heros. he is to keep before his eyes the fact that chance is merely a synonym for our ignorance; that the reign of law pervades the domain of history as much as it does that of political science. he is to accustom himself to look on all occasions for rational and natural causes. and while he is to recognise the practical utility of the supernatural, in an educational point of view, he is not himself to indulge in such intellectual beating of the air as to admit the possibility of the violation of inviolable laws, or to argue in a sphere wherein argument is a priori annihilated. he is to be free from all bias towards friend and country; he is to be courteous and gentle in criticism; he is not to regard history as a mere opportunity for splendid and tragic writing; nor is he to falsify truth for the sake of a paradox or an epigram. while acknowledging the importance of particular facts as samples of higher truths, he is to take a broad and general view of humanity. he is to deal with the whole race and with the world, not with particular tribes or separate countries. he is to bear in mind that the world is really an organism wherein no one part can be moved without the others being affected also. he is to distinguish between cause and occasion, between the influence of general laws and particular fancies, and he is to remember that the greatest lessons of the world are contained in history and that it is the historian's duty to manifest them so as to save nations from following those unwise policies which always lead to dishonour and ruin, and to teach individuals to apprehend by the intellectual culture of history those truths which else they would have to learn in the bitter school of experience. now, as regards his theory of the necessity of the historian's being contemporary with the events he describes, so far as the historian is a mere narrator the remark is undoubtedly true. but to appreciate the harmony and rational position of the facts of a great epoch, to discover its laws, the causes which produced it and the effects which it generates, the scene must be viewed from a certain height and distance to be completely apprehended. a thoroughly contemporary historian such as lord clarendon or thucydides is in reality part of the history he criticises; and, in the case of such contemporary historians as fabius and philistus, polybius is compelled to acknowledge that they are misled by patriotic and other considerations. against polybius himself no such accusation can be made. he indeed of all men is able, as from some lofty tower, to discern the whole tendency of the ancient world, the triumph of roman institutions and of greek thought which is the last message of the old world and, in a more spiritual sense, has become the gospel of the new. one thing indeed he did not see, or if he saw it, he thought but little of it--how from the east there was spreading over the world, as a wave spreads, a spiritual inroad of new religions from the time when the pessinuntine mother of the gods, a shapeless mass of stone, was brought to the eternal city by her holiest citizen, to the day when the ship castor and pollux stood in at puteoli, and st. paul turned his face towards martyrdom and victory at rome. polybius was able to predict, from his knowledge of the causes of revolutions and the tendencies of the various forms of governments, the uprising of that democratic tone of thought which, as soon as a seed is sown in the murder of the gracchi and the exile of marius, culminated as all democratic movements do culminate, in the supreme authority of one man, the lordship of the world under the world's rightful lord, caius julius caesar. this, indeed, he saw in no uncertain way. but the turning of all men's hearts to the east, the first glimmering of that splendid dawn which broke over the hills of galilee and flooded the earth like wine, was hidden from his eyes. there are many points in the description of the ideal historian which one may compare to the picture which plato has given us of the ideal philosopher. they are both 'spectators of all time and all existence.' nothing is contemptible in their eyes, for all things have a meaning, and they both walk in august reasonableness before all men, conscious of the workings of god yet free from all terror of mendicant priest or vagrant miracle-worker. but the parallel ends here. for the one stands aloof from the world-storm of sleet and hail, his eyes fixed on distant and sunlit heights, loving knowledge for the sake of knowledge and wisdom for the joy of wisdom, while the other is an eager actor in the world ever seeking to apply his knowledge to useful things. both equally desire truth, but the one because of its utility, the other for its beauty. the historian regards it as the rational principle of all true history, and no more. to the other it comes as an all-pervading and mystic enthusiasm, 'like the desire of strong wine, the craving of ambition, the passionate love of what is beautiful.' still, though we miss in the historian those higher and more spiritual qualities which the philosopher of the academe alone of all men possessed, we must not blind ourselves to the merits of that great rationalist who seems to have anticipated the very latest words of modern science. nor yet is he to be regarded merely in the narrow light in which he is estimated by most modern critics, as the explicit champion of rationalism and nothing more. for he is connected with another idea, the course of which is as the course of that great river of his native arcadia which, springing from some arid and sun-bleached rock, gathers strength and beauty as it flows till it reaches the asphodel meadows of olympia and the light and laughter of ionian waters. for in him we can discern the first notes of that great cult of the seven- hilled city which made virgil write his epic and livy his history, which found in dante its highest exponent, which dreamed of an empire where the emperor would care for the bodies and the pope for the souls of men, and so has passed into the conception of god's spiritual empire and the universal brotherhood of man and widened into the huge ocean of universal thought as the peneus loses itself in the sea. polybius is the last scientific historian of greece. the writer who seems fittingly to complete the progress of thought is a writer of biographies only. i will not here touch on plutarch's employment of the inductive method as shown in his constant use of inscription and statue, of public document and building and the like, because they involve no new method. it is his attitude towards miracles of which i desire to treat. plutarch is philosophic enough to see that in the sense of a violation of the laws of nature a miracle is impossible. it is absurd, he says, to imagine that the statue of a saint can speak, and that an inanimate object not possessing the vocal organs should be able to utter an articulate sound. upon the other hand, he protests against science imagining that, by explaining the natural causes of things, it has explained away their transcendental meaning. 'when the tears on the cheek of some holy statue have been analysed into the moisture which certain temperatures produce on wood and marble, it yet by no means follows that they were not a sign of grief and mourning set there by god himself.' when lampon saw in the prodigy of the one-horned ram the omen of the supreme rule of pericles, and when anaxagoras showed that the abnormal development was the rational resultant of the peculiar formation of the skull, the dreamer and the man of science were both right; it was the business of the latter to consider how the prodigy came about, of the former to show why it was so formed and what it so portended. the progression of thought is exemplified in all particulars. herodotus had a glimmering sense of the impossibility of a violation of nature. thucydides ignored the supernatural. polybius rationalised it. plutarch raises it to its mystical heights again, though he bases it on law. in a word, plutarch felt that while science brings the supernatural down to the natural, yet ultimately all that is natural is really supernatural. to him, as to many of our own day, religion was that transcendental attitude of the mind which, contemplating a world resting on inviolable law, is yet comforted and seeks to worship god not in the violation but in the fulfilment of nature. it may seem paradoxical to quote in connection with the priest of chaeronea such a pure rationalist as mr. herbert spencer; yet when we read as the last message of modern science that 'when the equation of life has been reduced to its lowest terms the symbols are symbols still,' mere signs, that is, of that unknown reality which underlies all matter and all spirit, we may feel how over the wide strait of centuries thought calls to thought and how plutarch has a higher position than is usually claimed for him in the progress of the greek intellect. and, indeed, it seems that not merely the importance of plutarch himself but also that of the land of his birth in the evolution of greek civilisation has been passed over by modern critics. to us, indeed, the bare rock to which the parthenon serves as a crown, and which lies between colonus and attica's violet hills, will always be the holiest spot in the land of greece: and delphi will come next, and then the meadows of eurotas where that noble people lived who represented in hellenic thought the reaction of the law of duty against the law of beauty, the opposition of conduct to culture. yet, as one stands on the [greek] of cithaeron and looks out on the great double plain of boeotia, the enormous importance of the division of hellas comes to one's mind with great force. to the north is orchomenus and the minyan treasure house, seat of those merchant princes of phoenicia who brought to greece the knowledge of letters and the art of working in gold. thebes is at our feet with the gloom of the terrible legends of greek tragedy still lingering about it, the birthplace of pindar, the nurse of epaminondas and the sacred band. and from out of the plain where 'mars loved to dance,' rises the muses' haunt, helicon, by whose silver streams corinna and hesiod sang. while far away under the white aegis of those snow-capped mountains lies chaeronea and the lion plain where with vain chivalry the greeks strove to check macedon first and afterwards rome; chaeronea, where in the martinmas summer of greek civilisation plutarch rose from the drear waste of a dying religion as the aftermath rises when the mowers think they have left the field bare. greek philosophy began and ended in scepticism: the first and the last word of greek history was faith. splendid thus in its death, like winter sunsets, the greek religion passed away into the horror of night. for the cimmerian darkness was at hand, and when the schools of athens were closed and the statue of athena broken, the greek spirit passed from the gods and the history of its own land to the subtleties of defining the doctrine of the trinity and the mystical attempts to bring plato into harmony with christ and to reconcile gethsemane and the sermon on the mount with the athenian prison and the discussion in the woods of colonus. the greek spirit slept for wellnigh a thousand years. when it woke again, like antaeus it had gathered strength from the earth where it lay, like apollo it had lost none of its divinity through its long servitude. in the history of roman thought we nowhere find any of those characteristics of the greek illumination which i have pointed out are the necessary concomitants of the rise of historical criticism. the conservative respect for tradition which made the roman people delight in the ritual and formulas of law, and is as apparent in their politics as in their religion, was fatal to any rise of that spirit of revolt against authority the importance of which, as a factor in intellectual progress, we have already seen. the whitened tables of the pontifices preserved carefully the records of the eclipses and other atmospherical phenomena, and what we call the art of verifying dates was known to them at an early time; but there was no spontaneous rise of physical science to suggest by its analogies of law and order a new method of research, nor any natural springing up of the questioning spirit of philosophy with its unification of all phenomena and all knowledge. at the very time when the whole tide of eastern superstition was sweeping into the heart of the capitol the senate banished the greek philosophers from rome. and of the three systems which did at length take some root in the city those of zeno and epicurus were merely used as the rule for the ordering of life, while the dogmatic scepticism of carneades, by its very principles, annihilated the possibility of argument and encouraged a perfect indifference to research. nor were the romans ever fortunate enough like the greeks to have to face the incubus of any dogmatic system of legends and myths, the immoralities and absurdities of which might excite a revolutionary outbreak of sceptical criticism. for the roman religion became as it were crystallised and isolated from progress at an early period of its evolution. their gods remained mere abstractions of commonplace virtues or uninteresting personifications of the useful things of life. the old primitive creed was indeed always upheld as a state institution on account of the enormous facilities it offered for cheating in politics, but as a spiritual system of belief it was unanimously rejected at a very early period both by the common people and the educated classes, for the sensible reason that it was so extremely dull. the former took refuge in the mystic sensualities of the worship of isis, the latter in the stoical rules of life. the romans classified their gods carefully in their order of precedence, analysed their genealogies in the laborious spirit of modern heraldry, fenced them round with a ritual as intricate as their law, but never quite cared enough about them to believe in them. so it was of no account with them when the philosophers announced that minerva was merely memory. she had never been much else. nor did they protest when lucretius dared to say of ceres and of liber that they were only the corn of the field and the fruit of the vine. for they had never mourned for the daughter of demeter in the asphodel meadows of sicily, nor traversed the glades of cithaeron with fawn-skin and with spear. this brief sketch of the condition of roman thought will serve to prepare us for the almost total want of scientific historical criticism which we shall discern in their literature, and has, besides, afforded fresh corroborations of the conditions essential to the rise of this spirit, and of the modes of thought which it reflects and in which it is always to be found. roman historical composition had its origin in the pontifical college of ecclesiastical lawyers, and preserved to its close the uncritical spirit which characterised its fountain-head. it possessed from the outset a most voluminous collection of the materials of history, which, however, produced merely antiquarians, not historians. it is so hard to use facts, so easy to accumulate them. wearied of the dull monotony of the pontifical annals, which dwelt on little else but the rise and fall in provisions and the eclipses of the sun, cato wrote out a history with his own hand for the instruction of his child, to which he gave the name of origines, and before his time some aristocratic families had written histories in greek much in the same spirit in which the germans of the eighteenth century used french as the literary language. but the first regular roman historian is sallust. between the extravagant eulogies passed on this author by the french (such as de closset), and dr. mommsen's view of him as merely a political pamphleteer, it is perhaps difficult to reach the via media of unbiassed appreciation. he has, at any rate, the credit of being a purely rationalistic historian, perhaps the only one in roman literature. cicero had a good many qualifications for a scientific historian, and (as he usually did) thought very highly of his own powers. on passages of ancient legend, however, he is rather unsatisfactory, for while he is too sensible to believe them he is too patriotic to reject them. and this is really the attitude of livy, who claims for early roman legend a certain uncritical homage from the rest of the subject world. his view in his history is that it is not worth while to examine the truth of these stories. in his hands the history of rome unrolls before our eyes like some gorgeous tapestry, where victory succeeds victory, where triumph treads on the heels of triumph, and the line of heroes seems never to end. it is not till we pass behind the canvas and see the slight means by which the effect is produced that we apprehend the fact that like most picturesque writers livy is an indifferent critic. as regards his attitude towards the credibility of early roman history he is quite as conscious as we are of its mythical and unsound nature. he will not, for instance, decide whether the horatii were albans or romans; who was the first dictator; how many tribunes there were, and the like. his method, as a rule, is merely to mention all the accounts and sometimes to decide in favour of the most probable, but usually not to decide at all. no canons of historical criticism will ever discover whether the roman women interviewed the mother of coriolanus of their own accord or at the suggestion of the senate; whether remus was killed for jumping over his brother's wall or because they quarrelled about birds; whether the ambassadors found cincinnatus ploughing or only mending a hedge. livy suspends his judgment over these important facts and history when questioned on their truth is dumb. if he does select between two historians he chooses the one who is nearer to the facts he describes. but he is no critic, only a conscientious writer. it is mere vain waste to dwell on his critical powers, for they do not exist. * * * * * in the case of tacitus imagination has taken the place of history. the past lives again in his pages, but through no laborious criticism; rather through a dramatic and psychological faculty which he specially possessed. in the philosophy of history he has no belief. he can never make up his mind what to believe as regards god's government of the world. there is no method in him and none elsewhere in roman literature. nations may not have missions but they certainly have functions. and the function of ancient italy was not merely to give us what is statical in our institutions and rational in our law, but to blend into one elemental creed the spiritual aspirations of aryan and of semite. italy was not a pioneer in intellectual progress, nor a motive power in the evolution of thought. the owl of the goddess of wisdom traversed over the whole land and found nowhere a resting-place. the dove, which is the bird of christ, flew straight to the city of rome and the new reign began. it was the fashion of early italian painters to represent in mediaeval costume the soldiers who watched over the tomb of christ, and this, which was the result of the frank anachronism of all true art, may serve to us as an allegory. for it was in vain that the middle ages strove to guard the buried spirit of progress. when the dawn of the greek spirit arose, the sepulchre was empty, the grave-clothes laid aside. humanity had risen from the dead. the study of greek, it has been well said, implies the birth of criticism, comparison and research. at the opening of that education of modern by ancient thought which we call the renaissance, it was the words of aristotle which sent columbus sailing to the new world, while a fragment of pythagorean astronomy set copernicus thinking on that train of reasoning which has revolutionised the whole position of our planet in the universe. then it was seen that the only meaning of progress is a return to greek modes of thought. the monkish hymns which obscured the pages of greek manuscripts were blotted out, the splendours of a new method were unfolded to the world, and out of the melancholy sea of mediaevalism rose the free spirit of man in all that splendour of glad adolescence, when the bodily powers seem quickened by a new vitality, when the eye sees more clearly than its wont and the mind apprehends what was beforetime hidden from it. to herald the opening of the sixteenth century, from the little venetian printing press came forth all the great authors of antiquity, each bearing on the title-page the words [greek] words which may serve to remind us with what wondrous prescience polybius saw the world's fate when he foretold the material sovereignty of roman institutions and exemplified in himself the intellectual empire of greece. the course of the study of the spirit of historical criticism has not been a profitless investigation into modes and forms of thought now antiquated and of no account. the only spirit which is entirely removed from us is the mediaeval; the greek spirit is essentially modern. the introduction of the comparative method of research which has forced history to disclose its secrets belongs in a measure to us. ours, too, is a more scientific knowledge of philology and the method of survival. nor did the ancients know anything of the doctrine of averages or of crucial instances, both of which methods have proved of such importance in modern criticism, the one adding a most important proof of the statical elements of history, and exemplifying the influences of all physical surroundings on the life of man; the other, as in the single instance of the moulin quignon skull, serving to create a whole new science of prehistoric archaeology and to bring us back to a time when man was coeval with the stone age, the mammoth and the woolly rhinoceros. but, except these, we have added no new canon or method to the science of historical criticism. across the drear waste of a thousand years the greek and the modern spirit join hands. in the torch race which the greek boys ran from the cerameician field of death to the home of the goddess of wisdom, not merely he who first reached the goal but he also who first started with the torch aflame received a prize. in the lampadephoria of civilisation and free thought let us not forget to render due meed of honour to those who first lit that sacred flame, the increasing splendour of which lights our footsteps to the far-off divine event of the attainment of perfect truth. la sainte courtisane; or, the woman covered with jewels the scene represents a corner of a valley in the thebaid. on the right hand of the stage is a cavern. in front of the cavern stands a great crucifix. on the left [sand dunes]. the sky is blue like the inside of a cup of lapis lazuli. the hills are of red sand. here and there on the hills there are clumps of thorns. first man. who is she? she makes me afraid. she has a purple cloak and her hair is like threads of gold. i think she must be the daughter of the emperor. i have heard the boatmen say that the emperor has a daughter who wears a cloak of purple. second man. she has birds' wings upon her sandals, and her tunic is of the colour of green corn. it is like corn in spring when she stands still. it is like young corn troubled by the shadows of hawks when she moves. the pearls on her tunic are like many moons. first man. they are like the moons one sees in the water when the wind blows from the hills. second man. i think she is one of the gods. i think she comes from nubia. first man. i am sure she is the daughter of the emperor. her nails are stained with henna. they are like the petals of a rose. she has come here to weep for adonis. second man. she is one of the gods. i do not know why she has left her temple. the gods should not leave their temples. if she speaks to us let us not answer and she will pass by. first man. she will not speak to us. she is the daughter of the emperor. myrrhina. dwells he not here, the beautiful young hermit, he who will not look on the face of woman? first man. of a truth it is here the hermit dwells. myrrhina. why will he not look on the face of woman? second man. we do not know. myrrhina. why do ye yourselves not look at me? first man. you are covered with bright stones, and you dazzle our eyes. second man. he who looks at the sun becomes blind. you are too bright to look at. it is not wise to look at things that are very bright. many of the priests in the temples are blind, and have slaves to lead them. myrrhina. where does he dwell, the beautiful young hermit who will not look on the face of woman? has he a house of reeds or a house of burnt clay or does he lie on the hillside? or does he make his bed in the rushes? first man. he dwells in that cavern yonder. myrrhina. what a curious place to dwell in. first man. of old a centaur lived there. when the hermit came the centaur gave a shrill cry, wept and lamented, and galloped away. second man. no. it was a white unicorn who lived in the cave. when it saw the hermit coming the unicorn knelt down and worshipped him. many people saw it worshipping him. first man. i have talked with people who saw it. . . . . . second man. some say he was a hewer of wood and worked for hire. but that may not be true. . . . . . myrrhina. what gods then do ye worship? or do ye worship any gods? there are those who have no gods to worship. the philosophers who wear long beards and brown cloaks have no gods to worship. they wrangle with each other in the porticoes. the [ ] laugh at them. first man. we worship seven gods. we may not tell their names. it is a very dangerous thing to tell the names of the gods. no one should ever tell the name of his god. even the priests who praise the gods all day long, and eat of their food with them, do not call them by their right names. myrrhina. where are these gods ye worship? first man. we hide them in the folds of our tunics. we do not show them to any one. if we showed them to any one they might leave us. myrrhina. where did ye meet with them? first man. they were given to us by an embalmer of the dead who had found them in a tomb. we served him for seven years. myrrhina. the dead are terrible. i am afraid of death. first man. death is not a god. he is only the servant of the gods. myrrhina. he is the only god i am afraid of. ye have seen many of the gods? first man. we have seen many of them. one sees them chiefly at night time. they pass one by very swiftly. once we saw some of the gods at daybreak. they were walking across a plain. myrrhina. once as i was passing through the market place i heard a sophist from cilicia say that there is only one god. he said it before many people. first man. that cannot be true. we have ourselves seen many, though we are but common men and of no account. when i saw them i hid myself in a bush. they did me no harm. myrrhina. tell me more about the beautiful young hermit. talk to me about the beautiful young hermit who will not look on the face of woman. what is the story of his days? what mode of life has he? first man. we do not understand you. myrrhina. what does he do, the beautiful young hermit? does he sow or reap? does he plant a garden or catch fish in a net? does he weave linen on a loom? does he set his hand to the wooden plough and walk behind the oxen? second man. he being a very holy man does nothing. we are common men and of no account. we toil all day long in the sun. sometimes the ground is very hard. myrrhina. do the birds of the air feed him? do the jackals share their booty with him? first man. every evening we bring him food. we do not think that the birds of the air feed him. myrrhina. why do ye feed him? what profit have ye in so doing? second man. he is a very holy man. one of the gods whom he has offended has made him mad. we think he has offended the moon. myrrhina. go and tell him that one who has come from alexandria desires to speak with him. first man. we dare not tell him. this hour he is praying to his god. we pray thee to pardon us for not doing thy bidding. myrrhina. are ye afraid of him? first man. we are afraid of him. myrrhina. why are ye afraid of him? first man. we do not know. myrrhina. what is his name? first man. the voice that speaks to him at night time in the cavern calls to him by the name of honorius. it was also by the name of honorius that the three lepers who passed by once called to him. we think that his name is honorius. myrrhina. why did the three lepers call to him? first man. that he might heal them. myrrhina. did he heal them? second man. no. they had committed some sin: it was for that reason they were lepers. their hands and faces were like salt. one of them wore a mask of linen. he was a king's son. myrrhina. what is the voice that speaks to him at night time in his cave? first man. we do not know whose voice it is. we think it is the voice of his god. for we have seen no man enter his cavern nor any come forth from it. myrrhina. honorius. honorius (from within). who calls honorius? . . . . . myrrhina. come forth, honorius. . . . . . my chamber is ceiled with cedar and odorous with myrrh. the pillars of my bed are of cedar and the hangings are of purple. my bed is strewn with purple and the steps are of silver. the hangings are sewn with silver pomegranates and the steps that are of silver are strewn with saffron and with myrrh. my lovers hang garlands round the pillars of my house. at night time they come with the flute players and the players of the harp. they woo me with apples and on the pavement of my courtyard they write my name in wine. from the uttermost parts of the world my lovers come to me. the kings of the earth come to me and bring me presents. when the emperor of byzantium heard of me he left his porphyry chamber and set sail in his galleys. his slaves bare no torches that none might know of his coming. when the king of cyprus heard of me he sent me ambassadors. the two kings of libya who are brothers brought me gifts of amber. i took the minion of caesar from caesar and made him my playfellow. he came to me at night in a litter. he was pale as a narcissus, and his body was like honey. the son of the praefect slew himself in my honour, and the tetrarch of cilicia scourged himself for my pleasure before my slaves. the king of hierapolis who is a priest and a robber set carpets for me to walk on. sometimes i sit in the circus and the gladiators fight beneath me. once a thracian who was my lover was caught in the net. i gave the signal for him to die and the whole theatre applauded. sometimes i pass through the gymnasium and watch the young men wrestling or in the race. their bodies are bright with oil and their brows are wreathed with willow sprays and with myrtle. they stamp their feet on the sand when they wrestle and when they run the sand follows them like a little cloud. he at whom i smile leaves his companions and follows me to my home. at other times i go down to the harbour and watch the merchants unloading their vessels. those that come from tyre have cloaks of silk and earrings of emerald. those that come from massilia have cloaks of fine wool and earrings of brass. when they see me coming they stand on the prows of their ships and call to me, but i do not answer them. i go to the little taverns where the sailors lie all day long drinking black wine and playing with dice and i sit down with them. i made the prince my slave, and his slave who was a tyrian i made my lord for the space of a moon. i put a figured ring on his finger and brought him to my house. i have wonderful things in my house. the dust of the desert lies on your hair and your feet are scratched with thorns and your body is scorched by the sun. come with me, honorius, and i will clothe you in a tunic of silk. i will smear your body with myrrh and pour spikenard on your hair. i will clothe you in hyacinth and put honey in your mouth. love-- honorius. there is no love but the love of god. myrrhina. who is he whose love is greater than that of mortal men? honorius. it is he whom thou seest on the cross, myrrhina. he is the son of god and was born of a virgin. three wise men who were kings brought him offerings, and the shepherds who were lying on the hills were wakened by a great light. the sibyls knew of his coming. the groves and the oracles spake of him. david and the prophets announced him. there is no love like the love of god nor any love that can be compared to it. the body is vile, myrrhina. god will raise thee up with a new body which will not know corruption, and thou wilt dwell in the courts of the lord and see him whose hair is like fine wool and whose feet are of brass. myrrhina. the beauty . . . honorius. the beauty of the soul increases till it can see god. therefore, myrrhina, repent of thy sins. the robber who was crucified beside him he brought into paradise. [exit. myrrhina. how strangely he spake to me. and with what scorn did he regard me. i wonder why he spake to me so strangely. . . . . . honorius. myrrhina, the scales have fallen from my eyes and i see now clearly what i did not see before. take me to alexandria and let me taste of the seven sins. myrrhina. do not mock me, honorius, nor speak to me with such bitter words. for i have repented of my sins and i am seeking a cavern in this desert where i too may dwell so that my soul may become worthy to see god. honorius. the sun is setting, myrrhina. come with me to alexandria. myrrhina. i will not go to alexandria. honorius. farewell, myrrhina. myrrhina. honorius, farewell. no, no, do not go. . . . . . i have cursed my beauty for what it has done, and cursed the wonder of my body for the evil that it has brought upon you. lord, this man brought me to thy feet. he told me of thy coming upon earth, and of the wonder of thy birth, and the great wonder of thy death also. by him, o lord, thou wast revealed to me. honorius. you talk as a child, myrrhina, and without knowledge. loosen your hands. why didst thou come to this valley in thy beauty? myrrhina. the god whom thou worshippest led me here that i might repent of my iniquities and know him as the lord. honorius. why didst thou tempt me with words? myrrhina. that thou shouldst see sin in its painted mask and look on death in its robe of shame. the english renaissance of art 'the english renaissance of art' was delivered as a lecture for the first time in the chickering hall, new york, on january , . a portion of it was reported in the new york tribune on the following day and in other american papers subsequently. since then this portion has been reprinted, more or less accurately, from time to time, in unauthorised editions, but not more than one quarter of the lecture has ever been published. there are in existence no less than four copies of the lecture, the earliest of which is entirely in the author's handwriting. the others are type-written and contain many corrections and additions made by the author in manuscript. these have all been collated and the text here given contains, as nearly as possible, the lecture in its original form as delivered by the author during his tour in the united states. among the many debts which we owe to the supreme aesthetic faculty of goethe is that he was the first to teach us to define beauty in terms the most concrete possible, to realise it, i mean, always in its special manifestations. so, in the lecture which i have the honour to deliver before you, i will not try to give you any abstract definition of beauty--any such universal formula for it as was sought for by the philosophy of the eighteenth century--still less to communicate to you that which in its essence is incommunicable, the virtue by which a particular picture or poem affects us with a unique and special joy; but rather to point out to you the general ideas which characterise the great english renaissance of art in this century, to discover their source, as far as that is possible, and to estimate their future as far as that is possible. i call it our english renaissance because it is indeed a sort of new birth of the spirit of man, like the great italian renaissance of the fifteenth century, in its desire for a more gracious and comely way of life, its passion for physical beauty, its exclusive attention to form, its seeking for new subjects for poetry, new forms of art, new intellectual and imaginative enjoyments: and i call it our romantic movement because it is our most recent expression of beauty. it has been described as a mere revival of greek modes of thought, and again as a mere revival of mediaeval feeling. rather i would say that to these forms of the human spirit it has added whatever of artistic value the intricacy and complexity and experience of modern life can give: taking from the one its clearness of vision and its sustained calm, from the other its variety of expression and the mystery of its vision. for what, as goethe said, is the study of the ancients but a return to the real world (for that is what they did); and what, said mazzini, is mediaevalism but individuality? it is really from the union of hellenism, in its breadth, its sanity of purpose, its calm possession of beauty, with the adventive, the intensified individualism, the passionate colour of the romantic spirit, that springs the art of the nineteenth century in england, as from the marriage of faust and helen of troy sprang the beautiful boy euphorion. such expressions as 'classical' and 'romantic' are, it is true, often apt to become the mere catchwords of schools. we must always remember that art has only one sentence to utter: there is for her only one high law, the law of form or harmony--yet between the classical and romantic spirit we may say that there lies this difference at least, that the one deals with the type and the other with the exception. in the work produced under the modern romantic spirit it is no longer the permanent, the essential truths of life that are treated of; it is the momentary situation of the one, the momentary aspect of the other that art seeks to render. in sculpture, which is the type of one spirit, the subject predominates over the situation; in painting, which is the type of the other, the situation predominates over the subject. there are two spirits, then: the hellenic spirit and the spirit of romance may be taken as forming the essential elements of our conscious intellectual tradition, of our permanent standard of taste. as regards their origin, in art as in politics there is but one origin for all revolutions, a desire on the part of man for a nobler form of life, for a freer method and opportunity of expression. yet, i think that in estimating the sensuous and intellectual spirit which presides over our english renaissance, any attempt to isolate it in any way from the progress and movement and social life of the age that has produced it would be to rob it of its true vitality, possibly to mistake its true meaning. and in disengaging from the pursuits and passions of this crowded modern world those passions and pursuits which have to do with art and the love of art, we must take into account many great events of history which seem to be the most opposed to any such artistic feeling. alien then from any wild, political passion, or from the harsh voice of a rude people in revolt, as our english renaissance must seem, in its passionate cult of pure beauty, its flawless devotion to form, its exclusive and sensitive nature, it is to the french revolution that we must look for the most primary factor of its production, the first condition of its birth: that great revolution of which we are all the children, though the voices of some of us be often loud against it; that revolution to which at a time when even such spirits as coleridge and wordsworth lost heart in england, noble messages of love blown across seas came from your young republic. it is true that our modern sense of the continuity of history has shown us that neither in politics nor in nature are there revolutions ever but evolutions only, and that the prelude to that wild storm which swept over france in ' and made every king in europe tremble for his throne, was first sounded in literature years before the bastille fell and the palace was taken. the way for those red scenes by seine and loire was paved by that critical spirit of germany and england which accustomed men to bring all things to the test of reason or utility or both, while the discontent of the people in the streets of paris was the echo that followed the life of emile and of werther. for rousseau, by silent lake and mountain, had called humanity back to the golden age that still lies before us and preached a return to nature, in passionate eloquence whose music still lingers about our keen northern air. and goethe and scott had brought romance back again from the prison she had lain in for so many centuries--and what is romance but humanity? yet in the womb of the revolution itself, and in the storm and terror of that wild time, tendencies were hidden away that the artistic renaissance bent to her own service when the time came--a scientific tendency first, which has borne in our own day a brood of somewhat noisy titans, yet in the sphere of poetry has not been unproductive of good. i do not mean merely in its adding to enthusiasm that intellectual basis which is its strength, or that more obvious influence about which wordsworth was thinking when he said very nobly that poetry was merely the impassioned expression in the face of science, and that when science would put on a form of flesh and blood the poet would lend his divine spirit to aid the transfiguration. nor do i dwell much on the great cosmical emotion and deep pantheism of science to which shelley has given its first and swinburne its latest glory of song, but rather on its influence on the artistic spirit in preserving that close observation and the sense of limitation as well as of clearness of vision which are the characteristics of the real artist. the great and golden rule of art as well as of life, wrote william blake, is that the more distinct, sharp and defined the boundary line, the more perfect is the work of art; and the less keen and sharp the greater is the evidence of weak imitation, plagiarism and bungling. 'great inventors in all ages knew this--michael angelo and albert durer are known by this and by this alone'; and another time he wrote, with all the simple directness of nineteenth-century prose, 'to generalise is to be an idiot.' and this love of definite conception, this clearness of vision, this artistic sense of limit, is the characteristic of all great work and poetry; of the vision of homer as of the vision of dante, of keats and william morris as of chaucer and theocritus. it lies at the base of all noble, realistic and romantic work as opposed to colourless and empty abstractions of our own eighteenth-century poets and of the classical dramatists of france, or of the vague spiritualities of the german sentimental school: opposed, too, to that spirit of transcendentalism which also was root and flower itself of the great revolution, underlying the impassioned contemplation of wordsworth and giving wings and fire to the eagle-like flight of shelley, and which in the sphere of philosophy, though displaced by the materialism and positiveness of our day, bequeathed two great schools of thought, the school of newman to oxford, the school of emerson to america. yet is this spirit of transcendentalism alien to the spirit of art. for the artist can accept no sphere of life in exchange for life itself. for him there is no escape from the bondage of the earth: there is not even the desire of escape. he is indeed the only true realist: symbolism, which is the essence of the transcendental spirit, is alien to him. the metaphysical mind of asia will create for itself the monstrous, many-breasted idol of ephesus, but to the greek, pure artist, that work is most instinct with spiritual life which conforms most clearly to the perfect facts of physical life. 'the storm of revolution,' as andre chenier said, 'blows out the torch of poetry.' it is not for some little time that the real influence of such a wild cataclysm of things is felt: at first the desire for equality seems to have produced personalities of more giant and titan stature than the world had ever known before. men heard the lyre of byron and the legions of napoleon; it was a period of measureless passions and of measureless despair; ambition, discontent, were the chords of life and art; the age was an age of revolt: a phase through which the human spirit must pass but one in which it cannot rest. for the aim of culture is not rebellion but peace, the valley perilous where ignorant armies clash by night being no dwelling-place meet for her to whom the gods have assigned the fresh uplands and sunny heights and clear, untroubled air. and soon that desire for perfection, which lay at the base of the revolution, found in a young english poet its most complete and flawless realisation. phidias and the achievements of greek art are foreshadowed in homer: dante prefigures for us the passion and colour and intensity of italian painting: the modern love of landscape dates from rousseau, and it is in keats that one discerns the beginning of the artistic renaissance of england. byron was a rebel and shelley a dreamer; but in the calmness and clearness of his vision, his perfect self-control, his unerring sense of beauty and his recognition of a separate realm for the imagination, keats was the pure and serene artist, the forerunner of the pre-raphaelite school, and so of the great romantic movement of which i am to speak. blake had indeed, before him, claimed for art a lofty, spiritual mission, and had striven to raise design to the ideal level of poetry and music, but the remoteness of his vision both in painting and poetry and the incompleteness of his technical powers had been adverse to any real influence. it is in keats that the artistic spirit of this century first found its absolute incarnation. and these pre-raphaelites, what were they? if you ask nine-tenths of the british public what is the meaning of the word aesthetics, they will tell you it is the french for affectation or the german for a dado; and if you inquire about the pre-raphaelites you will hear something about an eccentric lot of young men to whom a sort of divine crookedness and holy awkwardness in drawing were the chief objects of art. to know nothing about their great men is one of the necessary elements of english education. as regards the pre-raphaelites the story is simple enough. in the year a number of young men in london, poets and painters, passionate admirers of keats all of them, formed the habit of meeting together for discussions on art, the result of such discussions being that the english philistine public was roused suddenly from its ordinary apathy by hearing that there was in its midst a body of young men who had determined to revolutionise english painting and poetry. they called themselves the pre-raphaelite brotherhood. in england, then as now, it was enough for a man to try and produce any serious beautiful work to lose all his rights as a citizen; and besides this, the pre-raphaelite brotherhood--among whom the names of dante rossetti, holman hunt and millais will be familiar to you--had on their side three things that the english public never forgives: youth, power and enthusiasm. satire, always as sterile as it is shameful and as impotent as it is insolent, paid them that usual homage which mediocrity pays to genius--doing, here as always, infinite harm to the public, blinding them to what is beautiful, teaching them that irreverence which is the source of all vileness and narrowness of life, but harming the artist not at all, rather confirming him in the perfect rightness of his work and ambition. for to disagree with three-fourths of the british public on all points is one of the first elements of sanity, one of the deepest consolations in all moments of spiritual doubt. as regards the ideas these young men brought to the regeneration of english art, we may see at the base of their artistic creations a desire for a deeper spiritual value to be given to art as well as a more decorative value. pre-raphaelites they called themselves; not that they imitated the early italian masters at all, but that in their work, as opposed to the facile abstractions of raphael, they found a stronger realism of imagination, a more careful realism of technique, a vision at once more fervent and more vivid, an individuality more intimate and more intense. for it is not enough that a work of art should conform to the aesthetic demands of its age: there must be also about it, if it is to affect us with any permanent delight, the impress of a distinct individuality, an individuality remote from that of ordinary men, and coming near to us only by virtue of a certain newness and wonder in the work, and through channels whose very strangeness makes us more ready to give them welcome. la personalite, said one of the greatest of modern french critics, voila ce qui nous sauvera. but above all things was it a return to nature--that formula which seems to suit so many and such diverse movements: they would draw and paint nothing but what they saw, they would try and imagine things as they really happened. later there came to the old house by blackfriars bridge, where this young brotherhood used to meet and work, two young men from oxford, edward burne-jones and william morris--the latter substituting for the simpler realism of the early days a more exquisite spirit of choice, a more faultless devotion to beauty, a more intense seeking for perfection: a master of all exquisite design and of all spiritual vision. it is of the school of florence rather than of that of venice that he is kinsman, feeling that the close imitation of nature is a disturbing element in imaginative art. the visible aspect of modern life disturbs him not; rather is it for him to render eternal all that is beautiful in greek, italian, and celtic legend. to morris we owe poetry whose perfect precision and clearness of word and vision has not been excelled in the literature of our country, and by the revival of the decorative arts he has given to our individualised romantic movement the social idea and the social factor also. but the revolution accomplished by this clique of young men, with ruskin's faultless and fervent eloquence to help them, was not one of ideas merely but of execution, not one of conceptions but of creations. for the great eras in the history of the development of all the arts have been eras not of increased feeling or enthusiasm in feeling for art, but of new technical improvements primarily and specially. the discovery of marble quarries in the purple ravines of pentelicus and on the little low- lying hills of the island of paros gave to the greeks the opportunity for that intensified vitality of action, that more sensuous and simple humanism, to which the egyptian sculptor working laboriously in the hard porphyry and rose-coloured granite of the desert could not attain. the splendour of the venetian school began with the introduction of the new oil medium for painting. the progress in modern music has been due to the invention of new instruments entirely, and in no way to an increased consciousness on the part of the musician of any wider social aim. the critic may try and trace the deferred resolutions of beethoven { } to some sense of the incompleteness of the modern intellectual spirit, but the artist would have answered, as one of them did afterwards, 'let them pick out the fifths and leave us at peace.' and so it is in poetry also: all this love of curious french metres like the ballade, the villanelle, the rondel; all this increased value laid on elaborate alliterations, and on curious words and refrains, such as you will find in dante rossetti and swinburne, is merely the attempt to perfect flute and viol and trumpet through which the spirit of the age and the lips of the poet may blow the music of their many messages. and so it has been with this romantic movement of ours: it is a reaction against the empty conventional workmanship, the lax execution of previous poetry and painting, showing itself in the work of such men as rossetti and burne-jones by a far greater splendour of colour, a far more intricate wonder of design than english imaginative art has shown before. in rossetti's poetry and the poetry of morris, swinburne and tennyson a perfect precision and choice of language, a style flawless and fearless, a seeking for all sweet and precious melodies and a sustaining consciousness of the musical value of each word are opposed to that value which is merely intellectual. in this respect they are one with the romantic movement of france of which not the least characteristic note was struck by theophile gautier's advice to the young poet to read his dictionary every day, as being the only book worth a poet's reading. while, then, the material of workmanship is being thus elaborated and discovered to have in itself incommunicable and eternal qualities of its own, qualities entirely satisfying to the poetic sense and not needing for their aesthetic effect any lofty intellectual vision, any deep criticism of life or even any passionate human emotion at all, the spirit and the method of the poet's working--what people call his inspiration--have not escaped the controlling influence of the artistic spirit. not that the imagination has lost its wings, but we have accustomed ourselves to count their innumerable pulsations, to estimate their limitless strength, to govern their ungovernable freedom. to the greeks this problem of the conditions of poetic production, and the places occupied by either spontaneity or self-consciousness in any artistic work, had a peculiar fascination. we find it in the mysticism of plato and in the rationalism of aristotle. we find it later in the italian renaissance agitating the minds of such men as leonardo da vinci. schiller tried to adjust the balance between form and feeling, and goethe to estimate the position of self-consciousness in art. wordsworth's definition of poetry as 'emotion remembered in tranquillity' may be taken as an analysis of one of the stages through which all imaginative work has to pass; and in keats's longing to be 'able to compose without this fever' (i quote from one of his letters), his desire to substitute for poetic ardour 'a more thoughtful and quiet power,' we may discern the most important moment in the evolution of that artistic life. the question made an early and strange appearance in your literature too; and i need not remind you how deeply the young poets of the french romantic movement were excited and stirred by edgar allan poe's analysis of the workings of his own imagination in the creating of that supreme imaginative work which we know by the name of the raven. in the last century, when the intellectual and didactic element had intruded to such an extent into the kingdom which belongs to poetry, it was against the claims of the understanding that an artist like goethe had to protest. 'the more incomprehensible to the understanding a poem is the better for it,' he said once, asserting the complete supremacy of the imagination in poetry as of reason in prose. but in this century it is rather against the claims of the emotional faculties, the claims of mere sentiment and feeling, that the artist must react. the simple utterance of joy is not poetry any more than a mere personal cry of pain, and the real experiences of the artist are always those which do not find their direct expression but are gathered up and absorbed into some artistic form which seems, from such real experiences, to be the farthest removed and the most alien. 'the heart contains passion but the imagination alone contains poetry,' says charles baudelaire. this too was the lesson that theophile gautier, most subtle of all modern critics, most fascinating of all modern poets, was never tired of teaching--'everybody is affected by a sunrise or a sunset.' the absolute distinction of the artist is not his capacity to feel nature so much as his power of rendering it. the entire subordination of all intellectual and emotional faculties to the vital and informing poetic principle is the surest sign of the strength of our renaissance. we have seen the artistic spirit working, first in the delightful and technical sphere of language, the sphere of expression as opposed to subject, then controlling the imagination of the poet in dealing with his subject. and now i would point out to you its operation in the choice of subject. the recognition of a separate realm for the artist, a consciousness of the absolute difference between the world of art and the world of real fact, between classic grace and absolute reality, forms not merely the essential element of any aesthetic charm but is the characteristic of all great imaginative work and of all great eras of artistic creation--of the age of phidias as of the age of michael angelo, of the age of sophocles as of the age of goethe. art never harms itself by keeping aloof from the social problems of the day: rather, by so doing, it more completely realises for us that which we desire. for to most of us the real life is the life we do not lead, and thus, remaining more true to the essence of its own perfection, more jealous of its own unattainable beauty, is less likely to forget form in feeling or to accept the passion of creation as any substitute for the beauty of the created thing. the artist is indeed the child of his own age, but the present will not be to him a whit more real than the past; for, like the philosopher of the platonic vision, the poet is the spectator of all time and of all existence. for him no form is obsolete, no subject out of date; rather, whatever of life and passion the world has known, in desert of judaea or in arcadian valley, by the rivers of troy or the rivers of damascus, in the crowded and hideous streets of a modern city or by the pleasant ways of camelot--all lies before him like an open scroll, all is still instinct with beautiful life. he will take of it what is salutary for his own spirit, no more; choosing some facts and rejecting others with the calm artistic control of one who is in possession of the secret of beauty. there is indeed a poetical attitude to be adopted towards all things, but all things are not fit subjects for poetry. into the secure and sacred house of beauty the true artist will admit nothing that is harsh or disturbing, nothing that gives pain, nothing that is debatable, nothing about which men argue. he can steep himself, if he wishes, in the discussion of all the social problems of his day, poor-laws and local taxation, free trade and bimetallic currency, and the like; but when he writes on these subjects it will be, as milton nobly expressed it, with his left hand, in prose and not in verse, in a pamphlet and not in a lyric. this exquisite spirit of artistic choice was not in byron: wordsworth had it not. in the work of both these men there is much that we have to reject, much that does not give us that sense of calm and perfect repose which should be the effect of all fine, imaginative work. but in keats it seemed to have been incarnate, and in his lovely ode on a grecian urn it found its most secure and faultless expression; in the pageant of the earthly paradise and the knights and ladies of burne-jones it is the one dominant note. it is to no avail that the muse of poetry be called, even by such a clarion note as whitman's, to migrate from greece and ionia and to placard removed and to let on the rocks of the snowy parnassus. calliope's call is not yet closed, nor are the epics of asia ended; the sphinx is not yet silent, nor the fountain of castaly dry. for art is very life itself and knows nothing of death; she is absolute truth and takes no care of fact; she sees (as i remember mr. swinburne insisting on at dinner) that achilles is even now more actual and real than wellington, not merely more noble and interesting as a type and figure but more positive and real. literature must rest always on a principle, and temporal considerations are no principle at all. for to the poet all times and places are one; the stuff he deals with is eternal and eternally the same: no theme is inept, no past or present preferable. the steam whistle will not affright him nor the flutes of arcadia weary him: for him there is but one time, the artistic moment; but one law, the law of form; but one land, the land of beauty--a land removed indeed from the real world and yet more sensuous because more enduring; calm, yet with that calm which dwells in the faces of the greek statues, the calm which comes not from the rejection but from the absorption of passion, the calm which despair and sorrow cannot disturb but intensify only. and so it comes that he who seems to stand most remote from his age is he who mirrors it best, because he has stripped life of what is accidental and transitory, stripped it of that 'mist of familiarity which makes life obscure to us.' those strange, wild-eyed sibyls fixed eternally in the whirlwind of ecstasy, those mighty-limbed and titan prophets, labouring with the secret of the earth and the burden of mystery, that guard and glorify the chapel of pope sixtus at rome--do they not tell us more of the real spirit of the italian renaissance, of the dream of savonarola and of the sin of borgia, than all the brawling boors and cooking women of dutch art can teach us of the real spirit of the history of holland? and so in our own day, also, the two most vital tendencies of the nineteenth century--the democratic and pantheistic tendency and the tendency to value life for the sake of art--found their most complete and perfect utterance in the poetry of shelley and keats who, to the blind eyes of their own time, seemed to be as wanderers in the wilderness, preachers of vague or unreal things. and i remember once, in talking to mr. burne-jones about modern science, his saying to me, 'the more materialistic science becomes, the more angels shall i paint: their wings are my protest in favour of the immortality of the soul.' but these are the intellectual speculations that underlie art. where in the arts themselves are we to find that breadth of human sympathy which is the condition of all noble work; where in the arts are we to look for what mazzini would call the social ideas as opposed to the merely personal ideas? by virtue of what claim do i demand for the artist the love and loyalty of the men and women of the world? i think i can answer that. whatever spiritual message an artist brings to his aid is a matter for his own soul. he may bring judgment like michael angelo or peace like angelico; he may come with mourning like the great athenian or with mirth like the singer of sicily; nor is it for us to do aught but accept his teaching, knowing that we cannot smite the bitter lips of leopardi into laughter or burden with our discontent goethe's serene calm. but for warrant of its truth such message must have the flame of eloquence in the lips that speak it, splendour and glory in the vision that is its witness, being justified by one thing only--the flawless beauty and perfect form of its expression: this indeed being the social idea, being the meaning of joy in art. not laughter where none should laugh, nor the calling of peace where there is no peace; not in painting the subject ever, but the pictorial charm only, the wonder of its colour, the satisfying beauty of its design. you have most of you seen, probably, that great masterpiece of rubens which hangs in the gallery of brussels, that swift and wonderful pageant of horse and rider arrested in its most exquisite and fiery moment when the winds are caught in crimson banner and the air lit by the gleam of armour and the flash of plume. well, that is joy in art, though that golden hillside be trodden by the wounded feet of christ and it is for the death of the son of man that that gorgeous cavalcade is passing. but this restless modern intellectual spirit of ours is not receptive enough of the sensuous element of art; and so the real influence of the arts is hidden from many of us: only a few, escaping from the tyranny of the soul, have learned the secret of those high hours when thought is not. and this indeed is the reason of the influence which eastern art is having on us in europe, and of the fascination of all japanese work. while the western world has been laying on art the intolerable burden of its own intellectual doubts and the spiritual tragedy of its own sorrows, the east has always kept true to art's primary and pictorial conditions. in judging of a beautiful statue the aesthetic faculty is absolutely and completely gratified by the splendid curves of those marble lips that are dumb to our complaint, the noble modelling of those limbs that are powerless to help us. in its primary aspect a painting has no more spiritual message or meaning than an exquisite fragment of venetian glass or a blue tile from the wall of damascus: it is a beautifully coloured surface, nothing more. the channels by which all noble imaginative work in painting should touch, and do touch the soul, are not those of the truths of life, nor metaphysical truths. but that pictorial charm which does not depend on any literary reminiscence for its effect on the one hand, nor is yet a mere result of communicable technical skill on the other, comes of a certain inventive and creative handling of colour. nearly always in dutch painting and often in the works of giorgione or titian, it is entirely independent of anything definitely poetical in the subject, a kind of form and choice in workmanship which is itself entirely satisfying, and is (as the greeks would say) an end in itself. and so in poetry too, the real poetical quality, the joy of poetry, comes never from the subject but from an inventive handling of rhythmical language, from what keats called the 'sensuous life of verse.' the element of song in the singing accompanied by the profound joy of motion, is so sweet that, while the incomplete lives of ordinary men bring no healing power with them, the thorn-crown of the poet will blossom into roses for our pleasure; for our delight his despair will gild its own thorns, and his pain, like adonis, be beautiful in its agony; and when the poet's heart breaks it will break in music. and health in art--what is that? it has nothing to do with a sane criticism of life. there is more health in baudelaire than there is in [kingsley]. health is the artist's recognition of the limitations of the form in which he works. it is the honour and the homage which he gives to the material he uses--whether it be language with its glories, or marble or pigment with their glories--knowing that the true brotherhood of the arts consists not in their borrowing one another's method, but in their producing, each of them by its own individual means, each of them by keeping its objective limits, the same unique artistic delight. the delight is like that given to us by music--for music is the art in which form and matter are always one, the art whose subject cannot be separated from the method of its expression, the art which most completely realises the artistic ideal, and is the condition to which all the other arts are constantly aspiring. and criticism--what place is that to have in our culture? well, i think that the first duty of an art critic is to hold his tongue at all times, and upon all subjects: c'est une grande avantage de n'avoir rien fait, mais il ne faut pas en abuser. it is only through the mystery of creation that one can gain any knowledge of the quality of created things. you have listened to patience for a hundred nights and you have heard me only for one. it will make, no doubt, that satire more piquant by knowing something about the subject of it, but you must not judge of aestheticism by the satire of mr. gilbert. as little should you judge of the strength and splendour of sun or sea by the dust that dances in the beam, or the bubble that breaks on the wave, as take your critic for any sane test of art. for the artists, like the greek gods, are revealed only to one another, as emerson says somewhere; their real value and place time only can show. in this respect also omnipotence is with the ages. the true critic addresses not the artist ever but the public only. his work lies with them. art can never have any other claim but her own perfection: it is for the critic to create for art the social aim, too, by teaching the people the spirit in which they are to approach all artistic work, the love they are to give it, the lesson they are to draw from it. all these appeals to art to set herself more in harmony with modern progress and civilisation, and to make herself the mouthpiece for the voice of humanity, these appeals to art 'to have a mission,' are appeals which should be made to the public. the art which has fulfilled the conditions of beauty has fulfilled all conditions: it is for the critic to teach the people how to find in the calm of such art the highest expression of their own most stormy passions. 'i have no reverence,' said keats, 'for the public, nor for anything in existence but the eternal being, the memory of great men and the principle of beauty.' such then is the principle which i believe to be guiding and underlying our english renaissance, a renaissance many-sided and wonderful, productive of strong ambitions and lofty personalities, yet for all its splendid achievements in poetry and in the decorative arts and in painting, for all the increased comeliness and grace of dress, and the furniture of houses and the like, not complete. for there can be no great sculpture without a beautiful national life, and the commercial spirit of england has killed that; no great drama without a noble national life, and the commercial spirit of england has killed that too. it is not that the flawless serenity of marble cannot bear the burden of the modern intellectual spirit, or become instinct with the fire of romantic passion--the tomb of duke lorenzo and the chapel of the medici show us that--but it is that, as theophile gautier used to say, the visible world is dead, le monde visible a disparu. nor is it again that the novel has killed the play, as some critics would persuade us--the romantic movement of france shows us that. the work of balzac and of hugo grew up side by side together; nay, more, were complementary to each other, though neither of them saw it. while all other forms of poetry may flourish in an ignoble age, the splendid individualism of the lyrist, fed by its own passion, and lit by its own power, may pass as a pillar of fire as well across the desert as across places that are pleasant. it is none the less glorious though no man follow it--nay, by the greater sublimity of its loneliness it may be quickened into loftier utterance and intensified into clearer song. from the mean squalor of the sordid life that limits him, the dreamer or the idyllist may soar on poesy's viewless wings, may traverse with fawn-skin and spear the moonlit heights of cithaeron though faun and bassarid dance there no more. like keats he may wander through the old-world forests of latmos, or stand like morris on the galley's deck with the viking when king and galley have long since passed away. but the drama is the meeting-place of art and life; it deals, as mazzini said, not merely with man, but with social man, with man in his relation to god and to humanity. it is the product of a period of great national united energy; it is impossible without a noble public, and belongs to such ages as the age of elizabeth in london and of pericles at athens; it is part of such lofty moral and spiritual ardour as came to greek after the defeat of the persian fleet, and to englishman after the wreck of the armada of spain. shelley felt how incomplete our movement was in this respect, and has shown in one great tragedy by what terror and pity he would have purified our age; but in spite of the cenci the drama is one of the artistic forms through which the genius of the england of this century seeks in vain to find outlet and expression. he has had no worthy imitators. it is rather, perhaps, to you that we should turn to complete and perfect this great movement of ours, for there is something hellenic in your air and world, something that has a quicker breath of the joy and power of elizabeth's england about it than our ancient civilisation can give us. for you, at least, are young; 'no hungry generations tread you down,' and the past does not weary you with the intolerable burden of its memories nor mock you with the ruins of a beauty, the secret of whose creation you have lost. that very absence of tradition, which mr. ruskin thought would rob your rivers of their laughter and your flowers of their light, may be rather the source of your freedom and your strength. to speak in literature with the perfect rectitude and insouciance of the movements of animals, and the unimpeachableness of the sentiment of trees in the woods and grass by the roadside, has been defined by one of your poets as a flawless triumph of art. it is a triumph which you above all nations may be destined to achieve. for the voices that have their dwelling in sea and mountain are not the chosen music of liberty only; other messages are there in the wonder of wind-swept height and the majesty of silent deep--messages that, if you will but listen to them, may yield you the splendour of some new imagination, the marvel of some new beauty. 'i foresee,' said goethe, 'the dawn of a new literature which all people may claim as their own, for all have contributed to its foundation.' if, then, this is so, and if the materials for a civilisation as great as that of europe lie all around you, what profit, you will ask me, will all this study of our poets and painters be to you? i might answer that the intellect can be engaged without direct didactic object on an artistic and historical problem; that the demand of the intellect is merely to feel itself alive; that nothing which has ever interested men or women can cease to be a fit subject for culture. i might remind you of what all europe owes to the sorrow of a single florentine in exile at verona, or to the love of petrarch by that little well in southern france; nay, more, how even in this dull, materialistic age the simple expression of an old man's simple life, passed away from the clamour of great cities amid the lakes and misty hills of cumberland, has opened out for england treasures of new joy compared with which the treasures of her luxury are as barren as the sea which she has made her highway, and as bitter as the fire which she would make her slave. but i think it will bring you something besides this, something that is the knowledge of real strength in art: not that you should imitate the works of these men; but their artistic spirit, their artistic attitude, i think you should absorb that. for in nations, as in individuals, if the passion for creation be not accompanied by the critical, the aesthetic faculty also, it will be sure to waste its strength aimlessly, failing perhaps in the artistic spirit of choice, or in the mistaking of feeling for form, or in the following of false ideals. for the various spiritual forms of the imagination have a natural affinity with certain sensuous forms of art--and to discern the qualities of each art, to intensify as well its limitations as its powers of expression, is one of the aims that culture sets before us. it is not an increased moral sense, an increased moral supervision that your literature needs. indeed, one should never talk of a moral or an immoral poem--poems are either well written or badly written, that is all. and, indeed, any element of morals or implied reference to a standard of good or evil in art is often a sign of a certain incompleteness of vision, often a note of discord in the harmony of an imaginative creation; for all good work aims at a purely artistic effect. 'we must be careful,' said goethe, 'not to be always looking for culture merely in what is obviously moral. everything that is great promotes civilisation as soon as we are aware of it.' but, as in your cities so in your literature, it is a permanent canon and standard of taste, an increased sensibility to beauty (if i may say so) that is lacking. all noble work is not national merely, but universal. the political independence of a nation must not be confused with any intellectual isolation. the spiritual freedom, indeed, your own generous lives and liberal air will give you. from us you will learn the classical restraint of form. for all great art is delicate art, roughness having very little to do with strength, and harshness very little to do with power. 'the artist,' as mr. swinburne says, 'must be perfectly articulate.' this limitation is for the artist perfect freedom: it is at once the origin and the sign of his strength. so that all the supreme masters of style--dante, sophocles, shakespeare--are the supreme masters of spiritual and intellectual vision also. love art for its own sake, and then all things that you need will be added to you. this devotion to beauty and to the creation of beautiful things is the test of all great civilised nations. philosophy may teach us to bear with equanimity the misfortunes of our neighbours, and science resolve the moral sense into a secretion of sugar, but art is what makes the life of each citizen a sacrament and not a speculation, art is what makes the life of the whole race immortal. for beauty is the only thing that time cannot harm. philosophies fall away like sand, and creeds follow one another like the withered leaves of autumn; but what is beautiful is a joy for all seasons and a possession for all eternity. wars and the clash of armies and the meeting of men in battle by trampled field or leagured city, and the rising of nations there must always be. but i think that art, by creating a common intellectual atmosphere between all countries, might--if it could not overshadow the world with the silver wings of peace--at least make men such brothers that they would not go out to slay one another for the whim or folly of some king or minister, as they do in europe. fraternity would come no more with the hands of cain, nor liberty betray freedom with the kiss of anarchy; for national hatreds are always strongest where culture is lowest. 'how could i?' said goethe, when reproached for not writing like korner against the french. 'how could i, to whom barbarism and culture alone are of importance, hate a nation which is among the most cultivated of the earth, a nation to which i owe a great part of my own cultivation?' mighty empires, too, there must always be as long as personal ambition and the spirit of the age are one, but art at least is the only empire which a nation's enemies cannot take from her by conquest, but which is taken by submission only. the sovereignty of greece and rome is not yet passed away, though the gods of the one be dead and the eagles of the other tired. and we in our renaissance are seeking to create a sovereignty that will still be england's when her yellow leopards have grown weary of wars and the rose of her shield is crimsoned no more with the blood of battle; and you, too, absorbing into the generous heart of a great people this pervading artistic spirit, will create for yourselves such riches as you have never yet created, though your land be a network of railways and your cities the harbours for the galleys of the world. i know, indeed, that the divine natural prescience of beauty which is the inalienable inheritance of greek and italian is not our inheritance. for such an informing and presiding spirit of art to shield us from all harsh and alien influences, we of the northern races must turn rather to that strained self-consciousness of our age which, as it is the key-note of all our romantic art, must be the source of all or nearly all our culture. i mean that intellectual curiosity of the nineteenth century which is always looking for the secret of the life that still lingers round old and bygone forms of culture. it takes from each what is serviceable for the modern spirit--from athens its wonder without its worship, from venice its splendour without its sin. the same spirit is always analysing its own strength and its own weakness, counting what it owes to east and to west, to the olive-trees of colonus and to the palm- trees of lebanon, to gethsemane and to the garden of proserpine. and yet the truths of art cannot be taught: they are revealed only, revealed to natures which have made themselves receptive of all beautiful impressions by the study and worship of all beautiful things. and hence the enormous importance given to the decorative arts in our english renaissance; hence all that marvel of design that comes from the hand of edward burne-jones, all that weaving of tapestry and staining of glass, that beautiful working in clay and metal and wood which we owe to william morris, the greatest handicraftsman we have had in england since the fourteenth century. so, in years to come there will be nothing in any man's house which has not given delight to its maker and does not give delight to its user. the children, like the children of plato's perfect city, will grow up 'in a simple atmosphere of all fair things'--i quote from the passage in the republic--'a simple atmosphere of all fair things, where beauty, which is the spirit of art, will come on eye and ear like a fresh breath of wind that brings health from a clear upland, and insensibly and gradually draw the child's soul into harmony with all knowledge and all wisdom, so that he will love what is beautiful and good, and hate what is evil and ugly (for they always go together) long before he knows the reason why; and then when reason comes will kiss her on the cheek as a friend.' that is what plato thought decorative art could do for a nation, feeling that the secret not of philosophy merely but of all gracious existence might be externally hidden from any one whose youth had been passed in uncomely and vulgar surroundings, and that the beauty of form and colour even, as he says, in the meanest vessels of the house, will find its way into the inmost places of the soul and lead the boy naturally to look for that divine harmony of spiritual life of which art was to him the material symbol and warrant. prelude indeed to all knowledge and all wisdom will this love of beautiful things be for us; yet there are times when wisdom becomes a burden and knowledge is one with sorrow: for as every body has its shadow so every soul has its scepticism. in such dread moments of discord and despair where should we, of this torn and troubled age, turn our steps if not to that secure house of beauty where there is always a little forgetfulness, always a great joy; to that citta divina, as the old italian heresy called it, the divine city where one can stand, though only for a brief moment, apart from the division and terror of the world and the choice of the world too? this is that consolation des arts which is the keynote of gautier's poetry, the secret of modern life foreshadowed--as indeed what in our century is not?--by goethe. you remember what he said to the german people: 'only have the courage,' he said, 'to give yourselves up to your impressions, allow yourselves to be delighted, moved, elevated, nay instructed, inspired for something great.' the courage to give yourselves up to your impressions: yes, that is the secret of the artistic life--for while art has been defined as an escape from the tyranny of the senses, it is an escape rather from the tyranny of the soul. but only to those who worship her above all things does she ever reveal her true treasure: else will she be as powerless to aid you as the mutilated venus of the louvre was before the romantic but sceptical nature of heine. and indeed i think it would be impossible to overrate the gain that might follow if we had about us only what gave pleasure to the maker of it and gives pleasure to its user, that being the simplest of all rules about decoration. one thing, at least, i think it would do for us: there is no surer test of a great country than how near it stands to its own poets; but between the singers of our day and the workers to whom they would sing there seems to be an ever-widening and dividing chasm, a chasm which slander and mockery cannot traverse, but which is spanned by the luminous wings of love. and of such love i think that the abiding presence in our houses of noble imaginative work would be the surest seed and preparation. i do not mean merely as regards that direct literary expression of art by which, from the little red-and-black cruse of oil or wine, a greek boy could learn of the lionlike splendour of achilles, of the strength of hector and the beauty of paris and the wonder of helen, long before he stood and listened in crowded market-place or in theatre of marble; or by which an italian child of the fifteenth century could know of the chastity of lucrece and the death of camilla from carven doorway and from painted chest. for the good we get from art is not what we learn from it; it is what we become through it. its real influence will be in giving the mind that enthusiasm which is the secret of hellenism, accustoming it to demand from art all that art can do in rearranging the facts of common life for us--whether it be by giving the most spiritual interpretation of one's own moments of highest passion or the most sensuous expression of those thoughts that are the farthest removed from sense; in accustoming it to love the things of the imagination for their own sake, and to desire beauty and grace in all things. for he who does not love art in all things does not love it at all, and he who does not need art in all things does not need it at all. i will not dwell here on what i am sure has delighted you all in our great gothic cathedrals. i mean how the artist of that time, handicraftsman himself in stone or glass, found the best motives for his art, always ready for his hand and always beautiful, in the daily work of the artificers he saw around him--as in those lovely windows of chartres--where the dyer dips in the vat and the potter sits at the wheel, and the weaver stands at the loom: real manufacturers these, workers with the hand, and entirely delightful to look at, not like the smug and vapid shopman of our time, who knows nothing of the web or vase he sells, except that he is charging you double its value and thinking you a fool for buying it. nor can i but just note, in passing, the immense influence the decorative work of greece and italy had on its artists, the one teaching the sculptor that restraining influence of design which is the glory of the parthenon, the other keeping painting always true to its primary, pictorial condition of noble colour which is the secret of the school of venice; for i wish rather, in this lecture at least, to dwell on the effect that decorative art has on human life--on its social not its purely artistic effect. there are two kinds of men in the world, two great creeds, two different forms of natures: men to whom the end of life is action, and men to whom the end of life is thought. as regards the latter, who seek for experience itself and not for the fruits of experience, who must burn always with one of the passions of this fiery-coloured world, who find life interesting not for its secret but for its situations, for its pulsations and not for its purpose; the passion for beauty engendered by the decorative arts will be to them more satisfying than any political or religious enthusiasm, any enthusiasm for humanity, any ecstasy or sorrow for love. for art comes to one professing primarily to give nothing but the highest quality to one's moments, and for those moments' sake. so far for those to whom the end of life is thought. as regards the others, who hold that life is inseparable from labour, to them should this movement be specially dear: for, if our days are barren without industry, industry without art is barbarism. hewers of wood and drawers of water there must be always indeed among us. our modern machinery has not much lightened the labour of man after all: but at least let the pitcher that stands by the well be beautiful and surely the labour of the day will be lightened: let the wood be made receptive of some lovely form, some gracious design, and there will come no longer discontent but joy to the toiler. for what is decoration but the worker's expression of joy in his work? and not joy merely--that is a great thing yet not enough--but that opportunity of expressing his own individuality which, as it is the essence of all life, is the source of all art. 'i have tried,' i remember william morris saying to me once, 'i have tried to make each of my workers an artist, and when i say an artist i mean a man.' for the worker then, handicraftsman of whatever kind he is, art is no longer to be a purple robe woven by a slave and thrown over the whitened body of a leprous king to hide and to adorn the sin of his luxury, but rather the beautiful and noble expression of a life that has in it something beautiful and noble. and so you must seek out your workman and give him, as far as possible, the right surroundings, for remember that the real test and virtue of a workman is not his earnestness nor his industry even, but his power of design merely; and that 'design is not the offspring of idle fancy: it is the studied result of accumulative observation and delightful habit.' all the teaching in the world is of no avail if you do not surround your workman with happy influences and with beautiful things. it is impossible for him to have right ideas about colour unless he sees the lovely colours of nature unspoiled; impossible for him to supply beautiful incident and action unless he sees beautiful incident and action in the world about him. for to cultivate sympathy you must be among living things and thinking about them, and to cultivate admiration you must be among beautiful things and looking at them. 'the steel of toledo and the silk of genoa did but give strength to oppression and lustre to pride,' as mr. ruskin says; let it be for you to create an art that is made by the hands of the people for the joy of the people, to please the hearts of the people, too; an art that will be your expression of your delight in life. there is nothing 'in common life too mean, in common things too trivial to be ennobled by your touch'; nothing in life that art cannot sanctify. you have heard, i think, a few of you, of two flowers connected with the aesthetic movement in england, and said (i assure you, erroneously) to be the food of some aesthetic young men. well, let me tell you that the reason we love the lily and the sunflower, in spite of what mr. gilbert may tell you, is not for any vegetable fashion at all. it is because these two lovely flowers are in england the two most perfect models of design, the most naturally adapted for decorative art--the gaudy leonine beauty of the one and the precious loveliness of the other giving to the artist the most entire and perfect joy. and so with you: let there be no flower in your meadows that does not wreathe its tendrils around your pillows, no little leaf in your titan forests that does not lend its form to design, no curving spray of wild rose or brier that does not live for ever in carven arch or window or marble, no bird in your air that is not giving the iridescent wonder of its colour, the exquisite curves of its wings in flight, to make more precious the preciousness of simple adornment. for the voices that have their dwelling in sea and mountain are not the chosen music of liberty only. other messages are there in the wonder of wind-swept heights and the majesty of silent deep--messages that, if you will listen to them, will give you the wonder of all new imagination, the treasure of all new beauty. we spend our days, each one of us, in looking for the secret of life. well, the secret of life is in art. house decoration a lecture delivered in america during wilde's tour in . it was announced as a lecture on 'the practical application of the principles of the aesthetic theory to exterior and interior house decoration, with observations upon dress and personal ornaments.' the earliest date on which it is known to have been given is may , . in my last lecture i gave you something of the history of art in england. i sought to trace the influence of the french revolution upon its development. i said something of the song of keats and the school of the pre-raphaelites. but i do not want to shelter the movement, which i have called the english renaissance, under any palladium however noble, or any name however revered. the roots of it have, indeed, to be sought for in things that have long passed away, and not, as some suppose, in the fancy of a few young men--although i am not altogether sure that there is anything much better than the fancy of a few young men. when i appeared before you on a previous occasion, i had seen nothing of american art save the doric columns and corinthian chimney-pots visible on your broadway and fifth avenue. since then, i have been through your country to some fifty or sixty different cities, i think. i find that what your people need is not so much high imaginative art but that which hallows the vessels of everyday use. i suppose that the poet will sing and the artist will paint regardless whether the world praises or blames. he has his own world and is independent of his fellow-men. but the handicraftsman is dependent on your pleasure and opinion. he needs your encouragement and he must have beautiful surroundings. your people love art but do not sufficiently honour the handicraftsman. of course, those millionaires who can pillage europe for their pleasure need have no care to encourage such; but i speak for those whose desire for beautiful things is larger than their means. i find that one great trouble all over is that your workmen are not given to noble designs. you cannot be indifferent to this, because art is not something which you can take or leave. it is a necessity of human life. and what is the meaning of this beautiful decoration which we call art? in the first place, it means value to the workman and it means the pleasure which he must necessarily take in making a beautiful thing. the mark of all good art is not that the thing done is done exactly or finely, for machinery may do as much, but that it is worked out with the head and the workman's heart. i cannot impress the point too frequently that beautiful and rational designs are necessary in all work. i did not imagine, until i went into some of your simpler cities, that there was so much bad work done. i found, where i went, bad wall-papers horribly designed, and coloured carpets, and that old offender the horse-hair sofa, whose stolid look of indifference is always so depressing. i found meaningless chandeliers and machine-made furniture, generally of rosewood, which creaked dismally under the weight of the ubiquitous interviewer. i came across the small iron stove which they always persist in decorating with machine-made ornaments, and which is as great a bore as a wet day or any other particularly dreadful institution. when unusual extravagance was indulged in, it was garnished with two funeral urns. it must always be remembered that what is well and carefully made by an honest workman, after a rational design, increases in beauty and value as the years go on. the old furniture brought over by the pilgrims, two hundred years ago, which i saw in new england, is just as good and as beautiful today as it was when it first came here. now, what you must do is to bring artists and handicraftsmen together. handicraftsmen cannot live, certainly cannot thrive, without such companionship. separate these two and you rob art of all spiritual motive. having done this, you must place your workman in the midst of beautiful surroundings. the artist is not dependent on the visible and the tangible. he has his visions and his dreams to feed on. but the workman must see lovely forms as he goes to his work in the morning and returns at eventide. and, in connection with this, i want to assure you that noble and beautiful designs are never the result of idle fancy or purposeless day-dreaming. they come only as the accumulation of habits of long and delightful observation. and yet such things may not be taught. right ideas concerning them can certainly be obtained only by those who have been accustomed to rooms that are beautiful and colours that are satisfying. perhaps one of the most difficult things for us to do is to choose a notable and joyous dress for men. there would be more joy in life if we were to accustom ourselves to use all the beautiful colours we can in fashioning our own clothes. the dress of the future, i think, will use drapery to a great extent and will abound with joyous colour. at present we have lost all nobility of dress and, in doing so, have almost annihilated the modern sculptor. and, in looking around at the figures which adorn our parks, one could almost wish that we had completely killed the noble art. to see the frockcoat of the drawing-room done in bronze, or the double waistcoat perpetuated in marble, adds a new horror to death. but indeed, in looking through the history of costume, seeking an answer to the questions we have propounded, there is little that is either beautiful or appropriate. one of the earliest forms is the greek drapery which is so exquisite for young girls. and then, i think we may be pardoned a little enthusiasm over the dress of the time of charles i., so beautiful indeed, that in spite of its invention being with the cavaliers it was copied by the puritans. and the dress for the children of that time must not be passed over. it was a very golden age of the little ones. i do not think that they have ever looked so lovely as they do in the pictures of that time. the dress of the last century in england is also peculiarly gracious and graceful. there is nothing bizarre or strange about it, but it is full of harmony and beauty. in these days, when we have suffered so dreadfully from the incursions of the modern milliner, we hear ladies boast that they do not wear a dress more than once. in the old days, when the dresses were decorated with beautiful designs and worked with exquisite embroidery, ladies rather took a pride in bringing out the garment and wearing it many times and handing it down to their daughters--a process that would, i think, be quite appreciated by a modern husband when called upon to settle his wife's bills. and how shall men dress? men say that they do not particularly care how they dress, and that it is little matter. i am bound to reply that i do not think that you do. in all my journeys through the country, the only well-dressed men that i saw--and in saying this i earnestly deprecate the polished indignation of your fifth avenue dandies--were the western miners. their wide-brimmed hats, which shaded their faces from the sun and protected them from the rain, and the cloak, which is by far the most beautiful piece of drapery ever invented, may well be dwelt on with admiration. their high boots, too, were sensible and practical. they wore only what was comfortable, and therefore beautiful. as i looked at them i could not help thinking with regret of the time when these picturesque miners would have made their fortunes and would go east to assume again all the abominations of modern fashionable attire. indeed, so concerned was i that i made some of them promise that when they again appeared in the more crowded scenes of eastern civilisation they would still continue to wear their lovely costume. but i do not believe they will. now, what america wants today is a school of rational art. bad art is a great deal worse than no art at all. you must show your workmen specimens of good work so that they come to know what is simple and true and beautiful. to that end i would have you have a museum attached to these schools--not one of those dreadful modern institutions where there is a stuffed and very dusty giraffe, and a case or two of fossils, but a place where there are gathered examples of art decoration from various periods and countries. such a place is the south kensington museum in london whereon we build greater hopes for the future than on any other one thing. there i go every saturday night, when the museum is open later than usual, to see the handicraftsman, the wood-worker, the glass- blower and the worker in metals. and it is here that the man of refinement and culture comes face to face with the workman who ministers to his joy. he comes to know more of the nobility of the workman, and the workman, feeling the appreciation, comes to know more of the nobility of his work. you have too many white walls. more colour is wanted. you should have such men as whistler among you to teach you the beauty and joy of colour. take mr. whistler's 'symphony in white,' which you no doubt have imagined to be something quite bizarre. it is nothing of the sort. think of a cool grey sky flecked here and there with white clouds, a grey ocean and three wonderfully beautiful figures robed in white, leaning over the water and dropping white flowers from their fingers. here is no extensive intellectual scheme to trouble you, and no metaphysics of which we have had quite enough in art. but if the simple and unaided colour strike the right keynote, the whole conception is made clear. i regard mr. whistler's famous peacock room as the finest thing in colour and art decoration which the world has known since correggio painted that wonderful room in italy where the little children are dancing on the walls. mr. whistler finished another room just before i came away--a breakfast room in blue and yellow. the ceiling was a light blue, the cabinet-work and the furniture were of a yellow wood, the curtains at the windows were white and worked in yellow, and when the table was set for breakfast with dainty blue china nothing can be conceived at once so simple and so joyous. the fault which i have observed in most of your rooms is that there is apparent no definite scheme of colour. everything is not attuned to a key-note as it should be. the apartments are crowded with pretty things which have no relation to one another. again, your artists must decorate what is more simply useful. in your art schools i found no attempt to decorate such things as the vessels for water. i know of nothing uglier than the ordinary jug or pitcher. a museum could be filled with the different kinds of water vessels which are used in hot countries. yet we continue to submit to the depressing jug with the handle all on one side. i do not see the wisdom of decorating dinner-plates with sunsets and soup- plates with moonlight scenes. i do not think it adds anything to the pleasure of the canvas-back duck to take it out of such glories. besides, we do not want a soup-plate whose bottom seems to vanish in the distance. one feels neither safe nor comfortable under such conditions. in fact, i did not find in the art schools of the country that the difference was explained between decorative and imaginative art. the conditions of art should be simple. a great deal more depends upon the heart than upon the head. appreciation of art is not secured by any elaborate scheme of learning. art requires a good healthy atmosphere. the motives for art are still around about us as they were round about the ancients. and the subjects are also easily found by the earnest sculptor and the painter. nothing is more picturesque and graceful than a man at work. the artist who goes to the children's playground, watches them at their sport and sees the boy stop to tie his shoe, will find the same themes that engaged the attention of the ancient greeks, and such observation and the illustrations which follow will do much to correct that foolish impression that mental and physical beauty are always divorced. to you, more than perhaps to any other country, has nature been generous in furnishing material for art workers to work in. you have marble quarries where the stone is more beautiful in colour than any the greeks ever had for their beautiful work, and yet day after day i am confronted with the great building of some stupid man who has used the beautiful material as if it were not precious almost beyond speech. marble should not be used save by noble workmen. there is nothing which gave me a greater sense of barrenness in travelling through the country than the entire absence of wood carving on your houses. wood carving is the simplest of the decorative arts. in switzerland the little barefooted boy beautifies the porch of his father's house with examples of skill in this direction. why should not american boys do a great deal more and better than swiss boys? there is nothing to my mind more coarse in conception and more vulgar in execution than modern jewellery. this is something that can easily be corrected. something better should be made out of the beautiful gold which is stored up in your mountain hollows and strewn along your river beds. when i was at leadville and reflected that all the shining silver that i saw coming from the mines would be made into ugly dollars, it made me sad. it should be made into something more permanent. the golden gates at florence are as beautiful today as when michael angelo saw them. we should see more of the workman than we do. we should not be content to have the salesman stand between us--the salesman who knows nothing of what he is selling save that he is charging a great deal too much for it. and watching the workman will teach that most important lesson--the nobility of all rational workmanship. i said in my last lecture that art would create a new brotherhood among men by furnishing a universal language. i said that under its beneficent influences war might pass away. thinking this, what place can i ascribe to art in our education? if children grow up among all fair and lovely things, they will grow to love beauty and detest ugliness before they know the reason why. if you go into a house where everything is coarse, you find things chipped and broken and unsightly. nobody exercises any care. if everything is dainty and delicate, gentleness and refinement of manner are unconsciously acquired. when i was in san francisco i used to visit the chinese quarter frequently. there i used to watch a great hulking chinese workman at his task of digging, and used to see him every day drink his tea from a little cup as delicate in texture as the petal of a flower, whereas in all the grand hotels of the land, where thousands of dollars have been lavished on great gilt mirrors and gaudy columns, i have been given my coffee or my chocolate in cups an inch and a quarter thick. i think i have deserved something nicer. the art systems of the past have been devised by philosophers who looked upon human beings as obstructions. they have tried to educate boys' minds before they had any. how much better it would be in these early years to teach children to use their hands in the rational service of mankind. i would have a workshop attached to every school, and one hour a day given up to the teaching of simple decorative arts. it would be a golden hour to the children. and you would soon raise up a race of handicraftsmen who would transform the face of your country. i have seen only one such school in the united states, and this was in philadelphia and was founded by my friend mr. leyland. i stopped there yesterday and have brought some of the work here this afternoon to show you. here are two discs of beaten brass: the designs on them are beautiful, the workmanship is simple, and the entire result is satisfactory. the work was done by a little boy twelve years old. this is a wooden bowl decorated by a little girl of thirteen. the design is lovely and the colouring delicate and pretty. here you see a piece of beautiful wood carving accomplished by a little boy of nine. in such work as this, children learn sincerity in art. they learn to abhor the liar in art--the man who paints wood to look like iron, or iron to look like stone. it is a practical school of morals. no better way is there to learn to love nature than to understand art. it dignifies every flower of the field. and, the boy who sees the thing of beauty which a bird on the wing becomes when transferred to wood or canvas will probably not throw the customary stone. what we want is something spiritual added to life. nothing is so ignoble that art cannot sanctify it. art and the handicraftsman the fragments of which this lecture is composed are taken entirely from the original manuscripts which have but recently been discovered. it is not certain that they all belong to the same lecture, nor that all were written at the same period. some portions were written in philadelphia in . people often talk as if there was an opposition between what is beautiful and what is useful. there is no opposition to beauty except ugliness: all things are either beautiful or ugly, and utility will be always on the side of the beautiful thing, because beautiful decoration is always on the side of the beautiful thing, because beautiful decoration is always an expression of the use you put a thing to and the value placed on it. no workman will beautifully decorate bad work, nor can you possibly get good handicraftsmen or workmen without having beautiful designs. you should be quite sure of that. if you have poor and worthless designs in any craft or trade you will get poor and worthless workmen only, but the minute you have noble and beautiful designs, then you get men of power and intellect and feeling to work for you. by having good designs you have workmen who work not merely with their hands but with their hearts and heads too; otherwise you will get merely the fool or the loafer to work for you. that the beauty of life is a thing of no moment, i suppose few people would venture to assert. and yet most civilised people act as if it were of none, and in so doing are wronging both themselves and those that are to come after them. for that beauty which is meant by art is no mere accident of human life which people can take or leave, but a positive necessity of life if we are to live as nature meant us to, that is to say unless we are content to be less than men. do not think that the commercial spirit which is the basis of your life and cities here is opposed to art. who built the beautiful cities of the world but commercial men and commercial men only? genoa built by its traders, florence by its bankers, and venice, most lovely of all, by its noble and honest merchants. i do not wish you, remember, 'to build a new pisa,' nor to bring 'the life or the decorations of the thirteenth century back again.' 'the circumstances with which you must surround your workmen are those' of modern american life, 'because the designs you have now to ask for from your workmen are such as will make modern' american 'life beautiful.' the art we want is the art based on all the inventions of modern civilisation, and to suit all the needs of nineteenth century life. do you think, for instance, that we object to machinery? i tell you we reverence it; we reverence it when it does its proper work, when it relieves man from ignoble and soulless labour, not when it seeks to do that which is valuable only when wrought by the hands and hearts of men. let us have no machine-made ornament at all; it is all bad and worthless and ugly. and let us not mistake the means of civilisation for the end of civilisation; steam-engine, telephone and the like, are all wonderful, but remember that their value depends entirely on the noble uses we make of them, on the noble spirit in which we employ them, not on the things themselves. it is, no doubt, a great advantage to talk to a man at the antipodes through a telephone; its advantage depends entirely on the value of what the two men have to say to one another. if one merely shrieks slander through a tube and the other whispers folly into a wire, do not think that anybody is very much benefited by the invention. the train that whirls an ordinary englishman through italy at the rate of forty miles an hour and finally sends him home without any memory of that lovely country but that he was cheated by a courier at rome, or that he got a bad dinner at verona, does not do him or civilisation much good. but that swift legion of fiery-footed engines that bore to the burning ruins of chicago the loving help and generous treasure of the world was as noble and as beautiful as any golden troop of angels that ever fed the hungry and clothed the naked in the antique times. as beautiful, yes; all machinery may be beautiful when it is undecorated even. do not seek to decorate it. we cannot but think all good machinery is graceful, also, the line of strength and the line of beauty being one. give then, as i said, to your workmen of today the bright and noble surroundings that you can yourself create. stately and simple architecture for your cities, bright and simple dress for your men and women; those are the conditions of a real artistic movement. for the artist is not concerned primarily with any theory of life but with life itself, with the joy and loveliness that should come daily on eye and ear for a beautiful external world. but the simplicity must not be barrenness nor the bright colour gaudy. for all beautiful colours are graduated colours, the colours that seem about to pass into one another's realm--colour without tone being like music without harmony, mere discord. barren architecture, the vulgar and glaring advertisements that desecrate not merely your cities but every rock and river that i have seen yet in america--all this is not enough. a school of design we must have too in each city. it should be a stately and noble building, full of the best examples of the best art of the world. furthermore, do not put your designers in a barren whitewashed room and bid them work in that depressing and colourless atmosphere as i have seen many of the american schools of design, but give them beautiful surroundings. because you want to produce a permanent canon and standard of taste in your workman, he must have always by him and before him specimens of the best decorative art of the world, so that you can say to him: 'this is good work. greek or italian or japanese wrought it so many years ago, but it is eternally young because eternally beautiful.' work in this spirit and you will be sure to be right. do not copy it, but work with the same love, the same reverence, the same freedom of imagination. you must teach him colour and design, how all beautiful colours are graduated colours and glaring colours the essence of vulgarity. show him the quality of any beautiful work of nature like the rose, or any beautiful work of art like an eastern carpet--being merely the exquisite graduation of colour, one tone answering another like the answering chords of a symphony. teach him how the true designer is not he who makes the design and then colours it, but he who designs in colour, creates in colour, thinks in colour too. show him how the most gorgeous stained glass windows of europe are filled with white glass, and the most gorgeous eastern tapestry with toned colours--the primary colours in both places being set in the white glass, and the tone colours like brilliant jewels set in dusky gold. and then as regards design, show him how the real designer will take first any given limited space, little disk of silver, it may be, like a greek coin, or wide expanse of fretted ceiling or lordly wall as tintoret chose at venice (it does not matter which), and to this limited space--the first condition of decoration being the limitation of the size of the material used--he will give the effect of its being filled with beautiful decoration, filled with it as a golden cup will be filled with wine, so complete that you should not be able to take away anything from it or add anything to it. for from a good piece of design you can take away nothing, nor can you add anything to it, each little bit of design being as absolutely necessary and as vitally important to the whole effect as a note or chord of music is for a sonata of beethoven. but i said the effect of its being so filled, because this, again, is of the essence of good design. with a simple spray of leaves and a bird in flight a japanese artist will give you the impression that he has completely covered with lovely design the reed fan or lacquer cabinet at which he is working, merely because he knows the exact spot in which to place them. all good design depends on the texture of the utensil used and the use you wish to put it to. one of the first things i saw in an american school of design was a young lady painting a romantic moonlight landscape on a large round dish, and another young lady covering a set of dinner plates with a series of sunsets of the most remarkable colours. let your ladies paint moonlight landscapes and sunsets, but do not let them paint them on dinner plates or dishes. let them take canvas or paper for such work, but not clay or china. they are merely painting the wrong subjects on the wrong material, that is all. they have not been taught that every material and texture has certain qualities of its own. the design suitable for one is quite wrong for the other, just as the design which you should work on a flat table-cover ought to be quite different from the design you would work on a curtain, for the one will always be straight, the other broken into folds; and the use too one puts the object to should guide one in the choice of design. one does not want to eat one's terrapins off a romantic moonlight nor one's clams off a harrowing sunset. glory of sun and moon, let them be wrought for us by our landscape artist and be on the walls of the rooms we sit in to remind us of the undying beauty of the sunsets that fade and die, but do not let us eat our soup off them and send them down to the kitchen twice a day to be washed and scrubbed by the handmaid. all these things are simple enough, yet nearly always forgotten. your school of design here will teach your girls and your boys, your handicraftsmen of the future (for all your schools of art should be local schools, the schools of particular cities). we talk of the italian school of painting, but there is no italian school; there were the schools of each city. every town in italy, from venice itself, queen of the sea, to the little hill fortress of perugia, each had its own school of art, each different and all beautiful. so do not mind what art philadelphia or new york is having, but make by the hands of your own citizens beautiful art for the joy of your own citizens, for you have here the primary elements of a great artistic movement. for, believe me, the conditions of art are much simpler than people imagine. for the noblest art one requires a clear healthy atmosphere, not polluted as the air of our english cities is by the smoke and grime and horridness which comes from open furnace and from factory chimney. you must have strong, sane, healthy physique among your men and women. sickly or idle or melancholy people do not do much in art. and lastly, you require a sense of individualism about each man and woman, for this is the essence of art--a desire on the part of man to express himself in the noblest way possible. and this is the reason that the grandest art of the world always came from a republic, athens, venice, and florence--there were no kings there and so their art was as noble and simple as sincere. but if you want to know what kind of art the folly of kings will impose on a country look at the decorative art of france under the grand monarch, under louis the fourteenth; the gaudy gilt furniture writhing under a sense of its own horror and ugliness, with a nymph smirking at every angle and a dragon mouthing on every claw. unreal and monstrous art this, and fit only for such periwigged pomposities as the nobility of france at that time, but not at all fit for you or me. we do not want the rich to possess more beautiful things but the poor to create more beautiful things; for every man is poor who cannot create. nor shall the art which you and i need be merely a purple robe woven by a slave and thrown over the whitened body of some leprous king to adorn or to conceal the sin of his luxury, but rather shall it be the noble and beautiful expression of a people's noble and beautiful life. art shall be again the most glorious of all the chords through which the spirit of a great nation finds its noblest utterance. all around you, i said, lie the conditions for a great artistic movement for every great art. let us think of one of them; a sculptor, for instance. if a modern sculptor were to come and say, 'very well, but where can one find subjects for sculpture out of men who wear frock-coats and chimney- pot hats?' i would tell him to go to the docks of a great city and watch the men loading or unloading the stately ships, working at wheel or windlass, hauling at rope or gangway. i have never watched a man do anything useful who has not been graceful at some moment of his labour; it is only the loafer and the idle saunterer who is as useless and uninteresting to the artist as he is to himself. i would ask the sculptor to go with me to any of your schools or universities, to the running ground and gymnasium, to watch the young men start for a race, hurling quoit or club, kneeling to tie their shoes before leaping, stepping from the boat or bending to the oar, and to carve them; and when he was weary of cities i would ask him to come to your fields and meadows to watch the reaper with his sickle and the cattle driver with lifted lasso. for if a man cannot find the noblest motives for his art in such simple daily things as a woman drawing water from the well or a man leaning with his scythe, he will not find them anywhere at all. gods and goddesses the greek carved because he loved them; saint and king the goth because he believed in them. but you, you do not care much for greek gods and goddesses, and you are perfectly and entirely right; and you do not think much of kings either, and you are quite right. but what you do love are your own men and women, your own flowers and fields, your own hills and mountains, and these are what your art should represent to you. ours has been the first movement which has brought the handicraftsman and the artist together, for remember that by separating the one from the other you do ruin to both; you rob the one of all spiritual motive and all imaginative joy, you isolate the other from all real technical perfection. the two greatest schools of art in the world, the sculptor at athens and the school of painting at venice, had their origin entirely in a long succession of simple and earnest handicraftsmen. it was the greek potter who taught the sculptor that restraining influence of design which was the glory of the parthenon; it was the italian decorator of chests and household goods who kept venetian painting always true to its primary pictorial condition of noble colour. for we should remember that all the arts are fine arts and all the arts decorative arts. the greatest triumph of italian painting was the decoration of a pope's chapel in rome and the wall of a room in venice. michael angelo wrought the one, and tintoret, the dyer's son, the other. and the little 'dutch landscape, which you put over your sideboard today, and between the windows tomorrow, is' no less a glorious 'piece of work than the extents of field and forest with which benozzo has made green and beautiful the once melancholy arcade of the campo santo at pisa,' as ruskin says. do not imitate the works of a nation, greek or japanese, italian or english; but their artistic spirit of design and their artistic attitude today, their own world, you should absorb but imitate never, copy never. unless you can make as beautiful a design in painted china or embroidered screen or beaten brass out of your american turkey as the japanese does out of his grey silver-winged stork, you will never do anything. let the greek carve his lions and the goth his dragons: buffalo and wild deer are the animals for you. golden rod and aster and rose and all the flowers that cover your valleys in the spring and your hills in the autumn: let them be the flowers for your art. not merely has nature given you the noblest motives for a new school of decoration, but to you above all other countries has she given the utensils to work in. you have quarries of marble richer than pantelicus, more varied than paros, but do not build a great white square house of marble and think that it is beautiful, or that you are using marble nobly. if you build in marble you must either carve it into joyous decoration, like the lives of dancing children that adorn the marble castles of the loire, or fill it with beautiful sculpture, frieze and pediment, as the greeks did, or inlay it with other coloured marbles as they did in venice. otherwise you had better build in simple red brick as your puritan fathers, with no pretence and with some beauty. do not treat your marble as if it was ordinary stone and build a house of mere blocks of it. for it is indeed a precious stone, this marble of yours, and only workmen of nobility of invention and delicacy of hand should be allowed to touch it at all, carving it into noble statues or into beautiful decoration, or inlaying it with other coloured marbles: for the true colours of architecture are those of natural stone, and i would fain see them taken advantage of to the full. every variety is here, from pale yellow to purple passing through orange, red and brown, entirely at your command; nearly every kind of green and grey also is attainable, and with these and with pure white what harmony might you not achieve. of stained and variegated stone the quantity is unlimited, the kinds innumerable. were brighter colours required, let glass, and gold protected by glass, be used in mosaic, a kind of work as durable as the solid stone and incapable of losing its lustre by time. and let the painter's work be reserved for the shadowed loggia and inner chamber. this is the true and faithful way of building. where this cannot be, the device of external colouring may indeed be employed without dishonour--but it must be with the warning reflection that a time will come when such aids will pass away and when the building will be judged in its lifelessness, dying the death of the dolphin. better the less bright, more enduring fabric. the transparent alabasters of san miniato and the mosaics of saint mark's are more warmly filled and more brightly touched by every return of morning and evening rays, while the hues of the gothic cathedrals have died like the iris out of the cloud, and the temples, whose azure and purple once flamed above the grecian promontory, stand in their faded whiteness like snows which the sunset has left cold. * * * * * i do not know anything so perfectly commonplace in design as most modern jewellery. how easy for you to change that and to produce goldsmiths' work that would be a joy to all of us. the gold is ready for you in unexhausted treasure, stored up in the mountain hollow or strewn on the river sand, and was not given to you merely for barren speculation. there should be some better record of it left in your history than the merchant's panic and the ruined home. we do not remember often enough how constantly the history of a great nation will live in and by its art. only a few thin wreaths of beaten gold remain to tell us of the stately empire of etruria; and, while from the streets of florence the noble knight and haughty duke have long since passed away, the gates which the simple goldsmith gheberti made for their pleasure still guard their lovely house of baptism, worthy still of the praise of michael angelo who called them worthy to be the gates of paradise. have then your school of design, search out your workmen and, when you find one who has delicacy of hand and that wonder of invention necessary for goldsmiths' work, do not leave him to toil in obscurity and dishonour and have a great glaring shop and two great glaring shop-boys in it (not to take your orders: they never do that; but to force you to buy something you do not want at all). when you want a thing wrought in gold, goblet or shield for the feast, necklace or wreath for the women, tell him what you like most in decoration, flower or wreath, bird in flight or hound in the chase, image of the woman you love or the friend you honour. watch him as he beats out the gold into those thin plates delicate as the petals of a yellow rose, or draws it into the long wires like tangled sunbeams at dawn. whoever that workman be help him, cherish him, and you will have such lovely work from his hand as will be a joy to you for all time. this is the spirit of our movement in england, and this is the spirit in which we would wish you to work, making eternal by your art all that is noble in your men and women, stately in your lakes and mountains, beautiful in your own flowers and natural life. we want to see that you have nothing in your houses that has not been a joy to the man who made it, and is not a joy to those that use it. we want to see you create an art made by the hands of the people to please the hearts of the people too. do you like this spirit or not? do you think it simple and strong, noble in its aim, and beautiful in its result? i know you do. folly and slander have their own way for a little time, but for a little time only. you now know what we mean: you will be able to estimate what is said of us--its value and its motive. there should be a law that no ordinary newspaper should be allowed to write about art. the harm they do by their foolish and random writing it would be impossible to overestimate--not to the artist but to the public, blinding them to all, but harming the artist not at all. without them we would judge a man simply by his work; but at present the newspapers are trying hard to induce the public to judge a sculptor, for instance, never by his statues but by the way he treats his wife; a painter by the amount of his income and a poet by the colour of his necktie. i said there should be a law, but there is really no necessity for a new law: nothing could be easier than to bring the ordinary critic under the head of the criminal classes. but let us leave such an inartistic subject and return to beautiful and comely things, remembering that the art which would represent the spirit of modern newspapers would be exactly the art which you and i want to avoid--grotesque art, malice mocking you from every gateway, slander sneering at you from every corner. perhaps you may be surprised at my talking of labour and the workman. you have heard of me, i fear, through the medium of your somewhat imaginative newspapers as, if not a 'japanese young man,' at least a young man to whom the rush and clamour and reality of the modern world were distasteful, and whose greatest difficulty in life was the difficulty of living up to the level of his blue china--a paradox from which england has not yet recovered. well, let me tell you how it first came to me at all to create an artistic movement in england, a movement to show the rich what beautiful things they might enjoy and the poor what beautiful things they might create. one summer afternoon in oxford--'that sweet city with her dreaming spires,' lovely as venice in its splendour, noble in its learning as rome, down the long high street that winds from tower to tower, past silent cloister and stately gateway, till it reaches that long, grey seven-arched bridge which saint mary used to guard (used to, i say, because they are now pulling it down to build a tramway and a light cast- iron bridge in its place, desecrating the loveliest city in england)--well, we were coming down the street--a troop of young men, some of them like myself only nineteen, going to river or tennis-court or cricket-field--when ruskin going up to lecture in cap and gown met us. he seemed troubled and prayed us to go back with him to his lecture, which a few of us did, and there he spoke to us not on art this time but on life, saying that it seemed to him to be wrong that all the best physique and strength of the young men in england should be spent aimlessly on cricket- ground or river, without any result at all except that if one rowed well one got a pewter-pot, and if one made a good score, a cane-handled bat. he thought, he said, that we should be working at something that would do good to other people, at something by which we might show that in all labour there was something noble. well, we were a good deal moved, and said we would do anything he wished. so he went out round oxford and found two villages, upper and lower hinksey, and between them there lay a great swamp, so that the villagers could not pass from one to the other without many miles of a round. and when we came back in winter he asked us to help him to make a road across this morass for these village people to use. so out we went, day after day, and learned how to lay levels and to break stones, and to wheel barrows along a plank--a very difficult thing to do. and ruskin worked with us in the mist and rain and mud of an oxford winter, and our friends and our enemies came out and mocked us from the bank. we did not mind it much then, and we did not mind it afterwards at all, but worked away for two months at our road. and what became of the road? well, like a bad lecture it ended abruptly--in the middle of the swamp. ruskin going away to venice, when we came back for the next term there was no leader, and the 'diggers,' as they called us, fell asunder. and i felt that if there was enough spirit amongst the young men to go out to such work as road-making for the sake of a noble ideal of life, i could from them create an artistic movement that might change, as it has changed, the face of england. so i sought them out--leader they would call me--but there was no leader: we were all searchers only and we were bound to each other by noble friendship and by noble art. there was none of us idle: poets most of us, so ambitious were we: painters some of us, or workers in metal or modellers, determined that we would try and create for ourselves beautiful work: for the handicraftsman beautiful work, for those who love us poems and pictures, for those who love us not epigrams and paradoxes and scorn. well, we have done something in england and we will do something more. now, i do not want you, believe me, to ask your brilliant young men, your beautiful young girls, to go out and make a road on a swamp for any village in america, but i think you might each of you have some art to practise. * * * * * we must have, as emerson said, a mechanical craft for our culture, a basis for our higher accomplishments in the work of our hands--the uselessness of most people's hands seems to me one of the most unpractical things. 'no separation from labour can be without some loss of power or truth to the seer,' says emerson again. the heroism which would make on us the impression of epaminondas must be that of a domestic conqueror. the hero of the future is he who shall bravely and gracefully subdue this gorgon of fashion and of convention. when you have chosen your own part, abide by it, and do not weakly try and reconcile yourself with the world. the heroic cannot be the common nor the common the heroic. congratulate yourself if you have done something strange and extravagant and broken the monotony of a decorous age. and lastly, let us remember that art is the one thing which death cannot harm. the little house at concord may be desolate, but the wisdom of new england's plato is not silenced nor the brilliancy of that attic genius dimmed: the lips of longfellow are still musical for us though his dust be turning into the flowers which he loved: and as it is with the greater artists, poet and philosopher and songbird, so let it be with you. lecture to art students delivered to the art students of the royal academy at their club in golden square, westminster, on june , . the text is taken from the original manuscript. in the lecture which it is my privilege to deliver before you to-night i do not desire to give you any abstract definition of beauty at all. for, we who are working in art cannot accept any theory of beauty in exchange for beauty itself, and, so far from desiring to isolate it in a formula appealing to the intellect, we, on the contrary, seek to materialise it in a form that gives joy to the soul through the senses. we want to create it, not to define it. the definition should follow the work: the work should not adapt itself to the definition. nothing, indeed, is more dangerous to the young artist than any conception of ideal beauty: he is constantly led by it either into weak prettiness or lifeless abstraction: whereas to touch the ideal at all you must not strip it of vitality. you must find it in life and re-create it in art. while, then, on the one hand i do not desire to give you any philosophy of beauty--for, what i want to-night is to investigate how we can create art, not how we can talk of it--on the other hand, i do not wish to deal with anything like a history of english art. to begin with, such an expression as english art is a meaningless expression. one might just as well talk of english mathematics. art is the science of beauty, and mathematics the science of truth: there is no national school of either. indeed, a national school is a provincial school, merely. nor is there any such thing as a school of art even. there are merely artists, that is all. and as regards histories of art, they are quite valueless to you unless you are seeking the ostentatious oblivion of an art professorship. it is of no use to you to know the date of perugino or the birthplace of salvator rosa: all that you should learn about art is to know a good picture when you see it, and a bad picture when you see it. as regards the date of the artist, all good work looks perfectly modern: a piece of greek sculpture, a portrait of velasquez--they are always modern, always of our time. and as regards the nationality of the artist, art is not national but universal. as regards archaeology, then, avoid it altogether: archaeology is merely the science of making excuses for bad art; it is the rock on which many a young artist founders and shipwrecks; it is the abyss from which no artist, old or young, ever returns. or, if he does return, he is so covered with the dust of ages and the mildew of time, that he is quite unrecognisable as an artist, and has to conceal himself for the rest of his days under the cap of a professor, or as a mere illustrator of ancient history. how worthless archaeology is in art you can estimate by the fact of its being so popular. popularity is the crown of laurel which the world puts on bad art. whatever is popular is wrong. as i am not going to talk to you, then, about the philosophy of the beautiful, or the history of art, you will ask me what i am going to talk about. the subject of my lecture to-night is what makes an artist and what does the artist make; what are the relations of the artist to his surroundings, what is the education the artist should get, and what is the quality of a good work of art. now, as regards the relations of the artist to his surroundings, by which i mean the age and country in which he is born. all good art, as i said before, has nothing to do with any particular century; but this universality is the quality of the work of art; the conditions that produce that quality are different. and what, i think, you should do is to realise completely your age in order completely to abstract yourself from it; remembering that if you are an artist at all, you will be not the mouthpiece of a century, but the master of eternity; that all art rests on a principle, and that mere temporal considerations are no principle at all; and that those who advise you to make your art representative of the nineteenth century are advising you to produce an art which your children, when you have them, will think old-fashioned. but you will tell me this is an inartistic age, and we are an inartistic people, and the artist suffers much in this nineteenth century of ours. of course he does. i, of all men, am not going to deny that. but remember that there never has been an artistic age, or an artistic people, since the beginning of the world. the artist has always been, and will always be, an exquisite exception. there is no golden age of art; only artists who have produced what is more golden than gold. _what_, you will say to me, the greeks? were not they an artistic people? well, the greeks certainly not, but, perhaps, you mean the athenians, the citizens of one out of a thousand cities. do you think that they were an artistic people? take them even at the time of their highest artistic development, the latter part of the fifth century before christ, when they had the greatest poets and the greatest artists of the antique world, when the parthenon rose in loveliness at the bidding of a phidias, and the philosopher spake of wisdom in the shadow of the painted portico, and tragedy swept in the perfection of pageant and pathos across the marble of the stage. were they an artistic people then? not a bit of it. what is an artistic people but a people who love their artists and understand their art? the athenians could do neither. how did they treat phidias? to phidias we owe the great era, not merely in greek, but in all art--i mean of the introduction of the use of the living model. and what would you say if all the english bishops, backed by the english people, came down from exeter hall to the royal academy one day and took off sir frederick leighton in a prison van to newgate on the charge of having allowed you to make use of the living model in your designs for sacred pictures? would you not cry out against the barbarism and the puritanism of such an idea? would you not explain to them that the worst way to honour god is to dishonour man who is made in his image, and is the work of his hands; and, that if one wants to paint christ one must take the most christlike person one can find, and if one wants to paint the madonna, the purest girl one knows? would you not rush off and burn down newgate, if necessary, and say that such a thing was without parallel in history? without parallel? well, that is exactly what the athenians did. in the room of the parthenon marbles, in the british museum, you will see a marble shield on the wall. on it there are two figures; one of a man whose face is half hidden, the other of a man with the godlike lineaments of pericles. for having done this, for having introduced into a bas relief, taken from greek sacred history, the image of the great statesman who was ruling athens at the time, phidias was flung into prison and there, in the common gaol of athens, died, the supreme artist of the old world. and do you think that this was an exceptional case? the sign of a philistine age is the cry of immorality against art, and this cry was raised by the athenian people against every great poet and thinker of their day--aeschylus, euripides, socrates. it was the same with florence in the thirteenth century. good handicrafts are due to guilds not to the people. the moment the guilds lost their power and the people rushed in, beauty and honesty of work died. and so, never talk of an artistic people; there never has been such a thing. but, perhaps, you will tell me that the external beauty of the world has almost entirely passed away from us, that the artist dwells no longer in the midst of the lovely surroundings which, in ages past, were the natural inheritance of every one, and that art is very difficult in this unlovely town of ours, where, as you go to your work in the morning, or return from it at eventide, you have to pass through street after street of the most foolish and stupid architecture that the world has ever seen; architecture, where every lovely greek form is desecrated and defiled, and every lovely gothic form defiled and desecrated, reducing three-fourths of the london houses to being, merely, like square boxes of the vilest proportions, as gaunt as they are grimy, and as poor as they are pretentious--the hall door always of the wrong colour, and the windows of the wrong size, and where, even when wearied of the houses you turn to contemplate the street itself, you have nothing to look at but chimney-pot hats, men with sandwich boards, vermilion letterboxes, and do that even at the risk of being run over by an emerald-green omnibus. is not art difficult, you will say to me, in such surroundings as these? of course it is difficult, but then art was never easy; you yourselves would not wish it to be easy; and, besides, nothing is worth doing except what the world says is impossible. still, you do not care to be answered merely by a paradox. what are the relations of the artist to the external world, and what is the result of the loss of beautiful surroundings to you, is one of the most important questions of modern art; and there is no point on which mr. ruskin so insists as that the decadence of art has come from the decadence of beautiful things; and that when the artist can not feed his eye on beauty, beauty goes from his work. i remember in one of his lectures, after describing the sordid aspect of a great english city, he draws for us a picture of what were the artistic surroundings long ago. think, he says, in words of perfect and picturesque imagery, whose beauty i can but feebly echo, think of what was the scene which presented itself, in his afternoon walk, to a designer of the gothic school of pisa--nino pisano or any of his men { }: on each side of a bright river he saw rise a line of brighter palaces, arched and pillared, and inlaid with deep red porphyry, and with serpentine; along the quays before their gates were riding troops of knights, noble in face and form, dazzling in crest and shield; horse and man one labyrinth of quaint colour and gleaming light--the purple, and silver, and scarlet fringes flowing over the strong limbs and clashing mail, like sea-waves over rocks at sunset. opening on each side from the river were gardens, courts, and cloisters; long successions of white pillars among wreaths of vine; leaping of fountains through buds of pomegranate and orange: and still along the garden-paths, and under and through the crimson of the pomegranate shadows, moving slowly, groups of the fairest women that italy ever saw--fairest, because purest and thoughtfullest; trained in all high knowledge, as in all courteous art--in dance, in song, in sweet wit, in lofty learning, in loftier courage, in loftiest love--able alike to cheer, to enchant, or save, the souls of men. above all this scenery of perfect human life, rose dome and bell-tower, burning with white alabaster and gold: beyond dome and bell-tower the slopes of mighty hills, hoary with olive; far in the north, above a purple sea of peaks of solemn apennine, the clear, sharp-cloven carrara mountains sent up their steadfast flames of marble summit into amber sky; the great sea itself, scorching with expanse of light, stretching from their feet to the gorgonian isles; and over all these, ever present, near or far--seen through the leaves of vine, or imaged with all its march of clouds in the arno's stream, or set with its depth of blue close against the golden hair and burning cheek of lady and knight,--that untroubled and sacred sky, which was to all men, in those days of innocent faith, indeed the unquestioned abode of spirits, as the earth was of men; and which opened straight through its gates of cloud and veils of dew into the awfulness of the eternal world;--a heaven in which every cloud that passed was literally the chariot of an angel, and every ray of its evening and morning streamed from the throne of god. what think you of that for a school of design? and then look at the depressing, monotonous appearance of any modern city, the sombre dress of men and women, the meaningless and barren architecture, the colourless and dreadful surroundings. without a beautiful national life, not sculpture merely, but all the arts will die. well, as regards the religious feeling of the close of the passage, i do not think i need speak about that. religion springs from religious feeling, art from artistic feeling: you never get one from the other; unless you have the right root you will not get the right flower; and, if a man sees in a cloud the chariot of an angel, he will probably paint it very unlike a cloud. but, as regards the general idea of the early part of that lovely bit of prose, is it really true that beautiful surroundings are necessary for the artist? i think not; i am sure not. indeed, to me the most inartistic thing in this age of ours is not the indifference of the public to beautiful things, but the indifference of the artist to the things that are called ugly. for, to the real artist, nothing is beautiful or ugly in itself at all. with the facts of the object he has nothing to do, but with its appearance only, and appearance is a matter of light and shade, of masses, of position, and of value. appearance is, in fact, a matter of effect merely, and it is with the effects of nature that you have to deal, not with the real condition of the object. what you, as painters, have to paint is not things as they are but things as they seem to be, not things as they are but things as they are not. no object is so ugly that, under certain conditions of light and shade, or proximity to other things, it will not look beautiful; no object is so beautiful that, under certain conditions, it will not look ugly. i believe that in every twenty-four hours what is beautiful looks ugly, and what is ugly looks beautiful, once. and, the commonplace character of so much of our english painting seems to me due to the fact that so many of our young artists look merely at what we may call 'ready-made beauty,' whereas you exist as artists not to copy beauty but to create it in your art, to wait and watch for it in nature. what would you say of a dramatist who would take nobody but virtuous people as characters in his play? would you not say he was missing half of life? well, of the young artist who paints nothing but beautiful things, i say he misses one half of the world. do not wait for life to be picturesque, but try and see life under picturesque conditions. these conditions you can create for yourself in your studio, for they are merely conditions of light. in nature, you must wait for them, watch for them, choose them; and, if you wait and watch, come they will. in gower street at night you may see a letterbox that is picturesque; on the thames embankment you may see picturesque policemen. even venice is not always beautiful, nor france. to paint what you see is a good rule in art, but to see what is worth painting is better. see life under pictorial conditions. it is better to live in a city of changeable weather than in a city of lovely surroundings. now, having seen what makes the artist, and what the artist makes, who is the artist? there is a man living amongst us who unites in himself all the qualities of the noblest art, whose work is a joy for all time, who is, himself, a master of all time. that man is mr. whistler. but, you will say, modern dress, that is bad. if you cannot paint black cloth you could not have painted silken doublet. ugly dress is better for art--facts of vision, not of the object. what is a picture? primarily, a picture is a beautifully coloured surface, merely, with no more spiritual message or meaning for you than an exquisite fragment of venetian glass or a blue tile from the wall of damascus. it is, primarily, a purely decorative thing, a delight to look at. all archaeological pictures that make you say 'how curious!' all sentimental pictures that make you say 'how sad!' all historical pictures that make you say 'how interesting!' all pictures that do not immediately give you such artistic joy as to make you say 'how beautiful!' are bad pictures. * * * * * we never know what an artist is going to do. of course not. the artist is not a specialist. all such divisions as animal painters, landscape painters, painters of scotch cattle in an english mist, painters of english cattle in a scotch mist, racehorse painters, bull-terrier painters, all are shallow. if a man is an artist he can paint everything. the object of art is to stir the most divine and remote of the chords which make music in our soul; and colour is, indeed, of itself a mystical presence on things, and tone a kind of sentinel. am i pleading, then, for mere technique? no. as long as there are any signs of technique at all, the picture is unfinished. what is finish? a picture is finished when all traces of work, and of the means employed to bring about the result, have disappeared. in the case of handicraftsmen--the weaver, the potter, the smith--on their work are the traces of their hand. but it is not so with the painter; it is not so with the artist. art should have no sentiment about it but its beauty, no technique except what you cannot observe. one should be able to say of a picture not that it is 'well painted,' but that it is 'not painted.' what is the difference between absolutely decorative art and a painting? decorative art emphasises its material: imaginative art annihilates it. tapestry shows its threads as part of its beauty: a picture annihilates its canvas; it shows nothing of it. porcelain emphasises its glaze: water-colours reject the paper. a picture has no meaning but its beauty, no message but its joy. that is the first truth about art that you must never lose sight of. a picture is a purely decorative thing. bibliography by stuart mason note part i. includes all the authorised editions published in england, and the two french editions of salome published in paris. authorised editions of some of the works were issued in the united states of america simultaneously with the english publication. part ii. contains the only two 'privately printed' editions which are authorised. part iii. is a chronological list of all contributions (so far as at present known) to magazines, periodicals, etc., the date given being that of the first publication only. those marked with an asterisk (*) were published anonymously. many of the poems have been included in anthologies of modern verse, but no attempt has been made to give particulars of such reprints in this bibliography. i.--authorised english editions newdigate prize poem. ravenna. recited in the theatre, oxford, june , . by oscar wilde, magdalen college. oxford: thos. shrimpton and son, . poems. london: david bogue, (june ). second and third editions, . fourth and fifth editions [revised], . copies ( for sale) of the fifth edition, with a new title-page and cover designed by charles ricketts. london: elkin mathews and john lane, (may ). the happy prince and other tales. ('the happy prince,' 'the nightingale and the rose,' 'the selfish giant,' 'the devoted friend,' 'the remarkable rocket.') illustrated by walter crane and jacomb hood. london: david nutt, (may). also copies ( for sale) on large paper, with the plates in two states. second edition, january . third edition, february . fourth impression, september . fifth impression, february . intentions. ('the decay of lying,' 'pen, pencil, and poison,' 'the critic as artist,' 'the truth of masks.') london: james r. osgood, mcilvaine and co., (may). new edition, . edition for continental circulation only. the english library, no. . leipzig: heinemann and balestier, . frequently reprinted. the picture of dorian gray. london: ward, lock and co. [ (july ).] also copies on large paper. dated . [note.--july is the official date of publication, but presentation copies signed by the author and dated may are known.] new edition [ (october ).] london: ward, lock and bowden. reprinted. paris: charles carrington, , , (january). edition for continental circulation only. leipzig: bernhard tauchnitz, vol. . (july). lord arthur savile's crime and other stories. ('lord arthur savile's crime,' 'the sphinx without a secret,' 'the canterville ghost,' 'the model millionaire.') london: james r. osgood, mcilvaine and co., (july). a house of pomegranates. ('the young king,' 'the birthday of the infanta,' 'the fisherman and his soul,' 'the star child.') with designs and decorations by charles ricketts and c. h. shannon. london: james r. osgood, mcilvaine and co., (november). salome. drame en un acte. paris: librairie de l'art independant. londres: elkin mathews et john lane, (february ). copies ( for sale) and on large paper. new edition. with sixteen illustrations by aubrey beardsley. paris: edition a petit nombre imprimee pour les souscripteurs. . copies. [note.--several editions, containing only a portion of the text, have been issued for the performance of the opera by richard strauss. london: methuen and co.; berlin: adolph furstner. ] lady windermere's fan. a play about a good woman. london: elkin mathews and john lane, (november ). copies and on large paper. acting edition. london: samuel french. (text incomplete.) salome. a tragedy in one act. translated from the french [by lord alfred bruce douglas.] pictured by aubrey beardsley. london: elkin mathews and john lane, (february ). copies and on large paper. with the two suppressed plates and extra title-page. preface by robert ross. london: john lane, (september ). new edition (without illustrations). london: john lane, (june), . the sphinx. with decorations by charles ricketts. london: elkin mathews and john lane, (july). copies and on large paper. a woman of no importance. london: john lane, (october ). copies and on large paper. the soul of man. london: privately printed, . [reprinted from the fortnightly review (february ), by permission of the proprietors, and published by a. l. humphreys.] new edition. london: arthur l. humphreys, . reprinted in sebastian melmoth. london: arthur l. humphreys, , . the ballad of reading gaol. by c. . . london: leonard smithers, (february ). copies and on japanese vellum. second edition, march . third edition, . copies only, signed by the author. fourth, fifth and sixth editions, . seventh edition, . { a} [note.--the above are printed at the chiswick press on handmade paper. all reprints on ordinary paper are unauthorised.] the importance of being earnest. a trivial comedy for serious people. by the author of lady windermere's fan. london: leonard smithers and co., (february). copies. also copies on large paper, and on japanese vellum. acting edition. london: samuel french. (text incomplete.) an ideal husband. by the author of lady windermere's fan. london: leonard smithers and co., (july). copies. also copies on large paper, and on japanese vellum. de profundis. london: methuen and co., (february ). also copies on large paper, and on japanese vellum. second edition, march . third edition, march . fourth edition, april . fifth edition, september . sixth edition, march . seventh edition, january . eighth edition, april . ninth edition, july . tenth edition, october . eleventh edition, january . { b} the works of oscar wilde. london: methuen and co., (february ). in thirteen volumes. copies on handmade paper and on japanese vellum. the duchess of padua. a play. salome. a florentine tragedy. vera. lady windermere's fan. a play about a good woman. a woman of no importance. a play. an ideal husband. a play. the importance of being earnest. a trivial comedy for serious people. lord arthur savile's crime and other prose pieces. intentions and the soul of man. the poems. a house of pomegranates, the happy prince and other tales. de profundis. reviews. miscellanies. uniform with the above. paris: charles carrington, (april ). the picture of dorian gray. ii.--editions privately printed for the author vera; or, the nihilists. a drama in a prologue and four acts. [new york] . the duchess of padua: a tragedy of the xvi century written in paris in the xix century. privately printed as manuscript. [new york, (march ).] iii.--miscellaneous contributions to magazines, periodicals, etc. november. chorus of cloud maidens ([greek], - and - ). dublin university magazine, vol. lxxxvi. no. , page . january. from spring days to winter. (for music.) dublin university magazine, vol. lxxxvii. no. , page . march. graffiti d'italia. i. san miniato. (june .) dublin university magazine, vol. lxxxvii. no. , page . june. the dole of the king's daughter. dublin university magazine, vol. lxxxvii. no. , page . trinity term. [greek]. (the rose of love, and with a rose's thorns.) kottabos, vol. ii. no. , page . september. [greek]. dublin university magazine, vol. lxxxviii. no. , page . september. the true knowledge. irish monthly, vol. iv. no. , page . september. graffiti d'italia. (arona. lago maggiore.) month and catholic review, vol. xxviii. no. , page . michaelmas term. [greek]. kottabos, vol. ii. no. , page . february. lotus leaves. irish monthly, vol. v. no. , page . hilary term. a fragment from the agamemnon of aeschylos. kottabos, vol. ii. no. , page . hilary term. a night vision. kottabos, vol. ii. no. , page . june. salve saturnia tellus. irish monthly, vol. v. no. , page . june. urbs sacra aeterna. illustrated monitor, vol. iv. no. , page . july. the tomb of keats. irish monthly, vol. v. no. , page . july. sonnet written during holy week. illustrated monitor, vol. iv. no. , page . july. the grosvenor gallery. dublin university magazine, vol. xc. no. , page . michaelmas term. wasted days. (from a picture painted by miss v. t.) kottabos, vol. iii. no. , page . december. [greek]. irish monthly, vol. v. no. , page . april. magdalen walks. irish monthly, vol. vi. no. , page . hilary term. 'la belle marguerite.' ballade du moyen age. kottabos, vol. iii. no. , page . april. the conqueror of time. time, vol. i. no. , page . may . grosvenor gallery (first notice.) saunders' irish daily news, vol. cxc. no. , , page . june. easter day. waifs and strays, vol. i. no. , page . june . to sarah bernhardt. world, no. , page . july. the new helen. time, vol. i. no. , page . july . queen henrietta maria. (charles i,, act iii.) world, no. , page . michaelmas term. ave! maria. kottabos, vol. iii. no. , page . january . portia. world, no. , page . march. impression de voyage. waifs and strays, vol. i. no. , page . august . ave imperatrix! a poem on england. world, no. , page . november . libertatis sacra fames. world, no. , page . december. sen artysty; or, the artist's dream. translated from the polish of madame helena modjeska. routledge's christmas annual: the green room, page . january. the grave of keats. burlington, vol. i. no. , page . march . impression de matin. world, no. , page . february . impressions: i. le jardin. ii. la mer. our continent (philadelphia), vol. i. no. , page . november . mrs. langtry as hester grazebrook. new york world, page . l'envoi, an introduction to rose leaf and apple leaf, by rennell rodd, page . philadelphia: j. m. stoddart and co. [besides the ordinary edition a limited number of an edition de luxe was issued printed in brown ink on one side only of a thin transparent handmade parchment paper, the whole book being interleaved with green tissue.] november . telegram to whistler. world, no. , page . may . under the balcony. shaksperean show-book, page . (set to music by lawrence kellie as oh! beautiful star. serenade. london: robert cocks and co., .) october . mr. oscar wilde on woman's dress. pall mall gazette, vol. xl. no. , page . november . more radical ideas upon dress reform. (with two illustrations.) pall mall gazette, vol. xl. no. , page . february . mr. whistler's ten o'clock. pall mall gazette, vol. xli. no. , page . february . tenderness in tite street. world, no. , page . february . the relation of dress to art. a note in black and white on mr. whistler's lecture. pall mall gazette, vol. xli. no. , page . march . *dinners and dishes. pall mall gazette, vol. xli. no. , page . march . *a modern epic. pall mall gazette, vol. xli. no. , page . march . shakespeare on scenery. dramatic review, vol. i. no. , page . march . *a bevy of poets. pall mall gazette, vol. xli. no. , page . april . *parnassus versus philology. pall mall gazette, vol. xli. no. , page . april . the harlot's house. dramatic review, vol. i. no. , page . may. shakespeare and stage costume. nineteenth century, vol. xvii. no. , page . may . hamlet at the lyceum. dramatic review, vol. i. no. , page . may . *two new novels. pall mall gazette, vol. xli. no. , page . may . henry the fourth at oxford. dramatic review, vol. i. no. , page . may . *modern greek poetry. pall mall gazette, vol. xli. no. , page . may . olivia at the lyceum. dramatic review, vol. i. no. , page . june. le jardin des tuileries. (with an illustration by l. troubridge.) in a good cause, page . london: wells gardner, darton and co. june . as you like it at coombe house. dramatic review, vol. i. no. , page . july. roses and rue. midsummer dreams, summer number of society. (no copy of this is known to exist.) november . *a handbook to marriage. pall mall gazette, vol. xlii. no. , page . january . *half-hours with the worst authors. pall mall gazette, vol. xliii. no. , page . january . sonnet. on the recent sale by auction of keats' love letters. dramatic review, vol. ii. no. , page . february . *one of mr. conway's remainders. pall mall gazette, vol. xliii. no. , page . february . to read or not to read. pall mall gazette, vol. xliii. no. , page . february . twelfth night at oxford. dramatic review, vol. iii. no. , page . march . *the letters of a great woman. pall mall gazette, vol. xliii. no. , page . april . *news from parnassus. pall mall gazette, vol. xliii. no. , page . april . *some novels. pall mall gazette, vol. xliii. no. , page . april . *a literary pilgrim. pall mall gazette, vol. xliii. no. , page . april . *beranger in england. pall mall gazette, vol. xliii. no. , page . may . *the poetry of the people. pall mall gazette, vol. xliii. no. , page . may . the cenci. dramatic review, vol. iii. no. , page . may . helena in troas. dramatic review, vol. iii. no. , page . july. keats' sonnet on blue. (with facsimile of original manuscript.) century guild hobby horse, vol. i. no. , page . august . *pleasing and prattling. pall mall gazette, vol. xliv. no. , page . september . *balzac in english. pall mall gazette, vol. xliv. no. , page . september . *two new novels. pall mall gazette, vol. xliv. no. , page . september . *ben jonson. pall mall gazette, vol. xliv. no. , page . september . *the poets' corner. pall mall gazette, vol. xliv. no. , page . october . *a ride through morocco. pall mall gazette, vol. xliv. no. , page . october . *the children of the poets. pall mall gazette, vol. xliv. no. , page . october . *new novels. pall mall gazette, vol. xliv. no. , page . november . *a politician's poetry. pall mall gazette, vol. xliv. no. , page . november . *mr. symonds' history of the renaissance. pall mall gazette, vol. xliv. no. , page . november . *a 'jolly' art critic. pall mall gazette, vol. xliv. no. , page . november . note on whistler. world, no. , page . december . *a 'sentimental journey' through literature. pall mall gazette, vol. xliv. no. , page . december . *two biographies of sir philip sidney. pall mall gazette, vol. xliv. no. , page . january . *common sense in art. pall mall gazette, vol. xlv. no. , page . february . *miner and minor poets. pall mall gazette, vol. xlv. no. , page . february . *a new calendar. pall mall gazette, vol. xlv. no. , page . february . the canterville ghost--i. illustrated by f. h. townsend. court and society review, vol. iv. no. , page . march . the canterville ghost--ii. illustrated by f. h. townsend. court and society review, vol. iv. no. , page . march . *the poets' corner. pall mall gazette, vol. xlv. no. , page . march . *the american invasion. court and society review, vol. iv. no. , page . march . *great writers by little men. pall mall gazette, vol. xlv. no. , page . march . *a new book on dickens. pall mall gazette, vol. xlv. no. , page . april . *our book shelf. pall mall gazette, vol. xlv. no. , page . april . *a cheap edition of a great man. pall mall gazette, vol. xlv. no. , page . april . *mr. morris's odyssey. pall mall gazette, vol. xlv. no. , page . may . *a batch of novels. pall mall gazette, vol. xlv. no. , page . may . *some novels. saturday review, vol. lxiii. no. , page . may . lord arthur savile's crime. a story of cheiromancy.--i. ii. illustrated by f. h. townsend. court and society review, vol. iv. no. , page . may . lord arthur savile's crime. a story of cheiromancy.--iii. iv. court and society review, vol. iv. no. , page . may . lord arthur savile's crime. a story of cheiromancy.--v. vi. illustrated by f. h. townsend. court and society review, vol. iv. no. , page . may . lady alroy. world, no. , page . may . *the poets' corner. pall mall gazette, vol. xlv. no. , page . june . *mr. pater's imaginary portraits. pall mall gazette, vol. xlv. no. , page . june . the model millionaire. world, no. , page . august . *a good historical novel. pall mall gazette, vol. xlvi. no. , page . august . *new novels. saturday review, vol. lxiv. no. , page . september . *two biographies of keats. pall mall gazette, vol. xlvi. no. , page . october . *sermons in stones at bloomsbury. pall mall gazette, vol. xlvi. no. , page . october . *a scotchman on scottish poetry. pall mall gazette, vol. xlvi. no. , page . november. literary and other notes. woman's world, vol. i. no. , page . november . *mr. mahaffy's new book. pall mall gazette, vol. xlvi. no. , page . november . *mr. morris's completion of the odyssey. pall mall gazette, vol. xlvi. no. , page . november . *sir charles bowen's virgil. pall mall gazette, vol. xlvi. no. , page . december. literary and other notes. woman's world, vol. i. no. , page . december . *the unity of the arts. pall mall gazette, vol. xlvi. no. , page . december . un amant de nos jours. court and society review, vol. iv. no. , page . december . *aristotle at afternoon tea. pall mall gazette, vol. xlvi. no. , page . december . *early christian art in ireland. pall mall gazette, vol. xlvi. no. , page . december . *art at willis's rooms. sunday times, no. , page . december . fantaisies decoratives. i. le panneau. ii. les ballons. illustrated by bernard partridge. lady's pictorial christmas number, pages , . january. literary and other notes. woman's world, vol. i. no. , page . january . *the poets' corner. pall mall gazette, vol. xlvii. no. , page . february. literary and other notes. woman's world, vol. i. no. , page . february . the poets' corner. pall mall gazette, vol. xlvii. no. , page . february . *venus or victory. pall mall gazette, vol. xlvii. no. , page . march. literary and other notes. woman's world, vol. i. no. , page . april. canzonet. art and letters, vol. ii. no. , page . april . *the poets' corner. pall mall gazette, vol. xlvii. no. , page . april . *m. caro on george sand. pall mall gazette, vol. xlvii. no. , page . october . *the poets' corner. pall mall gazette, vol. xlviii. no. , page . november. a fascinating book. a note by the editor. woman's world, vol. ii. no. , page . november . *mr. morris on tapestry. pall mall gazette, vol. xlviii. no. , page . november . *sculpture at the 'arts and crafts.' pall mall gazette, vol. xlviii. no. , page . november . *the poets' corner. pall mall gazette, vol. xlviii. no. , page . november . *printing and printers. pall mall gazette, vol. xlviii. no. , page . november . *the beauties of bookbinding. pall mall gazette, vol. xlviii. no. , page . november . *the close of the 'arts and crafts.' pall mall gazette, vol. xlviii. no. , page . december. a note on some modern poets. woman's world, vol. ii. no. , page . december . english poetesses. queen, vol. lxxxiv. no. , page . december . *sir edwin arnold's last volume. pall mall gazette, vol. xlviii. no. , page . december . *australian poets. pall mall gazette, vol. xlviii. no. , page . december. the young king. illustrated by bernard partridge. lady's pictorial christmas number, page . january. the decay of lying: a dialogue. nineteenth century, vol. xxv. no. , page . january. pen, pencil, and poison: a study. fortnightly review, vol. xlv. no. , page . january. london models. illustrated by harper pennington. english illustrated magazine, vol. vi. no. , page . january. some literary notes. woman's world, vol. ii. no. , page . january . *poetry and prison. pall mall gazette, vol. xlix. no. , page . january . *the gospel according to walt whitman. pall mall gazette, vol. xlix. no. , page . january . *the new president. pall mall gazette, vol. xlix. no. , page . february. some literary notes. woman's world, vol. ii. no. , page . february. symphony in yellow. centennial magazine (sydney), vol. ii. no. , page . february . *one of the bibles of the world. pall mall gazette, vol. xlix. no. , page . february . *poetical socialists. pall mall gazette, vol. xlix. no. , page . february . *mr. brander matthews' essays. pall mall gazette, vol. xlix. no. , page . march. some literary notes. woman's world, vol. iii. no. , page . march . *mr. william morris's last book. pall mall gazette, vol. xlix. no. , page . march . *adam lindsay gordon. pall mall gazette, vol. xlix. no. , page . march . *the poets' corner. pall mall gazette, vol. xlix. no. , page . april. some literary notes. woman's world, vol. ii. no. , page . april . mr. froude's blue-book. pall mall gazette, vol. xlix. no. , page . may. some literary notes. woman's world, vol. ii. no. , page . may . *ouida's new novel. pall mall gazette, vol. xlix. no. , page . june. some literary notes. woman's world, vol. ii. no. , page . june . *a thought-reader's novel. pall mall gazette, vol. xlix. no. , page . june . *the poets' corner. pall mall gazette, vol. xlix. no. , page . june . *mr. swinburne's last volume. pall mall gazette, vol. xlix. no. , page . july. the portrait of mr. w. h. blackwood's edinburgh magazine, vol. cxlvi. no. , page . july . *three new poets. pall mall gazette, vol. i. no. , page . december. in the forest. illustrated by bernard partridge. lady's pictorial christmas number, page . (set to music by edwin tilden and published by miles and thompson, boston, u.s.a., .) january . reply to mr. whistler. truth, vol. xxvii. no. , page . february . a chinese sage. speaker, vol. i. no. , page . march . mr. pater's last volume. speaker, vol. i. no. , page . may . *primavera. pall mall gazette, vol. li. no. , page . june . the picture of dorian gray. lippincott's monthly magazine (july), vol. xlvi. no. , page . (containing thirteen chapters only.) june . mr. wilde's bad case. st. james's gazette, vol. xx. no. , page . june . mr. oscar wilde again. st. james's gazette, vol. xx. no. , page . june . mr. oscar wilde's defence. st. james's gazette, vol. xx. no. , page . june . mr. oscar wilde's defence. st. james's gazette, vol. xx. no. , page . july. the true function and value of criticism; with some remarks on the importance of doing nothing: a dialogue. nineteenth century, vol. xxviii. no. , page . july . 'dorian gray.' daily chronicle and clerkenwell news, no. , page . july . mr. wilde's rejoinder. scots observer, vol. iv. no. , page . august . art and morality. scots observer, vol. iv. no. , page . august . art and morality. scots observer, vol. iv. no. , page . september. the true function and value of criticism; with some remarks on the importance of doing nothing: a dialogue (concluded). nineteenth century, vol. xxviii. no. , page . february. the soul of man under socialism. fortnightly review, vol. xlix. no. , page . march. a preface to 'dorian gray.' fortnightly review, vol. xlix. no. , page . september . an anglo-indian's complaint. times, no. , , page . december . 'a house of pomegranates.' speaker, vol. iv. no. , page . december . mr. oscar wilde's 'house of pomegranates.' pall mall gazette, vol. liii. no. , page . february . puppets and actors. daily telegraph, no. , , page . february . mr. oscar wilde explains. st. james's gazette, vol. xxiv. no. , page . december . the new remorse. spirit lamp, vol. ii. no. , page . february . the house of judgment. spirit lamp, vol. iii. no. , page . march . mr. oscar wilde on 'salome.' times, no. , , page . june . the disciple. spirit lamp, vol. iv. no. , page . to my wife: with a copy of my poems; and with a copy of 'the house of pomegranates.' book-song, an anthology of poems of books and bookmen from modern authors. edited by gleeson white, pages , . london: elliot stock. [this was the first publication of these two poems. anthologies containing reprints are not included in this list.] january . letter to the president of the thirteen club. times, no. , , page . july. poems in prose. ('the artist,' 'the doer of good,' 'the disciple,' 'the master,' 'the house of judgment.') fortnightly review, vol. liv. no. , page . september . the ethics of journalism. pall mall gazette, vol. lix. no. , page . september . the ethics of journalism. pall mall gazette, vol. lix. no. , page . october . 'the green carnation.' pall mall gazette, vol. lix. no. , page . december. phrases and philosophies for the use of the young. chameleon, vol. i. no. , page . april . letter on the queensberry case. evening news, no. , page . may . the case of warder martin. some cruelties of prison life. daily chronicle, no. , , page . march . letter on prison reform. daily chronicle, no. , , page . footnotes. { a} see lord arthur savile's crime and other prose pieces in this edition, page . { } reverently some well-meaning persons have placed a marble slab on the wall of the cemetery with a medallion-profile of keats on it and some mediocre lines of poetry. the face is ugly, and rather hatchet-shaped, with thick sensual lips, and is utterly unlike the poet himself, who was very beautiful to look upon. 'his countenance,' says a lady who saw him at one of hazlitt's lectures, 'lives in my mind as one of singular beauty and brightness; it had the expression as if he had been looking on some glorious sight.' and this is the idea which severn's picture of him gives. even haydon's rough pen-and-ink sketch of him is better than this 'marble libel,' which i hope will soon be taken down. i think the best representation of the poet would be a coloured bust, like that of the young rajah of koolapoor at florence, which is a lovely and lifelike work of art. { } it is perhaps not generally known that there is another and older peacock ceiling in the world besides the one mr. whistler has done at kensington. i was surprised lately at ravenna to come across a mosaic ceiling done in the keynote of a peacock's tail--blue, green, purple, and gold--and with four peacocks in the four spandrils. mr. whistler was unaware of the existence of this ceiling at the time he did his own. { } an unequal match, by tom taylor, at wallack's theatre, new york, november , . { } 'make' is of course a mere printer's error for 'mock,' and was subsequently corrected by lord houghton. the sonnet as given in the garden of florence reads 'orbs' for 'those.' { } september . see intentions, page . { } november , . { } february , . { } february , . { } the verses called 'the shamrock' were printed in the sunday sun, august , , and the charge of plagiarism was made in the issue dated september , . { } cousin errs a good deal in this respect. to say, as he did, 'give me the latitude and the longitude of a country, its rivers and its mountains, and i will deduce the race,' is surely a glaring exaggeration. { } the monarchical, aristocratical, and democratic elements of the roman constitution are referred to. { a} polybius, vi. . [greek]. { b} [greek]. { c} the various stages are [greek]. { a} polybius, xii. . { b} polybius, i. , viii. , specially; and really passim. { a} he makes one exception. { b} polybius, viii. . { } polybius, xvi. . { a} polybius, viii. : [greek]. { b} polybius resembled gibbon in many respects. like him he held that all religions were to the philosopher equally false, to the vulgar equally true, to the statesman equally useful. { } cf. polybius, xii. , [greek]. { } polybius, xxii. . { } i mean particularly as regards his sweeping denunciation of the complete moral decadence of greek society during the peloponnesian war which, from what remains to us of athenian literature, we know must have been completely exaggerated. or, rather, he is looking at men merely in their political dealings: and in politics the man who is personally honourable and refined will not scruple to do anything for his party. { } polybius, xii. . { } as an instance of the inaccuracy of published reports of this lecture, it may be mentioned that all previous versions give this passage as the artist may trace the depressed revolution of bunthorne simply to the lack of technical means! { } the two paths, lect. iii. p. ( ed.). { a} edition for continental circulation only. leipzig: bernhard tauchnitz, vol. . (august). { b} edition for continental circulation only. leipzig: bernhard tauchnitz, vol. . (august). none an address to the inhabitants of the colonies, established in new south wales and norfolk island. by the rev. richard johnson, a.b. chaplain to the colonies written in the year printed for the author * * * * * to all inhabitants, and especially to the unhappy prisoners and convicts established at port jackson and norfolk island, this affectionate address is dedicated and presented, by their very sincere and sympathizing friend, and faithful servant, in the gospel of christ, richard johnson. * * * * * to the british and other european inhabitants of new south wales and norfolk island. my beloved, i do not think it necessary to make an apology for putting this address into your hands; or to enter into a long detail of the reasons which induced me to write it. one reason may suffice. i find i cannot express my regard for you, so often, or so fully, as i wish, in any other way. on our first arrival in this distant part of the world, and for some time afterwards, our numbers were comparatively small; and while they resided nearly upon one spot, i could not only preach to them on the lord's day, but also converse with them, and admonish them, more privately. but since that period, we have gradually increased in number every year (notwithstanding the great mortality we have sometimes known) by the multitudes that have been sent hither after us. the colony already begins to spread, and will probably spread more and more every year, both by new settlements formed in different places under the crown, and by a number of individuals continually becoming settlers. thus the extent of what i call my parish, and consequently of my parochial duty, is enlarging daily. on the other hand, my health is not so good, nor my constitution so strong, as formerly. and therefore i feel it impracticable, and impossible for me, either to preach, or to converse with you so freely, as my inclination and affection would prompt me to do. i have therefore thought it might be proper for me, and i hope it may prove useful to you, to write such an address as i now present you with. i transmitted a copy of it to my friends in england with a request, that if they approved of it, a sufficient number might be printed, and sent to me. thus i am now able to leave with you a testimony of my affection for you, and of my sincere and heart-felt concern, for your best, because your eternal, welfare. my times are in the hand of god. he, and he only, knows how long i may live, or how long my present connection with you, may continue. i trust, however, that so long as the all-wise disposer of all events shall be pleased to spare my life, and strength; and government shall deem my services in this remote land, necessary, it will still be, as it has hitherto been, my most ardent desire, my uniform endeavour, and my greatest pleasure, to promote your happiness. and when recalled to my native country, or removed by my god to my eternal home, to receive that crown of righteousness, which i humbly trust is laid upon me, by reading and carefully perusing the following pages, i hope you will be convinced, and reminded how sincerely you were pitied, and how dearly beloved by richard johnson. port jackson, oct. . . at this date, exclusive of those who died or were born on the voyage from england: baptisms..... marriages.... burials...... * * * * * advertisement. the author hopes that all well-disposed persons will excuse the imperfections they may meet in this address. it is the first time of his appearance in print, and may be the last. nor would he have attempted it now, were it not for the very peculiar situation he is in, and the hope he entertains, that his feeble, but he trusts, sincere, attempt, may, by the blessing of god, be made useful to those unhappy persons, with whom he is so nearly connected, and for whose salvation and happiness he is so deeply concerned. and he returns his most sincere and hearty thanks to true christians of every denomination, for their kind remembrance of him at the throne of grace. he still hopes, because he still needs, a continuance of their fervent prayers to god for him, that he may be indued with those gifts, and with that wisdom, zeal, and faithfulness which are so needful to direct, support, and strengthen him--and may be favoured with more manifold and abundant success in that arduous, trying, yet honourable, and at times he can say, pleasant and delightful work, in which he is engaged. * * * * * address, &c. part i. i beseech you, brethren, suffer this word of exhortation. your souls are precious. they are precious in the sight of god. they are precious to the lord jesus christ. they are precious in my esteem. oh that you yourselves were equally sensible of their value. we have now been here almost five years. during this time, i trust, i have been faithful in the discharge of my duty, faithful to my god, my country, my conscience, and to your immortal souls. i would, nay i do, humbly hope, that my labours have not been wholly in vain. some of you, i trust, have been convinced of your folly, sin and danger; you have earnestly sought, and happily found mercy with god through a mediator. you can now approach him as a god reconciled, a merciful father and friend, and are evidencing the reality of you conversion, by an upright life and conversation. but i must express my fear, that those of you, who are thus convinced of sin, and converted to god, and reformed from your evil courses, are comparatively very few. it is too evident, that the far greater part of you discover no concern for religion. the great god, the lord jesus christ, the holy spirit, death, judgment, eternity, heaven and hell,--these are subjects which seldom, if at all, engage your attention; and therefore you spend days, weeks, months and years, in a profane and careless manner, though you are repeatedly informed and reminded in the most plain, faithful, and alarming language i can use, that the wages of sin, without repentance, is death,[rom. vi. .] the curse of god, and the eternal ruin and damnation of your souls! oh, i intreat you, brethren, to consider what is contained in these two words, salvation and damnation! the one implies every thing that an immortal soul can want or desire to make it happy. the other includes an idea, the most gloomy and dreadful that can be conceived. the former will be the admiration of angels, and the song and joy of the redeemed; the latter will be the torment of devils, and of all impenitent sinners, for ever and ever [ pet. i. .; rev. vii. - .; rev. xiv. .]. remember likewise, that ere long, either this endless inconceivable happiness, or unutterable misery will be your portion, or your doom, and mine. our glass of life is running away apace. our time is fast hastening to a period. death is making sure and speedy strides towards us daily, judgment is at hand, and the judge himself is at the door. and oh! consider, when the breath we now draw shall depart, the tender thread of life be cut, our state will be unalterably and for ever fixed; either to live with god, with angels, and glorified saints, in heaven; or to dwell with devils, in the darkness and torments of hell. on these accounts your souls are, as i have already observed, very precious, not only in the sight of god, but also to me. my brethren, god is my record, how greatly i long after you all, in the bowels of jesus christ.[phil. i. .] next to the salvation of own foul, nothing in this world lies so near my heart, as the conversion and salvation of my fellow creatures; and especially of you, over whom i am appointed more immediately to watch, as one who must give an account [heb. xiii. .]. and oh, my friends, if this affectionate, though plain address, should answer my ardent wishes and prayers, if it should prove the happy means of converting even one soul to god, i should indeed rejoice, as one that findeth great spoil [ps. cxix. .]. for once, at least, endeavour to lift up your hearts with me in prayer to almighty god, the bountiful giver of all grace. he only can make this or any other means effectual; and should it please him of his abounding mercy to make a saving impression upon your hearts, you will reap the happy fruits of it in life, at death, and to eternity. oh that the gracious spirit of the lord may open the eyes and the ears of all who may read or hear what i am writing. may they who are asleep, awake! may they who are spiritually dead, be made alive! may backsliders from god be reclaimed! may every one be stirred up to consider, what will become of him in another world! for who amongst us can dwell with everlasting burnings? [isa. xxxiii. .] yet such must be our lot, unless we repent. may the lord god give, to each of you, repentance unto life, that you may be holy in this world, and happy in that which is to come! my brethren, i trust i can say in truth, and with a sincere conscience, that i am not ashamed of the gospel of christ.[rom. i. .] it is a knowledge, and i hope an inward experience of this precious gospel, that bears up my spirits when i am ready to sink as in deep waters, and when i am almost overwhelmed by the many heavy and daily trials, crosses, difficulties and disappointments, that i meet with in this, alas! most uncomfortable situation. an acquaintance with this gospel, an experience of its truth and power, sweetens every bitter, makes my crosses comforts, and my losses gains. it is by this knowledge that i am enabled to bear the cross of christ, not only with some degree of patience and resignation, but at some seasons, with consolation and joy; while i at one time reflect on what our dear lord and saviour endured for me, and at another anticipate the unspeakable honour and pleasure, which, through grace, i hope ere long to enjoy at his right hand for evermore. and to endeavour to bring you, my dear friends, to a saving knowledge of what is contained in this gospel, is not only my duty and inclination as a minister, but also my earnest desire and pleasure, and that which i long for more than for any other thing that can be named.[rom. x. .] i have often explained to you, according to my sentiments, what is contained in the gospel. but as i fear, and am indeed well aware, that many of you, after all you have heard, still remain ignorant, i will now tell you again briefly and plainly, what my views of the gospel are; that by putting this book into your hands, you may, if you please, more carefully and attentively examine and search for yourselves, whether what i lay before you be agreeable to the holy scriptures, or otherwise; and consequently, whether you ought to believe, or to reject it. the gospel, i conceive, in its most extensive sense, comprehends the whole revealed will of god, recorded in the holy scriptures of the old and new testament [tim. iii. .]. this sacred book, which we call the bible, describes the original state of man, as a state of perfect purity and innocence. he was made in the image of god. he was made upright [gen. i. , .; eccles. vii. .]. his understanding, will, his affections and conscience, his body and soul, were free from defilement, guilt, or guile, and while he continued so, he was not liable to pain, misery, or death. but man did not continue in this state. our first parents disobeyed their maker. by sinning against god they lost their original righteousness, and became earthly, sensual, devilish. such are all his posterity: for who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? man is now the very reverse of what he was when first created. his understanding [ cor. iv. ; ephes. iv. .; titus i. .; rom. viii. .] is darkened, yea darkness itself; his will, his carnal mind, is enmity against god; his conscience is defiled; his affections, no longer fixed upon god his creator and benefactor, are engrossed by the vain and perishing things of this world; by sin his body is become mortal. subject to pain, disease, and death [rom. v. .]; and his soul is exposed to the displeasure of god, and to the curse annexed to the transgressions of his holy law. all this misery is implied in that awful threatening, in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die[gen. ii. .]. and is not this threatening, at least in part, already put into execution? whence is there so much ignorance and contempt of god? why do mankind so eagerly, so universally pursue the vain pleasures and follies of the world, while they seldom think of god their maker? from whence proceed the infidelity, blasphemy, lying, theft, sabbath-breaking, slandering and the many horrid evils, which every where abound? whence is it that so many in this colony, labour under such sore and complicated disorders, pains, and miseries? why are so many, both young and old, taken away by death? and why is it that others who see all those things, do not take warning by them, to prepare for their own latter end? brethren, all these are so many undeniable proofs and evidences of what i have said; namely, that we are fallen and guilty creatures. these are the effects of adam's sin and disobedience. the certain consequences of which would have been unavoidable and endless misery, both of soul and body, to himself and all his posterity, had not some means been provided, some way laid open, for his and their recovery. but, blessed be god, a door of hope is opened by the gospel for miserable sinners! a gracious promise was given early, even to our first parents, immediately after their fall. the seed of the woman shall break the serpent's head [gen. iii. .]. this promised seed is the lord jesus christ, who, in due time, was to appear in the world, to be born of a woman, that by his life, sufferings, and obedience unto death, he might recover fallen man from the misery and ruin in which he was involved. brethren, this gospel which, as the ministers and ambassadors of god, we are commissioned and commanded to preach to sinners, proposes a free and gracious pardon to the guilty, cleansing to the polluted, healing to the sick, happiness to the miserable, light for those who sit in darkness, strength for the weak, food for the hungry, and even life for the dead [gal. iv. , .; gal. iii. .; i john i. .; matt. xi. .; matt. xi. .]. all these inestimable blessings are the fruits and effects of the death and mediation of jesus christ. his great design in coming into the world was to seek and to save those who are lost[luke xviii. .; i tim. i. .]; he came from heaven, that he might raise us to those holy and happy mansions; he endured the curse, that we might inherit the blessing; he bore the cross, that we might wear the crown; he died, that we might live; he died, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to god [ pet. iii. .]. these blessings become ours, only by believing, or faith. thus it is said, god so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son for what purpose? why, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life [john iii. , .],--he that believeth in him is not condemned; he that believeth in him who juftifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted to him for righteousness [rom. iv. , .]. my friends, search the scriptures, and you will find that this is the tenor of the whole bible; i may add of our church also, in the articles and homilies. this believing is sometimes called a coming to christ, a looking unto christ, a trusting in him, a casting our burden upon him [john vi. .; isa. xlv. .; eph. i. .; ps. lv. .]. and remember, that until we do thus come to christ, trust in him, cast our cares and burdens upon him, we have no part or interest in what the gospel unfolds and offers; however others, who have believed, and daily act faith upon him, are rejoicing in the participation of those rich benefits and blessings which the gospel freely offers to guilty and perishing sinners. the faith whereby a sinner receives christ, and becomes a partaker of all the blessings of the gospel, is the sole gift of god, wrought in the heart by his holy spirit [eph. ii. .]. this holy spirit produces an inward change in the soul, called, in the scripture, the new birth, regeneration [john iii. - ], or conversion, and thus enables a sinner, convinced of his sin and misery, to look to jesus, and to believe on him. but though repentance and faith are the gifts of god, which none can obtain by any endeavours of their own, yet we are encouraged and commanded to pray for them [luke xi. .]. all who have thus, through grace, believed, and are daily living a life of faith in the son of god, shall be saved: but such as carelessly neglect, or wilfully reject this gospel must be damned [ mark xvi. .]. think, i beseech you, of this! remember, that it is the solemn declaration of the lord jesus christ himself. now is the time to obtain the blessings revealed in the gospel, and which are set before you when it is preached. many have had these gracious declarations made to them, before we were born, and they will be repeated to many after we are dead. but this is our day. now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation [ cor vi. .]. to-day--for you and i may not live to see to-morrow. to-day; if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts [heb. iii. , .]. my brethren, it is your duty, your wisdom, and will finally prove to be your greatest happiness, to seek an interest in this salvation for yourselves. it is your personal, and must be your heart concern, to make your calling and election sure [ pet. i. .]. for death will soon put a period to all the overtures of grace and mercy, with which many, and particularly you, are now favoured. it is as i have said, both my duty and my pleasure, to preach and proclaim these glad tidings. but to whom? not to the dead, but to the living; even to you [acts xv. .]. to you is the word of the salvation sent. but, alas! should you still put it from you, and should death at last find you in an unprepared state, it will then be too late for you to begin to cry for mercy [eccl. ix. .]. a day is likewise coming, when our mortal bodies, which must shortly moulder into dust, will be raised again from the dead. whether believers or unbelievers, whether saints or sinners, we must all appear before the judgment-seat of christ [ cor. v. .; dan. . .; matt. xxv. .]. for the lord jesus will shortly appear in the clouds of heaven, the last trumpet shall sound, the graves shall open, the sea give up her dead, and all who have lived upon earth, from the creation to the final consummation of time, will then be judged, and rewarded or punished according to their works. mark well st. john's representation of this solemn transaction, "i saw the dead, small and great, stand before god, and the books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the book of life, and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works"[rev. xx. , .]. such are the declarations of scripture respecting this awful season! sinners, whatever you may now think of these things, or think or say of me, for declaring them to you, in this, plain and solemn manner, i must and will tell you, that there is not a profane oath which you have uttered, nor a lie which you have told, nor a sabbath which you have broken, nor a single act of adultery, fornication, theft, or any wickedness of which you have been guilty; in a word, there is not an evil you have committed, nor a duty you have omitted to perform, but what is noted down in the book of god's remembrance, and will be produced against you in the day of judgment, unless you repent, and believe the gospel. you must then give an account how you improved the advantages now afforded you, for attending to the things pertaining to your peace. if you do not improve them, the bible will condemn you, every faithful sermon you have heard will condemn you, nay, every sermon which you might have heard, but would not, because you despised and neglected the ordinances of public worship, will condemn you: and alas! this address, by which i try to warn you, because i love you, and wish well to your souls; which you are now reading, or perhaps, about to throw aside with scorn, will then condemn you. the admonitions, intreaties, prayers, and tears of godly parents, the advice and reproofs of pious friends, the warning and expostulations of faithful ministers, will all witness against you. my brethren, what shall i say? the law of god, the gospel, saints, sinners, angels, your own consciences, the holy spirit, the lord jesus, the great judge himself, will all witness against you, for your contempt and neglect of that mercy and salvation, which are set before you in the gospel. then all ungodly and impenitent sinners, being tried, cast, and condemned, must hear that final terrible sentence pronounced upon them, depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels![matt. xxv. .] and remember that those who have been your associates in wickedness here, will then be your companions in misery. this will, if possible, aggravate your torment. you and they will rue the day when you first met; and mutually charge the ruin of your souls upon each other. oh, think of this, and pray for grace to repent, before it be too late! at that solemn season, the righteous shall be publicly and fully acquitted before the assembled world. the judge will say to them, come, ye blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you, from the foundation of the world [matt. xxv. .]. the holy angels will then conduct them to the mansions of eternal bliss. happy souls! they will then have no more cause to weep and mourn, to fight and wrestle. they will no more be exercised with darkness or temptation; for sin, which is the cause of all their conflicts and sorrows, shall be done away; and god their gracious father, and everlasting friend, shall wipe all tears from their eyes [rev. vii. .]. the righteous, however obscured and reproached upon earth, shall then shine forth like the sun in the kingdom of their father. they are represented to us, as standing before the throne, clothed in white robes, with palm-branches (the emblems of victory) in their hands, and singing to their harps their redeemer's praise [matt. xiii. .; rev vii. , .]. there they will join in company with abraham, isaac, and jacob, with the apostles, prophets, and martyrs, with their dear friends and relatives, who died in the faith before them, and with the glorious angels; and above all, (without which heaven itself would be no heaven to them) they will enjoy the unclouded presence of their lord and saviour, who once suffered pain, and shame, and death for them. they will see him seated upon a throne of glory, and unite with all the heavenly host, in ascribing salvation, glory, and honour, and praise to him who loved them, and washed them from their sins in his own blood; and has made them kings and priests to god, and to the lamb, for ever and ever [rev. v. .]. for the joys of heaven, and the pains of hell will be eternal. otherwise, indeed, neither the happiness nor the misery of a future state could be complete. it would damp the joys of the blessed, to apprehend that they must at length terminate. and the horrors of the damned would be in a degree alleviated, if there was the most distant prospect that they would have a period. but the word of god assures us, that believers, after death, enter into life eternal, and that the punishment of the wicked will be everlasting [matt. xxv. .; dan. xii. .; thes. i. - .]. i have now given you a summary of the great truths, which, as a minister of the gospel, i am commissioned and commanded to preach. and i can call god and your consciences to witness, that i have not shunned thus to declare to you the whole counsel of god [acts xx. .]. i have explained to you the meaning, and i have urged the importance of these things over and over. i have pointed out to you, the wretched and dangerous condition of sinners, the necessity of conversion or the new birth, the nature of this change, and by what power it is wrought, and the fruits and effects which such a change will produce in a man's tempers, words and actions. i have also shewn you the way, in which you may and must be saved, if you are saved at all. i have told you again and again, that christ is the way, the truth, and the life, and that there is no coming to god with comfort, either in this world, or in that which is to come, but by him. he has told you so himself [john xiv. .; acts iv. .]. and the apostle assures you, that there is no other name under heaven, given unto men, whereby they can be saved. look unto him, and you shall be saved; if not, you must be damned. this is the plain truth, the express declaration of the bible. life and death are set before you [deut. xxx. .]. permit me then, as your minister, your friend, and a well-wisher to your souls, to press these serious and weighty considerations home upon your consciences once more. i hope and believe that i have affected nothing, but what can be proved by the highest authority, the word of the living god. they certainly deserve your closest and most careful attention, since it is plain beyond a doubt, that upon your knowledge or ignorance, your acceptance or rejection of this gospel, your everlasting happiness or misery must depend. brethren, i do not ask you, what religious persuasion or denomination you have espoused. i fear, that, if i may judge of your hearts by your actions, too many are destitute of any sense of religion at all. but i do not address you as churchmen or dissenters, roman catholics or protestants, as jews or gentiles; i suppose, yea, i know, that there are persons of every denomination amongst you. but i speak to you as men and women, as intelligent creatures, possessed of understanding and reason. i speak to you as mortals, and yet immortals; as sinners, who have broken the laws of god, and are therefore obnoxious to his displeasure. and my sole aim and desire is, to be instrumental in turning you from darkness to light, from sin to holiness, from the power of satan to the service and favour of god [acts xxvi. .]. seek then, i beseech you, above all things, an interest in the blessings of the gospel. be assured it is a matter of much less moment, whether you are rich or poor, respected or despised in this world. the rich have their cares, fears, crosses, and vexations, no less than the poor; but admitting that they could pass through life with greater ease than others, we all know that they cannot escape death. the great point is, how we shall die? whether as believers or unbelievers, as saints or sinners. one soul, according to our lord's declaration, is of more value than the whole world [mark viii. .]. if you lose your soul, you lose all at once. you lose heaven and happiness for ever. whatever, therefore, you do, or leave undone, for god's sake, and for your own sakes, neglect not for one day or hour longer, the vast concerns of another life. delays are dangerous. the more we have to risk or lose, the greater folly it would be accounted, to defer securing our property and goods, which we know to be in danger. what folly, therefore, what madness must it be, to put off with careless indifference, the concernments of eternity; and to prefer the trifles of this transitory life to heaven, and the favour of god! let the parable of the rich man, who pleased himself with the thought of having much good laid up for many years, be a warning to you![luke xii. - .] that very night his soul was required of him. such persons may now deem themselves wise; but ere long they will be sensible they were fools. it you consider what a valuable price was paid for our redemptions you must be convinced that the soul of man is very precious in the sight of god, and that sin is not so light and small an evil, as many of you have supposed. to disobey the commandments of the just and holy god, is, as far as in us lies, to renounce our allegiance to him, and our dependence upon him, and to set up for ourselves, and even to join with the devil in open rebellion against our maker. it is, in plain terms, to fly in his face, and to bid defiance to his almighty arm. sin is such a horrid evil, that unless it is forgiven, and blotted out, by the blood of jesus, it will sink your souls lower than the center of the earth, even into the very depths of hell, never, never, never more to rise [mark ix. - ]. so heinous was sin, in the sight of god, that rather than permit it to pass unpunished, he would punish it in the person of his own, his only, his well-beloved son, who was made sin, that is, treated as a sinner deserved to be treated, for us. he was delivered up into the hands of wicked men, and crucified, that by his suffering and death, he might make atonement for our sins, and procure an honourable and happy reconciliation, between a righteous god, and offending sinners [ cor. v. - ]. i beseech you, therefore, to prize and to study this gospel, that you may obtain a growing experience of its benefits. praise god for such a saviour, and such a salvation as he has provided. adore him, for that infinite wisdom, and boundless mercy which he has displayed in the redemption of fallen man and never rest, nor be satisfied, till you have good and scriptural reason to hope, that this saviour is yours, with all the blessings he is exalted to bestow without money and without price. our food, my brethren, then only can nourish us, when it is eaten and digested. medicines can only profit us, by being applied and taken. it is exactly thus with the gospel. we may hear, and talk of these things, but so long as they remain matters of speculation, and do not enter into our hearts, into the very vitals of our souls, (if i may so speak) we cannot be the better for them. christ is the bread of life. his flesh is meat indeed, and his blood is drink indeed! but unless we ourselves do spiritually eat the flesh and drink the blood of the son of man (for our lord speaks of food for the soul, not for the body) we have no life in us [john vi. - .]. moses, by the express command of god, erected a brazen serpent upon a pole, in the view of the camp of israel [numb. xxi. .]. such of the people as were stung by the fiery serpents, were directed and commanded to look up to the brazen serpent. they who did so were healed. but if any resisted, they were sure to die. for no other means or physicians could relieve them. in like manner christ jesus our saviour, once lifted up on the cross, is exhibited in the preaching of the gospel. sinners, who are wounded and diseased by sin, are directed, exhorted, encouraged, and commanded to look up to him [john iii. , .]. and they who are persuaded so to do, are infallibly cured of all those spiritual maladies, under which they have long and sorely laboured. but all, who despise and reject this sovereign remedy of god's gracious appointment, either by a total indifference to religion, or by expecting salvation in any other way, will be left, and that most deservedly, to perish in their wilful obstinacy and unbelief [john iii, .]. part ii in the former part of this address, i have already laid before you, in the plainest manner i was able, my views of the gospel of christ. and as an experimental knowledge of this gospel is so very important, i have endeavoured to press that importance upon your consciences. whether you have paid that attention to the subject, which it deserves and requires, yourselves best know. i can only say, that if i did not know it to be of great weight, i should not either speak or write of it with so much earnestness. but being persuaded and assured, by the express testimony of the holy scriptures, that these things are true; and truths, the knowledge of which is essential to your present and future happiness, i must be plain and faithful in declaring them. i ought to be very indifferent what men of depraved morals, and corrupt principles may say, or think of me, if i have the witness of a good conscience, and the approbation of the god whom i serve. my concern is for your welfare and salvation; for i am certain, as i have told you before, and now tell you again, that unless the gospel is made the power of god to your souls, you must be miserable in time, and to eternity. i propose now to give you some advices, to assist you in understanding the gospel for yourselves, which if you observe, i trust, you will attain to the possession of those principles, and walk by those rules, which will both afford you present peace, and secure your future happiness. for godliness has promises pertaining to the life that now is, and to that which is to come. let me then exhort you to attend seriously to what you are to believe; and to what you are to do. these two points include the sum and substance of the gospel, the whole of the christian life, and may be comprised in two words, faith and practice. i. you must learn from the word of god, what you are to believe. true faith is the root and foundation of all real religion. without this inward principle, nothing that we have done, or can do, will be acceptable to god [heb. xi. .]. i have briefly informed you what you are to believe--that you are sinners, that jesus christ is an all-sufficient and willing saviour--and that the word of god both warrants and commands you to look to him for salvation. this looking unto jesus, is what we particularly mean by faith or believing. when we cordially and entirely rely upon him, upon the invitation of the promises of god, for pardon, peace, and eternal life, then we believe. all who thus believe, through grace, are required and commanded to be careful of maintaining good works [titus. iii. .]. as our moral, and what are often called, our virtuous actions, are to be tried by our religious principles; it is equally true, that our religious principles or at least the proof that they are indeed our principles, must be evidenced by our moral conduct. these two are so inseparably connected, that you may depend upon it, where one of them is wanting, what bears the name of the other, is no better than pretended. if what we profess to believe does not make us humble, honest, chaste, patient, and thankful, and regulate our tempers and behaviour, whatever good opinion we may form of our notions or state, we are but deceiving ourselves. the tree is known by its fruits [james. ii. , .; matt. vii. .]. in this way true believers are equally distinguished from profane sinners, and from specious hypocrites. the change in their hearts always produces a change in their whole deportment. sin, which was once their delight, is now the object of their hatred. it was once necessary as their food, but now they avoid it as poison. they war, watch, and pray against it. and their delight is to study the revealed will of god. by these tests you may judge of your true state before god. surely you cannot suppose that your inward state is good, while your outward conduct is bad. hence you may be assured that no unclean person, or profane swearer, no one who lives in direct opposition to the commands of god, can be, while he continues in this course, a true christian. such a supposition would be no less absurd, than it would be to suppose, that a man is a good and peaceable subject, though he lives in open rebellion against the king. you may as well conceive of a holy devil, as of an unholy christian. i hope you will not mistake me. i do not mean that true christians are without sin. but i affirm, that no true christian can live in an habitual course of sin. no, sin is their grief, their burden [ john. iii. , .; rom. vii. , .]; and when through temptation, or unwatchfulness, they are drawn aside, like the dove sent out of the ark, they can find no rest, till by hearty repentance, and true faith, they obtain a new sense of forgiveness. i now proceed to offer you some directions, with which if you comply, i trust, that by the blessing of god, you will enjoy peace in your souls, and be enabled to regulate your conduct and conversation, as becometh the gospel of christ. read and study the scriptures. this was our lord's direction to the jews. search the scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they testify of me [john v. ; acts xvii. .]. the bereans were commended for their attention and diligence in this respect. they received the word with all readiness of mind, not with a blind and implicit faith in what they heard, even from an apostle, but they searched the scriptures daily, to know whether what he taught them was agreeable to the word of god. the bible is our only sure and infallible guide. it was given by inspiration of god. all other books, however good and useful, are but of human composition, and are therefore not perfect. [ tim. - .; isa. viii. .] this sacred book, as i have already observed to you, contains all that is needful to make us wise unto salvation. it informs us of our original, how pure and innocent; and our present condition, how guilty, polluted and miserable! and the happiness or misery which awaits us in a future state. from this book we may learn, the malignity of sin, the holiness, spirituality, extent, and sanction of the law of god; and consequently, the just and certain condemnation due to our disobedience. it shews us, likewise, the way of our recovery. how perfectly the mediation of christ is suited to vindicate the honour of the law, and to display the justice of god, in harmony with his mercy, and thereby to give peace to the consciences of convinced sinners. i intreat you, therefore, to read the word of god carefully. many of you have had bibles or new testaments given to you, and others might have them, if they had but an inclination to read. some of you will perhaps object, and say, as you have already said to me, we cannot read. others, we have no time given us. if you cannot read yourselves, you might prevail on some of your comrades to read to you*. as to your having no time, i much question it. rather you have no inclination. too many of you can find time to jest, to talk obscenely or profanely, to read and sing idle songs; why might not some, or rather the whole of this time be employed in reading, or hearing the bible? you might find time, if you could find a will. but remember, that such excuses as you now make, will stand you in no stead when you appear before god in judgment. there are few, if any of you, but might have opportunity of attending to these things, if you were but willing. [*footnote: two or three hours thus spent on the lord's day, in instructing each other to read, would be a very commendable employment. i have often expressed my longing desire that such a plan was set on foot among you. and if there could be a convenient building created for this purpose, i should think myself happy, not only to furnish you with books, as far as i am able, but also personally to attend and assist you, as much as my immediate calls of duty would permit.] ii. observe and reverence the sabbath, or lord's day. remember the sabbath-day, to keep it holy [exod. xx. .], is a solemn and positive command of god. to live in the neglect of this commandment, is absolutely to despise god, and to defy him, as it were to his face. consider, my friends, you have orders frequently given you here, by your superiors, which you know you must obey, or you know the consequences of disobedience--judge then for yourselves, what have those persons to expect, who, in defiance of the authority of the great god, presume to neglect and profane the day which he has so expressly enjoined to be kept holy? it gives me a deep and continual concern to observe how the lord's-day is spent by many of you. what would a stranger think, who regards the sabbath, if he visited every part of this colony on the lord's day? ah! my brethren, i have seen and heard enough (alas! much more than enough) to form my own judgment on this subject. if my duty did not require my attendance on the public worship, and were i to visit your different places and huts, i fear i should find some of you spending the hours appointed for divine service in cultivating your gardens and grounds, others indulging themselves in mere sloth and idleness, others engaged in the most profane and unclean conversation, and others committing abominations, which it would defile my pen to describe. now what must be the end of these courses? god says, remember the sabbath day to keep it holy. but the language, both of your hearts and actions, is, "we will not keep it holy. it is a day given us for ourselves; and we wish, and we are resolved to spend it as we please. we do not chuse to be confined, or compelled to hear so much preaching and praying." is not this the language of your hearts? your conduct too plainly proves it: but, my brethren, let me reason and expostulate a little with you upon this head. consider, what have been the consequences to many who have thus broken god's commands. i have known, and you likewise have known, those who have been brought to an untimely and disgraceful end, and who have dated their ruin from this one evil, the profanation of the lord's day. instead of spending it in the manner which he has enjoined, they kept bad and profligate company. by this practice, all serious impressions (if they formerly had any) have been driven from their minds. their hearts have become more and more hardened and insensible; till at length, lost to all prudent reflection, they have regarded neither the tender solicitations and tears of parents, relations, and friends, the faithful warnings of ministers, nor the checks and rebukes of their own consciences. and what has been the event? i need not tell you, that having given way to their own wicked wills, the advice and example of their ungodly companions, and the temptations of the devil (for, be assured, that he is always at the bottom of these mischiefs) they have, at length, committed some act of depredation and villainy, which has brought them to an untimely grave. such, brethren, have been the free and ingenuous confessions of many of those unhappy people who have suffered death. and if you were to speak the sentiments of your hearts, i doubt not, but many of you, who by the mercy of god are yet living, would make the like acknowledgment; that breaking the sabbath was the first step towards bringing you into that pitiable situation, in which you either have been, or still are suffering. and will you still persevere in the road of misery? will you still prefer the chains of your own depraved inclinations, to the service of god, which is perfect freedom? according to the jewish law, a man was stoned to death, for gathering sticks on the sabbath day [numb. xv. - .], whereas you are doing a number of things on the lord's day, which might as well be done before, or left undone till afterwards. but such is the long-suffering of the lord, that though others have been cut off, you are spared to this hour. may his goodness lead you to repentance! or otherwise, light as these things may appear to you now, and though you may plead a necessity for what you do, i tell you again, as i have often told you before, that a day is coming when god will call you to a strict account. besides, if you would reasonably hope for the blessing of god to succeed your labours, it is certainly your interest, as well as your duty to obey his commands. and this in particular, keep the sabbath day holy. if, in direct opposition to this plain, precept, you will work and labour, as on other days, what ground can you have to expect that god will bless and prosper your undertakings? you have much greater cause to fear that his curse will follow you in your affairs, and blast and disappoint all your wishes and prospects. let then the misconduct and fatal ends of others, and the calamities and troubles that you have brought upon yourselves--let the gracious promises of god, on the one hand, and his awful threatenings on the other, induce you, in future, to remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy! and let me offer you a few plain directions, as to the observance and improvement of the sabbath: begin the day with prayer; and for this purpose seek some place of retirement, if you find it impracticable to meditate or pray, from the interruptions you are exposed to in your dwellings*, from those who ridicule and scoff at every appearance of religion. retire from them, and pray to him who seeth in secret; and praise him for the many mercies you have received. consider with yourself, how little you have improved them. humble yourselves before god, under a sense of your sins and imperfections, and pray for pardon and repentance. intreat him, to enable you to watch over your hearts, words, and actions, throughout the day, and that you may not be hindered or hurt by the snares and temptations around you. intreat god to assist your minister, and to accompany what you may hear from him, with a blessing to your soul, and to all who shall be present with you. [*footnote: many complaints have been made to me on this head.] if you have families, you should call them together, and pray with them, and for them. there are many promises made to worshiping families, and to those who, like abraham, endeavour to teach their children and household to know and serve the lord. [gen. xviii. .; prov. iii. .] and the neglect of this is one reason, why many families live uncomfortably. they live without prayer, and therefore without peace. having thus endeavoured to impress your minds with serious thoughts, in secret or at home; attend constantly upon the public worship, and there pay a close attention to every part of the service. remember that the eye of god is particularly upon you there. he has promised to be with two or three that meet together to call upon his name [matt. xviii. .; john iv. ]. he is to be worshipped in spirit and in truth; and whether they assemble in a church, or in the open air, he can give them cause to say with jacob, this place is surely the house of god, and the gate of heaven [gen. xxviii. .]. attend the public worship again in the afternoon, with your hearts lifted up to god, that you may not hear in vain; and accustom yourself in the evening to recollect what you have heard, concerning the miseries which sin has brought into the world, the love of god in sending his own son to redeem sinners from those miseries; the sufferings, life, death, and resurrection of the saviour; and that eternal rest, which remaineth for the people of god--for you, and for me, if we are believers in christ. if, by the blessing of god, i can happily persuade you thus to observe and improve the lord's day, i am sure it will promote both your pleasure and your profit. can it be a question with you, whether the god who made heaven and earth, or satan, the god of this world, is the best master? indeed i too well know the indisposition and averseness of the carnal mind to god and his ways. hence the thought of many is, what a weariness is it? and, when will the sabbath be ended? hence that open contempt and scorn, which is cast upon the sabbath, and upon public worship by many, both high and low, rich and poor, bond and free, old and young, men and women. to them the worship of god is tedious and disagreeable. they neither find pleasure in it, nor expect benefit from it. and therefore their attendance is not from choice, but from constraint. but the thoughts and the conduct of true christians are very different. no day is so welcome to them as the lord's day; not merely considered as a day of rest from labour; but because, having their heads and hearts freed from the cares and incumbrances of the world, it affords them opportunities of waiting upon god. and, brethren, you must allow that these persons are best qualified to judge of the question i have proposed, whether is best, to walk in the ways of god, or in the ways of sin? for they have experienced both sides of the question. they have tried the pleasures of the world, and they have also tried the pleasures of religion. and they will readily assure you, that in their deliberate judgment, one day thus spent in devotion, and the exercises of religion, is preferable to a thousand days wasted in the vain and unsatisfying pleasures, which they sought in their former wicked practices [ps. lxxxiv. .]. i have written thus largely upon the due observance of the lord's day, because of that shameful, open, and general neglect, that daring profanation of the sabbath, which abounds amongst us. it is well known, and it is matter of great grief and concern to me, that numbers of you pay not the least regard to this day. numbers of you will not come to public worship at all, others but seldom, and then with much reluctance. and when spoken to, different persons frame different excuses, all which, when examined, amount to little more than a want of inclination. i have here a more special reference to those of you, who are called settlers and free people. you think, perhaps, and some of you say, that having served out your appointed term, you are now your own masters, and have therefore a right to employ your time as you please. but, indeed, it is not so. i must tell you, brethren, that my commission from god, and my appointment from government, extend equally and alike to all the inhabitants, without distinction. it is my duty to preach to all, to pray for all, and to admonish every one. and it is no less the duty of all, to come to public worship, to hear the gospel, and to pray for me. these mutual ties and obligations between you and me, are not lessened by any change in your circumstances. and remember, that the slight you put upon the public worship, is not properly a slight of me (if that was all, it would be a matter of utter indifference) but upon the lord himself; for i trust it is his message, and not my own, that i deliver to you [luke x. .]. i wish, therefore, what i have said upon this subject, to be understood as addressed to all, whether of higher or lower rank, who are guilty of breaking the sabbath. whatever our station or calling may be, our obligations to keep holy the sabbath-day, are precisely the same. if any are more inexcusable than the rest, it must be those, who, from their station and office, are peculiarly bound to set a good example to others. i hope this friendly hint will be received in good part. i mean not to offend. but i must admonish you, that whatever be your situation in life, you will gain nothing in the end, by doing what god forbids, nor will you be a loser by yielding strict obedience to his commands. iii. be constant and diligent in prayer to god. intreat him to give his blessing to what you read and hear, and to all your concerns. as we are weak and needy creatures, always dependent upon god, and always receiving mercies and favours from him, we ought to be frequent and earnest in prayer. daniel was accustomed to pray three times in the day [dan. vi. .; ephes. ii. .]. i hope you will be punctual in prayer, morning and evening, at least. so long as any of you live without prayer, you live without christ, without hope, and without god in the world. they, who do not pray to god while upon earth, will not be admitted to praise him in heaven. when the rich careless man who had fared sumptuously every day, for a time, lifted up his eyes in torments, he only desired and prayed for a drop of water to cool his tongue, but it was not granted to him. oh! if you value your souls, pray earnestly to god. consider your obligations to do so. he is your creator, preserver, benefactor. in him you live and move, and have your being. and therefore not to acknowledge, by prayer, your dependence upon him, would manifest the greatest ingratitude and insensibility. consider, likewise, the encouragement you have to pray. though you are by nature sinners, and by practice enemies and rebels, he gives you free and sure promises, that whoever is disposed to return to him, and seek him by earnest prayer, shall not seek him in vain. oh! my brethren, that there was less cursing and swearing, and more prayer among you! after these positive directions what you ought to do, i proceed to some necessary cautions, against what you ought to avoid. i. profane swearing is one thing against which i am especially bound to warn you, because it is an evil which so much abounds amongst you. god has said, thou shalt not take the name of the lord thy god in vain, for the lord will not hold him guiltless, that taketh his name in vain. our saviour likewise has said, swear not at all [exod. xx. .; matt. v. .]. but how can you reconcile these prohibitions to your conduct; or your consciences? when instead of not swearing at all, many of you seldom open your lips, but the first and last words which you utter, are blasphemous oaths, and horrid imprecations? is this acting like rational or accountable creatures? who gave you the powers of reason and speech? was it not god? and can you think that he gave them to you, that you may blaspheme his holy name, and to use the most profane, obscene, and desperately wicked language your hearts can invent; a language only fit for incarnate devils, and shocking to the ears of the ignorant heathens? this is a dreadful evil which you may be assured, will not pass unpunished. this sin has often brought heavy judgments upon individuals, families, and kingdoms. because of swearing the land mourneth [jer. xxiii. ]. shall not i visit for these things, saith the lord? as a proof of the enormity of this sin, you read, that moses, by the command of god, ordered a man to be stoned to death, for cursing and blaspheming [lev. xxiv. - .]; and it would be well, both on their own account, and for the good of others, if magistrates would strictly discharge their duty, by enforcing the laws of our land, which are engaged against this horrid practice. and in few places, perhaps in no place, such strictness would be more needful, or more salutary, than in this colony. our lord assures us, that for every idle word that men shall speak they shall give an account in the day of judgment! [matt. xii. ] how dreadful then will be the case of those persons, who during their whole life have employed their tongues in cursing, swearing, lying, and all manner of vile and unclean conversation. oh! think of this in time, and tremble and repent, and learn to use your tongues to better purpose in future! read carefully the third chapter of james, and pray to god for his grace, and use your best endeavours to bridle your tongues which, if you do not subdue and conquer, will surely destroy and ruin you. ii. consider, also, what must be the consequence of that unclean and adulterous course of life, which many of you follow. common as this wickedness is in our colony (i believe no where more so) do not suppose, that the frequency will take away, or in the least abate the criminality of it. neither suppose that this sin is less odious in the sight of god if committed in port jackson, than in england. you may frame excuses or plead necessity, for what you do, or permit to be done; but the word of god by which you must be at last judged, admits, of no plea, or excuse. the command is positive and absolute. the declaration of god, thou shalt not commit adultery [exod. xx. ], is equally binding upon persons of all ranks to whom it is known, at all times, and in all places. think not, that the holy and just god will dispense with his law, or relax the sentence he has denounced against the breach of it, that you may with impunity indulge your corrupt desires. no; it is written, whoremongers and adulterers god will judge. the apostle declares that no fornicator, adulterer, or unclean person, can enter into the kingdom of god; he repeats this warning nearly in the same words, a second and a third time. the heavens and the earth shall pass away; but not one jot or tittle of his word can fail. all shall be fulfilled [heb. xiii. .; gal. v. - .; eph. v. - .]. and therefore, however this sin may be connived at by some, and committed by others, god will severely punish offenders, unless they repent of their wickedness and forsake it. but i need not enlarge upon this subject, i have told you my thoughts of it again and again with faithfulness. it seems the plainness of my language has hurt the delicate feelings of some, and the faithfulness i have used has excited the censure and ill-will of others. but why am i blamed, if i have only affirmed and proved from the scriptures, that no fornicator, adulterer, or unclean person can go to heaven when he dies, unless he repents of his evil practices, and turns from them, while he lives? but whether you will hear, or whether you will forbear, i must repeat the unwelcome truth. my conscience, my duty, and my compassion, all urge me to deal faithfully with you. i mean and desire to be understood, and therefore i must speak plainly. it is my intention and desire to awaken and alarm your consciences: but alas! after all i can say or do, i am too little understood or regarded. but i must deliver my own soul, whether you will regard me or not. the day is coming when the lord himself will judge between you and me. oh, repent, repent, before it be too late. iii. the conduct of too many of you induces me to exhort and caution you farther against theft, and all kinds of dishonesty and villainy. i have often told you, both publicly and privately, that honesty is the best policy. none have more reason to be convinced of this, than you who come hither as convicts. you have known by bitter experience, the unhappy consequences of dishonesty. have not many of you, for the sake, perhaps, of a few shillings, unjustly obtained, plunged yourselves into misery for the remainder of your lives? several have made this acknowledgment to me, in their dying moments. learn therefore, strive, and pray to be honest. honesty has its present advantages. an honest man, however poor, can face this world with confidence. but a dishonest behaviour, with its constant attendant a guilty conscience, will always fill the mind with fear and dismay. [job. xxiv. , .] i do not mean, my friends, to reflect harshly upon you for what is past, and cannot be recalled. i pity your past misconduct; i sympathize with you under your present sufferings. and therefore i admonish and caution you to abstain from this course for the time to come. let then the troubles and afflictions you have brought upon yourselves be a warning, to regulate your future behaviour. learn to be thankful for what god in his providence gives you, whether it be more or less. attend to what our lord says, whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them. and to his apostle's direction, let him that hath stolen, steal no more, but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth [matt. vii. .; eph. iv. .]. follow this advice, and you will soon experience the benefit. iv. beware of idleness. this is the forerunner of many evils. poverty, disease, disgrace, misery, and too often an untimely death, are the consequences of sloth and indolence. yield not to idleness; if you indulge it, you will find it grow upon you. therefore, be diligent and industrious in your lawful callings. it is written in the bible, and confirmed by experience and observation, the idle soul shall suffer hunger, but the soul of the diligent shall be made fat. [prov. xix. . & xiii. .] v. be careful also to pay due respect, submission, and obedience to your superiors. it is the good pleasure of god that some should be placed in more exalted, and others in a more humble station. and it is a proof of his wisdom and goodness. the present state of the world, and the general good of mankind, render such distinctions necessary. but whether we are high or low, whether called to command, or required to obey, our duties and obligations are mutual. it is in society as in the human body. there are many members, and every member has its proper place, and its proper office. let every soul be subject to the higher powers [rom. xiii. .]. i have thus given you my best advice respecting what you ought to do, or to avoid. permit me to invite your serious attention to what i have written. consider it carefully for your own sakes. it concerns your present comfort. for though no works of ours, or what are called, moral virtues, can possibly procure us the favour of god, (for our best services are imperfect and defiled, and need forgiveness) yet that knowledge and experience of the gospel, which i have explained to you in the first part of this address, (and of which i earnestly pray you may be made partakers) must be accompanied by a correspondent conduct, such as i have set before you in the second part. and this knowledge and this conduct will always be attended, though not always in the same degree, with an inward settled peace, whereby the mind is reconciled to support crosses and afflictions, however great, or of long continuance, with a degree of fortitude and resignation. persons under this influence will say, when they meet with troubles, i will bear the indignation of the lord, because i have sinned against him [micah. vii. .]. should it please god, to answer the earnest desire of my soul, by giving you an experience of the gospel peace, you will thank and praise him, even for bringing you hither; and you will see and confess, that your heaviest afflictions have, in the event, proved to be your greatest mercies. your future comfort and welfare in this world, depends upon this knowledge. for though no one knows what may befal him in this life, yet the real christian has the comfort of knowing, that however it may go with the wicked, or whatever may happen to himself of a temporal nature, or whatever may become of his body, he is sure (because god has promised) that it shall be well with his soul at death. ah! my brethren, then, more especially then, believers will find the advantage of having made the word of god the foundation of their hope, and the rule of their life! several of you, some to my knowledge, have left affectionate, tender, and serious friends, husbands, wives, parents, brothers, sisters, or children, in your native country, to lament your misconduct, the sufferings you have brought upon yourselves, and the disgrace in which you have involved your families. let me intreat you, for the sake of these, to consider your ways. great comfort it will afford to those who are now almost overwhelmed with grief on your account, to hear of your reformation and conversion. these would be glad tidings, indeed, from a far country. the hopes they might then form of seeing you again, would be truly pleasing; it would be little less than receiving you again from the dead. or if they never see you in this world, the prospect of meeting with you in heaven, would add comfort to their dying hours. oh! let not their prayers and their tears be lost upon you! attend to these things, for the sake of others, who may follow you hither, in the like unhappy circumstances. when they see your reformation, and that in consequence of it, you are more comfortable here than you were at home, they may be induced and encouraged to follow your examples. thus you will be instrumental in saving souls from death. i would farther plead with you, for the sake of the poor unenlightened savages, who daily visit us, or who reside amongst us. if these ignorant natives, as they become more and more acquainted with our language and manners, hear you, many of you, curse, swear, lie, abound in every kind of obscene and profane conversation; and if they observe, that it is common with you to steal, to break the sabbath, to be guilty of uncleanness, drunkenness, and other abominations; how must their minds become prejudiced and their hearts hardened against that pure and holy religion which we profess? oh beware of laying stumbling-blocks in the way of these blind people [lev. xix. .], lest the blood of their souls be one day required at your hands. and yet i fear, yea, i well know, that they have already heard and seen too much of such language, and such practices amongst us. already some of them have been taught to speak such language as they continually hear, and though they do not yet understand the meaning of the words they use, they can utter oaths and blasphemies almost as readily as their christian instructors. by-standers divert themselves with their attempts in this way, and think it is fine sport. but, my friends, the scripture declares they are fools who make a mock at sin.[prov. xiv. .] but these things cause much sorrow to those who have any reverence for god, or pity for their fellow creatures. i readily profess my own deep concern for these proceedings, and my utter abhorrence of them. and i most earnestly intreat you, if you cannot instruct them in what is better, to have no communication at all with them. for if you make them partakers of your sins, you must answer for it at the great day of judgment; if they then rise up against you, for misleading them, it will be much more tolerable for them than for you. but consider, on the other hand, what may be the happy effects, were the natives to see, hear, and observe in you, and in all the europeans here; in ministers and people, high and low, a conduct answerable to the doctrine and precepts of the gospel. this might, by the blessing of god, be one of the most effectual means, to bring them to reflection, and to engage them to seek an interest in the blessings of the gospel for themselves. shall i beg and intreat you, for my sake, to attend to the things pertaining to your true peace. my dear people, i will again declare (i can appeal to the great god, who searcheth the hearts, that i speak the truth) to see you converted from your evil ways, and seeking the salvation of god, yes, to see you pay a due regard to these most important concerns, and to have reason to hope and believe, that you were brought to a saving acquaintance with the truths which you hear of, or might hear, as often as the lord's day returns, would indeed greatly rejoice my soul. but to see so many of you turn a careless and deaf ear, this, my dear friends, is a cause of great, constant and increasing grief to my soul. it wounds me to think, that any (alas! what numbers) should thus refuse and reject their own mercies; and risk the ruin of their immortal souls, for the prospect of a small gain, or a short sinful gratification. my brethren, what shall i, what can i say more. i neither know what to add, nor how to leave off: once more, i beseech you, for god's sake, for the sake of jesus the saviour, who shed his precious blood to redeem sinners, and for the sake of your own souls: by the holy incarnation of the redeemer, by his agonies, temptations, death and resurrection, by all the terrors of his frown, and by all the blessings of his love, by the joys of heaven, by the torments of hell, and by the solemnities of the approaching day of judgment; by all these considerations, i most earnestly, affectionately, and faithfully admonish and intreat you, carefully to weigh what i have now set before you. and oh! that the holy angels may carry to heaven the joyful news [luke xv. .] of some sinners being awakened and born to god, by reading or hearing this little book. o gracious god, do thou, by the power of thy holy spirit, make it thus effectual to the salvation and happiness of this people! and now to this gracious lord, and to his care and blessing, i commend you. may he enable you to examine your hearts, principles, and practice, by the standard of his holy word. if you are still ignorant and careless, it is a proof that you are, as yet, in the state of nature, which is a state of darkness, guilt, condemnation, and death. will you not pray to be delivered from it? you must, at least, allow, that perhaps what you have read, may be the truth. and even, of a possibility of these things being true, they deserve your earnest attention. for should they be found so at last, what will become of you, if you live and die impenitent? therefore, read this plain, affectionate address seriously. read it a second, a third, and a fourth time, till your hearts are affected by it. remember, this is the advice of a friend, of one who sincerely seeks, wishes, and longs for your happiness. it is the advice of your minister, expressly appointed to watch over your souls, and who must shortly give an account of his mission to the great judge of all. whether i shall die amongst you, or be separated from you while living, we shall, at last, meet before him. then i must answer for my preaching, and you for your hearing. oh that this awful day of judgment may be often, yea, always, present to your thoughts, and to mine! that we may live in constant expectation of its approach! so that when the last loud trumpet shall sound, we may stand with acceptance and boldness in his presence, and be admitted as believers in the great saviour, into his heavenly kingdom, with a 'well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy lord.'[matt. xxv. .] this will be my daily prayer to god for you. i shall pray for your eternal salvation, for your present welfare, for the preservation, peace, and prosperity of this colony: and especially for the more abundant and manifest success of the redeemer's cause and kingdom, and for the effusion and out-pouring of his holy spirit, not only here, but in every part of the habitable globe. longing, hoping, and waiting for the dawn of that happy day, when the heathen shall be given to the lord jesus for his inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession: and when all the ends of the earth shall see, believe, and rejoice in the salvation of god. [ps. ii. . & xcviii. .] i am your affectionate friend and servant in the gospel of christ, richard johnson. finis. modern eloquence library of after-dinner speeches, lectures occasional addresses [illustration: _priscilla and john alden_ _photogravure after a painting by lasalett j. potts_ an admirable conception of the old story of an early puritan courtship famous in song and story, and made use of by many new england orators.] modern eloquence editor thomas b reed justin mccarthy · rossiter johnson albert ellery bergh associate editors volume iii after-dinner speeches p-z geo. l. shuman & co. chicago copyright, john r shuman _committee of selection_ edward everett hale, author of "the man without a country." john b. gordon, former united states senator. nathan haskell dole, associate editor "international library of famous literature." james b. pond, manager lecture bureau; author of "eccentricities of genius." george mclean harper, professor of english literature, princeton university. lorenzo sears, professor of english literature, brown university. edwin m. bacon, former editor "boston advertiser" and "boston post." j. walker mcspadden, managing editor "Édition royale" of balzac's works. f. cunliffe owen, member editorial staff "new york tribune." truman a. deweese, member editorial staff "chicago times-herald." champ clark, member of congress from missouri. marcus benjamin, editor, national museum, washington, d. c. clark howell, editor "atlanta constitution." introductions and special articles by thomas b. reed, lorenzo sears, champ clark, hamilton wright mabie, jonathan p. dolliver, edward everett hale, albert ellery bergh. note.--a large number of the most distinguished speakers of this country and great britain have selected their own best speeches for this library. these speakers include whitelaw reid, william jennings bryan, henry van dyke, henry m. stanley, newell dwight hillis, joseph jefferson, sir henry irving, arthur t. hadley, john d. long, david starr jordan, and many others of equal note. _contents_ volume iii page page, thomas nelson the torch of civilization palmer, george m. the lawyer in politics palmerston, lord (henry john temple) illusions created by art paxton, john r. a scotch-irishman's views of the puritan phelps, edward john farewell address pinero, arthur wing the drama porter, horace men of many inventions how to avoid the subject a trip abroad with depew woman friendliness of the french the citizen soldier the many-sided puritan abraham lincoln sires and sons the assimilated dutchman tribute to general grant porter, noah teachings of science and religion potter, henry codman the church pryor, roger atkinson virginia's part in american history quincy, josiah welcome to dickens raymond, andrew v. v. the dutch as enemies read, opie p. modern fiction reid, whitelaw the press--right or wrong gladstone, england's greatest leader robbins, w. l. the pulpit and the bar roche, james jeffrey the press roosa, d. b. st. john the salt of the earth roosevelt, theodore the hollander as an american true americanism and expansion rosebery, lord (archibald philip primrose) portrait and landscape painting sala, george augustus friend and foe salisbury, lord (robert arthur talbot gascoyne-cecil) kitchener in africa sampson, william thomas victory in superior numbers schenck, noah hunt truth and trade schley, winfield scott the navy in peace and in war schliemann, heinrich the beginnings of art schurz, carl the old world and the new seward, william h. a pious pilgrimage sherman, william tecumseh the army and navy a reminiscence of the war smith, ballard the press of the south smith, charles emory ireland's struggles the president's prelude spencer, herbert the gospel of relaxation stanley, arthur penrhyn america visited stanley, henry morton through the dark continent stedman, edmund clarence tribute to richard henry stoddard stephen, leslie the critic storrs, richard salter the victory at yorktown stryker, william scudder dutch heroes of the new world sullivan, sir arthur music sumner, charles intercourse with china the qualities that win talmage, thomas dewitt behold the american! what i know about the dutch taylor, bayard tribute to goethe thompson, slason the ethics of the press tilton, theodore woman twichell, joseph hopkins yankee notions the soldier stamp tyndall, john art and science van de water, george roe dutch traits verdery, marion j. the south in wall street wales, prince of (albert edward) the colonies wallace, hugh c. the southerner in the west ward, samuel baldwin the medical profession warner, charles dudley the rise of "the atlantic" watterson, henry our wives the puritan, and the cavalier wayland, heman lincoln the force of ideas causes of unpopularity webster, daniel the constitution and the union wheeler, joseph the american soldier whipple, edwin percy china emerging from her isolation the sphere of woman white, andrew dickson commerce and diplomacy wiley, harvey washington the ideal woman wilson, woodrow our ancestral responsibilities winslow, john the first thanksgiving day winter, william tribute to john gilbert tribute to lester wallack winthrop, robert c. the ottoman empire wise, john sergeant captain john smith the legal profession wolcott, edward oliver the bright land to westward wolseley, lord (garnet joseph wolseley) the army in the transvaal wu ting-fang china and the united states wyman, walter sons of the revolution illustrations volume iii page priscilla and john alden _frontispiece_ photogravure after a painting by lasalett j. potts "law" photo-engraving in colors after the original mosaic panel by frederick dielman horace porter photogravure after a photograph from life the minute man photogravure after a photograph theodore roosevelt photogravure after a photograph from life lord rosebery (archibald philip primrose) photogravure after a photograph from life henry watterson photogravure after a photograph from life the national monument to the forefathers photogravure after a photograph thomas nelson page the torch of civilization [speech of thomas nelson page at the twentieth annual dinner of the new england society in the city of brooklyn, december , . the president, frederic a. ward, said: "in these days of blessed amity, when there is no longer a united south or a disunited north, when the boundary of the north is the st. lawrence and the boundary of the south the rio grande, and mason and dixon's line is forever blotted from the map of our beloved country, and the nation has grown color-blind to blue and gray, it is with peculiar pleasure that we welcome here to-night a distinguished and typical representative of that noble people who live in that part of the present north that used to be called dixie, of whom he has himself so beautifully and so truly said, 'if they bore themselves haughtily in their hour of triumph, they bore defeat with splendid fortitude. their entire system crumbled and fell around them in ruins; they remained unmoved; they suffered the greatest humiliation of modern times; their slaves were put over them; they reconquered their section and preserved the civilization of the anglo-saxon.' it is not necessary, ladies and gentlemen, that i should introduce the next speaker to you, for i doubt not that you all belong to the multitude of mourners, who have wept real tears with black sam and miss annie beside the coffin of marse chan; but i will call upon our friend, thomas nelson page, to respond to the next toast, 'the debt each part of the country owes the other.'"] ladies and gentlemen:--i did not remember that i had written anything as good as that which my friend has just quoted. it sounded to me, as he quoted it, very good indeed. at any rate, it is very true, and, perhaps, that it is true is the reason that you have done me the honor to invite me here to-night. i have been sitting for an hour in such a state of tremulousness and fright, facing this audience i was to address, that the ideas i had carefully gathered together have, i fear, rather taken flight; but i shall give them to you as they come, though they may not be in quite as good order as i should like them. the gift of after-dinner speaking is one i heard illustrated the other day very well at a dinner at which my friend, judge bartlett and i were present. a gentleman told a story of an english bishop travelling in a third-class railway carriage with an individual who was swearing most tremendously, originally, and picturesquely, till finally the bishop said to him: "my dear sir, where in the world did you learn to swear in that extraordinary manner?" and he said, "it can't be learned, it is a gift." after-dinner speaking is a gift i have often envied, ladies and gentlemen, and as i have not it i can only promise to tell you what i really think on the subject which i am here to speak about to-night. i feel that in inviting me here as the representative of the south to speak on this occasion, i could not do you any better honor than to tell you precisely what i do think and what those, i in a manner represent, think; and i do not know that our views would differ very materially from yours. i could not, if i would, undertake merely to be entertaining to you. i am very much in that respect like an old darky i knew of down in virginia, who on one occasion was given by his mistress some syllabub. it was spiced a little with--perhaps--new england rum, or something quite as strong that came from the other side of mason and dixon's line, but still was not very strong. when he got through she said, "how did you like that?" he said, "if you gwine to gimme foam, gimme foam; but if you gwine to gimme dram, gimme dram." you do not want from me syllabub i am sure. when i came here i had no idea that i was to address so imposing an assemblage as this. i had heard about forefathers and knew that there were foremothers also, but did not know that they were going to grace this assembly with their presence as they do to-night. when a youngster, i was told by an old gentleman, before the day of the unhappy stenographer, "you can go out in the world all right if you have four speeches. if you have one for the fourth of july, one for a tournament address, one to answer the toast to 'woman,' and the fourth 'to sweep all creation.'" i thought of bringing with me my fourth of july speech. if i had known i was going to address this audience i would have brought along the one that answered the toast to "woman." but i do not know any man in the world better prepared to address you on the subject of my toast, "the debt each part of the country owes the other," than myself, for i married a lady from the north. she represented in her person the blood both of virginia and of new england. her mother was a virginian and her father a gentleman from new hampshire; consequently, as i have two young daughters, who always declare themselves yankees, i am here to speak with due gratitude to both sections, and with strong feeling for both sections to-night. it seems to me that the two sections which we have all heard talked about so much in the past, have been gradually merging into one, and heaven knows i hope there may never be but one again. in the nature of things it was impossible at first that there could be only one, but of late the one great wall that divided them has passed away, and, standing here facing you to-night, i feel precisely as i should if i were standing facing an audience of my own dear virginians. there is no longer division among us. they say that the south became reconciled and showed its loyalty to the union first at the time of the war with spain. it is not true; the south became reconciled and showed its loyalty to the union after appomattox. when lee laid down his arms and accepted the terms of the magnanimous grant, the south rallied behind him, and he went to teach peace and amity and union to his scholars at lexington, to the sons of his old soldiers. it is my pride that i was one of the pupils at that university, which bears the doubly-honored names of washington and lee. he taught us only fealty to the union and to the flag of the union. he taught us also that we should never forget the flag under which our fathers fought during the civil war. with it are embalmed the tears, the holy memories that cluster thick around our hearts, and i should be unworthy to stand and talk to you to-night as an honorable man if i did not hold in deepest reverence that flag that represented the spirit that actuated our fathers. it stood for the principles of liberty, and, strange as it may seem, both sides, though fighting under different banners, fought for the same principles seen from different sides. it has not interfered with our loyalty to the union since that flag was furled. i do not, however, mean to drift into that line of thought. i do not think that it is really in place here to-night, but i want you to know how we feel at the south. mason and dixon's line is laid down on no map and no longer laid down in the memory of either side. the mason and dixon's line of to-day is that which circumscribes this great union, with all its advantages, all its hopes, and all its aspirations. this is the mason and dixon's line for us to-day, and as a representative of the south, i am here to speak to you on that account. we do owe--these two sections do owe--each other a great deal. but i will tell you what we owe each other more, perhaps, than anything else. when this country was settled for us it was with sparsely scattered settlements, ranging along the atlantic coast. when the first outside danger threatened it, the two sections immediately drew together. new england had formed her own confederation, and at the south the carolinas and virginia had a confederation of their own, though not so compact; but the first thing formed when danger threatened this country was a committee of safety, which immediately began correspondence among the several colonies, and it was the fact that these very colonies stood together in the face of danger, shoulder to shoulder, and back to back, that enabled us to achieve what we did achieve. standing here, on this great anniversary at the very end of the century, facing the new century, it is impossible that one should not look back, and equally impossible that one should not look forward. we are just at the close of what we call, and call rightly, a century of great achievements. we pride ourselves upon the work this country has accomplished. we point to a government based upon the consent of the governed, such as the world has never seen; wealth which has been piled up such as no country has ever attained within that time, or double or quadruple that time. it is such a condition of life as never existed in any other country. from mount desert to the golden gate, yes, from the islands which columbus saw, thinking he had found the east indies, to the east indies themselves, where, even as i speak, the american flag is being planted, our possessions and our wealth extend. we have, though following the arts of peace, an army ready to rise at the sound of the bugle greater than rome was ever able to summon behind her golden eagles. we are right to call it a century of achievement. we pride ourselves upon it. now, who achieved that? not we, personally; our fathers achieved it; your fathers and my fathers; your fathers, when they left england and set their prows westward and landed upon the rock-bound coast; when they drew up their compact of civil government, which was a new thing in the history of the world. we did our part in the south, and when the time came they staked all that they had upon the principle of a government based only upon the consent of the governed. we pride ourselves upon the fact that we can worship god according to the dictates of our own conscience. we speak easily of god, "whose service is perfect freedom," but it was not we, but our fathers who achieved that. our fathers "left us an heritage, and it has brought forth abundantly." i say this to draw clearly the line between mere material wealth and that which is the real wealth and welfare of a people. we are rich, but our fathers were poor. how did they achieve it? not by their wealth, but by their character--by their devotion to principle. when i was thinking of the speech i was to make here to-night, i asked the descendant of a new englander what he would say was the best thing that the fathers had left to the country. he thought for a second and made me a wise answer. he said, "i think it was their character." that is indeed the heritage they left us; they left us their character. wealth will not preserve that which they left us; not wealth, not power, not "dalliance nor wit" will preserve it; nothing but that which is of the spirit will preserve it, nothing but character. the whole story of civilization speaks this truth with trumpet voice. one nation rises upon the ruins of another nation. it is when samson lies in the lap of delilah that the enemy steals upon him and ensnares him and binds him. it was when the great assyrian king walked through his palace, and looking around him said in his pride, "is not this great babylon that i have built for the honor of the kingdom and for the honor of my majesty?" that the voice came to him, even while the words were in the king's mouth (saith the chronicle), "thy kingdom is departed from thee." it was when belshazzar sat feasting in his babylonian palace, with his lords and ladies, eating and drinking out of the golden vessels that had been sacred to the lord, that the writing came upon the wall, "thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting." not only in the palace, but all through the great city there was feasting and dancing. why should they not feast and why should they not dance? they were secure, with walls that were feet high, eighty-five feet thick, with a hundred brazen gates, the city filled with greater wealth than had ever been brought before within walls. but out in the country a few hardy mountaineers had been digging ditches for some time. nobody took much account of them, yet even that night, in the midst of belshazzar's luxury and feasting, the veteran troops of cyrus were marching silently under the dripping walls, down the bed of the lowered euphrates, so that that which had been the very passageway of babylon's wealth became the pathway of her ruin. unless we preserve the character and the institutions our fathers gave us we will go down as other nations have gone. we may talk and theorize as much as we please, but this is the law of nature--the stronger pushes the weaker to the wall and takes its place. in the history of civilization first one nation rises and becomes the torch-bearer, and then another takes the torch as it becomes stronger, the stronger always pushing the weaker aside and becoming in its turn the leader. so it has been with the assyrian, and babylonian, and median, and, coming on down, with the greek, the roman, the frank, and then came that great race, the anglo-saxon-teutonic race, which seems to me to-day to be the great torch-bearer for this and for the next coming time. each nation that has borne the torch of civilization has followed some path peculiarly its own. egyptian, syrian, persian, greek, roman, frank, all had their ideal of power--order and progress directed under supreme authority, maintained by armed organization. we bear the torch of civilization because we possess the principles of civil liberty, and we have the character, or should have the character, which our fathers have transmitted to us with which to uphold it. if we have it not, then be sure that with the certainty of a law of nature some nation--it may be one or it may be another--it may be grecian or it may be slav, already knocking at our doors, will push us from the way, and take the torch and bear it onward, and we shall go down. but i have no fear of the future. i think, looking around upon the country at present, that even if it would seem to us at times that there are gravest perils which confront us, that even though there may be evidence of weakening in our character, notwithstanding this i say, i believe the great anglo-saxon race, not only on the other side of the water, but on this side of the water--and when i say the anglo-saxon race i mean the great white, english-speaking race--i use the other term because there is none more satisfactory to me--contains elements which alone can continue to be the leaders of civilization, the elements of fundamental power, abiding virtue, public and private. wealth will not preserve a state; it must be the aggregation of individual integrity in its members, in its citizens, that shall preserve it. that integrity, i believe, exists, deep-rooted among our people. sometimes when i read accounts of vice here and there eating into the heart of the people, i feel inclined to be pessimistic; but when i come face to face with the american and see him in his life, as he truly is; when i reflect on the great body of our people that stretch from one side of this country to the other, their homes perched on every hill and nestled in every valley, and recognize the sterling virtue and the kind of character that sustains it, built on the rock of those principles that our fathers transmitted to us, my pessimism disappears and i know that not only for this immediate time but for many long generations to come, with that reservoir of virtue to draw from, we shall sustain and carry both ourselves and the whole human race forward. there are many problems that confront us which we can only solve by the exercise of our utmost courage and wisdom. i do not want anything i say here this evening to have in the least degree the complexion of a political talk. i am like a friend of mine down in virginia who told me that he never could talk politics with a man, "because," he says, "i am that sort of a blanked fool that thinks if a man disagrees with him in politics he has insulted him." consequently, i am not discussing this matter in any political sense whatever. but i feel quite sure, though i see many men whose opinion i respect who disagree with me, that yet this great people of ours is strong enough to carry through any obligations whatever which they may take up. i have no fear, however it may cause trouble, or may create difference and complication, of our extending our flag in the way we have done of late. i know that i differ with a very considerable section of the people of the south from whom i come, but i have no question whatever that we possess the strength to maintain any obligation that we assume, and i feel sure that in the coming years this great race of ours will have shown strength and resolution enough not only to preserve itself, to preserve the great heritage our fathers have given us of civil liberty here, but also to carry it to the isles of the sea, and, if necessary, to the nations beyond the sea. of one thing i am very sure, that had our fathers been called on to solve this problem they would have solved it, not in the light of a hundred years ago, but in that of the present. among the problems that confront us we have one great problem, already alluded to indirectly to-night. you do not have it here in the north as we have it with us in the south, and yet, i think, it is a problem that vitally concerns you too. there is no problem that can greatly affect one section of this country that does not affect the other. as i came into your city to-night i saw your great structure across the river here, binding the two great cities together and making them one, and i remember that as i came the last time into your beautiful bay down yonder, i saw what seemed to be a mere web of gossamer, a bare hand's breadth along the horizon. it seemed as if i might have swept it away with my hand if i could have reached it, so airy and light it was in the distance, but when i came close to it to-night i found that it was one of the greatest structures that human intellect has ever devised. i saw it thrilling and vibrating with every energy of our pulsating, modern life. at a distance it looked as if the vessels nearest would strike it, full head, and carry it away. when i reached it i saw that it was so high, so vast, that the traffic of your great stream passed easily backward and forward under it. so it is with some of these problems. they may appear very small to you, ladies and gentlemen, or to us, when seen at a distance--as though merely a hand-sweep would get rid of them; but i tell you they are too vast to be moved easily. there is one that with us overshadows all the rest. the great anglo-saxon race in the section of this country containing the inhabitants of the south understands better than you do the gravity of that great problem which confronts them. it is "like the pestilence that walketh in darkness, the destruction that wasteth at noonday." it confronts us all the day; it is the spectre that ever sits beside our bed. no doubt we make mistakes about it; no doubt there are outbreaks growing out of some phases of it that astound, and shock, and stun you, as they do ourselves. but believe me, the anglo-saxon race has set itself, with all its power, to face it and to overcome it; to solve it in some way, and in the wisest way. have patience and it will be solved. time is the great solver, and time alone. if you knew the problem as i do, my words would have more weight with you than they have. i cannot, perhaps, expect you even to understand entirely what i am saying to you, but when i tell you that it is the greatest problem that at present faces the south, as it has done for the last thirty years, i am saying it to you as an american--one of yourselves, who wants to get at the right, and get at the truth, and who will get on his knees and thank god for anyone who will tell him how to solve the problem and meet the dangers that are therein. those dangers are not only for us, they are for you. the key to it, in our opinion, is that to which i alluded but just now; that for the present, at least, the white race is the torch-bearer of civilization, not only for itself, but for the world. there is only one thing that i can say assuredly, and that is that never again will that element of the white race, the white people of the south, any more than you of the north, consent to be dominated by any weaker race whatsoever. and on this depends your salvation, no less than ours. some of you may remember that once, during that great siege of petersburg, which resulted, in the beginning of april, , in the capture of the city and the overthrow of the confederacy, there was an attempt made to mine the hitherto impregnable lines of general lee. finally, one cold morning, the mine was sprung, and a space perhaps double the length of one of your squares was blown up, carrying everything adjacent into the air and making a breach in the lines. beside a little stream under the hill in the union lines was massed a large force, a section of which, in front, was composed of negroes. they were hurried forward to rush the breach that had been created. they were wild with the ardor of battle. as it happened, a part of the gray line which had held the adjacent trenches, knowing the peril, had thrown themselves, in the dim dawn of the morning, across the newly made breach, and when they found the colored troops rushing in they nerved themselves anew to the contest. i may say to you calmly, after thirty odd years of experience with the negro race, that it was well for the town of petersburg that morning that that attempt to carry the lines failed. that thin gray line there in the gray dawn set themselves to meet the on-rushing columns and hold them till knowledge of the attack spread and succor arrived. you may not agree with me that what happened at that time is happening now; but i tell you as one who has stood on the line, that we are not only holding it for ourselves, but for you. it is the white people of the south that are standing to-day between you and the dread problem that now confronts us. they are the thin line of anglo-saxons who are holding the broken breach with all their might till succor comes. and i believe the light will come, the day will break and you yourselves stand shoulder to shoulder with us, and then with this united, great american people we can face not only the colored race at the south, but we can face all other races of the world. that is what i look for and pray for, and there are many millions of people who are doing the same to-night. ladies and gentlemen, i am not speaking in any spirit which i think will challenge your serious criticism. we are ready to do all we can to accord full justice to that people. i have many, many friends among them. i know well what we owe to that race in the past. i am their sincere well-wisher in the present and for the future. they are more unfortunate than to blame; they have been misdirected, deceived. not only the welfare of the white people of the south and the welfare of the white people of the north, but the salvation of the negro himself depends upon the carrying out, in a wise way, the things which i have outlined, very imperfectly, i know. when that shall be done we will find the african race in america, instead of devoting its energies to the uncomprehended and futile political efforts which have been its curse in the past, devoting them to the better arts of peace, and then from that race will come intellects and intellectual achievements which may challenge and demand the recognition of the world. then those intellects will come up and take their places and be accorded their places, not only willingly, but gladly. this is already the new line along which they are advancing, and their best friends can do them no greater service than to encourage and assist them in it; their worst enemy could do them no greater injury than to deflect them from it. this is a very imperfect way, i am aware, ladies and gentlemen, of presenting the matter, but i hope you will accept it and believe that i am sincere in it. accept my assurance of the great pleasure i have had in coming here this evening. i remember, when i was a boy, hearing your great fellow-townsman, mr. beecher, in a lecture in richmond, speak of this great city as "the round-house of new york," in which, he said, the machinery that drove new york and moved the world was cleaned and polished every night. i am glad to be here, where you have that greatest of american achievements, the american home and the american spirit. may it always be kept pure and always at only the right fountains have its strength renewed. [prolonged applause.] george m. palmer the lawyer in politics [speech of george m. palmer at the annual banquet of the new york state bar association, given in albany, january , . president walter s. logan introduced mr. palmer in the following words: "the next speaker is the hon. george m. palmer, minority leader of the assembly. [applause.] he is going to speak on 'the lawyer in politics,' and i am very glad to assure you that his politics are of the right kind."] mr. president and members of the bar association of the state of new york:--through the generous impulse of your committee i enjoy the privilege of responding to this toast. i was informed some four weeks ago i would be called upon, the committee thinking i would require that time in preparation, and i have devoted the entire time since in preparing the address for this occasion. "the lawyer in politics." the first inquiry of the lawyer and politician is, "what is there in it?" [laughter.] i mean by that, the lawyer says in a dignified way, "what principle is involved, and how can i best serve my client, always forgetting myself?" the politician, and not the statesman, says, "what is in it?" not for himself, oh, never. not the lawyer in politics; but "what is there in it for the people i represent? how can i best serve them?" you may inquire what is there in this toast for you. not very much. you remember the distinguished jurist who once sat down to a course dinner similar to this. he had been waited on by one servant during two courses. he had had the soup. another servant came to him and said, "sir, shall i take your order? will you have some of the chicken soup?" "no, sir; i have been served with chicken soup, but the chicken proved an alibi." [laughter.] a distinguished judge in this presence said he was much indebted to the bar. i am very glad to say that the lawyer in politics formed a resolution on the first day of last january to square himself with the bar, and he now stands without any debt. [laughter.] i remember a reference made by the distinguished gentleman to a case that was tried by a young, struggling attorney. i also remember a young judge who appeared in one of the rural counties, who sat and heard a case very similar to the one to which reference was made, and i remember the fight of the giants before him. points were raised of momentous importance. they were to affect the policy of the state. one lawyer insisted upon the correctness of an objection and succeeded. he felt so elated over that success he in a short time objected again, and the judge ruled against him, but in his ardor he argued with the court. "why, i can't conceive why you make this ruling." "why," the judge says, "i have just ruled with you once, i must rule with the other fellow this time." [laughter.] [illustration: reproductions of mural decorations from the library of congress, washington _"law"_ _photo-engraving in colors after the original mosaic panel by frederick dielman_ the mosaics by mr. dielman are remarkable for their wealth of color and detail--properties so elusive as to defy the reproducer's art. but the picture here given preserves the fundamental idea of the artist. "law" is typified by the central figure of a woman seated on a marble throne and holding in one hand the sword of punishment, and in the other the palm branch of reward. she wears on her breast the Ægis of minerva. on the steps of the throne are the scales of justice, the book of law and the white doves of mercy. on her right are the emblematic figures of truth, peace, and industry, on her left are fraud, discord, and violence. "law" is a companion piece to "history."] "the lawyer in politics." it is sometimes a question which way the lawyer will start when he enters politics. i remember reading once of a distinguished lawyer who had a witness upon the stand. he was endeavoring to locate the surroundings of a building in which an accident occurred, and he had put a female witness on the stand. "now the location of the door: please give it," and she gave it in a timid way. "will you now kindly give the location of the hall in which the accident occurred?" she gave it. "now," he says, "we have arrived at the stairs; will you kindly tell me which way the stairs run?" she became a little nervous and she says, "i will tell you the best i can; if you are at the foot of the stairs they run up, and if you are to the top of the stairs they run down." [laughter.] so sometimes it is pretty important to find out which way the lawyer is going when he enters in politics. he should be tried and tested before being permitted to enter politics, in my judgment, and while the state is taking upon itself the paternal control of all our professions and business industries, it seems to me they should have a civil service examination for the lawyer before he enters the realm of politics. a lawyer that i heard of, coming from a county down the river--a county that has produced distinguished judges who have occupied positions on the court of appeals and in the supreme court of the state--said of a lawyer there who had been in politics, that he had started with bright prospects, but had become indebted to the bar during his period in politics. he had gone back and had taken up the small cases, and yet in his sober moments it was said the sparks of genius still exhibited themselves at times. he was called upon to defend a poor woman at one time who was arrested by a heartless corporation for stealing a lot of their coal. he sobered up and squared himself before the jury, conducted the examination of the case and the trial of it, and in a magnificent burst of eloquence the case went to the jury. and after the jury retired, he sat, while they deliberated, by his client. and finally the jury came in. the foreman rose and said that "the jury find the defendant not guilty." the distinguished lawyer, in the presence of the crowd and jury, and justice of the peace, straightened back in his chair. "my dear miss smith, you are again a free woman. no longer the imputation of this heinous crime rests upon you. you may go from this court-room as free as the bird that pinions its wings and flies toward the heavens, to kiss the first ray of the morning sunshine. you may go as free as that bird, but before you go pay me that $ . you owe me on account." [laughter.] what i mean to enforce by this is that the lawyer who is in politics solely for the $ . is not a safe man to intrust with political power. judge baldwin, of indiana, it is said, in giving his advice to lawyers upon one occasion, told them that the course to be pursued by a lawyer was first to get on, second to get honor, and third to get honest. [laughter.] a man who follows that policy in my judgment is not such a lawyer as should be let loose in politics. rather, it seems to me, that the advice to give to lawyers, and the principle to follow is, first to be honest, second to get on, and third, upon this broad basis, get honor if you can. [applause.] it is unnecessary for me at this time to refer to the distinguished men who have entered politics from the profession of the law. i could point to those who have occupied the highest positions in the gift of the people, who have been the chief executives of this great nation, and who have stood in the halls of congress, and in the legislative halls of our various states, and in these important positions have helped formulate the fundamental principles which to-day govern us as a free people, and upon which the ark of our freedom rests. i believe that while in the past opportunities have presented themselves for lawyers in politics, yet no time was ever more favorable than now, when it seems to me that the service of the bar is required in helping shape the policies and destinies of our country. we are confronted with new conditions, with new propositions, and it seems to me that the man who is learned in the law, who, as was once said of the great peel, that his entire course in life, in and out of the profession, was guided by the desire to do right and justice, should aid in our adjustment to these new conditions. professional men who are superior to the fascination of power, or the charms of wealth, men who do not employ their power solely for self-aggrandizement, but devote their energies in favor of the public weal, are men who should be found in the councils of the state. ours is the country and this the occasion when patriotism and legal learning are at a premium. in the settling of the policy of the united states with reference to territory recently acquired, lawyers are destined to play a leading part. they are very well fitted to appreciate the fundamental principles of a free government and of human liberty. it seems the patriotic duty of the lawyer to give the country the benefit of his study and experience, not as a mere politician, but as a high-minded and learned statesman and citizen of our common country. this is the time when high-minded, learned, and professional men should assist to plant and protect the flower of our american policy under our new conditions so that the fruitage of our system may be naturalized in new fields as a correct policy. duty, therefore, seems to call the lawyer to the councils of state. our country is his client, her perpetuity will be his retainer, fee, and compensation. [applause.] lord palmerston (henry john temple) illusions created by art [speech of henry john temple, viscount palmerston, prime minister of england - , at the annual banquet of the royal academy, london, may , . sir charles eastlake, the president of the royal academy, said, in introducing lord palmerston: "i now have the honor to propose the health of one who is entitled to the respect and gratitude of the friends of science and art, the promoters of education and the upholders of time-honored institutions. i have the honor to propose the health of viscount palmerston."] mr. president, your royal highnesses, my lords, and gentlemen:--i need not, i am certain, assure you that nothing can be more gratifying to the feelings of any man than to receive that compliment which you have been pleased to propose and which this distinguished assembly has been kind enough so favorably to entertain in the toast of his health. it is natural that any man who is engaged in public life should feel the greatest interest in the promotion of the fine arts. in fact, without a great cultivation of art no nation has ever arrived at any point of eminence. we have seen great warlike exploits performed by nations in a state, i won't say of comparative barbarism, but wanting comparative civilization; we have seen nations amassing great wealth, but yet not standing thereby high in the estimation of the rest of the world; but when great warlike achievements, great national prosperity, and a high cultivation of the arts are all combined together, the nation in which those conditions are found may pride itself on holding that eminent position among the nations of the world which i am proud to say belongs to this country. [loud cheers.] it is gratifying to have the honor of being invited to these periodical meetings where we find assembled within these rooms a greater amount of cultivation of mind, of natural genius, of everything which constitutes the development of human intellect than perhaps ever has assembled within the same space elsewhere. and we have besides the gratification of seeing that in addition to those living examples of national genius the walls are covered with proofs that the national genius is capable of the most active and admirable development. [cheers.] upon the present occasion, mr. president, every visitor must have seen with the greatest delight that by the side of the works of those whose names are familiar to all, there are works of great ability brought hither by men who are still rising to fame; and, therefore, we have the satisfaction of feeling that this country will never be wanting in men distinguished in the practice of the fine arts. [cheers.] one great merit of this exhibition is that whatever may be the turn of a man's mind, whatever his position in life, he may at least during the period he is within these walls, indulge the most pleasant illusions applicable to the wants his mind at that time may feel. a man who comes here shivering in one of those days which mark the severity of an english summer, may imagine that he is basking in an african sun and he may feel an imaginary warmth from the representation of a tropical climate. if, on the other hand, he is suffering under those exceptional miseries which one of the few hot days of an english summer is apt to create, he may imagine himself inhaling the fresh breezes of the seaside; he may suppose himself reclining in the cool shade of the most luxuriant foliage; he may for a time, in fancy, feel all the delights which the streets and pavements of london deny in reality. [cheers and laughter.] and if he happens to be a young man, upon what is conventionally said to be his preferment, that is to say, looking out for a partner in life, he may here study all kinds and descriptions of female beauty [laughter and cheers]; he may satisfy his mind whether light hair or dark, blue eyes or black, the tender or the serious, the gay or the sentimental, are most likely to contribute to the happiness of his future life. [cheers.] and without exposing himself to any of those embarrassing questions as to his intentions [laughter] which sometimes too inquisitive a scrutiny may bring [much laughter], without creating disappointment or breaking any hearts, by being referred to any paternal authority, which, he may not desire to consult, he may go and apply to practical selection those principles of choice which will result from the study within these walls. then those of a more serious turn of mind who direct their thoughts to state affairs, and who wish to know of what that august assembly the house of commons is composed, may here [pointing to phillips's picture behind the chair], without the trouble of asking an order, without waiting in westminster hall until a seat be vacant, without passing hours in a hot gallery listening perhaps to dull discourses in an uninteresting debate--they may here see what kind of thing the house of commons is, and go back edified by the sight without being bored by dull speeches. [cheers and laughter.] now, don't, gentlemen, imagine that i am romancing when i attribute this virtue to ocular demonstration--don't imagine that that which enters the eye does not sometimes penetrate to the mind and feelings. i will give you an instance to the contrary. i remember within these walls seeing two gentlemen who evidently, from their remarks, were very good judges of horses, looking with the greatest admiration upon the well-known picture of landseer, "the horseshoeing at the blacksmith's;" and after they had looked at it for some time one was approaching nearer, when the other in an agony of enthusiasm said: "for heaven's sake, don't go too near, he will kick you." [cheers and laughter.] well, gentlemen, i said that a public man must take great interest in art, but i feel that the present government has an apology to make to one department of art, and that is to the sculptors; for there is an old maxim denoting one of the high functions of art which is "_ars est celare artem_." now there was a cellar in which the art of the most distinguished sculptors was concealed to the utmost extent of the application of that saying. we have brought them comparatively into light; and if the sculptors will excuse us for having departed from that sage and ancient maxim, i am sure the public will thank us for having given them an opportunity of seeing those beautiful works of men of which it may be said: "_vivos ducunt de marmore vultus_." i trust, therefore, the sculptors will excuse us for having done, not perhaps the best they might have wished, but at least for having relieved them a little from the darkness of that cimmerian cellar in which their works were hid. [cheers.] i beg again to thank you, gentlemen, for the honor you have done me in drinking my health. [loud cheers.] john r. paxton a scotch-irishman's views of the puritan [speech of rev. john r. paxton, d.d., at the seventy-seventh annual dinner of the new england society in the city of new york, december , . josiah m. fiske, the president, occupied the chair. dr. paxton responded for "the clergy."] mr. president and gentlemen:--there is no help for it, alas! now. the pilgrim or puritan doth bestride the broad continent like another colossus and we dutch, english, scotch, scotch-irish, and irish walk about under his huge legs [laughter]; "we must bend our bodies when he doth carelessly nod to us." for the puritan is the pious joseph of the land, and to his sheaf all our sheaves must make obeisance. as he pipes unto us so we dance. he takes the chief seat at every national feast and compels us highway-and-hedge people, us unfortunate dutch and scotch-irish, to come in and shout his triumphs and praise at his own self-glorification meetings. [laughter and applause.] of course we all know it's a clear case of the tail wagging the dog. but it is too late now to go back to the order of nature or the truth of history. the puritan, like another old man of the sea, is astride our shoulders and won't come down, protest, pray, roll, wriggle as sindbad may. why, the puritan has imposed his thanksgiving day and pumpkin-pie upon south carolina, even. [applause.] he got mad at the old whig party, on account of his higher law and abolitionism, and put it to death. when the puritan first came to these shores, he made the way to heaven so narrow that only a tight-rope performer could walk it. [laughter.] now, what with his concord philosophies, transcendentalisms, and every heresy, he has made it so wide that you could drive all barnum's elephants abreast upon it and through the strait gate. he compels us to send our sons to his colleges for his nasal note. he is communicating his dyspepsia to the whole country by means of codfish-balls and baked beans. he has encouraged the revolt of women, does our thinking, writes our books, insists on his standard of culture, defines our god, and, as the crowning glory of his audacity, has imposed his own sectional, fit, and distinguishing name upon us all, and swells with gratified pride to hear all the nations of the earth speak of all americans as yankees. [laughter and applause.] i would enter a protest, but what use? we simply grace his triumph, and no images may be hung at this feast but the trophies of the puritan. for all that, i mean to say a brief word for my scotch-irish race in america. mr. president, general horace porter, on my left, and i, did not come over in the half moon or the mayflower. we stayed on in county donegal, ireland, in the loins of our forefathers, content with poteen and potatoes, stayed on until the pilgrims had put down the indians, the baptists, and the witches; until the dutch had got all the furs this side lake erie. [laughter and applause.] by the way, what hands and feet those early knickerbockers had! in trading with the indians it was fixed that a dutchman's hand weighed one pound and his foot two pounds in the scales. but what puzzled the indian was that no matter how big his pack of furs, the dutchman's foot was its exact weight at the opposite end of the scale. enormous feet the first van--or de--or stuy--had. [continued laughter.] but in course of time, after the pilgrims had come for freedom, the dutch for furs, penn for a frock--a quaker cut and color--we came, we scotch-irish presbyterians, for what? perhaps the king oppressed the presbytery, or potatoes failed, or the tax on whiskey was doubled. anyway we came to stay: some of us in new england, some in the valleys of virginia, some in the mountains of north carolina, others in new york; but the greater part pushed out into pennsylvania--as far away as they could get from the puritans and the dutch--settled the great cumberland valley; then, crossing the alleghany mountains, staked out their farms on the banks of the monongahela river, set up their stills, built their meeting-houses, organized the presbytery--and, gentlemen, the reputation of our monongahela rye is unsurpassed to this day [long applause], and our unqualified orthodoxy even now turns the stomach of a modern puritan and constrains colonel ingersoll[ ] not to pray, alas! but to swear. [loud laughter.] mr. president, i hope general porter will join me in claiming some recognition for the scotch-irish presbyterians from these sons of the puritans. for do you not know that your own man bancroft says that the first public voice in america for dissolving all connection with great britain came not from the puritans of new england, the dutch of new york, nor the planters of virginia, but from the scotch-irish presbyterians? [applause.] therefore, mr. president, be kind enough to accept from us the greeting of the scotch-irish of pennsylvania, our native state--that prolific mother of pig-iron and coal, whose favorite and greatest sons are still albert gallatin, of switzerland, and benjamin franklin, of massachusetts. [laughter and applause.] the first son of a forefather i ever fell in with was a nine-months connecticut man at fredericksburg, virginia, in the spring of ' . now, i was a guileless and generous lad of nineteen--all pennsylvanians are guileless and generous, for our mountains are so rich in coal, our valleys so fat with soil, that our living is easy and therefore our wits are dull, and we are still voting for jackson. [great laughter.] the reason the yankees are smart is because they have to wrest a precarious subsistence from a reluctant soil. "what shall i do to make my son get forward in the world?" asked an english lord of a bishop. "i know of only one way," replied the bishop; "give him poverty and parts." well, that's the reason the sons of the pilgrims have all got on in the world. they all started with poverty, and had to exercise their wits on nutmegs or notions or something to thrive. [laughter.] yes, they had "parts." why, they have taken new york from the dutch; they are half of wall street, and only a jew, or a long-headed sage, or that surprising and surpassing genius in finance, jay,[ ] can wrestle with them on equal terms. ah! these yankees have "parts"--lean bodies, sterile soil, but such brains that they grew a webster. [applause.] well, this connecticut man invited me to his quarters. when i got back to my regiment i had a shabby overcoat instead of my new one, i had a frying-pan worth twenty cents, that cost me five dollars, and a recipe for baked beans for which i had parted with my gold pen and pencil. [continued laughter.] i was a sadder and a wiser man that night for that encounter with the connecticut pilgrim. but my allotted time is running away, and, preacher-like, i couldn't begin without an introduction. i am afraid in this case the porch will be bigger than the house. but now to my toast, "the clergy." surely, mr. president and gentlemen, you sons of the pilgrims appreciate the debt you owe the puritan divines. what made your section great, dominant, glorious in the history of our common country? to what class of your citizens--more than to any other, i think--do you owe the proud memories of your past, and your strength, achievements, and culture in the present? who had the first chance on your destiny, your character, your development? why, the puritan preacher, of course; the man who in every parish inculcated the fear of god in your fathers' souls, obedience to law, civil and divine, the dignity of man, the worth of the soul and right conduct in life. [applause.] believe me, gentlemen, the puritan clergy did a great work for new england. our whole country feels yet the impulse and movement given it by those stern preachers of righteousness, who had abrahamic eyes under their foreheads and the stuff of elijah in their souls. [applause.] i know it's the fashion now to poke fun at the puritans, to use the "blue laws" as a weapon against them, to sneer at them as hard, narrow, and intolerant. yes, alas! we do not breathe through their lungs any more. the wheel has gone round, and we have come back to the very things the puritans fled from in hatred and in horror. we pride ourselves these days on our "sweetness and light," on our culture and manners. the soul of the age is hospitable and entertains, like an inn, "god or the devil on equal terms," as george eliot says. alas! the puritan chart has failed us in the sea through which we are passing; the old stars have ceased to shine; too many of us know neither our course nor destination; "authority is mute;" the "thus saith the lord" of the puritan is not enough now for our guidance. for the age is in all things not one of reason or of faith, but of speculation not only in the business of the world, but in all moral and spiritual questions as well. well, we shall see what we shall see. but for one, i admire with all my soul a man who knows just what he was put into this world for, what his chief end in it is, what he believes, must do and must be, and in the ways thereof is willing to inflict or to suffer death. [applause.] the puritan divine was such a man. he sowed your rocky coasts and sterile hills with conscience and god. you are living on the virtue that came out of the hem of his garment; he is our bulwark still in this land against superstition on the one hand and infidelity on the other. [applause.] grand man he was, the old puritan; once arrived he was always arrived; while other men hesitated he acted; while others debated he declared; fearing god, he was lifted above every other fear; and though he has passed away for a time--only for a time, remember: the wheel is still turning, we can't stand on air--he will come back again, but in the meantime he is still a "preacher of righteousness" to our souls as effective in death as in life. [applause.] in your presence i greet with my warmest admiration, i salute with my profound reverence, the old puritan divines of new england who had a scorn for all base uses of life, who were true to duty as they saw it, who had convictions for which they would kill or die, who formed their characters and guided their lives by the law of righteousness in human conduct. to these men under god we largely owe our liberties and our laws in this land. i take off my hat to his ghost, and salute him as greater than he who has taken a city, for the puritan divine conquered himself. he was an isaac, not an ishmael; he was a jacob, not an esau; a god-born man who knew what his soul did wear. great man he was, hard, stern, and intolerant. yes, but what would you have, gentlemen? the puritan was not a pretty head carved on a cherry-stone, but a colossus cut from the rock, huge, grim, but awe-inspiring, fortifying to the soul if not warming to the heart. [applause.] well, would he know you to-night, i wonder, his own sons, if he came in upon you now, in circumstances so different and with manners and customs so changed? would he gaze at you with sad, sad eyes, and weep over you as the degenerate sons of noble sires? [laughter.] no, no; you are worthy, i think. the sons will keep what the fathers won. after all, you are still one with the puritan in all essential things. [applause.] you clasp hands with him in devotion to the same principle, in obedience to the same god. true, the man between doublet and skin plays many parts; fashions come and go, never long the same, but "clothe me as you will i am sancho panza still." so you are puritans still. back of your unitarianism, back of your episcopalianism, back of your transcendentalism, back of all your isms, conceits, vagaries--and there is no end to them--back of them all there beats in you the puritan heart. blood will tell. scratch a child of sweetness and light on beacon hill to-day and you will find a puritan. [laughter.] scratch your emerson, your bellows, your lowell, your longfellow, your wendell phillips, your phillips brooks, and you find the puritan. [applause.] in intellectual conclusions vastly different, in heart, at bottom, you're all one in love of liberty, in fear of god, contempt for shams, and scorn of all things base and mean. [applause.] so, ye ghosts of old puritan divines, ye cannot look down on your sons to-night with sad and reproachful eyes. for the sons have not wasted what the fathers gained, nor failed in any critical emergency, nor yet forsaken the god ye feared so well, though they have modified your creed. gentlemen, i cannot think that the blood has run out. exchange your evening dress for the belted tunic and cloak; take off the silk hat and put on the wide brim and the steeple crown, and lo! i see the puritan. and twenty years ago i heard him speak and saw him act. "if any man hauls down the american flag, shoot him on the spot." why, warren in old boston did not act more promptly or do a finer thing. well, what moved in your splendid dix when he gave that order? the spirit of the old puritan. and i saw the sons of the sires act. who reddened the streets of baltimore with the first union blood?--massachusetts. [loud applause.] who to-day are the first to rally to the side of a good cause, on trial in the community? who are still first in colleges and letters in this land? who, east or west, advocate justice, redress wrongs, maintain equal rights, support churches, love liberty, and thrive where others starve? why, these ubiquitous sons of the puritans, of course, who dine me to-night. gentlemen, i salute you. "if i were not miltiades i would be themistocles;" if i were not a scotch-irishman i would be a puritan. [continued applause.] edward john phelps farewell address [speech of edward j. phelps, minister to england, on the occasion of the farewell banquet given to him by the lord mayor of london, james whitehead, at the mansion house, london, january , . the lord mayor, in proposing the toast of the evening, said, in the course of his introductory remarks: "it now becomes my pride and privilege to ask you to join with me in drinking the health of my distinguished guest, mr. phelps. i have invited you here this evening because i felt it was my duty as chief magistrate of the city of london to take the initiative in giving you an opportunity to testify to the very high esteem in which mr. phelps is held by all classes of society. it is to me a very sincere satisfaction that i am able to be the medium of conveying to him, on the eve of his departure, the fact that his presence here in this country has been appreciated by the whole british nation. if anything were required to give force to what i have said, it is the fact that on this occasion we are honored by the presence of members of governments past and present, of statesmen without distinction of party, of members of both houses of parliament, and of nearly all the judges of the land. we have here also the highest representatives of science, of art, of literature, and of the press; and we are also honored with the presence of neighbors and friends in some of the most eminent bankers and merchants of the city. i am glad to add that all the distinguished americans that i know of at present visiting this city have come here to show their esteem for their fellow-countryman. it may be said that this remarkable gathering is a proof not only of the fact that our distinguished guest is personally popular, but also that we are satisfied that, so far as he could, he has endeavored to do his duty faithfully and well between the country he represents and the country to which he is delegated. mr. phelps in leaving our shores, i think, will take with him a feeling that he has been received in the most cordial spirit, in the most friendly manner in this country. i think he will feel also--at any rate, i should like to assure him so far as i am able to observe--that he has greatly tended, by his manner and by his courteous bearing, to consolidate those friendly relations which we desire should forever exist between his country and our own. those of us who have had the honor from time to time to meet his excellency, know what high and good qualities he possesses, and we feel sure he will take with him to the united states a not unfavorable impression of the old country, and that so far as he can he will endeavor in the future, as i believe he has done in the past, to promote those feelings of peace, of amity between the two countries, the maintenance of which is one of the objects to be most desired in the interests of the world at large. i give you 'his excellency, the american minister, mr. phelps,' and i ask you, if you please, to rise and give the toast standing, in the usual manner."] my lord mayor, my lords, and gentlemen:--i am sure you will not be surprised to be told that the poor words at my command do not enable me to respond adequately to your most kind greeting, nor the too flattering words which have fallen from my friend, the lord mayor, and from my distinguished colleague, the lord chancellor. but you will do me the justice to believe that my feelings are not the less sincere and hearty if i cannot put them into language. i am under a very great obligation to your lordship not merely for the honor of meeting this evening an assembly more distinguished i apprehend than it appears to me has often assembled under one roof, but especially for the opportunity of meeting under such pleasant circumstances so many of those to whom i have become so warmly attached, and from whom i am so sorry to part. [cheers.] it is rather a pleasant coincidence to me that about the first hospitality that was offered me after my arrival in england came from my friend, the lord mayor, who was at the time one of the sheriffs of london. i hope it is no disparagement to my countrymen to say that under existing circumstances the first place that i felt it my duty to visit was the old bailey criminal court. [laughter.] i had there the pleasure of being entertained by my friend, the lord mayor. and it happens also that it was in this room almost four years ago at a dinner given to her majesty's judges by my friend sir robert fowler, then lord mayor, whose genial face i see before me, that i appeared for the first time on any public occasion in england and addressed my first words to an english company. it seems to me a fortunate propriety that my last public words should be spoken under the same hospitable roof, the home of the chief magistrate of the city of london. ["hear! hear!"] nor can i ever forget the cordial and generous reception that was then accorded, not to myself personally, for i was altogether a stranger, but to the representative of my country. it struck what has proved the keynote of all my relations here. it indicated to me at the outset how warm and hearty was the feeling of englishmen toward america. [cheers.] and it gave me to understand, what i was not slow to accept and believe, that i was accredited not merely from one government to the other, but from the people of america to the people of england--that the american minister was not expected to be merely a diplomatic functionary shrouded in reticence and retirement, jealously watching over doubtful relations, and carefully guarding against anticipated dangers; but that he was to be the guest of his kinsmen--one of themselves--the messenger of the sympathy and good-will, the mutual and warm regard and esteem that bind together the two great nations of the same race, and make them one in all the fair humanities of life. [cheers.] the suggestion that met me at the threshold has not proved to be mistaken. the promise then held out has been generously fulfilled. ever since and through all my intercourse here i have received, in all quarters, from all classes with whom i have come in contact, under all circumstances and in all vicissitudes, a uniform and widely varied kindness, far beyond what i had personally the least claim to. and i am glad of this public opportunity to acknowledge it in the most emphatic manner. my relations with the successive governments i have had to do with have been at all times most fortunate and agreeable, and quite beyond those i have been happy in feeling always that the english people had a claim upon the american minister for all kind and friendly offices in his power, and upon his presence and voice on all occasions when they could be thought to further any good work. [cheers.] and so i have gone in and out among you these four years and have come to know you well. i have taken part in many gratifying public functions; i have been the guest at many homes; and my heart has gone out with yours in memorable jubilee of that sovereign lady whom all englishmen love and all americans honor. i have stood with you by some unforgotten graves; i have shared in many joys; and i have tried as well as i could through it all, in my small way, to promote constantly a better understanding, a fuller and more accurate knowledge, a more genuine sympathy between the people of the two countries. [cheers.] and this leads me to say a word on the nature of these relations. the moral intercourse between the governments is most important to be maintained, and its value is not to be overlooked or disregarded. but the real significance of the attitude of nations depends in these days upon the feelings which the general intelligence of their inhabitants entertains toward each other. the time has long passed when kings or rulers can involve their nations in hostilities to gratify their own ambition or caprice. there can be no war nowadays between civilized nations, nor any peace that is not hollow and delusive, unless sustained and backed up by the sentiment of the people who are parties to it. [cheers.] before nations can quarrel, their inhabitants must first become hostile. then a cause of quarrel is not far to seek. the men of our race are not likely to become hostile until they begin to misunderstand each other. [cheers.] there are no dragon's teeth so prolific as mutual misunderstandings. it is in the great and constantly increasing intercourse between england and america, in its reciprocities, and its amenities, that the security against misunderstanding must be found. while that continues, they cannot be otherwise than friendly. unlucky incidents may sometimes happen; interests may conflict; mistakes may be made on one side or on the other, and sharp words may occasionally be spoken by unguarded or ignorant tongues. the man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything. [cheers and laughter.] the nation that comes to be without fault will have reached the millennium, and will have little further concern with the storm-swept geography of this imperfect world. but these things are all ephemeral; they do not touch the great heart of either people; they float for a moment on the surface and in the wind, and then they disappear and are gone--"in the deep bosom of the ocean buried." i do not know, sir, who may be my successor, but i venture to assure you that he will be an american gentleman, fit by character and capacity to be the medium of communication between our countries; and an american gentleman, when you come to know him, generally turns out to be a not very distant kinsman of an english gentleman. [cheers.] i need not bespeak for him a kindly reception. i know he will receive it for his country's sake and his own. ["hear! hear!"] "farewell," sir, is a word often lightly uttered and readily forgotten. but when it marks the rounding-off and completion of a chapter in life, the severance of ties many and cherished, of the parting with many friends at once--especially when it is spoken among the lengthening shadows of the western light--it sticks somewhat in the throat. it becomes, indeed, "the word that makes us linger." but it does not prompt many other words. it is best expressed in few. what goes without saying is better than what is said. not much can be added to the old english word "good-by." you are not sending me away empty-handed or alone. i go freighted and laden with happy memories--inexhaustible and unalloyed--of england, its warm-hearted people, and their measureless kindness. spirits more than twain will cross with me, messengers of your good-will. happy the nation that can thus speed its parting guest! fortunate the guest who has found his welcome almost an adoption, and whose farewell leaves half his heart behind! [loud cheers.] arthur wing pinero the drama [speech of arthur wing pinero at the annual banquet of the royal academy, london, may , . the toast to the "drama" was coupled with that to "music," to which sir alexander mackenzie responded. sir john millais in proposing the toast said: "i have already spoken for both music and the drama with my brush. ["hear! hear!"] i have painted sterndale bennett, arthur sullivan, irving, and hare."] your royal highness, my lords, and gentlemen:--there ought to be at least one strong link of sympathy between certain painters and certain dramatists, for in the craft of painting as in that of play-writing, popular success is not always held to be quite creditable. not very long ago i met at an exhibition of pictures a friend whose business it is to comment in the public journals upon painting and the drama. the exhibition was composed of the works of two artists, and i found myself in one room praising the pictures of the man who was exhibiting in the other. my friend promptly took me to task. "surely," said he, "you noticed that two-thirds of the works in the next room are already sold?" i admitted having observed that many of the pictures were so ticketed. my friend shrugged his shoulders. "but," said i, anxiously, "do you really regard that circumstance as reflecting disparagingly upon the man's work in the next room?" his reply was: "good work rarely sells." [laughter.] my lords and gentlemen, if the dictum laid down by my friend be a sound one, i am placed to-night in a situation of some embarrassment. for, in representing, as you honor me, by giving me leave to do, my brother dramatists, i confess i am not in the position to deny that their wares frequently "sell." [laughter.] i might, of course, artfully plead in extenuation of this condition of affairs that success in such a shape is the very last reward the dramatist toils for, or desires; that when the theatre in which his work is presented is thronged nightly no one is more surprised, more abashed than himself; that his modesty is so impenetrable, his artistic absorption so profound, that the sound of the voices of public approbation reduces him to a state of shame and dismay. [laughter.] but did i advance this plea, i think it would at once be found to be a very shallow plea. for in any department of life, social, political, or artistic, nothing is more difficult than to avoid incurring the suspicion that you mean to succeed in the widest application of that term, if you can. if therefore there be any truth in the assertion that "good work rarely sells," it would appear that i must, on behalf of certain of my brother dramatists, either bow my head in frank humiliation, or strike out some ingenious line of defence. ["hear! hear!"] but, my lords and gentlemen, i shall, with your sanction, adopt neither of those expedients; i shall simply beg leave to acknowledge freely, to acknowledge without a blush, that what is known as popular success is, i believe, greatly coveted, sternly fought for, by even the most earnest of those writers who deal in the commodity labelled "modern british drama." and i would, moreover, submit that of all the affectations displayed by artists of any craft, the affectation of despising the approval and support of the great public is the most mischievous and misleading. [cheers.] speaking at any rate of dramatic art, i believe that its most substantial claim upon consideration rests in its power of legitimately interesting a great number of people. i believe this of any art; i believe it especially of the drama. whatever distinction the dramatist may attain in gaining the attention of the so-called select few, i believe that his finest task is that of giving back to a multitude their own thoughts and conceptions, illuminated, enlarged, and if needful, purged, perfected, transfigured. the making of a play that shall be closely observant in its portrayal of character, moral in purpose, dignified in expression, stirring in its development, yet not beyond our possible experience of life; a drama, the unfolding of whose story shall be watched intently, responsively, night after night by thousands of men and women, necessarily of diversified temperaments, aims, and interests, men and women of all classes of society--surely the writing of that drama, the weaving of that complex fabric, is one of the most arduous of the tasks which art has set us; surely its successful accomplishment is one of the highest achievements of which an artist is capable. i cannot claim--it would be immodest to make such a claim in speaking even of my brother dramatists--i cannot claim that the thorough achievement of such a task is a common one in this country. it is indeed a rare one in any country. but i can claim--i do claim for my fellow-workers that they are not utterly unequal to the demands made upon them, and that of late there have been signs of the growth of a thoughtful, serious drama in england. ["hear! hear!"] i venture to think, too, that these signs are not in any sense exotics; i make bold to say that they do not consist of mere imitations of certain models; i submit that they are not as a few critics of limited outlook and exclusive enthusiasm would have us believe--i submit that they are not mere echoes of foreign voices. i submit that the drama of the present day is the natural outcome of our own immediate environment, of the life that closely surrounds us. and, perhaps, it would be only fair to allow that the reproaches which have been levelled for so long a period at the british theatre--the most important of these reproaches being that it possessed no drama at all--perhaps i say we may grant in a spirit of charity that these reproaches ought not to be wholly laid at the door of the native playwright. if it be true that he has been in the habit of producing plays invariably conventional in sentiment, trite in comedy, wrought on traditional lines, inculcating no philosophy, making no intellectual appeal whatever, may it not be that the attitude of the frequenters of the theatre has made it hard for him to do anything else? if he has until lately evaded in his theatrical work any attempt at a true criticism of life, if he has ignored the social, religious, and scientific problems of his day, may we not attribute this to the fact that the public have not been in the mood for these elements of seriousness in their theatrical entertainment, have not demanded these special elements of seriousness either in plays or in novels? but during recent years, the temper of the times has been changing; it is now the period of analysis, of general restless inquiry; and as this spirit creates a demand for freer expression on the part of our writers of books, so it naturally permits to our writers of plays a wider scope in the selection of subject, and calls for an accompanying effort of thought, a large freedom of utterance. at this moment, perhaps, the difficulty of the dramatist lies less in paucity of subject, than in an almost embarrassing wealth of it. the life around us teems with problems of conduct and character, which may be said almost to cry aloud for dramatic treatment, and the temptation that besets the busy playwright of an uneasy, an impatient age, is that in yielding himself to the allurements of contemporary psychology, he is apt to forget that fancy and romance have also their immortal rights in the drama. ["hear! hear!"] but when all is claimed for romance, we must remember that the laws of supply and demand assert themselves in the domain of dramatic literature as elsewhere. what the people, out of the advancement of their knowledge, out of the enlightenment of modern education, want, they will ask for; what they demand, they will have. and at the present moment the english people appear to be inclined to grant to the english dramatist the utmost freedom to deal with questions which have long been thought to be outside the province of the stage. i do not deplore, i rejoice that this is so, and i rejoice that to the dramatists of my day--to those at least who care to attempt to discharge it, falls the duty of striking from the limbs of english drama some of its shackles. ["hear! hear!"] i know that the discharge of this duty is attended by one great, one special peril. and in thinking particularly of the younger generation of dramatists, those upon whom the immediate future of our drama depends, i cannot help expressing the hope that they will accept this freedom as a privilege to be jealously exercised, a privilege to be exercised in the spirit which i have been so presumptuous as to indicate. it would be easy by a heedless employment of the latitude allowed us to destroy its usefulness, indeed to bring about a reaction which would deprive us of our newly granted liberty altogether. upon this point the young, the coming dramatist would perhaps do well to ponder; he would do well, i think, to realize fully that freedom in art must be guarded by the eternal unwritten laws of good taste, morality, and beauty, he would do well to remember always that the real courage of the artist is in his capacity for restraint. [cheers.] i am deeply sensible of the honor which has been done me in the association of my name with this toast, and i ask your leave to add one word--a word of regret at the absence to-night of my friend, mr. toole, an absence unhappily occasioned by an illness from which he is but slowly recovering. mr. toole charges me to express his deep disappointment at being prevented from attending this banquet. he does not, however, instruct me to say what i do say heartily--that mr. toole fitly represents in any assemblage, his own particular department of the drama; more fitly represents his department than i do mine. i know of no actor who stands higher in the esteem, who exists more durably in the affection of those who know him, than does john lawrence toole. [illustration: _horace porter_ _photogravure after a photograph from life_] horace porter men of many inventions [speech of horace porter at the seventy-second annual dinner of the new england society in the city of new york, december , . the president, william borden, said: "gentlemen, in giving you the next toast, i will call upon one whom we are always glad to listen to. i suppose you have been waiting to hear him, and are surprised that he comes so late in the evening; but i will tell you in confidence, he is put there at his own request. [applause.] i give you the eleventh regular toast: 'internal improvements.'--the triumph of american invention. the modern palace runs on wheels. 'when thy car is loaden with [dead] heads, good porter, turn the key.' general horace porter will respond."] mr. president and gentlemen of the new england society:--i suppose it was a matter of necessity, calling on some of us from other states to speak for you to-night, for we have learned from the history of priscilla and john alden, that a new englander may be too modest to speak for himself. [laughter.] but this modesty, like some of the greater blessings of the war, has been more or less disguised to-night. we have heard from the eloquent gentleman [noah porter, d.d.] on my left all about the good-fellowship and the still better fellowships in the rival universities of harvard and yale. we have heard from my sculptor friend [w. w. story] upon the extreme right all about hawthorne's tales, and all the great storys that have emanated from salem; but i am not a little surprised that in this age, when speeches are made principally by those running for office, you should call upon one engaged only in running cars, and more particularly upon one brought up in the military service, where the practice of running is not regarded as strictly professional. [laughter.] it occurred to me some years ago that the occupation of moving cars would be fully as congenial as that of stopping bullets--as a steady business, so when i left washington i changed my profession. i know how hard it is to believe that persons from washington ever change their professions. [laughter.] in this regal age, when every man is his own sovereign, somebody had to provide palaces, and, as royalty is not supposed to have any permanent abiding place in a country like this, it was thought best to put these palaces on wheels; and, since we have been told by reliable authority that "uneasy lies the head that wears a crown," we thought it necessary to introduce every device to enable those crowned heads to rest as easily as possible. of course we cannot be expected to do as much for the travelling public as the railway companies. they at times put their passengers to death. we only put them to sleep. we don't pretend that all the devices, patents, and inventions upon these cars are due to the genius of the management. many of the best suggestions have come from the travellers themselves, especially new england travellers. [laughter.] some years ago, when the bedding was not supposed to be as fat as it ought to be, and the pillows were accused of being constructed upon the homoeopathic principle, a new englander got on a car one night. now, it is a remarkable fact that a new englander never goes to sleep in one of these cars. he lies awake all night, thinking how he can improve upon every device and patent in sight. [laughter.] he poked his head out of the upper berth at midnight, hailed the porter and said, "say, have you got such a thing as a corkscrew about you?" "we don't 'low no drinkin' sperits aboa'd these yer cars, sah," was the reply. "'tain't that," said the yankee, "but i want to get hold onto one of your pillows that has kind of worked its way into my ear." [loud laughter.] the pillows have since been enlarged. i notice that, in the general comprehensiveness of the sentiment which follows this toast, you allude to that large and liberal class of patrons, active though defunct, known as "deadheads." it is said to be a quotation from shakespeare. that is a revelation. it proves conclusively that shakespeare must at one time have resided in the state of missouri. it is well-known that the term was derived from a practice upon a missouri railroad, where, by a decision of the courts, the railroad company had been held liable in heavy damages in case of accidents where a passenger lost an arm or a leg, but when he was killed outright his friends seldom sued, and he never did; and the company never lost any money in such cases. in fact, a grateful mother-in-law would occasionally pay the company a bonus. the conductors on that railroad were all armed with hatchets, and in case of an accident they were instructed to go around and knock every wounded passenger in the head, thus saving the company large amounts of money; and these were reported to the general office as "deadheads," and in railway circles the term has ever since been applied to passengers where no money consideration is involved. [laughter.] one might suppose, from the manifestations around these tables for the first three hours to-night, that the toast "internal improvements" referred more especially to the benefiting of the true inwardness of the new england men; but i see that the sentiment which follows contains much more than human stomachs, and covers much more ground than cars. it soars into the realms of invention. unfortunately the genius of invention is always accompanied by the demon of unrest. a new england yankee can never let well enough alone. i have always supposed him to be the person specially alluded to in scripture as the man who has found out many inventions. if he were a chinese pagan, he would invent a new kind of joss to worship every week. you get married and settle down in your home. you are delighted with everything about you. you rest in blissful ignorance of the terrible discomforts that surround you, until a yankee friend comes to visit you. he at once tells you you mustn't build a fire in that chimney-place; that he knows the chimney will smoke; that if he had been there when it was built he could have shown you how to give a different sort of flare to the flue. you go to read a chapter in the family bible. he tells you to drop that; that he has just written an enlarged and improved version, that can just put that old book to bed. [laughter.] you think you are at least raising your children in general uprightness; but he tells you if you don't go out at once and buy the latest patented article in the way of steel leg-braces and put on the baby, the baby will grow up bow-legged. [laughter.] he intimates, before he leaves, that if he had been around to advise you before you were married, he could have got you a much better wife. these are some of the things that reconcile a man to sudden death. [continued laughter and applause.] such occurrences as these, and the fact of so many new englanders being residents of this city and elsewhere, show that new england must be a good place--to come from. at the beginning of the war we thought we could shoot people rapidly enough to satisfy our consciences, with single-loading rifles; but along came the inventive yankee and produced revolvers and repeaters, and gatling guns, and magazine guns--guns that carried a dozen shots at a time. i didn't wonder at the curiosity exhibited in this direction by a backwoods virginian we captured one night. the first remark he made was, "i would like to see one of them thar new-fangled weepons of yourn. they tell me, sah, it's a most remarkable eenstrument. they say, sah, it's a kind o' repeatable, which you can load it up enough on sunday to fiah it off all the rest of the week." [laughter.] then there was every sort of new invention in the way of bayonets. our distinguished secretary of state has expressed an opinion to-night that bayonets are bad things to sit down on. well, they are equally bad things to be tossed up on. if he continues to hold up such terrors to the army, there will have to be important modifications in the uniform. a soldier won't know where to wear his breastplate. [laughter.] but there have not only been inventions in the way of guns, but important inventions in the way of firing them. in these days a man drops on his back, coils himself up, sticks up one foot, and fires off his gun over the top of his great toe. it changes the whole stage business of battle. it used to be the man who was shot, but now it is the man who shoots that falls on his back and turns up his toes. [laughter and applause.] the consequence is, that the whole world wants american arms, and as soon as they get them they go to war to test them. russia and turkey had no sooner bought a supply than they went to fighting. greece got a schooner-load, and, although she has not yet taken a part in the struggle, yet ever since the digging up of the lost limbs of the venus of milo, it has been feared that this may indicate a disposition on the part of greece generally to take up arms. [laughter and applause.] but there was one inveterate old inventor that you had to get rid of, and you put him on to us pennsylvanians--benjamin franklin. [laughter.] instead of stopping in new york, in wall street, as such men usually do, he continued on into pennsylvania to pursue his kiting operations. he never could let well enough alone. instead of allowing the lightning to occupy the heavens as the sole theatre for its pyrotechnic displays, he showed it how to get down on to the earth, and then he invented the lightning-rod to catch it. houses that had got along perfectly well for years without any lightning at all, now thought they must have a rod to catch a portion of it every time it came around. nearly every house in the country was equipped with a lightning-rod through franklin's direct agency. you, with your superior new england intelligence, succeeded in ridding yourselves of him; but in pennsylvania, though we have made a great many laudable efforts in a similar direction, somehow or other we have never once succeeded in getting rid of a lightning-rod agent. [laughter.] then the lightning was introduced on the telegraph wires, and now we have the duplex and quadruplex instruments, by which any number of messages can be sent from opposite ends of the same wire at the same time, and they all appear to arrive at the front in good order. electricians have not yet told us which messages lies down and which one steps over it, but they all seem to bring up in the right camp without confusion. i shouldn't wonder if this principle were introduced before long in the operating of railroads. we may then see trains running in opposite directions pass each other on a single-track road. [laughter.] there was a new england quartermaster in charge of railroads in tennessee, who tried to introduce this principle during the war. the result was discouraging. he succeeded in telescoping two or three trains every day. he seemed to think that the easiest way to shorten up a long train and get it on a short siding was to telescope it. i have always thought that if that man's attention had been turned in an astronomical direction, he would have been the first man to telescope the satellites of mars. [laughter.] the latest invention in the application of electricity is the telephone. by means of it we may be able soon to sit in our houses, and hear all the speeches, without going to the new england dinner. the telephone enables an orchestra to keep at a distance of miles away when it plays. if the instrument can be made to keep hand-organs at a distance, its popularity will be indescribable. the worst form i have ever known an invention to take was one that was introduced in a country town, when i was a boy, by a yankee of musical turn of mind, who came along and taught every branch of education by singing. he taught geography by singing, and to combine accuracy of memory with patriotism, he taught the multiplication-table to the tune of yankee doodle. [laughter.] this worked very well as an aid to the memory in school, but when the boys went into business it often led to inconvenience. when a boy got a situation in a grocery-store and customers were waiting for their change, he never could tell the product of two numbers without commencing at the beginning of the table and singing up till he had reached those numbers. in case the customer's ears had not received a proper musical training, this practice often injured the business of the store. [laughter.] it is said that the yankee has always manifested a disposition for making money, but he never struck a proper field for the display of his genius until we got to making paper money. [laughter.] then every man who owned a printing-press wanted to try his hand at it. i remember that in washington ten cents' worth of rags picked up in the street would be converted the next day into thousands of dollars. an old mule and cart used to haul up the currency from the printing bureau to the door of the treasury department. every morning, as regularly as the morning came, that old mule would back up and dump a cart-load of the sinews of war at the treasury. [laughter.] a patriotic son of columbia, who lived opposite, was sitting on the doorstep of his house one morning, looking mournfully in the direction of the mule. a friend came along, and seeing that the man did not look as pleasant as usual, said to him, "what is the matter? it seems to me you look kind of disconsolate this morning." "i was just thinking," he replied, "what would become of this government if that old mule was to break down." [laughter and applause.] now they propose to give us a currency which is brighter and heavier, but not worth quite as much as the rags. our financial horizon has been dimmed by it for some time, but there is a lining of silver to every cloud. we are supposed to take it with / grains of silver--a great many more grains of allowance. [laughter.] congress seems disposed to pay us in the "dollar of our daddies"--in the currency which we were familiar with in our childhood. congress seems determined to pay us off in something that is "child-like and bland." [laughter and applause.] but i have detained you too long already. [cries of "no, no; go on!"] why, the excellent president of your society has for the last five minutes been looking at me like a man who might be expected, at any moment, to break out in the disconsolate language of bildad the shuhite to the patriarch job, "how long will it be ere ye make an end of words?" let me say then, in conclusion, that, coming as i do from the unassuming state of pennsylvania, and standing in the presence of the dazzling genius of new england, i wish to express the same degree of humility that was expressed by a dutch pennsylvania farmer in a railroad car, at the breaking out of the war. a new englander came in who had just heard of the fall of fort sumter, and he was describing it to the farmer and his fellow-passengers. he said that in the fort they had an engineer from new england, who had constructed the traverses, and the embrasures, and the parapets in such a manner as to make everybody within the fort as safe as if he had been at home; and on the other side, the southerners had an engineer who had been educated in new england, and he had, with his scientific attainments, succeeded in making the batteries of the bombarders as safe as any harvest field, and the bombardment had raged for two whole days, and the fort had been captured, and the garrison had surrendered, and not a man was hurt on either side. a great triumph for science, and a proud day for new england education. said the farmer, "i suppose dat ish all right, but it vouldn't do to send any of us pennsylvany fellers down dare to fight mit does pattles. like as not ve vould shoost pe fools enough to kill somepody." [loud applause and laughter, and cries of "go on; go on."] * * * * * how to avoid the subject [speech of horace porter at the seventy-fifth annual dinner of the new england society in the city of new york, december , . "we have been told here to-night," said the president, james c. carter, "that new york has been peopled by pilgrims of various races, and i propose, as our next toast, 'the pilgrims of every race.' and i call upon our ever welcome friend, general horace porter, for a response."] mr. president:--i am here, like the rest of your guests, to-night, in consequence of these notes of invitation that we have received. i know it is always more gratifying to an audience for speakers to be able to assure them, in the outset of their remarks, that they are here without notes; but such is not my case. i received the following: "the committee of arrangements of the new england society respectfully invite you to be present at the seventy-fifth anniversary of the society, and the two hundred and sixtieth of the landing of the pilgrims at metropolitan concert hall." [laughter.] such is the ignorance of those of us upon whom providence did not sufficiently smile to permit us to be born in new england, that i never knew, until i received that note, anything about the landing of the pilgrims at metropolitan concert hall. this certainly will be sad news to communicate to those pious people who assembled in brooklyn last night, and who still rest happy in the belief that the pilgrims landed on plymouth church. [laughter.] from the day they have chosen for the anniversary, it seems very evident that the pilgrims must have landed somewhere one day before they struck plymouth rock. [laughter.] the poet longfellow tells us, in one of his short poems, "learn to labor and to wait." i have labored through about twenty-five courses at this table, and then i have waited until this hour, in the hope that i might be spared the inevitable ordeal. but when the last plate had been removed, and your president, who is a stern man of duty, rapped upon the table, i saw there was no escape, and the time had come when he was going to present to you one of the most popular of all dishes at a new england banquet, tongue garnished with brains. he seems, following the late teachings of harvard and yale, to have invited the guests to enter for a sort of skull-race. [laughter.] now, i suppose that, in calling first upon those on his right and left, it is a matter of convenience for himself, and he has acted from the same motives that actuated a newly fledged dentist who, when his first patient applied, determined to exercise all that genius and understanding which boston men generally exercise in the practice of their profession. the patient, coming from the country, told him he wanted two back teeth, which he pointed out to him, pulled. the dentist placed him in a chair, and in a few moments he had pulled out his two front teeth. the patient left the chair, and it occurred to him that the circumstance might be deemed of sufficient importance to call the dentist's attention to it. he said, "i told you to pull out these two back teeth." "yes," said the dentist, "so you did; but i found that the front ones were kind of handier to get at." [laughter and applause.] i suppose the reason your president called upon those of us nearest the platform to-night was because he found us a little handier to get at. but there is no use in speakers coming here and pleading want of preparation, because, doubtless, the new englanders who expected to take part to-night might have been found at any time within the last six months sitting under blue glass to enlarge their ideas. [laughter.] i ventured to say to the committee that, this being such a large room, some of your speakers might not have a high enough tone of voice to be heard at the other end. they looked unutterable things at me, as much as to say that at new england dinners i would find the speakers could not be otherwise than high-toned. [laughter.] the first new englander i ever had the pleasure to listen to was a pilgrim from boston, who came out to the town in pennsylvania, where i lived, to deliver a lecture. we all went to the lecture. we were told it was worth twice the price of admission to see that man wipe the corners of his mouth with his handkerchief before he commenced to speak. well, he spoke for about two hours on the subject of the indestructibility of the absolute in connection with the mutability of mundane affairs. the pitch and variety of the nasal tones was wonderful, and he had an amazing command of the longest nouns and adjectives. it was a beautiful lecture. the town council tried to borrow it and have it set to music. it was one of those lectures that would pay a man to walk ten miles in wet feet--to avoid. after he got through, a gentleman in the audience, thinking it the part of good nature, stepped up and congratulated him upon his "great effort." the lecturer took it as a matter of course, and replied, "oh, yes, you will find the whole atmosphere of boston exhilarant with intellectual vitality." [laughter.] now, if there is one thing which modern pilgrims pride themselves upon more than another, it is in being the lineal descendants of those who came over by the mayflower. to prove this, when you visit their homes, they bring forth family records in the shape of knives, forks, and spoons that were taken from the mayflower. from the number of those articles i have seen, i have come to the conclusion that the captain of the mayflower did not get back to england with a single article belonging to the ship that was not nailed fast to the deck. such a dread have the people of that island of this widespread puritanical kleptomania attaching to people coming here, that even as late as the commander of one of the british frigates took the wise precaution to nail his flag fast to the mast. [laughter.] we have heard that the pilgrim fathers made amends for their shortcomings, from the fact of their having determined, after landing, to fill the meeting-houses and have worship there, and that brave men were detailed from the congregation to stand sentinels against a surprise by the indians. it is even said that during those long and solemn sermons some of the members vied with each other in taking their chances with the indians outside. some of these acts of heroism re-appear in the race. i have been told that some of the lineal descendants of these hardy men that paced up and down in front of the meeting-house have recently been seen pacing up and down all night in front of the globe theatre, in boston, ready in the morning to take their chance of the nearest seat for sara bernhardt's performance. [laughter.] now, sir, the new englanders are eminently reformers. i have never seen anything they did not attempt to reform. they even introduced the children of the sun to the shoe-shops of lynn, with the alleged purpose of instructing the chinese in letters, yet recently in massachusetts they themselves showed such lamentable ignorance as not to know a chinese letter when they saw it. [laughter.] but the poor chinese have been driven away. they have been driven away from many places by that formidable weapon--the only weapon which dennis kearney has ever been able to use against them--the chinese must-get. [laughter.] i have never seen but one thing the yankee could not reform, and that was the line of battle at bull run, and i call upon pilgrim sherman as a witness to this. he was there, and knows. bulls have given as much trouble to yankees as to irishmen. bulls always seem to be associated with yankee defeat, from the time of bull run down to sitting bull, and i will call upon pilgrim miles as a witness to that. now, gentlemen, let me say that the presence of general grant to-night will enable you to settle forever that question which has vexed the new england mind all the period during which he was making his triumphal journey round the globe--the question as to whether, in his intercourse with kings and potentates, he was always sure to keep in sufficient prominence the merits of the pilgrim fathers, and more especially of their descendants. i have no doubt he did. i have no doubt that to those crowned heads, with numerous recalcitrant subjects constantly raising cain in their dominions, the recital of how the pilgrims went voluntarily to a distant country to live, where their scalps were in danger, must have been a pleasant picture. [laughter.] if i am to have any reputation for brevity i must now close these remarks. i remember a lesson in brevity i once received in a barber's shop. an irishman came in, and the unsteady gait with which he approached the chair showed that he had been imbibing of the produce of the still run by north carolina moonshiners. he wanted his hair cut, and while the barber was getting him ready, went off into a drunken sleep. his head got bobbing from one side to the other, and at length the barber, in making a snip, cut off the lower part of his ear. the barber jumped about and howled, and a crowd of neighbors rushed in. finally the demonstration became so great that it began to attract the attention of the man in the chair, and he opened one eye and said, "wh-wh-at's the matther wid yez?" "good lord!" said the barber, "i've cut off the whole lower part of your ear." "have yez? ah, thin, go on wid yer bizness--it was too long, anyhow!" [laughter.] if i don't close this speech, some one of the company will be inclined to remark that it has been too long, anyhow. [cheers and laughter.] * * * * * a trip abroad with depew [speech of horace porter at the seventy-seventh annual dinner of the new england society in the city of new york, december , . josiah m. fiske, the president, occupied the chair and called upon general porter to respond to the toast: "the embarkation of the pilgrims."] gentlemen:--last summer two pilgrims might have been seen embarking from the port of new york to visit the land from which the pilgrim fathers once embarked. one was the speaker who just sat down [chauncey m. depew], and the other the speaker who has just arisen. i do not know why we chose that particular time. perhaps mr. choate, with his usual disregard of the more accurate bounds of veracity, would have you believe that we selected that time because it was a season when there was likely to be a general vacation from dinners here. [laughter.] our hopes of pleasure abroad had not risen to any dizzy height. we did not expect that the land which so discriminating a band as the pilgrim fathers had deliberately abandoned, and preferred new england thereto, could be a very engaging country. we expected to feel at home there upon the general principle that the yankees never appear so much at home as when they are visiting other people. [laughter.] i have noticed that americans have a desire to go to europe, and i have observed, especially, that those who have certain ambitions with regard to public life think that they ought to cross the ocean; that crossing the water will add to their public reputations, particularly when they think how it added to the reputation of george washington even crossing the delaware river. [laughter and applause.] the process is very simple. you get aboard a steamer, and when you get out of sight of land you suddenly realize that the ship has taken up seriously its corkscrew career through the sea. certain gastronomic uncertainties follow. you are sailing under the british flag. you always knew that "britannia ruled the waves;" but the only trouble with her now is that she don't appear to rule them straight. [laughter.] then you lean up against the rail; soon you begin to look about as much discouraged as a brooklyn alderman in contempt of court. your more experienced and sympathizing friends tell you that it will soon pass over, and it does. you even try to beguile your misery with pleasant recollections of shakespeare. the only line that seems to come to your memory is the advice of lady macbeth--"to bed, to bed!"--and when you are tucked away in your berth and the ship is rolling at its worst, your more advisory friends look in upon you, and they give you plenty of that economical advice that was given to joseph's brother, not to "fall out by the way." [laughter.] for several days you find your stomach is about in the condition of the tariff question in the present congress--likely to come up any minute. this is particularly hard upon those who had been brought up in the army, whose previous experience in this direction had been confined entirely to throwing up earthworks. [laughter.] you begin to realize how naval officers sometimes have even gone so far as to throw up their commissions. if mr. choate had seen mr. depew and myself under these circumstances he would not have made those disparaging remarks which he uttered to-night about the engorgement of our stomachs. if he had turned those stomachs wrong side out and gazed upon their inner walls through that opera-glass with which he has been looking so intently lately upon mrs. langtry, he would have found that there was not even the undigested corner of a carbuncular potato to stop the pyloric orifice; he would have found upon those inner walls not a morsel of those things which perish with using. [laughter.] but mr. choate must have his joke. he is a professional lawyer, and i have frequently observed that lawyers' jokes are like an undertaker's griefs--strictly professional. you begin now to sympathize with everybody that ever went to sea. you think of the pilgrim fathers during the tempestuous voyage in the mayflower. you reflect how fully their throats must have been occupied, and you can see how they originated the practice of speaking through their noses. [great laughter and applause.] why, you will get so nauseated before the trip is over at the very sight of the white caps that you can't look at the heads of the french nurses in paris without feeling seasick. there are the usual "characters" about. there is the customary foreign spinster of uncertain age that has been visiting here, who regales you with stories of how in new york she had twelve men at her feet. subsequent inquiry proves that they were chiropodists. [laughter.] and then you approach ireland. you have had enough of the ocean wave, and you think you will stop there. i have no doubt everybody present, after hearing from the lips of the distinguished chaplain on my right as to the character of the men who come from that country, will hereafter always want to stop there. and when you land at queenstown you are taken for an american suspect. they think you are going to join the fenian army. they look at you as if you intended to go forth from that ship as the dove went forth from the ark, in search of some green thing. you assure them that the only manner in which you can be compared with that dove is in the general peacefulness of your intentions. then you go wandering around by the shores of the lakes of killarney and the gap of dunloe, that spot where the irishman worked all day for the agent of an absentee landlord on the promise of getting a glass of grog. at night the agent brought out the grog to him, and the irishman tasted it, and he said to the agent, "which did you put in first, the whiskey or the water?" "oh," said he, "the whiskey." "ah, ha! well, maybe i'll come to it by and by." [laughter.] you look around upon the army, the constabulary, the police, and you begin to think that ireland is a good deal like our own city of troy, where there are two police forces on duty--that it is governed a great deal. you can't help thinking of the philosophical remark made by that learned chinese statesman, chin lan pin, when he was here at the time dennis kearney was having an unpleasantness with the orientals. a man said to him, "your people will have to get out of here; the irish carry too much religion around to associate with pagans." "yes," said chin lan pin, "we have determined to go. our own country is too overcrowded now, we can't go there, and i think we'll go to ireland." said the man, "to ireland? you will be jumping out of the frying-pan into the fire." said chin lan pin, "i have travelled in your country and all around a good deal, and i have come to the conclusion that nowadays ireland is about the only country that is not governed by the irish." [applause and laughter.] then you go to scotland. you want to learn from personal observation whether the allegation is true that the scotch are a people who are given to keeping the sabbath day--and everything else they can lay their hands on. [laughter.] you have heard that it is a musical country, and you immediately find that it is. you hardly land there before you hear the bag-pipes. you hear that disheartening music, and you sit down and weep. you know that there is only one other instrument in the world that will produce such strains, and that is a steam piano on a mississippi steamboat when the engineer is drunk. and in this musical country they tell you in song about the "lassies comin' through the rye;" but they never tell you about the rye that goes through the "laddies." and they will tell you in song about "bodies meeting bodies coming through the rye," and you tell them that the practice is entirely un-american; that in america bodies usually are impressed with the solemnity of the occasion and the general propriety of the thing, and lie quiet until the arrival of the coroner, but that the coroners are disputing so much in regard to their jurisdiction, and so many delays occur in issuing burial permits, that, altogether, they are making the process so tedious and disagreeable that nowadays in america hardly anybody cares to die. you tell them this in all seriousness, and you will see from their expression that they receive it in the same spirit. [laughter.] then you go to england. you have seen her colonies forming a belt around the circle of the earth, on which the sun never sets. and now you have laid eyes on the mother-country, on which it appears the sun never rises. then you begin to compare legislative bodies, parliament and congress. you find that in parliament the members sit with their hats on and cough, while in congress the members sit with their hats off and spit. i believe that no international tribunal of competent jurisdiction has yet determined which nation has the advantage over the other in these little legislative amenities. and, as you cross the english channel, the last thing you see is the english soldier with his blue trousers and red coat, and the first you see on landing in france is the french soldier with his red trousers and blue coat, and you come to the conclusion that if you turn an english soldier upside down he is, uniformly speaking, a frenchman. [laughter.] we could not tarry long in france; it was the ambition of my travelling companion to go to holland, and upon his arrival there the boyish antics that were performed by my travelling companion in disporting himself upon the ancestral ground were one of the most touching and playful sights ever witnessed in the open air. [laughter.] nobody knows mr. depew who has not seen him among the dutch. he wanted especially to go to holland, because he knew the pilgrims had gone from there. they did not start immediately from england to come here. before taking their leap across the ocean they stepped back on to holland to get a good ready. [laughter.] it is a country where water mingles with everything except gin--a country that has been so effectually diked by the natives and damned by tourists. [laughter.] there is one peculiar and especial advantage that you can enjoy in that country in going out to a banquet like this. it is that rare and peculiar privilege which you cannot expect to enjoy in a new england society even when mr. choate addresses you--the privilege of never being able to understand a word that is said by the speakers after dinner. but we had to hurry home. we were republicans, and there was going to be an election in november. we didn't suppose that our votes would be necessary at all; still it would look well, you know, to come home and swell the republican majority. [laughter.] now when you get on that ship to come back, you begin for the first time to appreciate the advantage of the steam lanes that are laid down by the steamship company, by which a vessel goes to europe one season over one route and comes back another season over another route, so that a man who goes to europe one season and comes back another is treated to another change of scenery along the entire route. [laughter.] as i said, we thought it was the thing for republicans to come home to vote. at the polls we found it was rather the thing for them to stay away. but we acted upon that impulse which often seizes upon the human breast--the desire to come home to die. i never for one moment realized the overwhelming defeat that we were going to suffer until one day mr. choate confided to me his determination to speak for the citizens' candidate. [loud laughter.] and this left us the day after that election and left the other members of our party standing around the highways and byways with that one supplication upon each one's lips: "lord, be merciful unto me a republican and a sinner." [loud applause and laughter.] * * * * * woman [speech of horace porter at the seventy-eighth annual dinner of the new england society in the city of new york, december , . the president, marvelle w. cooper, in introducing the speaker, arose, mentioned the single word "woman"--and said: "this toast will be responded to by one whom you know well, general horace porter."] mr. president and gentlemen:--when this toast was proposed to me, i insisted that it ought to be responded to by a bachelor, by some one who is known as a ladies' man; but in these days of female proprietorship it is supposed that a married person is more essentially a ladies' man than anybody else, and it was thought that only one who had had the courage to address a lady could have the courage, under these circumstances, to address the new england society. [laughter.] the toast, i see, is not in its usual order to-night. at public dinners this toast is habitually placed last on the list. it seems to be a benevolent provision of the committee on toasts in order to give man in replying to woman one chance at least in life of having the last word. [laughter.] at the new england dinners, unfortunately the most fruitful subject of remark regarding woman is not so much her appearance as her disappearance. i know that this was remedied a few years ago, when this grand annual gastronomic high carnival was held in the metropolitan concert hall. there ladies were introduced into the galleries to grace the scene by their presence; and i am sure the experiment was sufficiently encouraging to warrant repetition, for it was beautiful to see the descendants of the pilgrims sitting with eyes upturned in true puritanic sanctity; it was encouraging to see the sons of those pious sires devoting themselves, at least for one night, to setting their affections upon "things above." [applause and laughter.] woman's first home was in the garden of eden. there man first married woman. strange that the incident should have suggested to milton the "paradise lost." [laughter.] man was placed in a profound sleep, a rib was taken from his side, a woman was created from it, and she became his wife. evil-minded persons constantly tell us that thus man's first sleep became his last repose. but if woman be given at times to that contrariety of thought and perversity of mind which sometimes passeth our understanding, it must be recollected in her favor that she was created out of the crookedest part of man. [laughter.] the rabbins have a different theory regarding creation. they go back to the time when we were all monkeys. they insist that man was originally created with a kind of darwinian tail, and that in the process of evolution this caudal appendage was removed and created into woman. this might better account for those caudle lectures which woman is in the habit of delivering, and some color is given to this theory, from the fact that husbands even down to the present day seem to inherit a general disposition to leave their wives behind. [laughter.] the first woman, finding no other man in that garden except her own husband, took to flirting even with the devil. [laughter.] the race might have been saved much tribulation if eden had been located in some calm and tranquil land--like ireland. there would at least have been no snakes there to get into the garden. now woman in her thirst after knowledge, showed her true female inquisitiveness in her cross-examination of the serpent, and, in commemoration of that circumstance, the serpent seems to have been curled up and used in nearly all languages as a sign of interrogation. soon the domestic troubles of our first parents began. the first woman's favorite son was killed with a club, and married women even to this day seem to have an instinctive horror of clubs. the first woman learned that it was cain that raised a club. the modern woman has learned it is a club that raises cain. yet, i think, i recognize faces here to-night that i see behind the windows of fifth avenue clubs of an afternoon, with their noses pressed flat against the broad plate glass, and as woman trips along the sidewalk, i have observed that these gentlemen appear to be more assiduously engaged than ever was a government scientific commission in taking observations upon the transit of venus. [laughter.] before those windows passes many a face fairer than that of the ludovician juno or the venus of medici. there is the saxon blonde with the deep blue eye, whose glances return love for love, whose silken tresses rest upon her shoulders like a wealth of golden fleece, each thread of which looks like a ray of the morning sunbeam. there is the latin brunette with the deep, black, piercing eye, whose jetty lashes rest like silken fringe upon the pearly texture of her dainty cheek, looking like raven's wings spread out upon new-fallen snow. and yet the club man is not happy. as the ages roll on woman has materially elevated herself in the scale of being. now she stops at nothing. she soars. she demands the coeducation of the sexes. she thinks nothing of delving into the most abstruse problems of the higher branches of analytical science. she can cipher out the exact hour of the night when her husband ought to be home, either according to the old or the recently adopted method of calculating time. i never knew of but one married man who gained any decided domestic advantage by this change in our time. he was an _habitué_ of a club situated next door to his house. his wife was always upbraiding him for coming home too late at night. fortunately, when they made this change of time, they placed one of those meridians from which our time is calculated right between the club and his house. [laughter.] every time he stepped across that imaginary line it set him back a whole hour in time. he found that he could then leave his club at one o'clock and get home to his wife at twelve; and for the first time in twenty years peace reigned around that hearthstone. woman now revels even in the more complicated problems of mathematical astronomy. give a woman ten minutes and she will describe a heliocentric parallax of the heavens. give her twenty minutes and she will find astronomically the longitude of a place by means of lunar culminations. give that same woman an hour and a half, with the present fashions, and she cannot find the pocket in her dress. and yet man's admiration for woman never flags. he will give her half his fortune; he will give her his whole heart; he seems always willing to give her everything that he possesses, except his seat in a horse-car. [laughter.] every nation has had its heroines as well as its heroes. england, in her wars, had a florence nightingale; and the soldiers in the expression of their adoration, used to stoop and kiss the hem of her garment as she passed. america, in her war, had a dr. mary walker. nobody ever stooped to kiss the hem of her garment--because that was not exactly the kind of garment she wore. [laughter.] but why should man stand here and attempt to speak for woman, when she is so abundantly equipped to speak for herself. i know that is the case in new england; and i am reminded, by seeing general grant here to-night, of an incident in proof of it which occurred when he was making that marvellous tour through new england, just after the war. the train stopped at a station in the state of maine. the general was standing on the rear platform of the last car. at that time, as you know, he had a great reputation for silence--for it was before he had made his series of brilliant speeches before the new england society. they spoke of his reticence--a quality which new englanders admire so much--in others. [laughter.] suddenly there was a commotion in the crowd, and as it opened a large, tall, gaunt-looking woman came rushing toward the car, out of breath. taking her spectacles off from the top of her head and putting them on her nose, she put her arms akimbo, and looking up, said: "well, i've just come down here a runnin' nigh onto two mile, right on the clean jump, just to get a look at the man that lets the women do all the talkin'." [laughter.] the first regular speaker of the evening [william m. evarts] touched upon woman, but only incidentally, only in reference to mormonism and that sad land of utah, where a single death may make a dozen widows. [laughter.] a speaker at the new england dinner in brooklyn last night [henry ward beecher] tried to prove that the mormons came originally from new hampshire and vermont. i know that a new englander sometimes in the course of his life marries several times; but he takes the precaution to take his wives in their proper order of legal succession. the difference is that he drives his team of wives tandem, while the mormon insists upon driving his abreast. [laughter.] but even the least serious of us, mr. president, have some serious moments in which to contemplate the true nobility of woman's character. if she were created from a rib, she was made from that part which lies nearest a man's heart. it has been beautifully said that man was fashioned out of the dust of the earth while woman was created from god's own image. it is our pride in this land that woman's honor is her own best defence; that here female virtue is not measured by the vigilance of detective nurses; that here woman may walk throughout the length and the breadth of this land, through its highways and its byways, uninsulted, unmolested, clothed in the invulnerable panoply of her own woman's virtue; that even in places where crime lurks and vice prevails in the haunts of our great cities, and in the rude mining gulches of the west, owing to the noble efforts of our women, and the influence of their example, there are raised up, even there, girls who are good daughters, loyal wives, and faithful mothers. they seem to rise in those rude surroundings as grows the pond lily, which is entangled by every species of rank growth, environed by poison, miasma and corruption, and yet which rises in the beauty of its purity and lifts its fair face unblushing to the sun. no one who has witnessed the heroism of america's daughters in the field should fail to pay a passing tribute to their worth. i do not speak alone of those trained sisters of charity, who in scenes of misery and woe seem heaven's chosen messengers on earth; but i would speak also of those fair daughters who come forth from the comfortable firesides of new england and other states, little trained to scenes of suffering, little used to the rudeness of a life in camp, who gave their all, their time, their health, and even life itself, as a willing sacrifice in that cause which then moved the nation's soul. as one of these, with her graceful form, was seen moving silently through the darkened aisles of an army hospital, as the motion of her passing dress wafted a breeze across the face of the wounded, they felt that their parched brows had been fanned by the wings of the angel of mercy. ah! mr. president, woman is after all a mystery. it has been well said, that woman is the great conundrum of the nineteenth century; but if we cannot guess her, we will never give her up. [applause.] * * * * * friendliness of the french [speech of horace porter at the banquet given by the chamber of commerce of the state of new york, june , , to the officers of the french national ship "isere," which brought over the statue of "liberty enlightening the world." charles stewart smith, vice-president of the chamber, proposed the following toast: "the french alliance; initiated by noble and sympathetic frenchmen; grandly maintained by the blood and treasure of france; now newly cemented by the spontaneous action of the french people; may it be perpetuated through all time." in concluding his introduction, the chairman said: "we shall hear from our friend, general porter."] mr. president and gentlemen:--[ ]_voulez-vous me permettre de faire mes remarques en français? si je m'addresse à vous dans une langue que je ne parle pas, et que personne ici ne comprends, j'en impute la faute entièrement à l'example malheureux de monsieur coudert. ce que je veux dire est que_--this is the fault of coudert. he has been switching the languages round in every direction, and has done all he could to sidetrack english. what i mean to say is, that if i were to mention in either language one tithe of the subjects which should be alluded to to-night in connection with the french alliance, i should keep you all here until the rising of another sun, and these military gentlemen around me, from abroad, in attempting to listen to it, would have to exhibit what napoleon considered the highest quality in a soldier: "two-o'clock-in-the-morning courage." [applause.] one cannot speak of the french alliance without recalling the services of benjamin franklin in connection with it. when he was in paris and was received in a public assemblage, not understanding anything of the language, and believing, very properly, that it was a good thing always to follow the example of the french in society, he vociferously applauded every time the rest of them applauded, and he did not learn until it was all over that the applause was, in each instance, elicited by a reference to his name and distinguished public services, and so, during the eloquent speech of our friend, mr. coudert, i could not but look upon the american members of this assemblage, and notice that they applauded most vociferously when they supposed that the speaker was alluding particularly to their arduous services as members of the chamber of commerce. [laughter.] i congratulate our friends from abroad, who do not understand our language, upon the very great privilege they enjoy here to-night, a privilege that is not enjoyed by americans or by englishmen who come among us. it is the rare and precious privilege at an american banquet of not being expected to pay the slightest attention to the remarks of the after-dinner speakers. [laughter.] if there is one thing i feel i can enjoy more than another, it is standing upon firm land and speaking to those whose life is on the sea, to these "toilers of the deep." there is in this a sort of poetic justice, a sentimental retribution; for on their element i am never able to stand up, and, owing to certain gastronomic uncertainties, my feelings on that element are just the reverse of those i experience at the present moment. for in the agonies of a storm i have so much on my mind that i have nothing whatever on my stomach. but after this feast to-night i have so much on my stomach that i fear i have nothing whatever on my mind. and when i next go to sea i want to go as the great statue of liberty: first being taken all apart with the pieces carefully stored amidships. [laughter.] while they were building the statue in france, we were preparing slowly for the pedestal. you cannot hurry constructions of this kind; they must have time to settle. we long ago prepared the stones for that pedestal, and we first secured the services of the most useful, most precious stone of all--the pasha from egypt. [laughter.] we felt that his services in egypt had particularly fitted him for this task. there is a popular belief in this country, which i have never once heard contradicted, that he took a prominent part in laying the foundations of the great pyramids, that he assisted in placing the egyptian sphinx in position, and that he even had something to do with cleopatra's needle. [laughter.] when napoleon was in egypt he said to his people: "forty centuries are looking down upon you." we say to general stone, as he stands upon that pedestal: "fifty-five millions of people are looking up to you! and some of them have contributed to the fund." [laughter.] when we read of the size of that statue, we were troubled, particularly when we saw the gigantic dimensions of the goddess's nose, but our minds were relieved when we found that that nose was to face southward, and not in the direction of hunter's point. [laughter and applause.] _monsieur le president_:--[ ]_quand le coeur est plein il deborde, et ce soir mon coeur est plein de la france, mais_--oh, there i go, again wandering with coudert away from the mother-tongue. [laughter.] i have no doubt all the gentlemen here to-night of an american turn of mind wish that the mantle of elijah of old had fallen upon the shoulders of mr. coudert, for then he might have stood some chance of being translated. [laughter.] a few years ago distinguished military men from abroad came here to participate in the celebration of the th anniversary of the surrender of yorktown by lord cornwallis. they were invited here by the government, the descendants of all distinguished foreigners, to participate in that historical event, except the descendants of lord cornwallis. [laughter.] and if our french guests had been here then, and had gone down and seen yorktown, they would not have wondered that cornwallis gave up that place; their only astonishment would have been that he consented to remain there as long as he did. [laughter.] but, mr. president, upon a subject fraught with so much interest to us all, and with so much dignity, let me, before i close, speak a few words in all seriousness. if we would properly appreciate the depth and the lasting nature of that traditional friendship between the two nations, which is the child of the french alliance, we must consider the conditions of history at the time that alliance was formed. for years a desperate war had been waged between the most powerful of nations and the weakest of peoples, struggling to become a nation. the american coffers had been drained, the spirit of the people was waning, hope was fading, and patriot hearts who had never despaired before were now bowed in the dust. the trials of the continental army had never been matched since the trade of war began. their sufferings had never been equalled since the days of the early christian martyrs. while courage still animated the hearts of the people, and their leaders never took counsel of their fears, yet a general gloom had settled down upon the land. then we saw a light breaking in upon our eastern horizon, a light which grew in brilliancy until it became to us a true bow of promise. that light came from the brave land of france. [enthusiastic cheering.] then hope raised our standards; then joy brightened our crest; then it was, that when we saw gates and lincoln and greene and washington, we saw standing shoulder to shoulder with them, d'estaing, de grasse, rochambeau, and that princely hero [pointing to a portrait against the wall], that man who was the embodiment of gallantry, of liberty, of chivalry, the immortal lafayette. [loud cheers.] then the two armies moved hand-in-hand to fight the common foe. they vied nobly with each other and, by an unselfish emulation and by a generous rivalry, showed the world that the path of ambition had not become so narrow that two could not walk it abreast. [cries of "good! good!" and cheers.] two treaties were made; one was military in its terms, and was called the defensive treaty. the other we recall with great interest in the presence of an assemblage of business men such as this. the second treaty was called the treaty of friendship and commerce. the results of those treaties have passed into history. that alliance taught many worthy lessons. it taught that tyranny you may find anywhere; it is a weed that grows on any soil. but if you want liberty, you must go forth and fight for it. [applause.] it taught us those kindly sentiments between nations which warm the heart, liberalize the mind, and animate the courage. it taught men that true liberty can turn blind submission into rational obedience. it taught men, as hall has said, that true liberty smothers the voice of kings, dispels the mists of superstition, and by its magic touch kindles the rays of genius, the enthusiasm of poetry, the flame of eloquence, pours into our laps opulence and art, and embellishes life with innumerable institutions and improvements which make it one grand theatre of wonders. [cheers.] and now that this traditional friendship between the two nations is to be ever cemented by that generous gift of our ally, that colossal statue, which so nobly typifies the great principle for which our fathers fought, may the flame which is to arise from its uplifted arm light the path of liberty to all who follow in its ways, until human rights and human freedom become the common heritage of mankind. ariosto tells us a pretty story of a gentle fairy, who, by a mysterious law of her nature, was at certain periods compelled to assume the form of a serpent and to crawl upon the ground. those who in the days of her disguise spurned her and trod upon her were forever debarred from a participation in those gifts that it was her privilege to bestow, but to those who, despite her unsightly aspect, comforted her and encouraged her and aided her, she appeared in the beautiful and celestial form of her true nature, followed them ever after with outstretched arms, lavished upon them her gifts, and filled their homes with happiness and wealth. and so, when america lay prostrate upon the ground, after throwing off the british yoke, yet not having established a government which the nations of the earth were willing to recognize, then it was that france sympathized with her, and comforted her, and aided her, and now that america has arisen in her strength and stands erect before the nations of the world, in the true majesty and glory of that form in which god intended she should thenceforth tread the earth, she always stands with arms outstretched towards france in token of the great gratitude she bears her. [applause and cheers.] * * * * * the citizen soldier [speech of horace porter at the eighth annual dinner of the new england society in the city of brooklyn, december , . the president, john winslow, proposed the toast, "the citizen soldier," saying: "the next regular toast is 'the citizen soldier.' i have already referred to the embarrassment which a presiding officer feels in introducing a well-known and distinguished man. if i refer to the distinguished gentleman who is to respond to this toast as a pathetic speaker, you will immediately recall some of his fine humor; and if i should speak of him as a humorous speaker you will recall some pathetic sentence; so it is better to let general horace porter speak for himself."] mr. president and gentlemen:--after general sherman the deluge. i am the deluge. it is fortunate for me this evening that i come after general sherman only in the order of speech, and not in the order of dinner, for a person once said in georgia--and he was a man who knew regarding the march to the sea--that anyone who came after general sherman wouldn't find much to eat. having been brought up in pennsylvania, i listened with great interest to general sherman's reference to the proposed names of the states in the country. he mentioned one as "sylvania." that was evidently a dead letter till we put the pen(n) to it. [laughter.] i noticed that president dwight listened with equal interest to the statement of that expedition which went west and carried such a large quantity of whiskey with it, in consequence of which the first university was founded. [laughter.] but, gentlemen, when i am requested in such an august presence as this to speak of the "citizen soldier," i cannot help feeling like the citizen soldier of hibernian extraction who came up, in the streets of new york, to a general officer and held out his hand for alms, evidently wanting to put himself temporarily on the general's pay-roll, as it were. the general said: "why don't you work?" he said he couldn't on account of his wounds. the general asked where he was wounded. he said, "in the retrate at bull run." "but whereabouts on your person?" he replied, "you'll notice the scar here." [pointing to his face.] "now, how could you get wounded in the face while on the retreat?" "i had the indiscrition to look back." [laughter.] "well," said the general, "that wouldn't prevent your working." "ah," answered the man, "the worst wound is here." [left breast.] the general said, "oh, that's all bosh; if the bullet had gone in there it would have passed through your heart and killed you." "i beg your pardon, sir, at that moment me heart was in me mouth!" [great laughter.] so if i had known that such an early attack was to be made upon me here to-night, i should have thrown my pickets farther out to the front, in hopes of getting sufficient information to beat a hasty retreat; for if there is one lesson better than another taught by the war, it is that a man may retreat successfully from almost any position, if he only starts in time. [laughter.] in alluding to the citizen soldier i desire it to be distinctly understood that i make no reference to that organization of home guards once formed in kansas, where the commanding officer tried to pose as one of the last surviving heroes of the algerine war, when he had never drawn a sword but once and that was in a raffle, and where his men had determined to emulate the immortal example of lord nelson. the last thing that nelson did was to die for his country, and this was the last thing they ever intended to do. [laughter.] i allude to that citizen soldier who breathed the spirit of old miles standish, but had the additional advantage of always being able to speak for himself; who came down to the front with hair close cropped, clean shaven, newly baptized, freshly vaccinated, pocket in his shirt, musket on his shoulder, ready to do anything, from squirrel hunting up to manslaughter in the first degree. he felt that with a single rush he could carry away two spans of barbed-wire fence without scratching himself. if too short-sighted to see the enemy, he would go nearer; if lame, he would make this an excuse to disobey an order to retreat; if he had but one stocking, he would take it off his foot in wet weather and wrap it around the lock of his gun; and as to marching, he would keep on the march as long as he had upper garments enough left to wad a gun or nether garments enough to flag a train with. [laughter.] he was the last man in a retreat, the first man in an enemy's smoke-house. when he wanted fuel he took only the top rail of the fence, and kept on taking the top rail till there was none of that fence left standing. the new england soldier knew everything that was between the covers of books, from light infantry tactics to the new version of the scriptures. one day, on a forced march in virginia, a new england man was lagging behind, when his colonel began stirring him up and telling him he ought to make better time. he at once started to argue the case with the colonel, and said: "see here, colonel, i've studied the tactics and hev learned from 'em how to form double column at half distance, but i hev never yet learned how to perform double distance on half rations." [laughter.] but, mr. president, this is a subject which should receive a few serious words from me before i sit down. it was not until the black war cloud of rebellion broke upon us that we really appreciated the citizen soldier at his full worth. but when the country was struck we saw, pouring down from the hill tops, and surging up from the valleys, that magnificent army of citizen soldiery, at the sight of which all christendom stood amazed. they gathered until the streets of every hamlet in the land were lighted by the glitter of their steel and resounded to the tread of their marching columns. it seemed that the middle wall of partition was broken down between all classes, that we were living once more in the heroic ages, that there had returned to us the brave days of old, when "none were for a party but all were for the state." [applause.] and then that unbroken line swept down to the front. but in that front what scenes were met! there was the blistering southern sun; swamps which bred miasma and death; rivers with impassable approaches; heights to be scaled, batteries to be captured, the open plain with guns in front and guns in flank, which swept those devoted columns until human blood flowed as freely as festal wine; there was the dense forest, the under-growth barring the passage of man, the upper-growth shutting out the light of heaven; ammunition-trains exploding, the woods afire, the dead roasted in the flames, the wounded dragging their mangled limbs after them to escape its ravages, until it seemed that christian men had turned to fiends, and hell itself had usurped the place of earth. [applause.] and when success perched upon our banners, when the bugle sounded the glad notes of final and triumphal victory, the disbanding of that army was even more marvellous than its organization. it disappeared, not as the flood of waters of the spring, which rend the earth, and leave havoc and destruction in their course; but rather, as was once eloquently said, like the snows of winter under a genial sun, leaving the face of nature untouched, and the handiwork of man undisturbed; not injuring, but moistening and fructifying the earth. [applause.] but the mission of the citizen soldier did not end there, it has not ended yet. we have no european enemy to dread, it is true; we have on our own continent no foeman worthy of our steel; for, unlike the lands of europe, this land is not cursed by propinquity. but we must look straight in the face the fact that we have in our midst a discontented class, repudiated alike by employers and by honest laborers. they come here from the effete monarchies of the old world, rave about the horrors of tyrannous governments, and make no distinction between them and the blessings of a free and independent government. they have, but a little while ago, created scenes in which mob-law ruled the hour, riot held its sanguinary sway, and the earth of our streets tasted the blood of our citizens. when such scenes as these occur, we cannot wait for aid from the crews of vessels in the offing, we cannot look for succor to the army garrisons of distant forts; but in our great cities--those plague spots in the body politic--we want trained militia who can rally as rapidly as the long roll can be beaten. and i know that all property-owners feel safer, that all law-abiding citizens breathe freer, when they see a militia, particularly like that in our own state, go forth in the summer to be inured to the hardships of the march, to the discipline of tent-life in the field, exhibiting an _esprit de corps_, a discipline, a true touch of the elbow, which is beyond all praise. i love to take off my hat to their marching column; i love to salute its passing banners. they will always be the true bulwark of our defence. i know of no man, and no set of men, who more gladly or more eagerly make this statement than those who have been reared in the regular army; and i take particular pride in making this acknowledgment and paying this tribute in the presence of the senior and the most illustrious living commander of our citizen soldiery. [allusion to general sherman followed by great applause.] * * * * * the many-sided puritan [speech of horace porter at the eighty-second annual dinner of the new england society in the city of new york, december , . ex-judge horace russell, the president of the society, in introducing general porter, said: "james t. brady used to say that a good lawyer imbibed his law rather than read it. [laughter.] if that proposition holds true in other regards, the gentleman whom i am to call to the next toast is one of the very best of new englanders--general horace porter [applause], who will speak to 'puritan influence.'"] mr. president and gentlemen:--while you were eating forefathers' dinner here a year ago, i happened to be in mexico, but on my return i found that the puritan influence had extended to me, for i was taken for the distinguished head of this organization, and was in receipt of no end of letters addressed to general horace russell and judge horace porter and mr. horace russell and porter, president of the new england society, and all begging for a copy of grady's[ ] speech. distant communities had got the names of the modern horatii mixed. [laughter.] in replying i had to acknowledge that my nativity barred me out from the moral realms of this puritanical society, and i could only coincide with charles ii when he said he always admired virtue, but he never could imitate it. [laughter and applause.] when the puritan influence spread across the ocean; when it was imported here as part of the cargo of the mayflower, the crew of the craft, like sensible men, steered for the port of new york, but a reliable tradition informs us that the cook on board that vessel chopped his wood on deck and always stood with his broadaxe on the starboard side of the binnacle, and that this mass of ferruginous substance so attracted the needle that the ship brought up in plymouth harbor. and the puritans did not reach new york harbor for a couple of hundred years thereafter, and then in the persons of the members of the new england society. it is seen that the same influences are still at work, for the fact that these puritans have brought up in delmonico's haven of rest is entirely owing to the attractions of the cook. [laughter and applause.] the old puritan was not the most rollicking, the jolliest, or the most playful of men. he at times amused himself sadly; he was given to a mild disregard of the conventionalities. he had suppressed bear-baiting, not, it is believed, because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the audience. he found the indians were the proprietors of the land, and he felt himself constrained to move against them with his gun with a view to increasing the number of absentee landlords. [laughter and applause.] he found the indians on one side and the witches on the other. he was surrounded with troubles. he had to keep the indians under fire and the witches over it. these were some of the things that reconciled that good man to sudden death. he frequently wanted to set up a mark and swear at it, but his principles would not permit him. he never let the sun go down upon his wrath, but he, no doubt, often wished that he was in that region near the pole where the sun does not go down for six months at a time, and gives wrath a fair chance to materialize. he was a thoughtful man. he spent his days inventing snow-ploughs and his evenings in sipping hot rum and ruminating upon the probable strength of the future prohibition vote. those were times when the wives remonstrated with their husbands regarding the unfortunate and disappointing results of too much drink, particularly when it led the men to go out and shoot at indians--and miss them. [long continued laughter.] it is supposed that these men, like many others, generally began drinking on account of the bite of a snake, and usually had to quit on account of attacks from the same reptiles. but, mr. president, if you will allow me a few words of becoming gravity with which to retract any aspersions which i may have inadvertently cast upon the sacred person of the ancient puritan, i assure you i will use those words with a due sense of the truth of the epigram--that "gravity is a stratagem invented to conceal the poverty of the mind." that rugged old puritan, firm of purpose and stout of heart, had been fittingly trained by his life in the old world, for the conspicuous part he was to enact in the new. he was acquainted with hardships, inured to trials, practised in self-abnegation. he had reformed religions, revolutionized society, and shaken the thrones of tyrants. he had learned that tyranny you may have anywhere--it is a weed which grows on any soil--but if you want freedom you must go forth and fight for it. [long continued applause.] at his very birth he had had breathed into his nostrils the breath of that true liberty which can turn blind submission into rational obedience, which, as hall says, can "smother the voice of kings, dissipate the mists of superstition, and by its magic touch kindle the rays of genius, the enthusiasm of poetry, the flames of eloquence." [applause.] he had the courage of his convictions, he counselled not with his fears. he neither looked to the past with regret nor to the future with apprehension. he might have been a zealot--he was never a hypocrite; he might have been eccentric--he was never ridiculous. he was a hercules rather than an adonis. in his warfare he fired hot shot; he did not send in flags of truce; he led forlorn hopes; he did not follow in the wake of charges. when he went forth with his sledge-hammer logic and his saw-mill philosophy, all who stood in the path of his righteous wrath went down before him, with nothing by which to recognize them except the pieces he had left of them. when he crossed the seas to plant his banners in the west, when he disembarked upon the bleak shores of america, the land which was one day to speak with the voice of a mighty prophet, then the infant just discovered in the bulrushes of the new world, he came with loins girded and all accoutred for the great work of founding a race which should create a permanent abiding place for liberty, and one day dominate the destinies of the world. [prolonged applause.] unlike the spanish conqueror upon far southern coasts, the leader did not have to burn his ship to retain his followers, for when the mayflower spread her sails for home, not a man of plymouth colony returned on board her. the puritan early saw that in the new land, liberty could not flourish when subject to the caprices of european courts; he realized with burke that there was "more wisdom and sagacity in american workshops than in the cabinets of princes." he wanted elbow-room; he was philosophic enough to recognize the truth of the adage that it is "better to sit on a pumpkin and have it all to yourself than to be crowded on a velvet cushion." when the struggle for independence came, the puritan influence played no small part in the contest. when a separate government had been formed he showed himself foremost in impressing upon it his principles of broad and comprehensive liberty. he dignified labor; he believed that as the banner of the young republic was composed of and derived its chief beauty from its different colors, so should its broad folds cover and protect its citizens of different colors. he was a grand character in history. we take off our hats to him. we salute his memory. in his person were combined the chivalry of knighthood, the fervor of the crusader, the wit of gascony, and the courage of navarre. [prolonged applause.] * * * * * abraham lincoln [speech of horace porter at a dinner given by the republican club in honor of the ninetieth anniversary of abraham lincoln's birthday, new york city, february , . mortimer c. addams, the newly elected president of the club, occupied the chair. general porter was called upon for a response to the first toast, "abraham lincoln--the fragrant memory of such a life will increase as the generations succeed each other." general porter was introduced by the chairman, as one "whose long acquaintance with abraham lincoln, intimate relationship, both official and personal, with our illustrious chieftain, general grant, and distinguished career as a brave defender of his country in the time of her peril, have eminently fitted him to tell the story of our great war president."] mr. president and gentlemen:--i am encumbered with diverse misgivings in being called upon to rise and cast the first firebrand into this peaceful assemblage, which has evidently been enjoying itself so much up to the present time. from the herculean task accomplished by the republican party last fall we have come to think of its members as men of deeds and not of words, except the spellbinders. [laughter.] i fear your committee is treating me like one of those toy balloons that are sent up previous to the main ascension, to test the currents of the air; but i hope that in this sort of ballooning i may not be interrupted by the remark that interrupted a fourth of july orator in the west when he was tickling the american eagle under both wings, delivering himself of no end of platitudes and soaring aloft into the brilliant realms of fancy when a man in the audience quietly remarked: "if he goes on throwing out his ballast, in that way, the lord knows where he will land." [laughter.] if i demonstrate to-night that dryness is a quality not only of the champagne but of the first speech as well, you may reflect on that remark as abraham lincoln did at city point after he had been shaken up the night before in his boat in a storm in chesapeake bay. when he complained of the feeling of gastronomic uncertainty which we suffer on the water, a young staff officer rushed up to him with a bottle of champagne and said: "this is the cure for that sort of an ill." said the president: "no, young man, i have seen too many fellows seasick ashore from drinking that very article." [laughter.] the story of the life of abraham lincoln savors more of romance than reality. it is more like a fable of the ancient days than a story of a plain american of the nineteenth century. the singular vicissitudes in the life of our martyred president surround him with an interest which attaches to few men in history. he sprang from that class which he always alluded to as the "plain people," and never attempted to disdain them. he believed that the government was made for the people, not the people for the government. he felt that true republicanism is a torch--the more it is shaken in the hands of the people the brighter it will burn. he was transcendently fit to be the first successful standard-bearer of the progressive, aggressive, invincible republican party. [loud applause.] he might well have said to those who chanced to sneer at his humble origin what a marshal of france raised from the ranks said to the haughty nobles of vienna boasting of their long line of descent, when they refused to associate with him: "i am an ancestor; you are only descendants!" [laughter and cheers.] he was never guilty of any posing for effect, any attitudinizing in public, any mawkish sentimentality, any of that puppyism so often bred by power, that dogmatism which johnson said was only puppyism grown to maturity. [laughter.] he made no claim to knowledge he did not possess. he felt with addison that pedantry and learning are like hypocrisy in religion--the form of knowledge without the power of it. he had nothing in common with those men of mental malformation who are educated beyond their intellects. [laughter.] the names of washington and lincoln are inseparably associated, and yet as the popular historian would have us believe one spent his entire life in chopping down acorn trees and the other splitting them up into rails. washington could not tell a story. lincoln always could. [laughter.] and lincoln's stories always possessed the true geometrical requisites, they were never too long, and never too broad. [laughter.] he never forgot a point. a sentinel pacing near the watchfire while lincoln was once telling some stories quietly remarked that "he had a mighty powerful memory, but an awful poor forgettery." [laughter.] the last time i ever heard him converse, he told one of the stories which best illustrated his peculiar talent for pointing a moral with an anecdote. speaking of england's assistance to the south, and how she would one day find she had aided it but little and only injured herself, he said: "yes, that reminds me of a barber in sangamon county. he was about going to bed when a stranger came along and said he must have a shave. he said he had a few days' beard on his face, and he was going to a ball, and the barber must cut it off. the barber got up reluctantly, dressed, and put the stranger in a chair with a low back to it, and every time he bore down he came near dislocating his patient's neck. he began by lathering his face, including nose, eyes, and ears, strapped his razor on his boot, and then made a drive scraping down the right cheek, carrying away the beard and a pimple and two or three warts. the man in the chair said: 'you appear to make everything level as you go.' [laughter.] the barber said: 'yes, if this handle don't break, i will get away with what there is there.' the man's cheeks were so hollow that the barber could not get down into the valleys with the razor and an ingenious idea occurred to him to stick his finger in the man's mouth and press out the cheeks. finally he cut clean through the cheek and into his own finger. he pulled the finger out of the man's mouth, and snapped the blood off it, looked at him, and said: 'there, you lantern-jawed cuss, you have made me cut my finger.'" [laughter.] "now," said lincoln, "england will find she has got the south into a pretty bad scrape from trying to administer to her. in the end she will find she has only cut her own finger." [applause.] but his heart was not always attuned to mirth; its chords were often set to strains of sadness. yet throughout all his trials he never lost the courage of his convictions. when he was surrounded on all sides by doubting thomases, by unbelieving saracens, by discontented catilines, his faith was strongest. as the danes destroyed the hearing of their war-horses in order that they might not be affrighted by the din of battle, so lincoln turned a deaf ear to all that might have discouraged him, and exhibited an unwavering faith in the justice of the cause and the integrity of the union. [cries of "bravo!" and cheers.] it is said that for three hundred years after the battle of thermopylæ every child in the public schools of greece was required to recite from memory the names of the three hundred martyrs who fell in the defence of that pass. it would be a crowning triumph in patriotic education if every school child in america could contemplate each day the grand character and utter the inspiring name of abraham lincoln. [loud applause.] he has passed from our view. we shall not meet him again until he stands forth to answer to his name at the roll-call when the great of earth are summoned in the morning of the last great reveille. till then [apostrophizing lincoln's portrait which hung above the president's head], till then, farewell, gentlest of all spirits, noblest of all hearts! the child's simplicity was mingled with the majestic grandeur of your nature. you have handed down unto a grateful people the richest legacy which man can leave to man--the memory of a good name, the inheritance of a great example! [loud and enthusiastic applause.] * * * * * sires and sons [speech of horace porter at the eighty-sixth annual dinner of the new england society in the city of new york, december , . j. pierpont morgan, the president, occupied the chair, and called upon general porter to speak on "sires and sons."] mr. president and gentlemen:--all my shortcomings upon this occasion must be attributed to the fact that i have just come from last night's new england dinner, in brooklyn, which occurred largely this morning. they promised me when i accepted their invitation that i should get away early, and i did. i am apprehensive that the circumstance may give rise to statements which may reflect upon my advancing years, and that i may be pointed out as one who has dined with the early new englanders. i do not like the fact of depew's coming into the room so late to-night and leaving so short an interval between his speech and mine. his conduct is of a piece with the conduct of so many married men nowadays who manifest such exceedingly bad taste and want of tact in dying only such a very short time before the remarriage of their wives. i have acquired some useful experience in attending new england society dinners in various cities. i dine with new englanders in boston; the rejoicing is marked, but not aggressive. i dine with them in new york; the hilarity and cheer of mind are increased in large degree. i dine with them in philadelphia; the joy is unconfined and measured neither by metes nor bounds. indeed, it has become patent to the most casual observer that the further the new englander finds himself from new england the more hilarious is his rejoicing. whenever we find a son of new england who has passed beyond the borders of his own section, who has stepped out into the damp cold fog of a benighted outside world and has brought up in another state, he seems to take more pride than ever in his descent--doubtless because he feels that it has been so great. [laughter.] the new england sire was a stern man on duty and determined to administer discipline totally regardless of previous acquaintance. he detested all revolutions in which he had taken no part. if he possessed too much piety, it was tempered by religion; while always seeking out new virtues, he never lost his grip on his vices. [laughter.] he was always ambitious to acquire a reputation that would extend into the next world. but in his own individual case he manifested a decided preference for the doctrine of damnation without representation. when he landed at plymouth he boldly set about the appalling task of cultivating the alleged soil. his labors were largely lightened by the fact that there were no agricultural newspapers to direct his efforts. by a fiction of speech which could not have been conceived by a less ingenious mind, he founded a government based upon a common poverty and called it a commonwealth. he was prompt and eminently practical in his worldly methods. in the rigors of a new england winter when he found a witch suffering he brought her in to the fire; when he found an indian suffering he went out and covered him with a shotgun. [laughter.] the discipline of the race, however, is chiefly due to the new england mother. she could be seen going to church of a sabbath with the bible under one arm and a small boy under the other, and her mind equally harassed by the tortures of maternity and eternity. when her offspring were found suffering from spring fever and the laziness which accompanies it, she braced them up with a heroic dose of brimstone and molasses. the brimstone given here was a reminder of the discipline hereafter; the molasses has doubtless been chiefly responsible for the tendency of the race to stick to everything, especially their opinions. [laughter.] the new englanders always take the initiative in great national movements. at lexington and concord they marched out alone without waiting for the rest of the colonies, to have their fling at the red-coats, and a number of the colonists on that occasion succeeded in interfering with british bullets. it was soon after observed that their afternoon excursion had attracted the attention of england. they acted in the spirit of the fly who bit the elephant on the tail. when the fly was asked whether he expected to kill him he said: "no, but i notice i made him look round." [laughter.] [illustration: _the minute man_ _photogravure after a photograph_ in commemoration of the famous revolutionary struggle of the farmers of concord, mass., april , , this statue was erected. the sculptor was daniel chester french, a native of concord. the statue was unveiled at the centennial celebration of the battle, . it is of bronze, heroic size, and stands near the town of concord, by the battlefield, on the side of the concord river occupied by the americans. the position is described by ralph waldo emerson in his lines which are graven in the pedestal of the statue: "by the rude bridge that arched the flood, their flag to april's breeze unfurled, here once the embattled farmers stood, and fired the shot heard round the world."] such are the inventive faculty and self-reliance of new englanders that they always entertain a profound respect for impossibilities. it has been largely owing to their influence that we took the negro, who is a natural agriculturist, and made a soldier of him; took the indian, who is a natural warrior, and made an agriculturist of him; took the american, who is a natural destructionist, and made a protectionist of him. they are always revolutionizing affairs. recently a boston company equipped with electricity the horse-cars, or rather the mule-cars, in the streets of atlanta. when the first electric-motor cars were put into service an aged "contraband" looked at them from the street corner and said: "dem yankees is a powerful sma't people; furst dey come down h'yar and freed de niggers, now dey've done freed de mules." [laughter.] the new englander is so constantly engaged in creating changes that in his eyes even variety appears monotonous. when a german subject finds himself oppressed by his government he emigrates; when a french citizen is oppressed he makes the government emigrate; when americans find a portion of their government trying to emigrate they arm themselves and spend four years in going after it and bringing it back. [laughter and applause.] you will find the sons of new england everywhere throughout the world, and they are always at the fore. i happened to be at a french banquet in paris where several of us americans spoke, employing that form of the french language which is so often used by americans in france, and which is usually so successful in concealing one's ideas from the natives. there was a young bostonian there who believed he had successfully mastered all the most difficult modern languages except that which is spoken by the brake-men on the elevated railroads. when he spoke french the only departure from the accent of the parisian was that _nuance_ of difference arising from the mere accidental circumstance of one having learned his french in paris and the other in boston. the french give much praise to molière for having changed the pronunciation of a great many french words; but his most successful efforts in that direction were far surpassed by the boston young man. when he had finished his remarks a french gentleman sitting beside me inquired: "where is he from?" i replied: "from new england." said he: "i don't see anything english about him except his french." [laughter.] in speaking of the sons of new england sires, i know that one name is uppermost in all minds here to-night--the name of one who added new lustre to the fame of his distinguished ancestors. the members of your society, like the nation at large, found themselves within the shadow of a profound grief, and oppressed by a sense of sadness akin to the sorrow of a personal bereavement, as they stood with uncovered heads beside the bier of william t. sherman; when the echo of his guns gave place to the tolling of cathedral bells; when the flag of his country, which had never been lowered in his presence, dropped to half-mast, as if conscious that his strong arm was no longer there to hold it to the peak; when he passed from the living here to join the other living, commonly called the dead. we shall never meet the great soldier again until he stands forth to answer to his name at roll-call on the morning of the last great reveille. at this board he was always a thrice welcome guest. the same blood coursed in his veins which flows in yours. all hearts warmed to him with the glow of an abiding affection. he was a many-sided man. he possessed all the characteristics of the successful soldier: bold in conception, vigorous in execution, and unshrinking under grave responsibilities. he was singularly self-reliant, demonstrating by all his acts that "much danger makes great hearts most resolute." he combined in his temperament the restlessness of a hotspur with the patience of a fabius. under the magnetism of his presence his troops rushed to victory with all the dash of cæsar's tenth legion. opposing ranks went down before the fierceness of his onsets, never to rise again. he paused not till he saw the folds of his banners wave above the strongholds he had wrested from the foe. while mankind will always appreciate the practical workings of the mind of the great strategist, they will also see in his marvellous career much which savors of romance as well as reality, appeals to the imagination and excites the fancy. they will picture him as a legendary knight moving at the head of conquering columns, whose marches were measured not by single miles, but by thousands; as a general who could make a christmas gift to his president of a great seaboard city; as a chieftain whose field of military operations covered nearly half a continent; who had penetrated everglades and bayous; the inspiration of whose commands forged weaklings into giants; whose orders all spoke with the true bluntness of the soldier; who fought from valley's depth to mountain height, and marched from inland rivers to the sea. no one can rob him of his laurels; no man can lessen the measure of his fame. his friends will never cease to sing pæans in his honor, and even the wrath of his enemies may be counted in his praise. [prolonged applause.] * * * * * the assimilated dutchman [speech of horace porter at the fourth annual dinner of the poughkeepsie district members of the holland society of new york, october , . the banquet was held in commemoration of the relief of the siege of leyden, . j. william beekman, the president, introduced general porter as follows: "gentlemen, we will now proceed to a toast that we shall all enjoy, i am sure, after so much has been said about the dutch. this toast is to be responded to by a gentleman whom we all know. it is hardly necessary to introduce him. but i will read the sentiment attached to this toast: 'the american: formed of the blendings of the best strains of europe, he cannot be worthy of his ancestry without combining in himself the best qualities of them all.' and i call upon general horace porter to respond."] mr. president and gentlemen:--we speakers have naturally been a little embarrassed at the outset this evening, for just as we were about to break into speech, your president reminded us that the only one worthy of having a monument built to his memory was william the silent. well, it seemed to carry me back to those ancient days of greece, when pythagoras inaugurated his school of silence, and called on damocles to make the opening speech. your president has shown from the start this evening that he is determined to enforce discipline, totally regardless of previous acquaintance. he appears to have been in a shakespearian mood to-night. he seemed to be looking at each one of these alleged speakers and saying of him: "therefore, i'll watch him till he be dieted to my request and then i will set upon him." but he must remember that shakespeare also said: "dainty bits make rich the ribs, but bankrupt quite the wits." i do not know how the rest of you feel, but after these delicious but somewhat plethoric dinners, i feel very much like mr. butterby, when his lavender-colored trousers were sent to him the night before his wedding, and he returned them to the tailor with a note saying, "let them out two inches around the waist, which will leave a margin for emotion and the wedding breakfast." [laughter.] now, we speakers to-night cannot expect to be received with any vast ebullition of boisterous enthusiasm here, for we understand that every member pays for his own wine. besides, i am sure that you will not be likely to get any more ideas from me than you would get lather from a cake of hotel soap. after having wrestled with about thirty dishes at this dinner, and after all this being called upon to speak, i feel a great sympathy with that woman in ireland who had had something of a field-day on hand. she began by knocking down two somewhat unpopular agents of her absentee landlord, and was seen, later in the day, dancing a jig on the stomach of the prostrate form of the presbyterian minister. one of her friends admired her prowess in this direction and invited her in, and gave her a good stiff glass of whiskey. her friend said, "shall i pour some water in your whiskey?" and the woman replied, "for god's sake, haven't i had trouble enough already to-day?" [laughter.] i am a little at a loss still to know how i got into this company to-night. i begin to feel like some of those united states senators who, after they have reached washington, look around and wonder how they got there. the nearest approach to being decorated with a sufficiently aristocratic epithet to make me worthy of admission to this society was when i used to visit outside of my native state and be called a "pennsylvania dutchman." but history tells us that at the beginning of the revolution there was a battle fought at breed's hill, and it was called the battle of bunker hill, because it was not fought there; and i suppose i have been brought into this dutch society to-night because i am not a dutchman. [laughter.] i have great admiration for these dutchmen; they always get to the front. when they appear in new york they are always invited to seats on the roof; when they go into an orchestra, they are always given one of the big fiddles to play; and when they march in a procession, they are always sure to get a little ahead of the band. this society differs materially from other so-called foreign societies. when we meet the english, we invariably refer to the common stock from which we sprang, but in the dutch society the stock is always preferred! and when a dutchman dies, why, his funeral is like that funeral of abel, who was killed by his brother cain--no one is allowed to attend unless he belongs to a first family. [laughter.] now, a dutchman is only happy when he gets a "van" attached to the front of his name, and a "dam" to the rear end of the city from which his ancestors came. i notice they are all very particular about the "dam." [laughter.] there was a lady--a new york young lady--who had been spending several years in england and had just returned. she had posed awhile as a professional beauty. then she attempted to marry into the aristocracy, but the market for titles was a little dull that year and she came home. she had lived there long enough to become an anglomaniac. she met a dutchman in new york--i think he was a member of the holland society--and she said: "everything seems so remarkably commonplace here, after getting back from england; i am sure you must admit that there is nothing so romantic here as in england." the dutchman remarked: "well, i don't know about that." she said: "i was stopping at a place in the country, with one of the members of the aristocracy, and there was a little piece of water--a sort of miniature lake, as it were--so sweet. the waters were confined by little rustic walls, so to speak, and that was called the 'earl's oath'; we have nothing so romantic in new york, i'm sure." said the dutchman: "oh, yes, here we have mccomb's dam." [laughter.] but, mr. president, i certainly am in earnest sympathy with the patriotic sentiment expressed in the toast which you have been pleased to assign to me to-night, saying, in effect, that the american is composed of the best strains of europe, and the american cannot be worthy of his ancestors unless he aims to combine within himself the good qualities of all. america has gained much by being the conglomerate country that she is, made up of a commingling of the blood of other races. it is a well-known fact in the crossing of breeds that the best traits predominate in the result. we in this land, have gained much from the purity of those bloods; we have suffered little from the taint. it is well in this material age, when we are dwelling so much upon posterity, not to be altogether oblivious to pedigree. it has been well said that he who does not respect his ancestors will never be likely to achieve anything for which his descendants will respect him. man learns but very little in this world from precept; he learns something from experience; he learns much from example, and the "best teachers of humanity are the lives of worthy men." we have a great many admirable so-called foreign societies in new york, and they are all doing good work--good work in collecting interesting historical data in regard to the ancestors who begat them; in regard to the lands from which they came--good work in the broad field of charity. but it is the holland society which seems to be a little closer to us than the others--more _our_ society, even with those of us who have no dutch blood in our veins. we feel that these old dutch names are really more closely associated in our minds with the city of new york than with holland itself. the men from whom you sprang were well calculated to carry on the great work undertaken by them. in the first place, in that good old land they had educated the conscience. the conscience never lost its hold upon the man. he stood as firm in his convictions as the rock to its base. his religion was a religion of the soul, and not of the senses. he might have broken the tables of stone on which the laws were written; he never would have broken those laws themselves. he turned neither to the past with regret nor to the future with apprehension. he was a man inured to trials; practised in self-abnegation; educated in the severe school of adversity; and that little band which set out from holland to take up its career in the new world was well calculated to undertake the work which providence had marked out for them. those men had had breathed into their nostrils at their very birth the true spirit of liberty. somehow or other liberty seemed to be indigenous in that land. they imbibed that true spirit of liberty which does not mean unbridled license of the individual, but that spirit of liberty which can turn blind submission into rational obedience; that spirit of liberty which hall says stifles the voices of kings, dissipates the mists of superstition, kindles the flames of art, and pours happiness into the laps of the people. those men started out boldly upon the ocean; they paused not until they dipped the fringes of their banners in the waters of the western seas. they built up this great metropolis. they bore their full share in building up this great nation and in planting in it their pure principles. they builded even better than they knew. in the past year i think our people have been more inclined than ever before to pause and contemplate how big with events is the history of this land. it was developed by people who believed not in the "divine right of kings," but in the divine right of human liberty. if we may judge the future progress of this land by its progress in the past, it does not require that one should be endowed with prophetic vision to predict that in the near future this young but giant republic will dominate the policy of the world. america was not born amidst the mysteries of barbaric ages; and it is about the only nation which knows its own birthday. woven of the stoutest fibres of other lands, nurtured by a commingling of the best blood of other races, america has now cast off the swaddling-clothes of infancy, and stands forth erect, clothed in robes of majesty and power, in which the god who made her intends that she shall henceforth tread the earth; and to-day she may be seen moving down the great highways of history, teaching by example; moving at the head of the procession of the world's events; marching in the van of civilized and christianized liberty, her manifest destiny to light the torch of liberty till it illumines the entire pathway of the world, and till human freedom and human rights become the common heritage of mankind. [applause.] * * * * * tribute to general grant [speech of horace porter at the banquet of the army of the tennessee, upon the occasion of the inauguration of the grant equestrian statue in chicago, october , .] mr. chairman:--when a man from the armies of the east finds himself in the presence of men of the armies of the west, he feels that he cannot strike their gait. he can only look at them wistfully and say, in the words of charles ii, "i always admired virtue, but i never could imitate it." [laughter.] if i do not in the course of my remarks succeed in seeing each one of you, it will be because the formation of the army of the tennessee to-night is like its formation in the field, when it won its matchless victories, the heavy columns in the centre. [an allusion to the large columns in the room.] [laughter.] almost all the conspicuous characters in history have risen to prominence by gradual steps, but ulysses s. grant seemed to come before the people with a sudden bound. almost the first sight they caught of him was in the flashes of his guns, and the blaze of his camp-fires, those wintry days and nights in front of donelson. from that hour until the closing triumph at appomattox he was the leader whose name was the harbinger of victory. from the final sheath of his sword until the tragedy on mount mcgregor he was the chief citizen of the republic and the great central figure of the world. [applause.] the story of his life savors more of romance than reality. it is more like a fabled tale of ancient days than the history of an american citizen of the nineteenth century. as light and shade produce the most attractive effects in a picture, so the singular contrasts, the strange vicissitudes in his marvellous career, surround him with an interest which attaches to few characters in history. his rise from an obscure lieutenancy to the command of the veteran armies of the republic; his transition from a frontier post of the untrodden west to the executive mansion of the nation; his sitting at one time in his little store in galena, not even known to the congressman from his own district; at another time striding through the palaces of the old world, with the descendants of a line of kings rising and standing uncovered in his presence [applause.]--these are some of the features of his extraordinary career which appeal to the imagination, excite men's wonder, and fascinate all who read the story of his life. [applause.] general grant possessed in a striking degree all the characteristics of the successful soldier. his methods were all stamped with tenacity of purpose, with originality and ingenuity. he depended for his success more upon the powers of invention than of adaptation, and the fact that he has been compared, at different times, to nearly every great commander in history is perhaps the best proof that he was like none of them. he was possessed of a moral and physical courage which was equal to every emergency in which he was placed: calm amidst excitement, patient under trials, never unduly elated by victory or depressed by defeat. while he possessed a sensitive nature and a singularly tender heart, yet he never allowed his sentiments to interfere with the stern duties of the soldier. he knew better than to attempt to hew rocks with a razor. he realized that paper bullets cannot be fired in warfare. he felt that the hardest blows bring the quickest results; that more men die from disease in sickly camps than from shot and shell in battle. his magnanimity to foes, his generosity to friends, will be talked of as long as manly qualities are honored. [applause.] you know after vicksburg had succumbed to him he said in his order: "the garrison will march out to-morrow. instruct your commands to be quiet and orderly as the prisoners pass by, and make no offensive remarks." after lee's surrender at appomattox, when our batteries began to fire triumphal salutes, he at once suppressed them, saying, in his order: "the war is over; the rebels are again our countrymen; the best way to celebrate the victory will be to abstain from all demonstrations in the field." [applause.] after the war general lee and his officers were indicted in the civil courts of virginia by directions of a president who was endeavoring to make treason odious and succeeding in making nothing so odious as himself. [applause.] general lee appealed to his old antagonist for protection. he did not appeal to that heart in vain. general grant at once took up the cudgels in his defence, threatened to resign his office if such officers were indicted while they continued to obey their paroles, and such was the logic of his argument and the force of his character that those indictments were soon after quashed. so that he penned no idle platitude; he fashioned no stilted epigrams; he spoke the earnest convictions of an honest heart when he said, "let us have peace." [applause.] he never tired of giving unstinted praise to worthy subordinates for the work they did. like the chief artists who weave the gobelin tapestries, he was content to stand behind the cloth and let those in front appear to be the chief contributors to the beauty of the fabric. [applause.] one of the most beautiful chapters in all history is that which records the generous relations existing between him and sherman, that great soldier who for so many years was the honored head of this society, that great chieftain whom men will always love to picture as a legendary knight moving at the head of conquering columns, whose marches were measured not by single miles, but by thousands; whose field of military operations covered nearly half a continent; whose orders always spoke with the true bluntness of the soldier; who fought from valley's depths to mountain heights, and marched from inland rivers to the sea. [applause.] their rivalry manifested itself only in one respect--the endeavor of each to outdo the other in generosity. with hearts untouched by jealousy, with souls too great for rivalry, each stood ready to abandon the path of ambition when it became so narrow that two could not tread it abreast. [applause.] if there be one single word in all the wealth of the english language which best describes the predominating trait of general grant's character, that word is "loyalty." [applause.] loyal to every great cause and work he was engaged in; loyal to his friends; loyal to his family; loyal to his country; loyal to his god. [applause.] this produced a reciprocal effect in all who came in contact with him. it was one of the chief reasons why men became so loyally attached to him. it is true that this trait so dominated his whole character that it led him to make mistakes; it induced him to continue to stand by men who were no longer worthy of his confidence; but after all, it was a trait so grand, so noble, we do not stop to count the errors which resulted. [applause.] it showed him to be a man who had the courage to be just, to stand between worthy men and their unworthy slanderers, and to let kindly sentiments have a voice in an age in which the heart played so small a part in public life. many a public man has had hosts of followers because they fattened on the patronage dispensed at his hands; many a one has had troops of adherents because they were blind zealots in a cause he represented, but perhaps no man but general grant had so many friends who loved him for his own sake; whose attachment strengthened only with time; whose affection knew neither variableness, nor shadow of turning; who stuck to him as closely as the toga to nessus, whether he was captain, general, president, or simply private citizen. [great applause.] general grant was essentially created for great emergencies; it was the very magnitude of the task which called forth the powers which mastered it. in ordinary matters he was an ordinary man. in momentous affairs he towered as a giant. when he served in a company there was nothing in his acts to distinguish him from the fellow-officers; but when he wielded corps and armies the great qualities of the commander flashed forth and his master strokes of genius placed him at once in the front rank of the world's great captains. when he hauled wood from his little farm and sold it in the streets of st. louis there was nothing in his business or financial capacity different from that of the small farmers about him; but when, as president of the republic, he found it his duty to puncture the fallacy of the inflationists, to throttle by a veto the attempt of unwise legislators to tamper with the american credit, he penned a state paper so logical, so masterly, that it has ever since been the pride, wonder, and admiration of every lover of an honest currency. [applause.] he was made for great things, not for little. he could collect for the nation $ , , from great britain in settlement of the alabama claims; he could not protect his own personal savings from the miscreants who robbed him in wall street. but general grant needs no eulogist. his name is indelibly engraved upon the hearts of his countrymen. his services attest his greatness. he did his duty and trusted to history for his meed of praise. the more history discusses him, the more brilliant becomes the lustre of his deeds. his record is like a torch; the more it is shaken, the brighter it burns. his name will stand imperishable when epitaphs have vanished utterly, and monuments and statues have crumbled into dust; but the people of this great city, everywhere renowned for their deeds of generosity, have covered themselves anew with glory in fashioning in enduring bronze, in rearing in monumental rock that magnificent tribute to his worth which was to-day unveiled in the presence of countless thousands. as i gazed upon its graceful lines and colossal proportions i was reminded of that child-like simplicity which was mingled with the majestic grandeur of his nature. the memories clustering about it will recall the heroic age of the republic; it will point the path of loyalty to children yet unborn; its mute eloquence will plead for equal sacrifice, should war ever again threaten the nation's life; generations yet to come will pause to read the inscription which it bears, and the voices of a grateful people will ascend from the consecrated spot on which it stands, as incense rises from holy places, invoking blessings upon the memory of him who had filled to the very full the largest measure of human greatness and covered the earth with his renown. [applause.] an indescribably touching incident happened which will ever be memorable and which never can be effaced from the memory of those who witnessed it. even at this late date i can scarcely trust my own feelings to recall it. it was on decoration day in the city of new york, the last one he ever saw on earth. that morning the members of the grand army of the republic, the veterans in that vicinity, arose earlier than was their wont. they seemed to spend more time that morning in unfurling the old battle flags, in burnishing the medals of honor which decorated their breasts, for on that day they had determined to march by the house of their dying commander to give him a last marching salute. in the streets the columns were forming; inside the house on that bed, from which he was never to rise again, lay the stricken chief. the hand which had seized the surrendered swords of countless thousands could scarcely return the pressure of the friendly grasp. the voice which had cheered on to triumphant victory the legions of america's manhood, could no longer call for the cooling draught which slaked the thirst of a fevered tongue; and prostrate on that bed of anguish lay the form which in the new world had ridden at the head of the conquering column, which in the old world had been deemed worthy to stand with head covered and feet sandaled in the presence of princes, kings, and emperors. now his ear caught the sound of martial music. bands were playing the same strains which had mingled with the echoes of his guns at vicksburg, the same quick-steps to which his men had sped in hot haste in pursuit of lee through virginia. and then came the heavy, measured steps of moving columns, a step which can be acquired only by years of service in the field. he recognized it all now. it was the tread of his old veterans. with his little remaining strength he arose and dragged himself to the window. as he gazed upon those battle-flags dipping to him in salute, those precious standards bullet-riddled, battle-stained, but remnants of their former selves, with scarcely enough left of them on which to print the names of the battles they had seen, his eyes once more kindled with the flames which had lighted them at shiloh, on the heights of chattanooga, amid the glories of appomattox; and as those war-scarred veterans looked with uncovered heads and upturned faces for the last time upon the pallid features of their old chief, cheeks which had been bronzed by southern suns and begrimed with powder, were bathed in the tears of a manly grief. soon they saw rising the hand which had so often pointed out to them the path of victory. he raised it slowly and painfully to his head in recognition of their salutations. the column had passed, the hand fell heavily by his side. it was his last military salute. [long continued applause and cheers.] noah porter teachings of science and religion [speech of rev. dr. noah porter, president of yale college, at the seventy-second anniversary banquet of the new england society in the city of new york, december , . the president of the society, william borden, occupied the chair. this speech of president porter followed a speech of president eliot of harvard. the two presidents spoke in response to the toast: "harvard and yale, the two elder sisters among the educational institutions of new england, where generous rivalry has ever promoted patriotism and learning. their children have, in peace and war, in life and death, deserved well of the republic. smile, heaven, upon this fair conjunction."] mr. president and gentlemen of the new england society:--the somewhat miscellaneous character of the sentiment which has called me up embarrasses me not a little as to which of the points i should select as the subject of my remarks. i am still more embarrassed by the introduction of additional topics on the part of my friend, the president of harvard college. the president knows that it is our custom to meet once a year, and discuss all the matters to which he has referred, as often as we meet. [laughter.] he knows also that he was providentially prevented, by a very happy occurrence to himself, from attending our last college convention; and in consequence of his absence, for which we all excused and congratulated him, the meeting was more than usually tame. [laughter.] now, i find that all the sentiments which he had been gathering for a year have been precipitated upon me on this occasion. [laughter.] i rejoice that his excellency, the president of the united states, and the distinguished secretary of state [rutherford b. hayes and william m. evarts], are between us. [laughter.] for here is a special occasion for the application of the policy of peace. [laughter.] i therefore reserve what few remarks i shall make upon this special theme for a moment later. the first point in the sentiment proposed recognizes new england as the mother of two colleges. i think we should do well also to call to mind, especially under the circumstances by which we are surrounded this evening, that new england was not merely the mother of two colleges which have had some influence in this land, but that new england, with all its glory and its achievements, was, in a certain sense, the creation of a college. it would be easy to show that had it not been for the existence of one or two rather inferior colleges of the university of cambridge in england, there never would have been a new england. in these colleges were gathered and trained not a few of the great leaders of opinion under whose influence the father of new england became a great political power in the mother country. it is not to the pilgrim fathers alone who landed at plymouth on december , , that new england owes its characteristic principles and its splendid renown, but it is also to the leaders of the great puritan party in england, who reinforced that immigration by the subsequent higher and nobler life of the planters of massachusetts bay, conspicuous among whom was the distinguished and ever-to-be-honored governor winthrop. [applause.] it was from these colleges that so many strong-hearted young men went forth into political public life in england to act the scholar in politics, and who, as scholars in politics, enunciated those new principles and new theories of government which made old england glorious for a time, and which made new england the power for good which she afterward became, first at her home in the old states, and in all their extension westward even to this hour. these scholars sought emphatically a reform of the civil service in england. that was their mission. they vindicated their principles upon the scaffold and their rights upon the field of battle at home, and they transmitted that spirit to the emigrants who came out from among them before the great rebellion reached its great crisis and finished its memorable history. while, then, we honor the universities of which new england has been the mother, let us remember that new england owes its being to a university. in remembering this, we shall be prepared to follow in the steps of our fathers, and to be mindful of what we ourselves owe to our own institutions of learning. in respect to the rivalry between yale and harvard, which was noticed in the sentiment to which i speak, and in reply to the suggestions which have been offered by the president of harvard, i will venture a single remark. you, sir, who are learned in our new england history, are not unfamiliar with the saying which was once somewhat current, that when a man was found in boston, in the earlier generations, who was a little too bad to live with, they sent him to rhode island [laughter.]; and when they found a man who was a little too good to be a comfortable neighbor, they sent him to connecticut. [laughter.] the remainder--the men of average respectability and worth--were allowed to remain on the shores of massachusetts bay and in boston. and so it happened that these people of average goodness, from constantly looking each other in the face, contracted the habit of always praising one another with especial emphasis; and the habit has not been altogether outgrown. [laughter.] the people of rhode island, being such as i have described, found it necessary to have certain principles of toleration to suit their peculiar condition, which they denominated the principles of soul liberty. the people of connecticut, being so very good, could not allow their goodness to remain at home, and they very soon proceeded on a missionary errand westward toward the city of new york, and in due time captured the harbor and the infant city, and the great river of the north. in this way, new york fell into the hands of those super-excellent connecticut yankees, and with that began the stream of emigration westward which has made our country what it is. [laughter and applause.] perhaps this piece of history is about as good an explanation of the jealousy of yale toward harvard as the interpretation which has been given by the president of that honorable university--that yale college was founded because of the discontent of the self-righteous puritans of connecticut with the religious opinions of the ruling spirits at harvard. [laughter.] that piece of information has been amply discussed and exploded by an able critic, and i will not repeat the arguments here. as to any present rivalry which may exist between those institutions, we disclaim it altogether. we know no jealousy of harvard college now. we acknowledge no rivalry except in the great enterprise of training upright and intelligent and good-principled men for the service and the glory of our common land. [applause, and cries of "hear! hear!"] but there is one means to this end you may be sure we shall always insist upon--and that is the principle which we have received from our fathers, that manhood and character are better than knowledge. the training which our country demands is that which we intend always to give; and it is a training in manhood of intelligence, in manhood of character, and in a constant, ever-present faith in the providence and goodness of the living god. [applause.] i deem it proper here to remind you, that yale college was foremost among the american colleges in cherishing the taste for physical science, and that these sciences, in all their forms, have received from us the most liberal attention and care. if any of you doubt this, we would like to show you our museum, with its collections, which represent all that the most recent explorations have been able to gather. in these well-ordered collections you would find as satisfactory an exhibition of results as you could ask for. [applause.] you need not fear, however, that, because we believe in science, we have learned any more to disbelieve in the living god. as we stand in the midst of one of the halls of our splendid museum, and see arrayed before us all the forms of vertebrate life, from man down to the lowest type, and see how one and the other suggests the progress--the evolution, if you please--during we care not how many centuries of advancing life; the more closely we study these indications, the more distinctly do we see lines of thought, of intelligence, and goodness reflected from one structure to another, and all declaring that a divine thought and love has ordered each and all. [applause.] hence we find no inconsistency between the teachings of this museum on the one corner and the teachings of the college chapel on the other. [applause.] we therefore commit ourselves, in the presence of all these sons of new england, whether they live in this city of their habitation and their glory, or whether they are residents of other cities and states of the north and northwest, to the solemn declaration, that we esteem it to be our duty to train our pupils on the one hand in enlightened science, and on the other in the living power of the christian faith. [applause.] we are certainly not sectarian. it is enough that i say that we aim to be enlightened christian believers, and with those hopes and those aspirations we trust that the next generation of men whom we shall educate will do their part in upholding this country in fidelity to its obligations of duty, in fidelity to every form of integrity, in generous self-sacrifice on the field of contest, if it be required, and in christian sympathy with the toleration and forbearance which should come after the fight. [applause.] henry codman potter the church [speech of rev. dr. henry c. potter, protestant episcopal bishop of new york, at the seventy-third annual dinner of the new england society in the city of new york, december , . daniel f. appleton presided and proposed the toast, "the church--a fountain of charity and good works, which is not established, but establishes itself, by god's blessing, in men's hearts."] mr. president:--i take up the strain where the distinguished senator from maine [james g. blaine] has dropped it. i would fain be with him one of those who should see a typical new england dinner spread upon a table at which miles standish and john alden sat, and upon which should be spread viands of which john alden and miles standish and the rest, two hundred and seventy-three years ago, partook. i would fain see something more, or rather i would fain hear something more--and that is, the sentiments of those who gathered about that table, and the measure in which those sentiments accorded with the sentiments of those who sit at these tables to-night. [applause.] why, mr. president, the viands of which john alden and miles standish partook did not differ more radically from the splendor of this banquet than did the sentiments with which the puritans came to these shores differ from the sentiments of the men who gather in this room to-night. if it had happened to them as it happened to a distinguished company in new england, where an eminent new england divine was called upon to lead in prayer, their feelings would have been as little wounded as those against whom he offered up his petition; or rather, if i were here to-night to denounce their sentiments as to religious toleration, in which they did not believe; their sentiments as to the separation of the church from the state, in which they did not believe any more than they believed in religious toleration; their sentiments as to democracy, in which they did not believe any more than they believed in religious toleration--those of us who are here and who do believe in these things would be as little wounded as the company to which i have referred. the distinguished divine to whom i have alluded was called upon to offer prayer, some fifty years ago, in a mixed company, when, in accordance with the custom of the times, he included in his petition to the almighty a large measure of anathema, as "we beseech thee, o lord! to overwhelm the tyrant! we beseech thee to overwhelm and to pull down the oppressor! we beseech thee to overwhelm and pull down the papist!" and then opening his eyes, and seeing that a roman catholic archbishop and his secretary were present, he saw he must change the current of his petitions if he would be courteous to his audience, and said vehemently, "we beseech thee, o lord! we beseech thee--we beseech thee--we beseech thee to pull down and overwhelm the hottentot!" said some one to him when the prayer was over, "my dear brother, why were you so hard upon the hottentot?" "well," said he, "the fact is, when i opened my eyes and looked around, between the paragraphs in the prayer, at the assembled guests, i found that the hottentots were the only people who had not some friends among the company." [laughter.] gentlemen of the new england society, if i were to denounce the views of the puritans to-night, they would be like the hottentots. [laughter.] nay more, if one of their number were to come into this banqueting hall and sit down at this splendid feast, so unlike what he had been wont to see, and were to expound his views as to constitutional liberty and as to religious toleration, or as to the relations of the church to the state, i am very much afraid that you and i would be tempted to answer him as an american answered an english traveller in a railway-carriage in belgium. said this englishman, whom i happened to meet in brussels, and who recognized me as an american citizen: "your countrymen have a very strange conception of the english tongue: i never heard any people who speak the english language in such an odd way as the americans do." "what do you mean?" i said; "i supposed that in the american states the educated and cultivated people spoke the english tongue with the utmost propriety, with the same accuracy and the same classical refinement as yours." he replied: "i was travelling hither, and found sitting opposite an intelligent gentleman, who turned out to be an american. i went on to explain to him my views as to the late unpleasantness in america. i told him how profoundly i deplored the results of the civil war. that i believed the interests of good government would have been better advanced if the south, rather than the north, had triumphed. i showed him at great length how, if the south had succeeded, you would have been able to have laid in that land, first, the foundations of an aristocracy, and then from that would have grown a monarchy; how by the planters you would have got a noble class, and out of that class you would have got a king; and after i had drawn this picture i showed to him what would have been the great and glorious result; and what do you think was his reply to these views? he turned round, looked me coolly in the face, and said, 'why, what a blundering old cuss you are!'" [great laughter.] gentlemen, if one of our new england ancestors were here to-night, expounding his views to us, i am very much afraid that you and i would be tempted to turn round and say: "why, what a blundering old cuss you are!" [renewed laughter.] but, mr. president, though all this is true, the seeds of our liberty, our toleration, our free institutions, our "church, not established by law, but establishing itself in the hearts of men," were all in the simple and single devotion of the truth so far as it was revealed to them, which was the supreme characteristic of our new england forefathers. with them religion and the church meant supremely personal religion, and obedience to the personal conscience. it meant truth and righteousness, obedience and purity, reverence and intelligence in the family, in the shop, in the field, and on the bench. it meant compassion and charity toward the savages among whom they found themselves, and good works as the daily outcome of a faith which, if stern, was steadfast and undaunted. and so, mr. president, however the sentiments and opinions of our ancestors may seem to have differed from ours, those new england ancestors did believe in a church that included and incarnated those ideas of charity and love and brotherhood to which you have referred; and if, to-day, the church of new york, whatever name it may bear, is to be maintained, as one of your distinguished guests has said, not for ornament but for use, it is because the hard, practical, and yet, when the occasion demanded, large-minded and open-hearted spirit of the new england ancestors shall be in it. [applause.] said an english swell footman, with his calves nearly as large as his waist, having been called upon by the lady of the house to carry a coal-scuttle from the cellar to the second story, "madam, ham i for use, or ham i for hornament?" [laughter.] i believe it to be the mind of the men of new england ancestry who live in new york to-day, that the church, if it is to exist here, shall exist for use, and not for ornament; that it shall exist to make our streets cleaner, to make our tenement-houses better built and better drained and better ventilated; to respect the rights of the poor man in regard to fresh air and light, as well as the rights of the rich man. and in order that it shall do these things, and that the church of new york shall exist not for ornament but for use, i, as one of the descendants of new england ancestors, ask no better thing for it than that it shall have, not only among those who fill its pulpits, men of new england ancestry, but also among those who sit in its pews men of new england brains and new england sympathies, and new england catholic generosity! [continued applause.] roger atkinson pryor virginia's part in american history [speech of roger a. pryor at the annual banquet of the new york state bar association, given in the city of albany, january , . the president, martin w. cooke, introduced justice pryor in these words: "the next in order is the benediction. there is no poetical sentiment accompanying this toast, but if you will bear with me i promise you learning, poetry, and eloquence. to that end i call upon general roger a. pryor."] mr. chairman:--i don't know what i am to respond to. i have no text; i have no topic. what am i to talk about? i am not only unlike other gentlemen, taken by surprise, but i am absolutely without a subject, and what am i to say? i don't know but that, as his excellency the governor of this imperial state expatiated, eloquently and justly, upon the achievements and glories of new york, it might be pardoned me in saying something of my own native state. what has virginia done for our common country? what names has she contributed to your historic roll? she has given you george washington. [applause.] she has given you patrick henry, who first sounded the signal of revolt against great britain. she has given you john marshall, who so profoundly construed the constitution formed by madison and hamilton. she has given you thomas jefferson, the author of the declaration of independence. [applause.] she has given you madison and monroe. where is there such a galaxy of great men known to history? you talk of the age of pericles and of augustus, but remember, gentlemen, that at that day virginia had a population of only one-half the population of the city of brooklyn to-day, and yet these are the men that she then produced to illustrate the glory of americans. and what has virginia done for our union? because sometime a rebel, as i was, i say now that it is _my_ union. [applause.] as i have already said it was a virginian--patrick henry--kinsman, by the way, of lord brougham, kinsman of robertson, the historian, not a plebeian as some would represent, and one nominated by george washington to be justice of the supreme court of the united states, which nomination was carried to him by light-horse harry lee--i mention that because there is a notion that patrick henry was no lawyer. he was a consummate lawyer, else george washington would never have proposed him to be chief justice of the supreme court of the united states; and he was a reading man, too, a scholar, deeply learned, and he printed at his own expense soame jenyns' work upon the internal evidence of christianity. he was a profound student, not of many books, but of a few books and of human nature. he first challenged great britain by his resolutions against the stamp act in , and then it was that virginia, apropos of what you said to-day in your admirable discourse--i address myself to judge cooley--virginia was the first free and independent people on earth that formulated a written complete constitution. i affirm that the constitution of virginia in was the first written constitution known to history adopted by the people. and the frontispiece and the fundamental principle of that constitution, was the bill of rights--that bill of rights, drawn by george mason, you, gentlemen, in your constitution of new york, from your first constitution to your last, have adopted. so when you expatiate upon the merits of written-over prescriptive constitutions, and with such eloquence and convincing force, i beg you to remember that this now forlorn and bereaved commonwealth was the first people on earth that ever promulgated a formal, complete, written constitution, dividing the functions of government in separate departments and reposing it for its authority upon the will of the people. jefferson gave you the declaration of independence in pursuance of a resolution adopted by the legislature of virginia, instructing the delegates in the continental congress to propose a declaration of independence. the first suggestion of your more perfect union came from the legislature of virginia in january, , and your federal constitution is construed upon the lines laid down by edmund randolph, and proposed in the convention as the basis of the constitution which resulted in your now incomparable, as mr. gladstone says, incomparable instrument of government. furthermore, your great northwest, your states of ohio and michigan, whose jurisprudence judge cooley so signally illustrates, indiana and others, to whom are you indebted that this vast and fertile and glorious country is an integral part of our union? you are indebted to a virginian, to patrick henry, then the governor of virginia, for the expedition to the northwest headed by george rogers clark, as he was called, the hannibal of the new world, who with three hundred untrained militia conquered for you that vast domain of the northwest, which virginia, in her devotion to the union gave, a free donation with magnanimity surpassing that of lear. she divided her possession with her associates, and let me add, it has not been requited with the ingratitude of lear's daughters, for the disposition and the policy of this government toward virginia at the end of the war, and toward the people of the south has been characterized by a magnanimity and clemency unparalleled in the history of the world. [applause.] you must remember that the war commenced, as you gentlemen believe, without provocation; we believe otherwise. this war so commenced, costing a million of lives and countless millions of treasure, has not been expiated by one drop of retributive blood. [applause.] you must further remember, mr. chairman and gentlemen, that at the formation of the constitution every distinguished virginian was hostile to slavery and advocated its abolition. [applause.] patrick henry, george washington, thomas jefferson, james madison, all without exception, were the enemies of slavery and desired its extinction, and why it was not then abolished i leave you gentlemen to determine by consulting history; it was certainly not the fault of virginia. now will you pardon me, i have been led into these remarks because you did not give me a text, and i had to extemporize one, or rather adopt the suggestion of his excellency, the governor of this state. now, here we are asked, why did virginia go into the war of secession? let me tell you as one who was personally cognizant of the events. twice virginia in her convention voted against the ordinance of secession, the deliberate will of the people of virginia, expressed under circumstances which did not coerce their opinion, was that it was her interest and her duty to remain loyal to the union, but meanwhile a blow was struck at sumter, war, actual war, occurred. what then was the course of virginia? she said to herself, i know i am to be the flanders of this conflict; i know that my fields are to be ravaged and my sons to be slaughtered and my homes to be desolated, but war has occurred, the south is my sister and i will go with her. it was a magnanimous and it was a disinterested resolution, and if her fault was grievous, grievously hath she answered it. when this war occurred, she, beyond dispute, occupied the primacy in the union; she is to-day the niobe of nations, veiled and weeping the loss of her sons, her property confiscated and her homes in ashes. perhaps, you may say, the punishment is not disproportionate to her trespass, but nevertheless there she is, and i say for her, that virginia is loyal to the union. [applause.] and never more, mark what i say, never more will you see from virginia any intimations of hostility to the union; she has weighed the alternative of success, and she sees now, every sensible man in the south sees, that the greatest calamity that could have befallen the south would have been the ascendency of this ill-starred confederacy. [applause.] because that confederacy carried to the utmost extreme, to the _reductio ad absurdum_, the right of secession, carried in its bosom the seed of its own destruction, and even in the progress of war, welded together as we were under pressure, some were so recalcitrant, that the president of the confederacy recommended the suspension of the _habeas corpus_ act for the suppression of disaffection, and let me say, rebels as we were, so true were we to the traditions of anglo-saxon liberty that we never would suspend for a moment that sacred sanction of personal freedom. [applause.] and, moreover, we see now, you will be surprised at what i say, i voice the sentiment of every reflecting man in virginia, and woman too. we see now that slavery was a material and a moral evil, and we exult that the black man is emancipated and stands as our equal under the law. why didn't we see it before? you know the story of the view of the opposite sides of the shield. we had been educated under slavery, our preachers had taught us that it had the sanction of the divine scripture, we never saw any other aspect of the question, but now since it is changed, we look at it and we perceive that slavery is not only incompatible with the moral principles of government, but is hostile to the material interests of the country, and i repeat that to-day, if the people of the south were permitted to vote upon the question to re-establish african slavery, there would not be a hundred votes in the entire south, in favor of reshackling the limbs of the liberated negro. gentlemen, that is the attitude of old virginia, the old dominion, as we proudly call her, and as such i am sure you will pardon her, because when she was in the union she never failed you in any emergency; when you were menaced by the invasion of the british, it was winfield scott and the cockade corps of virginia that repelled the enemy from your shores. old virginia has always been true to the union, if you blot from her history that recent episode which i say you have blotted generously from your memory, and she from hers; we stand now with you, and i have personal testimony of the fact, because coming among you, not only an utter stranger, and having against me natural prejudices as a rebel, nevertheless, i have been received in the state of new york with nothing but courtesy and kindness. mr. benjamin, in england, is no parallel instance, because he went among a people who sympathized with the rebellion, and who, if they had dared to strike would have taken sides with the rebellion, but i came here to those who naturally would have repelled me, but instead of rejecting me, they have kindly taken me to the bosom of their hospitalities and have rewarded me infinitely beyond my merits; and to them, and especially to my brother lawyers of the state of new york, i feel the profoundest gratitude, in attestation of which i trust that when i go, my bones may rest under the green sod of the imperial state. [applause.] josiah quincy welcome to dickens [speech of josiah quincy, jr., at the banquet given by the "young men of boston" at boston, mass., february , , to charles dickens, upon his first visit to america. mr. quincy was the president of the evening. about two hundred gentlemen sat at the tables, the brilliant company including george bancroft, richard h. dana, sr., richard h. dana, jr., washington allston, the painter, oliver wendell holmes, george s. hillard, josiah quincy, president of harvard college, the governor of the state, the mayor of the city, and thomas c. grattan, the british consul.] gentlemen:--the occasion that calls us together is almost unprecedented in the annals of literature. a young man has crossed the ocean, with no hereditary title, no military laurels, no princely fortune, and yet his approach is hailed with pleasure by every age and condition, and on his arrival he is welcomed as a long-known and highly valued friend. how shall we account for this reception? must we not at the first glance conclude with falstaff, "if the rascal have not given me medicines to make me love him, i'll be hanged: it could not be else--i have drunk medicines." but when reflection leads us to the causes of this universal sentiment, we cannot but be struck by the power which mind exercises over mind, even while we are individually separated by time, space, and other conditions of our present being. why should we not welcome him as a friend? have we not walked with him in every scene of varied life? have we not together investigated, with mr. pickwick, the theory of tittlebats? have we not ridden together to the "markis of granby" with old weller on the box, and his son samivel on the dickey? have we not been rook-shooting with mr. winkle, and courting with mr. tupman? have we not played cribbage with "the marchioness," and quaffed the rosy with dick swiveller? tell us not of animal magnetism! we, and thousands of our countrymen, have for years been eating and talking, riding and walking, dancing and sliding, drinking and sleeping, with our distinguished guest, and he never knew of the existence of one of us. is it wonderful that we are delighted to see him, and to return in a measure his unbounded hospitalities? boz a stranger! well may we again exclaim, with sir john falstaff, "d'ye think we didn't know ye?--we knew ye as well as him that made ye." but a jovial fellow is not always the dearest friend; and, although the pleasure of his society would always recommend the progenitor of dick swiveller, "the perpetual grand of the glorious appollers," in a scene like this, yet the respect of grave doctors and of fair ladies proves that there are higher qualities than those of a pleasant companion to recommend and attach them to our distinguished guest. what is the charm that unites so many suffrages? it is that in the lightest hours, and in the most degraded scenes which he has portrayed, there has been a reforming object and a moral tone, not formally thrust into the canvas, but infused into the spirit of the picture, with those natural touches whose contemplation never tires. with what a power of delineation have the abuses of his institutions been portrayed! how have the poor-house, the jail, the police courts of justice, passed before his magic mirror, and displayed to us the petty tyranny of the low-minded official, from the magnificent mr. bumble, and the hard-hearted mr. roker, to the authoritative justice fang, the positive judge starleigh! and as we contemplate them, how strongly have we realized the time-worn evils of some of the systems they revealed to our eyesight, sharpened to detect the deficiencies and malpractices under our own. the genius of chivalry, which had walked with such power among men, was exorcised by the pen of cervantes. he did but clothe it with the name and images of don quixote de la mancha and his faithful squire, and ridicule destroyed what argument could not reach. this power belongs in an eminent degree to some of the personifications of our guest. a short time ago it was discovered that a petty tyrant had abused the children who had been committed to his care. no long and elaborate discussion was needed to arouse the public mind. he was pronounced a perfect squeers, and eloquence could go no further. happy is he who can add a pleasure to the hours of childhood, but far happier he who, by fixing the attention of the world on their secret sufferings, can protect or deliver them from their power. but it is not only as a portrayer of public wrongs that we are indebted to our friend. what reflecting mind can contemplate some of those characters without being made more kind-hearted and charitable? descend with him into the very sink of vice--contemplate the mistress of a robber--the victim of a murderer--disgraced without--polluted within--and yet when, in better moments, her natural kindness breaks through the cloud, then she tells you that no word of counsel, no tone of moral teaching, ever fell upon her ear. when she looks forward from a life of misery to a death by suicide, you cannot but feel that there is no condition so degraded as not to be visited by gleams of a higher nature, and rejoice that he alone will judge the sin who knows also the temptation. again, how strongly are the happiness of virtue and the misery of vice contrasted. the morning scene of sir mulberry hawk and his pupil brings out in strong relief the night scene of kit nubbles and his mother. the one in affluence and splendor, trying to find an easier position for his aching head, surrounded with means and trophies of debauchery, and thinking "there would be nothing so snug and comfortable as to die at once." the other in the poorest room, earning a precarious subsistence by her labors at the wash-tub--ugly, and ignorant, and vulgar, surrounded by poverty, with one child in the cradle, and the other in the clothes-basket, "whose great round eyes emphatically declared that he never meant to go to sleep any more, and thus opened a cheerful prospect to his relations and friends"--and yet in this situation, with only the comfort that cleanliness and order could impart, kindness of heart and the determination to be talkative and agreeable throws a halo round the scene, and as we contemplate it we cannot but feel that kit nubbles attained to the summit of philosophy, when he discovered "there was nothing in the way in which he was made that called upon him to be a snivelling, solemn, whispering chap--sneaking about as if he couldn't help it, and expressing himself in a most unpleasant snuffle--but that it was as natural for him to laugh as it was for a sheep to bleat, a pig to grunt, or a bird to sing." or take another example, when wealth is attained, though by different means and for different purposes. ralph nickleby and arthur gride are industrious and successful; like the vulture, they are ever soaring over the field that they may pounce on the weak and unprotected. their constant employment is grinding the poor and preying upon the rich. what is the result? their homes are cold and cheerless--the blessing of him that is ready to perish comes not to them, and they live in wretchedness to die in misery. what a contrast have we in the glorious old twins--brother charles and brother ned. they have never been to school, they eat with their knives (as the yankees are said to do), and yet what an elucidation do they present of the truth that it is better to give than to receive! they acquire their wealth in the honorable pursuits of business. they expend it to promote the happiness of every one within their sphere, and their cheerful days and tranquil nights show that wealth is a blessing or a curse, as it ministers to the higher or lower propensities of our nature. "he that hath light within his own clear breast, may sit in the centre and enjoy bright day; but he that hides a dark soul, and foul thoughts, benighted walks under the mid-day sun; himself is his own dungeon." such men are powerful preachers of the truth that universal benevolence is the true panacea of life; and, although it was a pleasant fiction of brother charles, "that tim linkinwater was born a hundred and fifty years old, and was gradually coming down to five and twenty," yet he who habitually cultivates such a sentiment will, as years roll by, attain more and more to the spirit of a little child; and the hour will come when that principle shall conduct the possessor to immortal happiness and eternal youth. if, then, our guest is called upon to state what are "the drugs, the charms, the conjuration and the mighty magic, he's won our daughters with," well might he reply, that in endeavoring to relieve the oppressed, to elevate the poor, and to instruct and edify those of a happier condition, he had only held "the mirror up to nature. to show virtue her own form--scorn her own image." that "this only was the witchcraft he had used;" and, did he need proof of this, there are many fair girls on both sides of the water who, though they might not repeat the whole of desdemona's speech to a married man, yet could each tell him, "that if he had a friend that loved her, he should but teach him how to tell _his stories_, and that would win her." i would, gentlemen, it were in my power to present, as on the mirror in the arabian tale, the various scenes in our extended country, where the master-mind of our guest is at this moment acting. in the empty school-room, the boy at his evening task has dropped his grammar, that he may roam with oliver or nell. the traveller has forgotten the fumes of the crowded steamboat, and is far off with our guest, among the green valleys and hoary hills of old england. the trapper, beyond the rocky mountains, has left his lonely tent, and is unroofing the houses in london with the more than mephistopheles at my elbow. and, perhaps, in some well-lighted hall, the unbidden tear steals from the father's eye, as the exquisite sketch of the poor schoolmaster and his little scholar brings back the form of that gifted boy, whose "little hand" worked its wonders under his guidance, and who, in the dawning of intellect and warm affections, was summoned from the school-room and the play-ground forever. or to some bereaved mother the tender sympathies and womanly devotion, the touching purity of little nell, may call up the form where dwelt that harmonious soul, which uniting in itself god's best gifts, for a short space shed its celestial light upon her household, and then vanishing, "turned all hope into memory." but it is not to scenes like these that i would now recall you. i would that my voice could reach the ear of every admirer of our guest throughout the land, that with us they might welcome him, on this, his first public appearance to our shores. like the rushing of many waters, the response would come to us from the bleak hills of canada, from the savannas of the south, from the prairies of the west, uniting in an "earthquake voice" in the cheers with which we welcome charles dickens to this new world. andrew v. v. raymond the dutch as enemies [speech of rev. dr. andrew v. v. raymond at the thirteenth annual dinner of the holland society of new york, january , . the president, john w. vrooman, said: "i must now make good a promise, and permit me to illustrate it by a brief story. a minister about to perform the last rites for a dying man, a resident of kentucky, said to him with solemnity that he hoped he was ready for a better land. the man instantly rallied and cried out, 'look here, mr. minister, there ain't no better land than kentucky!' to secure the attendance of our genial and eloquent college president i made a promise to him to state publicly at this time that there is no better college in the world than union college; that there is no better president in the world than the president of old union; and i may add that there is no better man than my valued friend, president andrew v. v. raymond, of union college, who will respond to the toast: 'the dutch as enemies.--did a person but know the value of an enemy he would purchase him with fine gold.'"] mr. president:--ladies--to whom now, as always, i look up for inspiration--and gentlemen of the holland society, when one has been rocked in a dutch cradle, and baptized with a dutch name and caressed with a dutch slipper, and nursed on dutch history, and fed on dutch theology, he is open to accept an invitation from the holland society. it is now four years since i had the pleasure of speaking my mind freely about the dutch, and in the meantime so much mind--or is it only speech--has accumulated that the present opportunity comes very much like a merciful interposition of providence on my behalf. during these years my residence has been changed, for whereas i used to live in albany now i live in schenectady, which is like moving from the hague to leyden, or in other words, going a little farther into the heart of dutchdom, for nowhere else is dutch spelled with a larger d than in the city of my residence to-day, with lisha's kill on one side, and rotterdam on another, and amsterdam on the third, and a real dyke on the fourth, to say nothing of the canal. you do not remember that speech of mine four years ago for you did not hear it. that was not my fault, however, but your misfortune, of course. you did not hear it because you were not here. you were asleep in your own beds, of course, where dutchmen always go when they are sleepy, which is perhaps the principal reason why they are not caught napping in business hours. unfortunately, however, that speech was printed in full, or i might repeat it now. one learns from such little experiences what not to do the next time. but if you do not remember the speech, i do--at least the subject--which was "the dutch as neighbors," and it has seemed wise to get as far as possible from that subject to-night lest i might be tempted to plagiarize, and so i propose to talk for a moment only about "the dutch as enemies." i do not like the first suggestion of this subject any more than do you. for to think of a man as an enemy is to think ill of him, and to intimate that the dutchman was not and is not perfect is to intimate something which no one here will believe, and which no one certainly came to hear. but as a matter of fact, gentlemen, no one can be perfect without being an enemy any more than he can be perfect without being a friend. the two things are complementary; the one is the reverse side of the other. everything in this universe, except a shadow, has two sides--unless, perhaps, it may be a political machine whose one-sidedness is so proverbial as to suggest that it also is a thing wholly of darkness caused by someone standing in the way of the light. the dutchman, however, is not a shadow of anything or of anybody. you can walk around him, and when you do that you find that he has not only a kindly face and a warm hand, but something called backbone, and it is that of which i am to speak to-night, for it suggests about all that i mean by the dutchman as an enemy. some people are enemies, or become enemies, because of their spleen; others because of their total depravity; and others still because they persist in standing upright when someone wants them to lie down and be stepped on. that is the meaning of backbone, in this world of human strife, and if, from time to time, it has made an enemy of the peace-loving dutchman, it has been the kind of enmity that has gathered to itself not a little gratitude, for after all it is the kind of enmity that has made this world more tolerable as a place of temporary abode. if no one opposes tyrants and thieves and heretics and franchise-grabbers, city lots fall rapidly in price. it is the dutchman who keeps up the real estate market. when i have suggested that it is because of his opposition that he is regarded as an enemy, i have come to the heart of all that i propose to say to-night. as a matter of fact, the dutchman has never been very aggressive. he may not be enterprising, but his powers of resistance are superb, and as this world wags it is often better to hold fast than it is to be fast. if the dutchman has not been aggressive, he has certainly been steadfast. he has never become an enemy willingly, but always under compulsion; willing to let other people alone if they will let him alone, and if they will not do that, then he makes them do it. those dykes tell the whole story. the dutchman did not want the sea--only the earth. but when the sea wanted him he took up arms against it. it was so with those roman legions. the dutchman had no quarrel with rome until rome wanted to extend its empire that way, and to acquire him and grow fat from his tribute money. but the dutchman had no need of an empire up his way, and so kept his tribute money, and sent the eagles home hungry. if spain had not wanted to whip the dutchman, the dutchman would not have whipped spain. if england had not wanted a brush with the dutch, that broom would never have been nailed to tromp's masthead. if jameson had not tried to raid the dutchman, the dutchman would not have corralled jameson. from first to last, his battles have been on the defensive. he has always been ambitious to be a good friend with the latch-string always on the outside, and has only become an enemy when somebody has tried to get into his house through the window. that kind of enmity hurts no one who does not deserve to be hurt. as this world goes, it is a great thing to say of a man that he never gets down his gun until he sees another gun pointed his way, but it is a greater thing to say that when he does see that other gun he does not get under the bed, and that is what can be said of the dutchman more than of any other man in the world. he will not run into a fight; he will not run away from a fight--in fact he has no reputation whatever as a runner in any direction. but he can take a stand, and when the smoke has cleared away there he is, still standing. he will not vote himself an enemy, but if against his will he is voted an enemy, he accepts the election, and discharges the duties of his office with painstaking vigilance and care. now, no one does that, and ever gets re-elected, no matter what the office. such is the world. and so the dutchman has never been voted an enemy twice by the same people. one term of his vigorous administration of hostile forces is quite enough, and inasmuch as he does not care for the office personally, and takes it only from a sense of duty, he never seeks a re-election. he is always ready to step down and out, and resume his old occupation of being a good neighbor and a peace-loving citizen. that is perhaps his greatest virtue, and it all grows out of the fact that his spirit of antagonism is located in his backbone, leaving his heart free. he does not love strife and he does not hate the man with whom he fights, and so, in all his battles, he has never been vindictive, cruel, merciless. when he has had to fight he has fought like a man and a christian, for righteousness' sake, and not like a demon to humiliate and to annihilate his foes. that makes the dutchman a rare kind of enemy, and that, more than anything else, i think, has distinguished his enmity through all the years of his history. he has gone far toward obeying the precept, "love your enemies, and bless them that curse you." if he has not been able to keep men from hating him, and cursing him, and persecuting him, he has been able to keep himself from hating and cursing and persecuting in return; and so, while he is one of the greatest of military heroes in history, he is also one of the greatest of moral heroes, and that is a greater honor, inasmuch as "he that ruleth his own spirit is greater than he that taketh a city." i do not claim all glory for the dutch. it is not given to any one nation to monopolize virtue. i only assert that the dutchman's virtue is of a peculiarly exalted type. the englishman's virtue is just as real, only another kind of virtue. if the dutchman's spirit of hostility or of antagonism resides in his backbone, the englishman's spirit of hostility or antagonism resides in his breastbone. that makes all the difference between them. the englishman fights, but he fights aggressively. and as the heart lies back of the breastbone it never gets into his fighting. he neither loves his enemies nor hates them. he simply loves england. if it has been the mission of the dutch to keep, it has been the mission of the english to get, and in the getting he has had to do a world of fighting. it comes with ill grace from us, however, to condemn the englishman when to-day uncle sam is standing on the pacific slope expanding his chest toward hawaii. but if we cannot condemn with good grace, there is no need to praise english aggressiveness and acquisitiveness overmuch; what we do need to praise and cultivate is the dutch virtue of holding fast our own. we have institutions and principles, rights and privileges, in this country which are constantly attacked, and the need of america is that the backbone which the dutch have given to this country should assert itself. hospitality loses its virtue when it means the destruction of the lares and penates of our own firesides. when a guest insists on sitting at the head of the table, then it is time for the host to become _hostis_. what america needs in this new year of grace is not less hospitality toward friends but more hostility toward intruders. the spirit of this age is iconoclastic. it seeks to destroy sacred memorials, hallowed associations, holy shrines, everything that tells of the faith and the worship of a god-fearing past. the spirit of the age is irreverent, destructive, faithless. against this and all despoiling forces we as patriots are called to arms. for what does america stand? what are the truths that have gone into her blood and made her strong and beautiful and dominant? the divineness of human rights, the claims of men superior to the claims of property; popular government--not an oligarchy; popular government--not a dictatorship; the sacredness of the home, the holiness of the sanctuary, faith in humanity, faith in god. these have made america, and without these there can be no america. and because they are attacked, gentlemen, the need of the hour is a patriotism that shall breathe forth the spirit of the people who above all others in history have known how to keep their land, their honor, and their faith. the mission of little holland will never be ended so long as america needs the inspiration of her glorious example, and the devoted citizenship of her loving sons. opie p. read modern fiction [speech of opie p. read at the eighty-second dinner of the sunset club, chicago, ill., january , . the general subject of the evening's discussion was "the tendency and influence of modern fiction." the chairman of the evening, arthur w. underwood, said in introducing mr. read, "it is very seldom that the sunset club discharges its speakers in batteries of four, but something is due to the speakers. four barrels is a light load, i am told, for a kentucky colonel, and i have the pleasure of introducing the original 'kentucky colonel,' mr. opie p. read."] mr. president and gentlemen:--the drift of latter-day fiction is largely shown by the department store. the selling of books by the ton proves a return to the extremes of romanticism. people do not jostle one another in their eagerness to secure even a semblance of the truth. the taste of to-day is a strong appetite for sadism; and a novel to be successful must bear the stamp of society rather than the approval of the critic. the reader has gone slumming, and must be shocked in order to be amused. reviewers tell us of a revolt against realism, that we no longer fawn upon a dull truth, that we crave gauze rather than substance. in fact, realism was never a fad. truth has never been fashionable; no society takes up philosophy as an amusement. but after all, popular taste does not make a literature. strength does not meet with immediate recognition; originality is more often condemned than praised. the intense book often dies with one reading, its story is a wild pigeon of the mind, and sails away to be soon forgotten; but the novel in which there is even one real character, one man of the soil, remains with us as a friend. in the minds of thinking people, realism cannot be supplanted. but by realism, i do not mean the commonplace details of an uninteresting household, nor the hired man with mud on his cowhide boots, nor the whining farmer who sits with his feet on the kitchen-stove, but the glory that we find in nature and the grandeur that we find in man, his bravery, his honor, his self-sacrifice, his virtue. realism does not mean the unattractive. a rose is as real as a toad. and a realistic novel of the days of cæsar would be worth more than plutarch's lives. every age sees a literary revolution, but out of that revolution there may come no great work of art. the best fiction is the unconscious grace of a cultivated mind, a catching of the quaint humor of men, a soft look of mercy, a sympathetic tear. and this sort of a book may be neglected for years, no busy critic may speak a word in its behalf, but there comes a time when by the merest accident a great mind finds it and flashes its genius back upon the cloud that has hidden it. yes, there is a return to romanticism, if indeed there was ever a turn from it. the well-told story has ever found admirers. to the world all the stories have not been told. the stars show no age, and the sun was as bright yesterday as it was the morning after creation. but a simple story without character is not the highest form of fiction. it is a story that may become a fad, if it be shocking enough, if it has in it the thrill of delicious wickedness, but it cannot live. the literary lion of to-day may be the literary ass of to-morrow, but the ass has his bin full of oats and cannot complain. one very striking literary tendency of to-day is the worship of the english author in america and the hissing of the american author in london. and this proves that american literature is scarcely more popular in england than it is at home. but may not american publishers after awhile take up a london hissing and use it as an advertisement. hissing is surely a recognition, and proves that an author has not been wholly neglected. the novel, whether it be of classic form or of faddish type, makes a mark upon the mind of the public. fiction is a necessary element of modern education. a man may be a successful physician or a noted lawyer without having read a novel; but he could not be regarded as a man of refined culture. a novel is an intellectual luxury, and in the luxuries of a country we find the refinements of the nation. it was not invention but fancy that made greece great. a novel-reading nation is a progressive nation. at one time the most successful publication in this country was a weekly paper filled with graceless sensationalism, and it was not the pulpit nor the lecture-platform that took hold of the public taste and lifted it above this trash--it was the publication in cheap form of the english classics. and when the mind of the masses had been thus improved, the magazine became a success. one slow but unmistakable drift of fiction is toward the short story, and the carefully edited newspaper may hold the fiction of the future. whitelaw reid the press--right or wrong [speech of whitelaw reid at the th annual banquet of the chamber of commerce of the state of new york, may , . samuel d. babcock, president of the chamber, was in the chair, and proposed the following toast, to which mr. reid was called upon for a response: "the press--right or wrong; when right, to be kept right; when wrong, to be set right."] mr. president:--lastly, satan came also, the printer's, if not the public's devil, _in propria persona_! [laughter.] the rest of you gentlemen have better provided for yourselves. even the chamber of commerce took the benefit of clergy. the presidential candidates and the representatives of the administration and the leading statesmen who throng your hospitable board, all put forward as their counsel the attorney-general [alphonso taft] of the united states. and, as one of his old clients at my left said a moment ago, "a precious dear old counsel he was." [laughter.] the press is without clergymen or counsel; and you doubtless wish it were also without voice. at this hour none of you have the least desire to hear anything or to say anything about the press. there are a number of very able gentlemen who were ranged along that platform--i utterly refuse to say whether i refer to presidential candidates or not--but there were a number of very able gentlemen who were ranged along that table, who are very much more anxious to know what the press to-morrow morning will have to say about them [laughter], and i know it because i saw the care with which they handed up to the reporters the manuscript copies of their entirely unprepared and extempore remarks. [laughter.] gentlemen, the press is a mild-spoken and truly modest institution which never chants its own praises. unlike walt whitman, it never celebrates itself. even if it did become me--one of the youngest of its conductors in new york--to undertake at this late hour to inflict upon you its eulogy, there are two circumstances which might well make me pause. it is an absurdity for me--an absurdity, indeed, for any of us--to assume to speak for the press of new york at a table where william cullen bryant sits silent. besides, i have been reminded since i came here, by dr. chapin, that the pithiest eulogy ever pronounced upon the first editor of america, was pronounced in this very room and from that very platform by the man who at that time was the first of living editors in this country, when he said that he honored the memory of benjamin franklin because he was a journeyman printer who did not drink, a philosopher who wrote common sense, and an office-holder who did not steal. [applause.] one word only of any seriousness about your toast; it says: "the press--right or wrong; when right, to be kept right; when wrong, to be set right." gentlemen, this is your affair. a stream will not rise higher than its fountain. the hudson river will not flow backward over the adirondacks. the press of new york is fed and sustained by the commerce of new york, and the press of new york to-day, bad as it is in many respects--and i take my full share of the blame it fairly deserves--is just what the merchants of new york choose to have it. if you want it better, you can make it better. so long as you are satisfied with it as it is, sustain it as it is, take it into your families and into your counting-rooms as it is, and encourage it as it is, it will remain what it is. if, for instance, the venerable leader of your bar, conspicuous through a long life for the practice of every virtue that adorns his profession and his race, is met on his return from the very jaws of the grave, as he re-enters the court-room to undertake again the gratuitous championship of your cause against thieves who robbed you, with the slander that he is himself a thief of the meanest kind, a robber of defenceless women--i say if such a man is subject to persistent repetition of such a calumny in the very city he has honored and served, and at the very end and crown of his life, it is because you do not choose to object to it and make your objection felt. a score of similar instances will readily occur to anyone who runs over in his memory the course of our municipal history for the last dozen years, but there is no time to repeat or even to refer to them here. and so, mr. president, because this throng of gentlemen, gathered about the doors, pay me the too great compliment by remaining standing to listen when they have started to go home--let me come back to the text you gave me, and the sentiment with which we began: "the press--right or wrong; when right, to be kept right; when wrong, to be set right." [applause.] the task in either case is to be performed by the merchants of new york, who have the power to do it and only need resolve that they will. i congratulate you, gentlemen, on the continued attractions of the annual entertainment you offer us; above all, i congratulate you on having given us the great pleasure of meeting once more and seeing seated together at your table the first four citizens of the metropolis of the empire state: charles o'conor, peter cooper, william cullen bryant, and john a. dix. i thank you for the courtesy of your remembrance of the press; and so to one and all, good-night. [applause.] * * * * * gladstone, england's greatest leader [speech of whitelaw reid at a dinner given by the irish-americans to justin mccarthy, new york city, october , . judge edward browne presided. mr. reid was called upon to speak to the toast, "gladstone, england's greatest leader."] gentlemen:--i am pleased to see that since this toast was sent me by your committee, it has been proof-read. as it came to me, it describes mr. gladstone as england's greatest liberal leader. i thought you might well say that and more. it delights me to find that you have said more--that you have justly described him as england's greatest leader. ["hear! hear!"] i do not forget that other, always remembered when gladstone is mentioned, who educated his party till it captured its opponents' place by first disguising and then adopting their measures. that was in its way as brilliant party leadership as the century has seen, and it placed an alien adventurer in the british peerage and enshrined his name in the grateful memory of a great party that vainly looks for disraeli's successor. [applause.] i do not forget a younger statesman, never to be forgotten henceforth by irishmen, who revived an impoverished and exhausted people, stilled their dissensions, harmonized their conflicting plans, consolidated their chaotic forces, conducted a peaceful parliamentary struggle in their behalf with incomparable pertinacity, coolness, and resources; and through storms and rough weather has held steadily on till even his enemies see now, in the very flush of their own temporary success, that in the end the victory of parnell is sure. [loud applause.] great leaders both; great historic figures whom our grandchildren will study and analyze and admire. but this man whom your toast honors, after a career that might have filled any man's ambition, became the head of the empire whose mourning drum-beat heralds the rising sun on its journey round the world. that place he risked and lost, and risked again to give to an ill-treated powerless section of the empire, not even friendly to his sway, church reform, educational reform, land reform, liberty! [cheers.] it was no sudden impulse and it is no short or recent record. it is more than seventeen years since mr. gladstone secured for ireland the boon of disestablishment. it is nearly as long since he carried the first bill recognizing and seriously endeavoring to remedy the evils of irish land tenure. he has rarely been able to advance as rapidly or as far as he wished; and more than once he has gone by a way that few of us liked. but if he was not always right, he has been courageous enough to set himself right. if he made a mistake in our affairs when he said jefferson davis had founded a nation, he offered reparation when he secured the geneva arbitration, and loyally paid its award. if he made a mistake in irish affairs in early attempts at an unwise coercion he more than made amends when he led that recent magnificent struggle in parliament and before the english people, which ended in a defeat, it is true, but a defeat more brilliant than many victories and more hopeful for ireland. [applause.] and over what a length of road has he led the english people! from rotten boroughs to household suffrage; from a government of classes to a government more truly popular than any other in the world outside of switzerland and the united states. then consider the advance on irish questions. from the iniquitous burden of a gigantic and extravagant church establishment, imposed upon the people of whom seven-eighths were of hostile faith, to disestablishment; from the principle stated by lord palmerston with brutal frankness that "tenant-right is landlord's wrong," to judicial rents and the near prospect of tenant ownership on fair terms; from the arbitrary arrests of irish leaders to the alliance of the prime minister and ruling party with the prisoner of kilmainham jail! [loud cheers.] it has been no holiday parade, the leadership on a march like that. long ago mr. disraeli flung at him the exultant taunt that the english people had had enough of his policy of confiscation; and so it proved for a time, for mr. disraeli turned him out. but mr. gladstone knew far better than his great rival did the deep and secret springs of english action, and he never judged from the temper of the house or a tour of the london drawing-rooms. society, indeed, always disapproved of him, as it did of those kindred spirits, the anti-slavery leaders of american politics. but the frowns of fifth avenue and beacon street have not dimmed the fame of sumner and chase; of seward and lincoln [a voice: "and of wendell phillips." cheers]; nor does belgravia control the future of mr. gladstone's career any more than it has been able to hinder his past. more than any other statesman of his epoch, he has combined practical skill in the conduct of politics with a steadfast appeal to the highest moral considerations. to a leader of that sort defeats are only stepping-stones, and the end is not in doubt. a phrase once famous among us has sometimes seemed to me fit for english use about ireland. a great man, a very great man, whose name sheds lasting honor upon our city said in an impulsive moment--that he "never wanted to live in a country where the one-half was pinned to the other by bayonets." if mr. gladstone ever believed in thus fastening ireland to england, he has learned a more excellent way. like greeley he would no doubt at the last fight, if need be, for the territorial integrity of his country. but he has learned the lesson charles james fox taught nearly a hundred years before: "the more ireland is under irish government, the more she will be bound to english interests." that precept he has been trying to reduce to practice. god grant the old statesman life and light to see the sure end of the work he has begun! [loud applause.] i must not sit down without a word more to express the personal gratification i feel in seeing an old comrade here as your guest. twelve or fourteen years ago he did me the honor to fill for a time an important place on the staff of my newspaper. with what skill and power he did his work; with what readiness and ample store of information you need not be told, for the anonymous editorial writer of those days is now known to the english-speaking world as the brilliant historian of "our own times." those of us who knew him then have seen his sacrifice of private interests and personal tastes for the stormy life of an irish member of parliament, and have followed with equal interest and admiration his bold yet prudent and high-minded parliamentary career. he has done all that an irishman ought for his country; he has done it with as little sympathy or encouragement for the policy of dynamite and assassination in england as we have had for bomb-throwing in chicago. [loud and prolonged applause.] w. l. robbins the pulpit and the bar [speech of rev. w. l. robbins at the annual dinner of the new york state bar association, given in the city of albany, n. y., january , , in response to the sentiment, "the relation of the pulpit to the bar." matthew hale presided.] mr. president and gentlemen:--i am so dazed at the temerity which has ventured to put so soporific a subject as "the pulpit" at so late an hour in the evening, that i can only conceive of but one merit in any response to the present toast, and that is brevity. i had always supposed that the pulpit was "sleepy" enough in its effect upon men in the early hours of the day, at least that was my conclusion, in so far as it has been my privilege to see men present, at pulpit ministrations, leaving us as they do for the most part to preach to women and children. shall i confess that the feeling came over me during the first part of the evening that i was rather out of place among so many laymen, alone as a representative of the clergy; but later, i found confidence through a sense of kinship in suffering, for is it not true that we represent two of the best abused professions in the world? i do not mean by that, abuse _ab extra_. i am told indeed, occasionally, that the pulpit is effete, that its place has been filled by the press and lecture platform, that there is no further use for it. but i do not know that i have heard abuse _ab extra_ of the bar, unless some ill-natured person should read it into the broad scotch pronunciation of an old friend of mine who used to say to me, "ah, the lieyers, the lieyers." but what we must needs guard against is abuse from within. in the first place we are a good deal given to self-congratulation. i use the first person plural and not the second person; i remember a friend of mine, a distinguished clergyman in boston, an englishman, who once ventured to preach upon political corruption in the municipal government, and the next day he had the audacity to drop into the office of one of the business men of his congregation and say, "what did you think of that sermon?"--a very dangerous question, by the way, always to ask--and the reply came promptly, "you had better go and be naturalized so that you can say 'we sinners,' instead of 'you sinners.'" [laughter.] since that time, from the pulpit or from any other place, i have hesitated to say, "you sinners," and i will promise to say "we sinners" to-night. but truly the pulpit and the bar, in their ideal, are, as it were, "the voice of one crying in the wilderness," a witness to the eternal truth. are they not? the pulpit is sent forth to herald the love of god, and the bar is sent forth to herald the justice of god; but they don't always succeed. i can speak from experience for the pulpit, that the position of authority, the claim of a divine mission, is often turned into the excuse for the airing of a man's individual fads, and is naught but a cloak for pretentious ignorance. [applause.] and for the bar, i wonder if i might venture to quote the definition of legal practice which was given me the other night, apropos of this toast, by a distinguished representative of the new york bar association, that it was "a clever device for frustrating justice, and getting money into the lawyer's pocket." [laughter.] but if it be true that we have a mission, it is equally true that we must join hands if we are going to accomplish that mission. i am tired of hearing about the pulpit as the voice of the public conscience. i do not know why the bar should not be the voice of the public conscience quite as much as the pulpit. if there are laws on the statute book that are not obeyed, i don't know why the clergy should make public protest rather than the lawyers, who are representatives of the law. [applause.] and if principles of our constitution are being subtly invaded to-day under the mask, for instance, of state subsidies or national subsidies to sectarian institutions either of learning or of charity, i don't know why the first voice of warning should come from the pulpit rather than from the bar. indeed, when the clergy initiate reforming movements it always seems to me as though there is need of rather more ballast in the boat, need of one of those great wheels which act as a check on the machinery in an engine; and the best fly-wheel is the layman. the tendency, you know, of the pulpit is toward an unpractical sort of idealism. its theories are all very good, but my professor in physics used to tell me that the best mathematical theory is put out of gear by friction when you come to illustrate it in practical physics, and so with even the best kind of theoretical philanthropy. the theoretical solution of the problems, social and economic, which confront us is put "out of gear" by facts, about which, alas, the clergy are not as careful as they are about their theory; and, therefore, i plead for a lay enthusiasm. but surely there is no better lay element than the legal to act as ballast for the clergy in pleading the cause of philanthropy and piety and righteousness. then i would suggest first of all, that the pulpit needs to leave the a, b, c's of morality, about which it has been pottering so long, and begin to spell words and sometimes have a reading lesson in morals. that is, that it should apply its principles to practical living issues and questions of the day. and i plead to the lawyers to come out once in awhile from the technicalities of practice, and from their worship of cleverness and success, and look to the mission which is laid on them, namely, to bear witness to justice and righteousness. [applause.] my toast would be "common sense in the pulpit and a love of righteousness at the bar." james jeffrey roche the press [speech of james jeffrey roche at the banquet of the friendly sons of st. patrick, new york city, march , . john d. crimmins presided. mr. roche, as editor of the "boston pilot," responded for "the press."] mr. president and gentlemen of the friendly sons of st. patrick:--i am deeply sensible of the honor you have done me in inviting me to respond to the toast which has just been read. the virtues of the press are so many and so self-evident that they scarcely need a eulogist. even the newspapers recognize and admit them. if you had asked a new york journalist to sing the praises of his craft, his native and professional modesty would have embarrassed his voice. if you had asked a chicagoan, the honorable chairman would have been compelled to resort to cloture before the orator got through. if you had asked a philadelphian, he would have been in bed by this hour. therefore, you wisely went to the city which not only produces all the virtues--but puts them up in cans, for export to all the world. we do not claim to know everything, in boston--but we do know where to find it. we have an excellent newspaper press, daily and weekly, and should either or both ever, by any chance, fail to know anything--past, present, or to come--we have a monday lectureship, beside which the oracle of delphi was a last year's almanac. [applause.] i met a man, on the train, yesterday--a new york man (he said he was)--of very agreeable manners. he told me what his business was, and when i told him my business in new york, he surprised me by asking: "what are you going to say to them in your speech that will be real sassy, and calculated to make all their pet corns ache?" i told him i did not know what he meant, that of course i should say nothing but the most pleasant things i could think of; that, in fact, i intended to read my speech, lest, in the agitation of the moment, i might overlook some complimentary impromptu little touch. then he laughed and said: "why, that isn't the way to do at all--in new york. it is easy to see you are a stranger, and don't read the papers. the correct thing nowadays is for the guest to criticise his entertainers. mayor so-and-so always does it. and only last year--it was at an irish banquet, too--the speaker of the evening, a down-easter like yourself, just spilled boiling vitriol over the whole company, and rubbed it in." i told him i didn't believe that story, and asked him to tell me the gentleman's name. and he only answered me, evasively: "i didn't say he was a gentleman." i trust i know better than to say anything uncomplimentary about the press of new york, which compiles, or constructs, news for the whole continent, not only before our slower communities have heard of the things chronicled, but often, with commendable enterprise, before they have happened. i admire the press of new york. there are a great many boston men on it, and i have no mission to reform it. in new york, when you have a surplus of journalistic talent, you export it to london, where it is out of place--some of it. the feverish race for priority, which kills off so many american journalists, sometimes, it would seem, almost before their time (but that is a matter of opinion), is unknown in london. a man who reads the "london times," regularly and conscientiously, is guaranteed forever against insomnia. london "punch" is a paper which the severest ascetic may read, all through lent, without danger to his sobriety of soul. london gets even with you, too. you send her an astor, and she retaliates with a stead. we ought to deal gently with mr. stead; for he says that we are all children of the one "anglo-saxon" family--without regard to race, color, or previous condition of servitude. he avers that england looks upon america as a brother, and that may be so. it is not easy, at this distance of time, to know just how romulus looked upon remus, how esau looked upon jacob, how cain looked upon abel--but i have no doubt that it was in about the same light that england looks upon america--fraternally! but she ought not to afflict us with mr. stead. we have enough to bear without him. we know that the press has its faults and its weaknesses. we can see them every day, in our miserable contemporaries, and we do not shirk the painful duty of pointing them out. we know that it has also virtues, manifold, and we do not deny them, when an appreciative audience compliments us upon them. a conscientious journalist never shrinks from the truth, even when it does violence to his modesty. in fact, he tells the truth under all circumstances, or nearly all. if driven to the painful alternative of choosing between that which is new and that which is true, he wisely decides that "truth" is mighty, and will prevail, whereas news won't keep. nevertheless, it is a safe rule not to believe everything that you see in the papers. advertisers are human, and liable to err. lamartine predicted, long ago, that before the end of the present century the press would be the whole literature of the world. his prediction is almost verified already. the multiplication and the magnitude of newspapers present, not a literary, but an economic problem. the sunday paper alone has grown, within a decade, from a modest quarto to a volume of , , , pages, with the stream steadily rising and threatening the levees on both banks. at a similar rate of expansion in the next ten years, it will be made up of not less than , pages, and the man who undertakes to read it will be liable to miss first mass. the thoughtful provision of giving away a "farm coupon" with every number may avert trouble for a time, but it will be only for a time. the reader will need a farm, on which to spread out and peruse his purchase; but the world is small, and land has not the self-inflating quality of paper. but to speak more seriously: is modern journalism, then, nothing but a reflection of the frivolity of the day, of the passing love of notoriety? i say no! i believe that the day of sensational journalism, of the blanket sheet and the fearful woodcut, is already passing away. quantity cannot forever overcome quality, in that or any other field. when we think of the men who have done honor to the newspaper profession, we do not think so proudly of this or that one who "scooped" his contemporaries with the first, or "exclusive," report of a murder or a hanging, but of men like the late george w. childs, whom all true journalists honor and lament. we think of the heroes of the pen, who carried their lives in their hands as they went into strange, savage countries, pioneers of civilization. it would be invidious to mention names, where the roll is so long and glorious; but i think, at the moment, of o'donovan, forbes, stanley, burnaby, collins, and our own irish-american, macgahan, the great-hearted correspondent, who changed the political map of eastern europe by exposing the bulgarian atrocities. the instinct which impelled those men was the same which impelled columbus. i think, in another field, of the noblest man i have ever known, the truest, most chivalrous gentleman, a newspaper man, an editor--i am proud to say, an irish-american editor--the memory of whose honored name, i well know, is the only excuse for my being here to-night--john boyle o'reilly! you have honored his name more than once here to-night, and in honoring him you honor the profession which he so adorned. d. b. st. john roosa the salt of the earth [speech of dr. d. b. st. john roosa, as president of the holland society of new york, at the eleventh annual dinner of the society, new york city, january , .] gentlemen, members of the holland society, and our honored guests:--my first duty is to welcome to our board the representatives of the various societies who honor us by their presence: st. george's, st. nicholas, new england, st. andrew's, colonial order, and colonial wars, southern society, the holland society welcomes you most heartily. i ought to say that the holland society, as at present constituted, could run a police board [applause], furnish the mayors for two cities, and judges to order, to decide on any kind of a case. as a matter of fact, when they get hard up down-town for a judge, they just send up to the man who happens to be president of the holland society and say "now we want a judge," and we send van hoesen, beekman, truax, or van wyck. [applause.] they are all right. they are dutch, and they will do. [laughter.] all the people say it does not make any difference about their politics, so long as the blood is right. now, gentlemen, seriously, i thank you very sincerely for the honor which you have conferred upon me--and which i was not able, on account of circumstances entirely beyond my control, to acknowledge at the annual meeting of the society--in making me your president. i do not think there is any honor in the world that compares with it, and if you think over the names of the presidents of this society you may imagine that a doctor, especially knowing what the dutch in south africa think of doctors just now [laughter and applause], would have a mighty slim chance to come in against a van vorst, a roosevelt, a van hoesen, a beekman, a van wyck, or a van norden. but my name is not jameson. [laughter.] gentlemen, there seems to be an impression that the holland society, because it does not have a club-house--and it may have a club-house, that remains for you to decide; and because it does not have a great many other things, has no reason for its existence. but, gentlemen, there is one sufficient reason for the existence of the hollanders in a society. we have eight hundred and forty members, and each one of us has a function--to teach our neighboring yankees just exactly what we are, whence we came, and where we mean to go. [laughter and applause.] the colossal ignorance of the ordinary new englander [laughter and applause]--i mean in regard to the dutch [laughter]--is something that i would delineate were it not for the presence of the president of the mayflower society. [renewed laughter.] why, it was only the other night that at one of these entertainments when i was representing you and doing the best i could with my medal and my ribbon, that a friend came up to me and said: "you belong to the holland society, don't you?" i said, "yes." "well," he said, "you dutch did lick us on the excise question, didn't you?" [great laughter and applause.] now what are you going to do with a people like that? we got the credit of that thing, anyhow. [renewed laughter.] there is a governor of connecticut here to-night [p. c. lounsbury], and i was going to say something about governors of connecticut of years and years ago. a man could not properly relate the history of new amsterdam without remarking on the governors of connecticut, but out of respect to the distinguished gentleman, whom we all delight to honor, i shall draw it very mild. i shall only tell one or two things that those governors of connecticut used to do. there was one of them, i have forgotten his name and i am glad i have [laughter], who used to say in all his letters to his subordinates when they were pushing us to the wall and getting the english over to help them push: "don't you say anything to those people, don't you talk to those people, but always keep crowding the dutch." [laughter.] that is what a connecticut governor gave as official advice years ago. and they did crowd us. but governor lounsbury told me that if they really had their rights manhattan island would belong to connecticut. so you see they are crowding the dutch still. [laughter.] now, every once in a while, one of these new englanders that owns the earth, especially that little stone portion called plymouth rock, which we never begrudged them, gets up at a great dinner and reads a fine speech and talks about civil and religious liberty which the puritan came over to cause to flourish. why, the poor puritan did not know any more about religious liberty than an ordinary horse does about astronomy. what the puritan came over here for, was to get a place to do what he liked, in his own way, without interference from anybody else, with power to keep everybody out that wanted to do anything the least bit different from his way. [great laughter and applause. a voice--"i'm glad i voted for you."] i never can get elected from new england. i want to tell you just a thing or two about this business. the dutch tried very hard to teach them civil and religious liberty before they came over, and then they put the yankees in a ship and sent them over from leyden and delfshaven, saying: "it is utterly useless; we cannot teach you." [great laughter.] but we came over to new amsterdam and we had free schools in new york until the english took the city by treachery when there was only peter stuyvesant to fire one gun against the invaders, and then they abolished free schools and had their church ones, and they are fighting over that question in england now. free schools! new york established them when we were free again, years and years afterwards, but they are an invention of the dutch. civil and religious liberty! it was born in holland, it was nourished by the valor of the beggars of the sea, and finally it began to grow into the minds of the peoples of the earth, that it was not only right to enjoy your own religion, but it was also right to let your neighbor enjoy his. [applause.] then there is another story, that the english conquered manhattan island, and that we are here by the grace of any people on earth except our own. that is another mistake. just read theodore roosevelt's "rise of new york." [great laughter.] now i am going to tell you this story because you must go up to ulster county and up to dutchess and albany counties, and you must tell every yankee you meet the truth about this, and not let him talk any more about the english having subjugated the dutch. it is true the english captured manhattan island, but nine years afterwards admiral evertsen and another admiral whose name escapes me, came up the harbor in two frigates with guns well shotted, got beyond staten island, and gave the military authorities of new york notice that they were going to take that town, and granted them thirty minutes to make up their minds whether they would give it up or not. when the thirty minutes elapsed, six hundred dutch troops were landed just back of where trinity church now is, and new york became new amsterdam again. then how did we lose it? because the dutch states-general, which did not know enough, in deciding between new york and surinam, to choose new york, took surinam, and they have been wishing ever since they never had been born. now talk about anybody conquering the dutch! we generally get there. they sometimes say: "that is all very well, they were very brave people and all that, but they don't do anything now." waterloo, van speyk, majuba hill, and the boers of the transvaal show what their courage has been in the later generations. what are the dutch? why, we are the salt of the earth! we do not pretend to be the bread and butter and the cheese, but we are the salt [laughter], and i think the boers in south africa very lately salted some people i know of. [great laughter and applause.] if you want to see a city that is well salted, look at new york. go to the st. nicholas society dinner and see that grand assembly; if there is ever a society in new york that is well salted with dutch, that is, and we are all proud of it. and so it is with every other society, new york society, but not on the paternal side! [great laughter and applause.] but if you want to see a place where the yankee is salt, pepper, bread, butter, and everything, go to boston. it is a great city. that is all right. but we prefer new york, and we prefer just what god has ordained us to be--the people not always getting the credit of it, but always accomplishing all the good that is ever accomplished on the face of the earth! [laughter and applause.] now you may think that i have not whooped it up enough for the dutch [great laughter], so i will go on, just for a minute. the state of north carolina is always talking about having had a declaration of independence in mecklenburg county, about six months before they had one in philadelphia. why, the dutch farmers up in the mamacotting valley of ulster county signed a declaration of independence in april, , and they would have signed it six months before if the new york council of safety had given it to them! [laughter.] this same new england gentleman to whom i have alluded--i have it rather mixed up in my mind which gentleman said it--but some one said that the new englanders were very unwilling to part from the english, who were patronizing them with tea and stamps. why, the liberty boys of new york had made up their minds many months before the declaration of independence. the dutch, and notably the scotch-irish, had made up their minds. as i say, up in ulster county they circulated that declaration of independence a year and three months before it was really signed in philadelphia. they knew what they meant. they said, "we shall never be slaves." if you will excuse the fact that i did have a great-grandfather--i am happy to say that my great-grandfather signed that paper and he had a commission in the continental army, which i possess, signed by john hancock, and he was at saratoga. he was in the d new york line. the dutch knew that what we wanted was to be a free and independent people, even if our friends over there had not made up their minds. the dutch are satisfied with a very modest position in the world--so that they have the goods and control its destinies. [great laughter.] others may call it new york, if they like, or manhattan, but we call it dutch. now this society, gentlemen, has a great work before it; our president, who is very much like the president of the french republic, goes around with a big ribbon, but he has no authority of any kind whatever. he might have some at the board of trustees meeting, but that is such an orderly set that there is no use for authority there, and as for the dinner, judge van hoesen and mr. van schaick manage it very well. but the president does not wish any authority, and glories in the great honor, which it seems to him to be one that any one in this society might be proud of. we have, however, work to do, and in that your president, by your grace, as a private member and as a trustee, hopes to co-operate with you. it is a strange thing that this great city of new york has allowed the puritans first to commemorate the virtues of their heroic race which we all admire, and all love to speak of in terms of praise in our serious moments. it is strange that central park is adorned by them with that beautiful statue, while the dutch have no monument. i well remember the day that that silver-tongued orator, george william curtis, made the dedication address. but why is it that on this hudson, which was first ploughed by a dutch keel, over which first of all a dutch flag floated, along this hudson which was first discovered and explored and made habitable by dutch industry and dutch thrift, there is no dutch monument to which we may proudly point as we pass by. there ought to be a statue of that great dutchman, william the silent, on riverside drive. [great applause.] do you ever think of him? do you ever think of his career, that of the prototype of our own washington? at fifteen years of age the companion of an emperor; at twenty-one years of age, the commander of a great army, and later giving up wealth and pomp and power, preferring to be among the people of god, than to dwell at ease in the tents of wickedness; giving up everything for a life of tedious struggle in the cold marshes of the netherlands, finally to die at the hand of an assassin with a prayer for his country upon his lips as he passed away. he was the first human being on the face of this earth, who fairly and fully understood the principles of religious and civic freedom. this great city, the exemplifier of those principles to which it owes so much for its prosperity and magnificence, has not yet commemorated that man. how long shall it be, sons of hollanders, before william the silent shall be there looking out upon the hudson and lifted on high as an example for all time? i hope our eyes will see the day! [great applause.] theodore roosevelt the hollander as an american [speech of theodore roosevelt at the eleventh annual dinner of the holland society of new york, january , . the president, dr. d. b. st. john roosa, said: "the next regular toast is: 'the hollander as an american,' and i shall have the pleasure of introducing a gentleman who is a member of this society, and, therefore, descended on the male line [laughter] from some one who came here before , is it not? [a voice--"that is right; ."] one of the first roosevelts came very near outstripping robert fulton and inventing the steamboat. he did invent a steamboat, and you know the roosevelts have had something of a steamboat in them ever since. now there is another thing i want you dutchmen to teach the yankees to do--pronounce his name rosavelt and not rusevelt. and, by the way, mine is pronounced rosa too. now mr. roosevelt is a man, evidently, who has the courage of his convictions [a voice--"that is right." applause], and it will be a cold day for the party to which he belongs if they undertake to turn him down. i hoped that you all thought so. there was an old darky that used to say about the commandments: 'yes, preacher, they are all right, but in this here neighborhood the eighth commandment ought to be taught with some discreetions.' [great laughter.] [a voice: "which is the eighth commandment?"] 'thou shalt not steal.' now in new york there are some people who think there are some commandments that ought to be taught with some 'discreetions.' but they had better alter their law if they don't like it, and they had better not put a dutchman in office after an oath to enforce the law and then ask him why he does enforce it. [great applause.] this gentleman does not need any introduction, evidently--the hon. theodore roosevelt." [great applause. three cheers were proposed and given for mr. roosevelt. a voice: "tiger!"] mr. roosevelt: "in the presence of the judiciary, no!" [laughter.] there was great cheering when mr. roosevelt rose to respond.] mr. president, gentlemen, and brethren of the holland society:--i am more than touched, if you will permit me to begin rather seriously, by the way you have greeted me to-night. when i was in washington, there was a story in reference to a certain president, who was not popular with some of his own people in a particular western state. one of its senators went to the white house and said he wanted a friend of his appointed postmaster of topeka. the president's private secretary said: "i am very sorry, indeed, sir, but the president wants to appoint a personal friend." thereupon the senator said: "well, for god's sake, if he has one friend in kansas, let him appoint him!" [great laughter.] [illustration: _theodore roosevelt_ _photogravure after a photograph from life_] there have been periods during which the dissembled eulogies of the able press and my relations with about every politician of every party and every faction have made me feel i would like to know whether i had one friend in new york, and here i feel i have many. [great applause.] and more than that, gentlemen, i should think ill of myself and think that i was a discredit to the stock from which i sprang if i feared to go on along the path that i deemed right, whether i had few friends or many. [cries of "good! good!" and great applause.] i am glad to answer to the toast, "the hollander as an american." the hollander was a good american, because the hollander was fitted to be a good citizen. there are two branches of government which must be kept on a high plane, if any nation is to be great. a nation must have laws that are honestly and fearlessly administered, and a nation must be ready, in time of need, to fight [applause], and we men of dutch descent have here to-night these gentlemen of the same blood as ourselves who represent new york so worthily on the bench, and a major-general of the army of the united states. [applause.] it seems to me, at times, that the dutch in america have one or two lessons to teach. we want to teach the very refined and very cultivated men who believe it impossible that the united states can ever be right in a quarrel with another nation--a little of the elementary virtue of patriotism. [cries of "good! good!" and applause.] and we also wish to teach our fellow-citizens that laws are put on the statute books to be enforced [cries of "hear! hear!" and applause]; and that if it is not intended they shall be enforced, it is a mistake to put a dutchman in office to enforce them. the lines put on the programme underneath my toast begin: "america! half-brother of the world!" america, half-brother of the world--and all americans full brothers one to the other. that is the way that the line should be concluded. the prime virtue of the hollander here in america and the way in which he has most done credit to his stock as a hollander, is that he has ceased to be a hollander and has become an american, absolutely. [great applause.] we are not dutch-americans. we are not "americans" with a hyphen before it. we are americans pure and simple, and we have a right to demand that the other people whose stocks go to compose our great nation, like ourselves, shall cease to be aught else and shall become americans. [cries of "hear! hear!" and applause.] and further than that, we have another thing to demand, and that is that if they do honestly and in good faith become americans, those shall be regarded as infamous who dare to discriminate against them because of creed or because of birthplace. when new amsterdam had but a few hundred souls, among those few hundred souls no less than eighteen different race-stocks were represented, and almost as many creeds as there were race-stocks, and the great contribution that the hollander gave to the american people was, as your president has so ably said, the inestimable lesson of complete civil and religious liberty. it would be honor enough for this stock to have been the first to put on american soil the public school, the great engine for grinding out american citizens, the one institution for which americans should stand more stiffly than for aught other. [great applause.] whenever america has demanded of her sons that they should come to her aid, whether in time of peace or in time of war, the americans of dutch stock have been among the first to spring to the aid of the country. we earnestly hope that there will not in the future be any war with any power, but assuredly if there should be such a war one thing may be taken for certain, and that is that every american of dutch descent will be found on the side of the united states. we give the amplest credit, that some people now, to their shame, grudge to the profession of arms, which we have here to-night represented by a man, who, when he has the title of a major-general of the army of the united states [thomas h. ruger], has a title as honorable as any that there is on the wide earth. [applause.] we also need to teach the lesson, that the hollander taught, of not refusing to do the small things because the day of large things had not yet come or was in the past; of not waiting until the chance may come to distinguish ourselves in arms, and meanwhile neglecting the plain, prosaic duties of citizenship which call upon us every hour, every day of our lives. the dutch kept their freedom in the great contest with spain, not merely because they warred valiantly, but because they did their duty as burghers in their cities, because they strove according to the light that was in them to be good citizens and to act as such. and we all here to-night should strive so to live that we americans of dutch descent shall not seem to have shrunk in this respect, compared to our fathers who spoke another tongue and lived under other laws beyond the ocean; so that it shall be acknowledged in the end to be what it is, a discredit to a man if he does not in times of peace do all that in him lies to make the government of the city, the government of the country, better and cleaner by his efforts. [great applause.] i spoke of the militant spirit as if it may only be shown in time of war. i think that if any of you gentlemen, no matter how peaceful you may naturally be, and i am very peaceful naturally [laughter], if you would undertake the administration of the police department you would have plenty of fighting on hand before you would get through [renewed laughter]; and if you are true to your blood you will try to do the best you can, fighting or not fighting. you will make up your mind that you will make mistakes, because you won't make anything if you don't make some mistakes, and you will go forward according to your lights, utterly heedless of what either politicians or newspapers may say, knowing that if you act as you feel bound according to your conscience to act, you will then at least have the right when you go out of office, however soon [laughter], to feel that you go out without any regret, and to feel that you have, according to your capacity, warred valiantly for what you deemed to be the right. [great applause.] these, then, are the qualities that i should claim for the hollander as an american: in the first place, that he has cast himself without reservation into the current of american life; that he is an american, pure and simple, and nothing else. in the next place, that he works hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder with his fellow americans, without any regard to differences of creed or to differences of race and religion, if only they are good americans. [great applause.] in the third place, that he is willing, when the need shall arise, to fight for his country; and in the fourth place, and finally, that he recognizes that this is a country of laws and not men, that it is his duty as an honest citizen to uphold the laws, to strive for honesty, to strive for a decent administration, and to do all that in him lies, by incessant, patient work in our government, municipal or national, to bring about the day when it shall be taken as a matter of course that every public official is to execute a law honestly, and that no capacity in a public officer shall atone if he is personally dishonest. [tremendous applause.] * * * * * true americanism and expansion [speech of theodore roosevelt at the nineteenth annual dinner of the new england society in the city of brooklyn, december , . the president, william b. davenport, in calling upon theodore roosevelt to speak to the toast, "the day we celebrate," said: "for many years we have been celebrating this day and looking at ourselves through yankee eyes. to-night it is to be given us to see ourselves as others see us. we have with us one of whom it may be said, to paraphrase the epitaph in the welsh churchyard:-- 'a dutchman born, at harvard bred, in cuba travelled, but not yet dead.' in response to this toast, i have the honor of introducing hon. theodore roosevelt."] mr. president, ladies and gentlemen:--the gentleman on my right, with the unmistakably puritan name of mckelway, in the issue of the "eagle" to-night alluded to me as a yankeeized hollander. i am a middling good yankee. i always felt that at these dinners of the new england society, to which i come a trifle more readily than to any other like affairs, i and the president of the friendly sons of st. patrick, who is also invariably in attendance, represent, what you would say, the victims tied to the wheels of the roman chariot of triumph. you see i am half irish myself, and, as i told a new england senator with whom i am intimate, when he remarked that the dutch had been conquered by the new englanders, "the irish have avenged us." i want to say to you seriously, and, singularly enough, right along the lines of the admirable speech made by your president, a few words on the day we celebrate and what it means. as the years go by, this nation will realize more and more that the year that has just passed has given to every american the right to hold his head higher as a citizen of the great republic, which has taken a long stride forward toward its proper place among the nations of the world. i have scant sympathy with this mock humanitarianism, a mock humanitarianism which is no more alien to the spirit of true religion than it is to the true spirit of civilization, which would prevent the great, free, liberty and order-loving races of the earth doing their duty in the world's waste spaces because there must needs be some rough surgery at the outset. i do not speak simply of my own country. i hold that throughout the world every man who strives to be both efficient and moral--and neither quality is worth anything without the other--that every man should realize that it is for the interests of mankind to have the higher supplant the lower life. small indeed is my sympathy with those people who bemoan the fact, sometimes in prose, sometimes in even weaker verse, that the champions of civilization and of righteousness have overcome the champions of barbarism or of an outworn tyranny, whether the conflict be fought by the russian heralds of civilization in turkestan, by the english champion of the higher life in the eastern world, or by the men who upheld the stars and stripes as they freed the people of the tropic islands of the sea from the mediæval tyranny of spain. i do not ask that you look at this policy from a merely national standpoint, although if you are good americans you must look from the national standpoint first. i ask that you look at it from the standpoint of civilization, from the standpoint of righteousness, and realize that it is better for the men who are as yet ages behind us in the struggle upward that they be helped upward, and that it does not cease to be better for them, merely because it is better for us also. as i say, cast aside the selfish view. consider whether or not it is better that the brutal barbarism of northern asia should be supplanted by the civilization of russia, which has not yet risen to what we of the occident are proud to claim as our standard, but which, as it stands, is tens of centuries in advance of that of the races it supplants. again, from the standpoint of the outsider, look at the improvement worked by the englishmen in all the islands of the sea and all the places on the dark continents where the british flag has been planted; seriously consider the enormous, the incalculable betterment that comes at this moment to ninety-five per cent. of the people who have been cowering under the inconceivably inhuman rule of mahdism in the sudan because it has been supplanted by the reign of law and of justice. i ask you to read the accounts of the catholic missionary priests, the austrian priests who suffered under mahdism, to read in their words what they have suffered under conditions that have gone back to the stone age in the middle of the nineteenth century. then you will realize that the sirdar and his troops were fighting the battle of righteousness as truly as ever it was fought by your ancestors and mine two or three or four centuries ago. i think you can now understand that i admire what other nations have done in this regard, and, therefore, that you will believe that i speak with sincerity when i speak of what we ourselves have done. thank heaven that we of this generation, to whom was denied the chance of taking part in the greatest struggle for righteousness that this century has seen, the great civil war, have at least been given the chance to see our country take part in the world movement that has gone on around about us. of course it was partly for our own interest, but it was also largely a purely disinterested movement. it is a good thing for this nation that it should be lifted up beyond simply material matters. it is a good thing for us that we should have interests outside of our own borders. it is a good thing for us that we must look outward; that we must consider more than the question of exports and imports; that we must consider more than whether or not in one decade we have increased one and a half per cent. more than the average rate of increase in wealth or not. it is a good thing that we of this nation should keep in mind, and should have vividly brought before us the fact to which your ancestors, mr. president and members of this society, owe their greatness; that while it pays a people to pay heed to material matters, it pays infinitely better to treat material as absolutely second to moral considerations. i am glad for the sake of america that we have seen the american army and the american navy driving the spaniard from the western world. i am glad that the descendants of the puritan and the hollander should have completed the work begun, when drake and hawkins and frobisher singed the beard of the king of spain, and william the silent fought to the death to free holland. i am glad we did it for our own sake, but i am infinitely more glad because we did it to free the people of the islands of the sea and tried to do good to them. i have told you why i am glad, because of what we have done. let me add my final word as to why i am anxious about it. we have driven out the spaniards. this did not prove for this nation a very serious task. now we are approaching the really serious task. now it behooves us to show that we are capable of doing infinitely better the work which we blame the spaniards for doing so badly; and woe to us unless we do show not merely a slight but a well-nigh immeasurable improvement! we have assumed heavy burdens, heavy responsibilities. i have no sympathy with the men who cry out against our assuming them. if this great nation, if this nation with its wealth, with its continental vastness of domain, with its glorious history, with its memory of washington and lincoln, of its statesmen and soldiers and sailors, the builders and the wielders of commonwealths, if this nation is to stand cowering back because it is afraid to undertake tasks lest they prove too formidable, we may well suppose that the decadence of our race has begun. no; the tasks are difficult, and all the more for that reason let us gird up our loins and go out to do them. but let us meet them, realizing their difficulty; not in a spirit of levity, but in a spirit of sincere and earnest desire to do our duty as it is given us to see our duty. let us not do it in the spirit of sentimentality, not saying we must at once give universal suffrage to the people of the philippines--they are unfit for it. do not let us mistake the shadow for the substance. we have got to show the practical common sense which was combined with the fervent religion of the puritan; the combination which gave him the chance to establish here that little group of commonwealths which more than any others have shaped the spirit and destiny of this nation; we must show both qualities. gentlemen, if one of the islands which we have acquired is not fit to govern itself, then we must govern it until it is fit. if you cannot govern it according to the principles of the new england town meeting--because the philippine islander is not a new englander--if you cannot govern it according to these principles, then find out the principles upon which you can govern it, and apply those principles. fortunately, while we can and ought with wisdom to look abroad for examples, and to profit by the experience of other nations, we are already producing, even in this brief period, material of the proper character within our own border, men of our own people, who are showing us what to do with these islands. a new englander, a man who would be entitled to belong to this society, a man who is in sympathy with all that is best and most characteristic of the new england spirit, both because of his attitude in war and of his attitude toward civic morality in time of peace, is at present giving us a good object lesson in administering those tropic provinces. i allude to my former commander, the present governor-general of santiago, major-general leonard wood. general wood has before him about as difficult a task as man could well have. he is now intrusted with the supreme government of a province which has been torn by the most hideously cruel of all possible civil wars for the last three years, which has been brought down to a condition of savage anarchy, and from which our armies, when they expelled the armies of spain, expelled the last authoritative representatives of what order there still was in the province. to him fell the task of keeping order, of preventing the insurgent visiting upon the spaniard his own terrible wrongs, of preventing the taking of that revenge which to his wild nature seemed eminently justifiable, the preserving of the rights of property, of keeping unharmed the people who had been pacific, and yet of gradually giving over the administration of the island to the people who had fought for its freedom, just as fast as, and no faster than, they proved that they could be trusted with it. he has gone about that task, devoted himself to it, body and soul, spending his strength, his courage, and perseverance, and in the face of incredible obstacles he has accomplished very, very much. now, if we are going to administer the government of the west indies islands which we have acquired, and the philippines, in a way that will be a credit to us and to our institutions, we must see that they are administered by the general woods. we have got to make up our minds that we can only send our best men there; that we must then leave them as largely unhampered as may be. we must exact good results from them, but give them a large liberty in the methods of reaching these results. if we treat those islands as the spoil of the politician, we shall tread again the path which spain has trod before, and we shall show ourselves infinitely more blameworthy than spain, for we shall sin against the light, seeing the light. the president says that this is new england doctrine. so it is. it is dutch doctrine, too. it is the doctrine of sound americanism, the doctrine of common sense and common morality. i am an expansionist. i am glad we have acquired the islands we have acquired. i am not a bit afraid of the responsibilities which we have incurred; but neither am i blind to how heavy those responsibilities are. in closing my speech, i ask each of you to remember that he cannot shove the blame on others entirely, if things go wrong. this is a government by the people, and the people are to blame ultimately if they are misrepresented, just exactly as much as if their worst passions, their worst desires are represented; for in the one case it is their supineness that is represented exactly as in the other case it is their vice. let each man here strive to make his weight felt on the side of decency and morality. let each man here make his weight felt in supporting a truly american policy, a policy which decrees that we shall be free and shall hold our own in the face of other nations, but which decrees also that we shall be just, and that the peoples whose administration we have taken over shall have their condition made better and not worse by the fact that they have come under our sway. lord rosebery (archibald philip primrose) portrait and landscape painting [speech of lord rosebery at the annual banquet of the royal academy, london, may , . sir frederic leighton, president of the royal academy, was in the chair, and in proposing "the health of her majesty's ministers," to which lord rosebery replied, he said: "no function could be more lofty, no problem is more complex than the governance of our empire, so vast and various in land and folk as that which owns the sceptre of the queen. no toast, therefore, claims a more respectful reception than that to which i now invite your cordial response--the health of the eminent statesmen in whose hands that problem lies--her majesty's ministers. and not admiration only for high and various endowments, but memories also of a most sparkling speech delivered twelve months ago at this table, sharpens the gratification with which i call for response on the brilliant statesman who heads her majesty's government, the earl of rosebery."] your royal highness, my lords, and gentlemen: no one, i think, can respond unmoved for the first time in such an assembly as this in the character in which i now stand before you. you have alluded, sir, to the speech which i delivered here last year. but i have to confess with a feeling of melancholy that since that period i have made a change for the worse. [laughter.] i have had to exchange all those dreams of imagination to which i then alluded, which are, i believe, the proper concomitants of the foreign office intelligently wielded, and which, i have no doubt, my noble friend on my right sees in imagination as i did then--i have had to exchange all those dreams for the dreary and immediate prose of life--all the more dreary prose because a great deal of it is my own. [illustration: _lord rosebery_ (_archibald philip primrose_) _photogravure after a photograph from life_] there is one function, however, which has already devolved upon me, and which is not without interest for this academy. my great predecessor, much to my regret, left in my hands the appointment of a successor to sir frederick burton. that has cost me probably more trouble and travail than any other act of this young administration. [laughter.] i have sought, and i have abundantly received, counsels, and it is after long consideration, and with the most earnest and conscientious desire to do not what is most agreeable to individuals themselves, but what is best for art in general, that i have nominated mr. poynter to succeed sir frederick burton. [cheers.] i have at the same time made a change in the minute relating to the conditions of that post, which to a greater extent than was formerly the case associates the trustees of the national gallery in the work of selection with the new director. the trustees have been hitherto rather those flies on the wheel of which we read in ancient fable. it is now proposed to make them working wheels, and to make them work well and co-operatively with the new director. ["hear! hear!"] i hope that this arrangement will be satisfactory in its results. but, mr. president, i have long thought, as an individual, that the task of a minister or of a government in co-operating with the royal academy, and with those who have art at heart, ought not to end with a mere appointment of this description. i take a larger view of the responsibilities of my office, and i should be glad to offer to you with great respect a few suggestions that have recently occurred to me with regard to the present position of english art, which i regard with some misgivings. there is, first, the subject of portraiture. i am deeply concerned for the future condition of portrait-painting. it is not, as you may imagine, with any distrust whatever of those distinguished men who take a part in that branch of art; it is much more for the subjects that i am concerned. [laughter.] and it is not so much with the subjects as with that important part of the subject which was illustrated in the famous work "sartor resartus," by the great carlyle, that i chiefly trouble myself. how can it be that any man should make a decent portrait of his fellow-man in these days? no one can entertain so vindictive a hatred of his fellow-creature as to wish to paint him in the costume in which i am now addressing you. [laughter.] i believe that that costume is practically dropped for all purposes of portraiture; and if that be so, in what costume is the englishman of the present century to descend to remotest posterity through the vehicle of the gifted artists whom i see around me? we are not all sufficiently fortunate to be the chancellor of the university. [laughter and cheers.] we have not always even the happy chance to be a municipal dignitary, with a costume which i will not at present characterize. [laughter.] we are not all of us masters of hounds; and i think that the robes of a peer, unattractive in their æsthetic aspect, have lost something of their popularity. [laughter.] again, the black velvet coat, with which we are accustomed to associate deep thought and artistic instincts, has become a little faded. [laughter.] i am told, and told four or five times every day in speeches delivered in various parts of the country, that i have no right to offer a criticism without offering a suggestive remedy. well, sir frederic, i am prepared to offer my remedy for what it is worth, and for that reason i ask your co-operation. why should not a committee of the royal academy gather together in order to find some chaste and interesting national costume, in which the distinguished men of the nineteenth century might descend to posterity without the drawbacks which i have pointed out? robespierre had such a costume designed, and other great sumptuary legislators have had the same idea in their minds; and i would not push the suggestion so far as to imply that we should be compelled to wear this costume in ordinary life. it might be one kept to gratify the artistic instincts of those to whom we sit. [laughter.] and i will make a practical suggestion by which this costume--when you, sir, have selected it--might be associated with the ordinary run of life. it might be made an official costume of a justice of the peace, and in that way the great mass of our fellow-countrymen, with only a few and insignificant exceptions, of whom i am one, might descend to remotest posterity in a graceful, becoming, and official costume. [laughter.] i pass on from that, because i should not limit myself to portraiture in a great survey of this kind; and i may say that i am seriously concerned for the prospects of landscape painting in this country. i have of late been doing a great deal of light travelling in behalf of the respectable firm which i represent [laughter], and i beg at once to give notice, in the hearing of the noble marquis who is more to your left [lord salisbury], that i now nail to the counter any proposal to call me a political bagman as wanting in originality and wit. [laughter.] but i have been doing a certain amount of light travelling in behalf of our excellent and creditable firm. the other day, on returning from manchester, i was deeply and hideously impressed with the fact that all along that line of railway which we traversed, the whole of a pleasing landscape was entirely ruined by appeals to the public to save their constitutions but ruin their æsthetic senses by a constant application of a particular form of pill. [laughter and cheers.] now, sir frederic, i view that prospect with the gravest misgiving. what is to become of our english landscape if it is to be simply a sanitary or advertising appliance? [laughter.] i appeal to my right honorable friend the chancellor of the duchy [james bryce], who sits opposite to me. his whole heart is bound up in a proposition for obtaining free access to the mountains of the highlands. but what advantage will it be to him, or to those whose case he so justly and eloquently espouses, if at the top of schiehallion, or any other mountain which you may have in your mind's eye, the bewildered climber can only find an advertisement of some remedy of the description of which i have mentioned [cheers], an advertisement of a kind common, i am sorry to say, in the united states--and i speak with reverence in the presence of the ambassador of that great community--but it would be in the highlands distressing to the deer and infinitely perplexing even to the british tourist. [laughter and cheers.] but i turned my eyes mentally from the land, and i said that, after all, the great painter of the present may turn to the sea, and there at least he is safe. there are effects on the ocean which no one can ruin, which not even a pill can impair. [laughter.] but i was informed in confidence--it caused me some distress--that the same enterprising firm which has placarded our rural recesses, has offered a mainsail free of expense to every ship that will accept it, on condition that it bears the same hideous legend upon it to which i have referred. [laughter.] think, mr. president, of the feelings of the illustrious turner if he returned to life to see the luggers and the coasting ships which he has made so glorious in his paintings, converted into a simple vehicle for the advertisement of a quack medicine--although i will not say "quack," because that is actionable [laughter]--i will say of a medicine of which i do not know the properties. [laughter.] but i turned my eyes beyond the land and ocean, and i turned them to the heavens, and i said, "there, at any rate, we are safe." the painter of the present may turn his eye from the land and ocean, but in the skies he can always find some great effect which cannot be polluted. at this moment i looked from the railway-carriage window, and i saw the skeleton of a gigantic tower arising. it had apparently been abandoned at a lofty stage, possibly in consequence of the workmen having found that they spoke different languages at the height at which they had arrived. [laughter.] i made inquiries, and i found that it was the enterprise of a great speculator, who resides himself on a mountain, and who is equally prepared to bore under the ocean or ascend into the heavens. i was given to understand that this admirable erection comprised all the delights of a celestial occupation without any detachment from terrestrial pursuits. [laughter.] but i am bound to say that if buildings of that kind are to cover this country, and if they are to be joined to the advertising efforts to which i have alluded, neither earth, nor sea, nor sky in great britain will be fit subject for any painter. [cheers.] what, then, is the part of her majesty's government in this critical and difficult circumstance? we have--no, i will not say we have, because there would be a protest on the left--but different governments have added allotments to the attractions of rural neighborhoods. i venture to think that an allotment is not an unpicturesque thing. certainly, small holdings are more picturesque than large holdings, but i do not say that from the point of view in which sydney smith said that the difference between the picturesque and the beautiful was that the rector's horse was beautiful, and that the curate's horse was picturesque. [laughter.] i simply mean that a small holding is more picturesque than a large holding, and i think we may hope that the parish councils, if they meet, as they did in primeval times, under the shade of some large spreading oak, and not in the public house which we so much fear, as their headquarters, may yet add a picturesque feature to the rural landscape of great britain. but there is one feature at which a government can always aim as adding to the landscape of great britain. in a very famous but too little read novel, "pelham," by the late lord lytton, there is a passage which always struck me greatly. it is where pelham goes to see an uncle from whom he is to inherit a great estate, and he asks what the uncle has done to beautify that exquisite spot. the uncle says that he has done nothing but added the most beautiful feature of landscape, which is happy faces. well, the government in its immediate neighborhood has little to do with making happy faces. [laughter.] it certainly does not make its opponents happy, except on rare occasions when it leaves office, and it is not always so fortunate as to make its supporters happy. [laughter.] but i believe that in this country all governments do aim in their various ways and methods at making a happy population around them; and in that respect, in adding happy faces to the landscape, whether we fail or whether we succeed, we have a good-will in the work, and i am quite sure we have the hearty encouragement of the great and brilliant assembly which i address. [loud cheers.] george augustus sala friend and foe [speech of george augustus sala at a banquet given in his honor by the lotos club, january , . the president, whitelaw reid, sat at the centre table, having on his right hand the guest of the evening. he said, in welcoming mr. sala: "the last time we met here it was my pleasant duty to give your welcome to an old friend. now you make it my duty--still a pleasant one--to give your welcome to an old enemy. ["hear! hear!"] yes; an old enemy! we shall get on better with the facts by admitting them at the outset. our guest was more or less against us in the great struggle twenty years ago in which everybody now wishes to be thought to have been with us. he did not believe this nation would down the slaveholders' rebellion and he did not want it to; and he wrote frankly as he believed and wished. [laughter.] he never made any disguise about it then or since; and for that, at least, we think the better of him! [applause.] he came of a slaveholding family; many personal and social influences drew him toward those of our countrymen who were on the wrong side; and now that it is all over, we bear no malice! [applause.] more than that; we are heartily glad to see him. the statute of limitations runs in his favor; and his old opinions are outlawed. he revisited the country long after the war--and he changed his mind about it. he thought a great deal better of us; and we in turn found his letters a great deal pleasanter reading. we like a man who can change his mind [applause]; and if a bit of international frankness may be permitted in the good-fellowship of this board, perhaps i may venture to add that we particularly like to discover that trait in an englishman! [applause and laughter.] we've changed our minds--at least about some things. we've not only forgiven our countrymen; whom our guest used to sympathize with; but we have put--and are getting ready to put--the most of them into office! what we are most anxious about just now is, whether they are going to forgive us! seriously, gentlemen, we are very glad to see mr. sala here again. he was a veteran in the profession in which so many of you are interested, worthily wearing the laurels won in many fields, and enjoying the association, esteem, and trust of a great master whose fame the world holds precious, when the most of us were fledglings. we all know him as a wit, a man of letters, and a man of the world. some of us have known him also in that pleasanter character of all clubmen described in the old phrase, 'a jolly good fellow.' on the other side of the atlantic the grasp he gives an american hand is a warm one; and we do not mean that in new york he shall feel away from home. i give you, gentlemen, 'the health and prosperity of george augustus sala.'"] mr. president and gentlemen of the lotos club: i am under the deepest feeling of gratitude to mr. whitelaw reid for having torn the mask from the face of the stealthy conspirator, for having exposed the wily plotter and insidious libeller, and defied the malignant copperhead. [applause.] i thought that i had long ago been choked with that venom; but no, it rises still and poisons all that belongs to his otherwise happy condition. gentlemen, i am indeed an enemy of the united states. i am he who has come here to requite your hospitalities with unfounded calumny and to bite the hand that has fed me. unfortunately there are so many hands that have fed me that it will take me from this time until to-morrow morning to bite all the friendly hands. with regard to events that took place twenty years ago and of which i was an interested spectator, i may say that albeit i was mistaken; but the mistake was partaken of by many hundred thousands of my fellow-countrymen, who had not the courage subsequently to avow that they had been mistaken, but yet set to curry favor with the north by saying that they had always been their friends. the only apology--if apology i should choose to make--would be this: that that which i had to say against you i said while i was in your midst, when i was living at the brevoort house; and when my letters came weekly back from england; and when it was quite in your power to have ridden me out on a rail or to have inflicted on me any of the ordinary visitations which a malignant copperhead was supposed to deserve. but you did not do so, and i remember that when i left new york, i had quite as many good, kind, cordial friends on the union league side as i had on the democratic side. i would say further that when i came to publish my letters i found that there were many statements which i had made, which seemed to me to have been hasty and inconsiderate, and i did my best to modify them; and i did not wait until i got home to malign the people from whom i had received hospitality. but i have been indeed an enemy to the united states; so much so that when i came here again in - with my wife, the enemy was received on all sides with the greatest kindness and cordiality. so much am i an enemy to the united states, that for years while i was connected with the weekly paper called "the echo" there was hardly a week when i did not receive scores of letters from americans from every part of the union--from down south, from the west, the north, and the east--full of kindly matter and expressions bearing out the idea that i am a friend rather than an enemy to the united states. and i know perfectly well that there is no american who comes to london, be he lawyer, diplomatist, actor, artist, or man of letters, but i am always glad to see him, and always glad to show him, that, although an enemy, i still retain some feelings of gratitude toward my friends in the united states. i have seen it stated in one of your remarkably versatile and "graphic" journals that i have boasted of having come here with the idea of making some money in the united states. but bless your hearts and souls, gentlemen of the lotos club, i assure you that i have no such idea! [laughter.] i am really speaking to you seriously when i say that it was by merest accident that upon taking my ticket for australia, i was told by my energetic manager that i might see a most interesting and picturesque country by crossing the rocky mountains and embarking at san francisco, instead of going by way of the suez canal and the red sea. i had seen your rocky mountains, it is true, but i had seen them in march; and now i shall see them at the end of january, and that is really one of the main purposes of my journey. if from time to time in my passage i do deliver a few incoherent utterances, these utterances will not be prompted by any desire for pelf. that is far from my thoughts, but still if anyone wants to pay two dollars, or seventy-five cents, to hear those incoherent utterances you may be assured that my managers and myself will do our utmost to devote the funds accruing therefrom to purposes of mercy and of charity. [applause.] i am sure you believe every word that i say; and that australia is my objective. [laughter.] but, seriously, i only conclude by saying that i do not believe a word of what your president has said. he does not believe now that for the past twenty years i have been and am an enemy of the united states. we were blinded, many of us, for the time being; we took a wrong lane for the time, just as many of your tourists and many of your radicals have taken the wrong lane in england; but i think that differences of opinion should never alter friendships. and when we consider the number of years that have elapsed; when we consider that the wounds which i saw red and gaping and bleeding are now healed, scarcely leaving a scar, i think that the enemy might now be regarded as a friend; and that whatever unkind feelings were begotten in that terrible time should be now buried in the red sea of oblivion. [applause.] there never before was a time when it was so expedient for england to say to america: "don't quarrel!" england is surrounded by enemies--by real enemies who hate her. why? because she tries to be honest; and she tries to be free. she is hated by germans; and germany equally hates the institutions of this country, because she sees the blood and the bone of intelligent germany coming to the united states and becoming capable citizens, instead of carrying the needle-musket at home. she is hated by france, because france has got a republic which she calls democratic and social, but which is still a tyranny--and the worst of all tyrannies, because the tyrant is a mob. i do not disguise the fact that we are surrounded by foes of every description; and for that reason and because blood is thicker than water, i say to americans that, inasmuch as we have atoned for past offences (the alabama and all other difficulties having been settled), no other difficulty should be permitted to rise; and if there be a place in all the world where real peace may be secured and perfect freedom reign, england and america should there join hands as against all the world in arms. [applause.] i have nothing more to say, except to entreat you to pardon my somewhat serious utterances because of the many painful reminiscences which your good-natured sarcasm has brought to my lips, although softened by the kindly and genial terms in which you have received me, and i beg you to accept the grateful expression of my heartfelt gratitude for this glorious reception. [applause.] lord salisbury (robert arthur talbot gascoyne-cecil) kitchener in africa [speech of robert cecil, marquis of salisbury, at a banquet given in honor of lord horatio herbert kitchener, by the lord mayor of london, right hon. horatio david davies, at the mansion house, london, november , .] my lord mayor, your royal highness, my lords, and gentlemen:--the task has been placed in my hands of proposing the toast of the evening: "the health of the sirdar." [loud cheers.] it is the proud prerogative of this city that, without any mandate from the constitution, without any legal sanction it yet has the privilege of sealing by its approval the reputation and renown of the great men whom this country produces; and the honors which it confers are as much valued and as much desired as any which are given in this country. [cheers.] it has won that position not because it has been given to it, but because it has shown discrimination and earnestness and because it has united the suffrage of the people in the approval of the course that it has taken and of the honors it has bestowed. [cheers.] my lord mayor, it is in reference to that function which you have performed to-day and the most brilliant reception which has been accorded to the sirdar that i now do your bidding and propose his health. [cheers.] but if the task would be in any circumstances arduous and alarming, it is much more so because all that can be said in his behalf has already been said by more eloquent tongues than mine. i have little hope that i can add anything to the picture that has been already drawn [allusion to previous speeches made by the earl of cambridge, lord lansdowne, and lord rosebery], but no one can wonder at the vast enthusiasm by which the career of this great soldier has been received in this city. it is not merely his own personal qualities that have achieved it. it is also the strange dramatic interest of the circumstances, and the conditions under which his laurels have been won. [cheers.] it has been a long campaign, the first part of which we do not look back to with so much pleasure because we had undertaken a fearful task without a full knowledge of the conditions we had to satisfy or the real character of the foes to whom we were opposed. ["hear! hear!"] the remembrance of that heroic figure whose virtues and whose death are impressed so deeply upon the memory of the whole of the present generation of englishmen, the vicissitudes of those anxious campaigns in which the most splendid deeds of gallantry were achieved are yet fresh in the minds of the english people and lord rosebery has not exaggerated when he has said that the debt was felt deeply in the mind of every englishman, however little they might talk of it at the time and when the opportunity arrived with what eagerness, in spite of any possible discouragement--with what eagerness the opportunity was seized. [cheers.] it was a campaign--the campaign which your gallant guest has won--it was a campaign marked by circumstances which have seldom marked a campaign in the history of the world. [cheers.] i suppose that wonderful combination of all achievements and discoveries of modern science, in support of the gallantry and well-tried strategy of a british leader--i suppose these things have not been seen in our history before. [cheers.] but the note of this campaign was that the sirdar not only won the battles which he was set to fight, but he furnished himself the instruments by which they were won, or rather, i should say, he was the last and perhaps by the nature of the circumstances the most efficient of a list of distinguished men whose task it has been to rescue the egyptian army from inefficiency and contempt in order to put it on the pinnacle of glory it occupies now. [cheers.] i remember in our debates during that terrible campaign of - a distinguished member of the government of that day observing with respect to egyptian troops that they were splendid soldiers if only they would not run away. [laughter.] it was a quaint way of putting it, but it was very accurate. they had splendid physique; they had great fidelity and loyalty to their chiefs; they had many of the qualities of the soldier, but like men who had been recruited under the slave whip, and who had been accustomed to the methods of despotism, they had not that courage which can only be obtained by freedom and by united military training. [cheers.] what they lacked has been supplied to them, and the egyptian army, as it has issued from the hands of sir evelyn wood, sir francis grenfell, and the sirdar, is a magnificent specimen of the motive power of the english leader. [cheers.] we do not reflect on it, yet if we have any interest in the administrative processes that go on in various parts of the empire we cannot help being impressed by the fact that numbers on numbers of educated young men, who at home, in this country, would show no very conspicuous qualities except those we are accustomed to look for in an english gentleman, yet, if thrown on their own resources, and bidden to govern and control and guide large bodies of men of another race, they never or hardly ever fall short of the task which has been given to them; but they will make of that body of promising material splendid regiments by which the empire of england is extended and sustained. [cheers.] it is one of the great qualities of the sirdar that he has been able to direct the races that are under him, to make them effective and loyal soldiers, to attach them to himself, and insure their good conduct in the field of battle. [cheers.] he has many other qualities upon which i might dilate if time permitted. lord cromer, who i am glad to see lord rosebery noted as one who ought to have his full share in any honors you confer on those who have built up egyptian prosperity, who is one of the finest administrators the british race has ever produced--lord cromer is in the habit of saying that the sirdar has almost missed his vocation, and that if he was not one of the first generals in the world, he would be one of the first chancellors of the exchequer. [laughter and cheers.] i daresay many people think it a small thing that a soldier should be able to save money [laughter], but it is not so if you will only conceive for yourselves the agony of mind with which in former times the chancellors of the exchequer or financial members of the council have received from time to time accounts of brilliant victories, knowing all the time what a terrible effect upon the ultimate balance of the budget those victories will entail. [laughter.] it is a hazardous thing to say, but i am almost inclined to believe that the sirdar is the only general that has fought a campaign for £ , less than he originally promised to do it. [laughter.] it is a very great quality, and if it existed more generally, i think that terror which financiers entertain of soldiers, and that contempt which soldiers entertain for financiers would not be so frequently felt. ["hear! hear!" and laughter.] well, then, the sirdar has another great quality: he is a splendid diplomatist. it would require talents of no small acuteness and development to enable him to carry to so successful a result as he did that exceedingly delicate mission up the nile which conducted him into the presence of major marchand. the intercourse of that time has ended apparently in the deepest affection on both sides [laughter]--certainly in the most unrestricted and unstinted compliments and expressions of admiration and approval. i think these things show very much for the diplomatic talents of the sirdar. he recently expressed his hope that the differences which might have arisen from the presence of major marchand would not transcend the powers of diplomacy to adjust. i am glad to say that up to a certain point he has proved a true prophet. [cheers.] i received from the french ambassador this afternoon the information that the french government had come to the conclusion that the occupation of fashoda was of no sort of value to the french republic. [loud cheers and some laughter.] and they thought that in the circumstances to persist in an occupation which only cost them money and did them harm merely because some bad advisers thought it might be disagreeable to an unwelcome neighbor, would not show the wisdom by which i think the french republic has been uniformly guided, and they have done what i believe the government of any other country would have done, in the same position--they have resolved that that occupation must cease. [cheers.] a formal intimation of that fact was made to me this afternoon and it has been conveyed to the french authorities at cairo. i believe that the fact of that extremely difficult juxtaposition between the sirdar and major marchand has led to a result which is certainly gratifying and, to some extent, unexpected; and that it is largely due to the chivalrous character and diplomatic talents which the sirdar displayed on that occasion. [cheers.] i do not wish to be understood as saying that all causes of controversy are removed by this between the french government and ourselves. it is probably not so, and i daresay we shall have many discussions in the future; but a cause of controversy of a somewhat acute and dangerous character has been removed and we cannot but congratulate ourselves upon that. [cheers.] i will only say that alike in his patient and quiet forethought, lasting over three years, in his brilliant strategy on the field of battle, in his fearless undertaking of responsibility and his contempt of danger, and last but not least in the kindness and consideration which he displayed for men who were for a moment in a position of antagonism to himself--in these things he has shown a combination of the noblest qualities which distinguish the race to which he belongs and by the exercise of which the high position of england in this generation in the world and in her great empire has been won. [loud cheers.] william thomas sampson victory in superior numbers [speech of rear-admiral william t. sampson at a banquet given in his honor by citizens of boston, mass., february , . hon. richard olney presided on the occasion.] mr. president and gentlemen:--i rise to thank you for your most generous greeting for myself, for my friends, and for all of the navy that you have included in the various remarks which have been made. i want you to understand that i do not take it all to myself, but that this is divided with all the men; and while with great hesitation i attempt to make a speech at all, i feel that this is an opportunity which should not be thrown away. i do not propose to say anything, as you might expect, about the battle of santiago, but i would like to say a few words about the lessons which we have learned, or should learn, from that battle. first, i would say that neither that battle nor any other that i know of, was won by chance. it requires an adequate means to accomplish such a result. that battles are not won by chance, you have only to consider for a moment a few--one or two--of the principal battles of the world. not that i mean to class the battle of santiago as one of the great battles of the world--but just as an illustration. you will see the result of adequate means in the case of the battle of waterloo, for instance. when we remember that wellington fought that battle with , men opposed to napoleon's , , we are not surprised that it was wellington's battle. take another decisive battle--sedan. when the germans had , men opposed to , , it does not seem possible that the result could have been anything else. so we might go over a long list. the sea fights furnish many instances where it was found that the most powerful fleet was the one that was successful. nelson was always in favor of overwhelming fleets, though he did not have them always at his command. our own war of furnishes numerous instances where our victories depended upon the superior force. it seems unnecessary that such self-evident truths should be stated before this assemblage of intelligent gentlemen, but we are apt to forget that a superior force is necessary to win a victory. as i said before, victory is not due to chance. had superior force not been our own case at the battle of santiago, had it been the reverse, or had it been materially modified, what turned out to be a victory might have been a disaster; and that we must not forget. the second lesson, if we may call it so, is closely allied, perhaps, to the first. shall we learn the lesson which is taught us in this recent war? shall we rest on the laurels which we may have won, or shall we prepare for the future? shall we not imagine our foe in the future, as might well be the case, to be superior to the one over which we have been victorious? it is a question that comes home to us directly. on july d, when cervera was returned, on board the "iowa," to the mouth of the harbor at santiago, he requested permission to send a telegram reporting the state of the case to captain-general blanco. of course, no objection was raised to this, and cervera wrote out a telegram and sent it on board the flagship to be scrutinized and forwarded to blanco. he stated in this telegram that he obeyed his (general blanco's) orders and left the harbor of santiago at . sunday morning, and "now," he said, "it is with the most profound regret that i have to report that my fleet has been completely destroyed. we went out to meet the forces of the enemy, which outnumbered us three to one." i had so much sympathy with old admiral cervera that i did not have it in my heart to modify or change in any respect the report which he proposed to make to captain-general blanco. i felt that the truth would be understood in the course of time, and that while i would not now, or then, under any circumstances, admit that he was outnumbered in the proportion of three to one, i still felt that he should be at liberty to defend himself in that manner. the fleets that were opposed to each other on that sunday morning were, as regards the number of the ships, about six to seven. leaving out the torpedo-destroyers and the "gloucester," which may be said not to have been fighting ships, the proportion was six to four. the fleet of the spaniards consisted of four beautiful ships. i think i am stating the case within bounds when i say that they were--barring their condition at that time, which, of course, we did not all know, in many respects--that they were all our imaginations had led us to suppose. we outnumbered them, but this is only another illustration of the fact which i wish to bring before you, that it is necessary to have a superior force to make sure of victory in any case. it seems to me that you, gentlemen, who are so influential in determining and deciding what the navy of the united states should be, should bear this emphatically in mind--that we must have more ships, more guns, and all that goes to constitute an efficient navy. i am not advocating a large navy. i do not believe that we should support a large navy, but that it should be much larger than it is at present i think you will all concede. the increased territory which we have added to our country will probably produce an increase in our chances for war by at least one hundred per cent.--not that we need increase the navy to that extent--but probably will. noah hunt schenck truth and trade [speech of rev. dr. noah hunt schenck at the th annual banquet of the chamber of commerce of the state of new york, new york city, may , . in introducing dr. schenck, the president, samuel d. babcock, said: "the loose manner in which the dinner committee have conducted their business is now becoming evident. the chairman has got considerably mixed on the toasts. you may recollect that the toast to which dr. chapin responded referred to twins [rev. dr. edwin h. chapin had spoken to the toast 'commerce and capital, twin forerunners of civilization and philanthropy'], and here is one that refers to matrimony, and it is very evident that this one ought to have preceded the other. [laughter and applause.] eighth regular toast, 'truth and trade: those whom god hath joined together, let no man put asunder.'"] mr. president and gentlemen:--it were an ambitious effort to hold the attention of this distinguished body directly after its ears had been ravished by the eloquent deliverances of the finished orators who have just preceded me. in fact, i can scarcely imagine why you enlist another voice from brooklyn, unless it be to show that there is a possibility of exhausting brooklyn, and you would make it my sad office to afford you the illustration. [applause.] the chairman said at the beginning that the best speeches were to be at the last. you have already discovered that this was designed for irony, for thus far the speeches have been incomparable, but mine is to be the beginning of the end. [laughter and applause.] i know that what i say is true when i charge the chairman with irony, for do not i feel his iron entering my soul? [laughter and applause.] it is an act of considerable temerity, even though the ground has been so gracefully broken by the rev. dr. chapin, for a clergyman to rise before this common-sense body of three hundred business men (unless we had you in our churches), for you well know that this precious quality of common sense is supposed to have its habitat almost entirely with business men, and rarely with the clergy. i know full well that the men of the pulpit are held to be wanting in practical knowledge, and that we know but little of the dark and devious ways of this naughty world. so that, rising here, i feel as if i were but a little one among a thousand, and yet i would venture to submit that the clergy are not wholly unpractical. nay, i sometimes am led to think that the men of my cloth are the most practical, common-sense business men in the world. [laughter and applause.] there is certainly no class of men who can make so little go so far, who can live so comfortably on such small incomes, who can fatten on pastures where the members of this chamber of commerce would starve. [applause and laughter.] there is no class of men that go through life in such large proportion without bankruptcy. [laughter and applause.] while , merchants in the united states during the four years from to failed in business, with liabilities amounting to $ , , (i quote statistics from accepted authority), i do not believe that one-quarter of that number of clergymen failed [laughter and applause], or that their liabilities amounted to anything like that sum. [laughter and applause.] i have seen the estimate that eighty-five per cent. of merchants fail within two years after they embark in business, notwithstanding their common sense, and that only three per cent, make more money in the long run than is enough for a comfortable livelihood. having thus attempted to fortify my waning "dutch courage" by an off-hand attack upon my hospitable entertainers, and having in some sense, even though it be pickwickian, vindicated my cloth, let me go on for a moment and cut my garment according to it. [laughter and applause.] i have been asked to say a word upon the wedlock of truth and trade, and advocate the idea that what in the nature of things has been joined together of god, should not, should never be sundered by man. we know that truth is eternal. trade, thank god, is not. [laughter and applause.] still, so far as time and earth are concerned, trade endures from first to last and everywhere. god married it to truth with the fiat that men should eat bread in the sweat of their faces. from that moment men have been wrangling in every court of conscience and society to secure decrees of divorce. how manifold and multitudinous the tricks, dodges, and evasions to which men have resorted to be rid of the work which conditions bread. [laughter and applause.] the great art of life in the estimate of the general, said a great economist, is to have others do the face-sweating and themselves the bread-eating. [laughter and applause.] but all along the line of the centuries the divine utterances have given forth with clarion clearness that god would have men illustrate morals and religion in the routine of business life. and so in all the upper levels of civilization we observe that society points with pride to the integrity that is proof against the temptations of trade. the men who have honored sublime relations of business and religion are they whom the world has delighted to honor. with but rare exceptions trade, wherever it has been prosperous, has had truth for its wedded partner. for the most part, wherever men have achieved high success in traffic, it has been not upon the principle that "honesty is the best policy," for honesty is never policy, but upon the basis of fidelity to truth and right under every possible condition of things. the man who is honest from motives of policy will be dishonest when policy beckons in that direction. the men who have illumined the annals of trade are those who have bought the truth and sold it not, who held it only to dispense it for the welfare of others. we cannot too highly honor the temper of that generation of business men who half a century ago sternly refused to compromise with any form of deceit in the details of traffic, visiting with the severest penalties those who at all impinged upon the well-accepted morals of trade. the story is told of a young merchant who, beginning business some fifty years ago, overheard one day a clerk misrepresenting the quality of some merchandise. he was instantly reprimanded and the article was unsold. the clerk resigned his position at once, and told his employer that the man who did business that way could not last long. but the merchant did last, and but lately died the possessor of the largest wealth ever gathered in a single lifetime. permit me another incident and this not from new york, but philadelphia. one of the copes had but just written his check for $ for some local charity, when a messenger announced the wreck of an east indiaman belonging to the firm, and that the ship and cargo were a total loss. another check for $ was substituted at once, and given to the agent of the hospital with the remark: "what i have god gave me, and before it all goes, i had better put some of it where it can never be lost." [applause.] such illustrations as these are not infrequent in the biographies of those noble men who in days gone by as well as in our own times, have never divorced truth from trade, but have always reverenced the sacred relations. i dare venture the remark that the prosperity of a nation is more largely dependent upon the probity of its merchants than upon any other one class of men. [applause.] this because of their numbers, their influence over so many who are subject to them in business, and their close relation to, and important control over, the financial interests of the country. what a wide area of opportunity is afforded in the counting-room, where so many students of trade are preparing for the uncertain future! accept, i beseech you, the responsibility of moulding the characters of your young men and so prepare a generation of merchants who shall know of nothing but honesty and honor, and who will cherish nobility of sentiment in all their business transactions. [applause.] and can you not help the world abroad as well as at home? i believe that merchants engaged in commerce with foreign nations, have it within the scope and purview of their business relations to do as much for the propagation of christian truth as the church itself. if your ventures are intrusted to the direction of men of character; if your agents are men who recognize in practice the morals of the religion they profess, you will not only not negative as now, alas! but too often the efforts of the church's envoys, by the frequent violations of christian law, on the part of those who propose to be governed by it; but through the illustrations you can send out of christian consistency--by the living representatives of our higher civilization, which you can furnish to remote nations, to say nothing of the voluntary agency in scattering the printed powers of our faith in all quarters of the globe, how much may not be accomplished in this and in other ways by your men and your ships--trade thus travelling round the world with truth by her side, helping each other and healing the nations. [applause.] winfield scott schley the navy in peace and in war [speech of winfield s. schley at the eighteenth annual dinner of the new england society of pennsylvania, philadelphia, december , . the president, stephen w. dana, presented admiral schley in these words: "admiral schley needs no introduction from me--he speaks for himself."] mr. president, gentlemen of the new england society:--i am very much in the condition of the gentleman who, being about to be married and having had his wedding suit brought home a day before the event, returned it to the tailor with instructions to increase the girth just two inches. his explanation was that not enough room had been left to accommodate the wedding breakfast he had to eat or for the emotion that was to follow the event. i am always glad to meet my countrymen anywhere and everywhere. they stand for all that is representative; they stand for all that is progressive; they stand for all that represents humanity, and they stand for all that is fair-minded, high-minded, and honorable. as to those of us who by the circumstances of our service are obliged to pass the greater part of our lives away from home, away from kindred, and away from the flag, it may be difficult to understand how to keep the altar of one's patriotism burning when we are separated from the sweetest and kindest influences of life and performing a service and a duty that are outside of the public observation. but there is a large-heartedness at home that never forgets us. we are bound to our country by ties that are not only sweet in their nature, but the circumstances of service generate a love of home and a patriotism that are the surest guarantees of the welfare and the safety of our people. the navy is that arm of the public defence the nature of whose duties is dual in that they relate to both peace and war. in times of peace the navy blazes the way across the trackless deep, maps out and marks the dangers which lie in the routes of commerce, in order that the peaceful argosies of trade may pursue safe routes to the distant markets of the world, there to exchange the varied commodities of commerce. it penetrates the jungle and the tangle of the inter-tropical regions. it stands ready to starve to death or to die from exposure. it pushes its way into the icy fastnesses of the north or of the south, in order that it may discover new channels of trade. it carries the influence of your power and the beneficent advantages of your civilization to the secluded and hermit empires of the eastern world, and brings them into touch with our western civilization and its love of law for the sake of the law rather than for fear of the law's punishments. it stands guard upon the outer frontiers of civilization, in pestilential climates, often exposed to noisome disease, performing duties that are beyond the public observation but yet which have their happy influence in maintaining the reputation and character of our country and extending the civilizing agency of its commerce. the bones of the officers and men of the navy lie in every country in the world, or along the highways of commerce; they mark the resting-places of martyrs to a sense of duty that is stronger than any fear of death. the navy works and strives and serves, without any misgivings and without any complaints, only that it may be considered the chief and best guardian of the interests of this people, of the prestige of this nation, and of the glory and renown of its flag. these are some of the duties of peace, which has its triumphs "no less renowned than war." but it is the martial side of the navy that is the more attractive one to us. it is that side of its duty which presents to us its characters who have written their names and their fames in fire. no matter what may be our ideas of civilization or how high our notions of peace, there is no one of us who has not felt his heart beat a little bit faster and his blood course a little bit more rapidly when reading of the daring and thrilling deeds of such men as john paul jones or of decatur or of stewart or of hull or of perry or of macdonald or of tatnall or of ingram or of cushing or of porter or of farragut. the war so happily ended has added new names to the galaxy of naval worthies. new stars are in the firmament. the records indicate that your naval representatives have been faithful to the lesson of their traditions, that they have been true to their history, whilst the men of our navy have shown that they have lost none of the skill and none of the tact that they have inherited. but they have proven again that a generation of men who are able to defend their title to the spurs they inherited are proper successors to their progenitors. [applause.] heinrich schliemann the beginnings of art [speech of heinrich schliemann at the annual banquet of the royal academy, london, may , . sir gilbert scott, the eminent architect, took the chair in the absence of sir frederick grant, the president of the academy. in introducing dr. schliemann, sir gilbert scott spoke as follows: "there is one gentleman present among us this evening who has special claims upon an expression of our thanks. antiquarian investigation is emphatically a subject of our own day. more has been discovered of the substantial vestiges of history in our own than probably in any previous age; and it only needs the mention of the names of champollion, layard, rawlinson, and lipsius to prove that we have in this age obtained a genuine knowledge of the history of art as practised in all previous ages. not only have we obtained a correct understanding of the arts of our own race as exemplified in our own mediæval antiquities, but lost buildings of antiquity such as the egyptian labyrinth, the palace of nineveh, the mausoleum of halicarnassus, the temple and statues of olympia, and the temple of diana at ephesus have been re-discovered and disinterred. ["hear! hear!"] there remained, however, one great hiatus. we knew something of the more archaic periods of greek art, and we knew that on the gate of mycenæ there were evidences of an art far more archaic and apparently not allied with true hellenic art, but we knew no more nor had an idea how the great gulf in art history was to be bridged over. it still remains a great gulf, but dr. schliemann by his excavations, first on the site of troy and then of mycenæ, has brought to open daylight what, without prejudging questions as yet _sub judice_, seem to be the veritable works of the heroes of the iliad; and if he has not yet actually solved the mysteries which shroud that age, he has brought before us a perfect wealth of fact at the least calculated to sharpen our antiquarian appetite for more certain knowledge. knowing that dr. schliemann is like one in old times, who, while longing to tell of the atrides and of cadmus, yet allowed the chords of his heart to vibrate to softer influences, i will, while proposing his health, conjoin with his name that of his energetic fellow-explorer, madame schliemann."] mr. president, my lords, and gentlemen:--you have been pleased to confer upon me two of the greatest honors which this country can possibly bestow upon a foreigner--first, by your kind invitation to this hospitable banquet to meet the most illustrious statesmen, the most eminent scholars, and the most distinguished artists; and secondly, by your toast to my health. in warmly thanking you, i feel the greatest satisfaction to think that for these signal honors, i am solely indebted to my labors in troy and mycenæ. ["hear! hear!"] in troy art was only in its first dawn; color was still completely unknown, and instead of painting, the vases were decorated with incised patterns filled with white clay. the productions of sculpture were limited to carving of small flat idols of minerva [greek: glaukôpis][ ] of marble, almost in the forms of two discs, which adhered to each other, and upon which the owl's face is rudely scratched. the trojan treasure certainly shows more art, but it is characterized by an absence of ornamentation. in mycenæ, on the contrary, the monuments which i have brought to light show a high state of civilization, and the skill with which the gold ornaments are made leads us to pre-suppose a school of domestic artists which had flourished for ages before it reached such perfection. the very great symmetry we see also in the vase-paintings and in the carvings of spirals and rosettes on stone, whereas representations of men or animals are exceedingly rude and appear to be the primitive mycenean sculptor's first essay. but rude as they are, and childish as they look, these primitive productions of greek art are of paramount interest to science, because we see in them the great-grandfathers of the masterpieces of phidias and praxiteles; they prove to us in the most certain manner that the artistic genius of the epoch of pericles did not come suddenly down from heaven like minerva from the head of jove, but that it was the result of a school of artists, which had gradually developed in the course of ages. once more, i tender my thanks for the patience with which you have listened to a stranger. ["hear! hear!"] carl schurz the old world and the new [speech of carl schurz at a banquet given by the chamber of commerce of the state of new york, new york city, november , , in honor of the guests of the nation, the french diplomatic representatives in america, and members of the families descended from our foreign sympathizers and helpers, general lafayette, count de rochambeau, count de grasse, baron von steuben, and others, who were present at the centennial celebration of the victory at yorktown. the chairman, james m. brown, vice-president of the chamber of commerce, proposed the toast, "the old world and the new," to which carl schurz was called upon for a response.] mr. chairman and gentlemen of the chamber of commerce:--if you had been called upon to respond to the toast: "the old world and the new" as frequently as i have, you would certainly find as much difficulty as i find in saying anything of the old world that is new or of the new world that is not old. [applause.] and the embarrassment grows upon me as i grow older, as it would upon all of you, except perhaps my good friend, mr. evarts, who has determined never to grow old, and whose witty sayings are always as good as new. [laughter.] still, gentlemen, the scenes which we have been beholding during the last few weeks have had something of a fresh inspiration in them. we have been celebrating a great warlike event--not great in the number of men that were killed in it, but very great in the number of people it has made happy. it has made happy not only the people of this country who now count over fifty millions, but it has made happier than they were before the nations of the old world, too; who, combined, count a great many more. [applause.] american independence was declared at philadelphia on july , , by those who were born upon this soil, but american independence was virtually accomplished by that very warlike event i speak of, on the field of yorktown, where the old world lent a helping hand to the new. [applause.] to be sure, there was a part of the old world consisting of the british, and i am sorry to say, some german soldiers, who strove to keep down the aspirations of the new, but they were there in obedience to the command of a power which they were not able to resist, while that part of the old world which fought upon the american side was here of its own free will as volunteers. [cheers.] it might be said that most of the regular soldiers of france were here also by the command of power, but it will not be forgotten that there was not only lafayette, led here by his youthful enthusiasm for the american cause, but there was france herself, the great power of the old world appearing as a volunteer on a great scale. [cheers.] so were there as volunteers those who brought their individual swords to the service of the new world. there was the gallant steuben, the great organizer who trained the american army to victory, a representative of that great nation whose monuments stand not only upon hundreds of battle-fields of arms, but whose prouder monuments stand upon many more battle-fields of thought. [cheers.] there was pulaski, the pole, and dekalb who died for american independence before it was achieved. and there were many more frenchmen, germans, swedes, hollanders, englishmen even, who did not obey the behests of power. [cheers.] and so it may be said that the cause of the new world was the cause of the volunteers of the old. and it has remained the cause of volunteers in peace as well as in war, for since then we have received millions of them, and they are arriving now in a steady stream, thousands of them every week; i have the honor to say, gentlemen, that i am one of them. [cheers.] nor is it probable that this volunteering in mass will ever stop, for it is in fact drawn over here by the excitement of war as much as by the victories of peace. it was, therefore, natural that the great celebration of that warlike event should have been turned or rather that it should have turned itself into a festival of peace on the old field of yorktown--peace illustrated by the happy faces of a vast multitude, and by all the evidence of thrift and prosperity and well-being; peace illustrated by the very citizen-soldiery who appeared there to ornament as a pageant, with their brilliant bayonets that peaceful festival; peace illustrated by the warmth of a grand popular welcome offered to the honored representatives of the old world; peace illustrated, still more, by their friendly meeting upon american soil whatever their contentions at home may have been; peace glorified by what has already been so eloquently referred to by dr. storrs and mr. evarts; that solemn salute offered to the british flag, to the very emblem of the old antagonism of a hundred years ago; and that salute, echoing in every patriotic american heart, to be followed as the telegraph tells us now, by the carrying of the american flag in honor in the lord mayor's procession in london--all this a cosmopolitan peace festival, in which the old world sent its representatives to join in rejoicing over the prosperity and progress of the new. [cheers.] there could hardly have been a happier expression of this spirit of harmony than was presented in the serenade offered to these gentlemen--representatives of the honored name of steuben on the evening of their arrival in new york, the band playing first "the watch on the rhine," followed by the "marseillaise" and "god save the queen," and then the martial airs of the old world resolving themselves into the peaceful strains of the crowning glory of "hail, columbia!" and "yankee doodle." [cheers.] the cordiality of feeling which binds the old and the new world together, and which found so touching, so tender, so wonderful an expression in the universal heartfelt sorrow of all civilized mankind at the great national bereavement, which recently has befallen us [the assassination of president garfield], can hardly fail to be strengthened by this visit of the old world guests whom we delight to honor. [cheers.] they have seen now something of our country, and our people; most of them, probably, for the first time, and i have no doubt they have arrived at the conclusion that the country for which lafayette and steuben and rochambeau fought is a good country, inhabited by a good people [cheers]; a good country and a good people, worthy of being fought for by the noblest men of the earth; and i trust also when these gentlemen return to their own homes they will go back with the assurance that the names of their ancestors who drew their swords for american liberty stand in the heart of every true american side by side with the greatest american names, and that, although a century has elapsed since the surrender of yorktown, still the gratitude of american hearts is as young and fresh and warm to-day as it was at the moment when cornwallis hauled down his flag. [applause.] it seems to me also, gentlemen, that we have already given some practical evidence of that gratitude. the independence they helped to achieve has made the american nation so strong and active and prosperous that when the old world runs short of provisions, the new stands always ready and eager even, to fill the gap, and by and by we may even send over some products of other industries for their accommodation. [applause.] in fact, we have been so very liberal and generous in that respect, that some of our friends on the other side of the sea are beginning to think that there may be a little too much of a good thing, and are talking of shutting it off by tricks of taxation. [laughter.] however, we are not easily baffled. not content with the contribution of our material products, we even send them from time to time, some of our wisdom, as, for instance, a few months ago, our friend, mr. evarts, went over there to tell them about the double standard--all that we knew and a good deal more. [laughter.] we might even be willing to send them all the accumulated stock of our silver, if they will give us their gold for it. [cheers.] it is to be apprehended that this kind of generosity will not be fittingly appreciated and in that respect they may prefer the wisdom of the old world to that of the new. [laughter.] however, we shall not quarrel about that, for seriously speaking, the new and the old world must and will, in the commercial point of view, be of infinite use one to another as mutual customers, and our commercial relations will grow more fruitful to both sides from year to year, and from day to day, as we remain true to the good old maxim: "live and let live." [cheers.] nor is there the least speck of danger in the horizon threatening to disturb the friendliness of an international understanding between the old world and the new. that cordial international understanding rests upon a very simple, natural, and solid basis. we rejoice with the nations of the old world in all their successes, all their prosperity, and all their happiness, and we profoundly and earnestly sympathize with them whenever a misfortune overtakes them. but one thing we shall never think of doing, and that is, interfering in their affairs. [cheers.] on the other hand they will give us always their sympathy in good and evil as they have done heretofore, and we expect that they will never think of interfering with our affairs on this side of the ocean. [loud cheers.] our limits are very distinctly drawn, and certainly no just or prudent power will ever think of upsetting them. the old world and the new will ever live in harmonious accord as long as we do not try to jump over their fences and they do not try to jump over ours. [cheers.] this being our understanding, nothing will be more natural than friendship and good-will between the nations of the two sides of the atlantic. the only danger ahead of us might be that arising from altogether too sentimental a fondness for one another which may lead us into lovers' jealousies and quarrels. already some of our honored guests may feel like complaining that we have come very near to killing them with kindness; at any rate, we are permitted to hope that a hundred years hence our descendants may assemble again to celebrate the memory of the feast of cordial friendship which we now enjoy, and when they do so, they will come to an american republic of three hundred millions of people, a city of new york of ten million inhabitants, and to a delmonico's ten stories high with a station for airships running between europe and america on the top of it [cheers], and then our guests may even expect to find comfortable hotels and decent accommodations at the deserted village of yorktown. [laughter and cheers.] but, in the meantime, i am sure our old world guests who to-night delight us with their presence, will never cease to be proud of it that the great names of which they are the honored representatives are inscribed upon some of the most splendid pages of the new world's history, and will live forever in the grateful affection of the new world's heart. [loud applause.] william h. seward a pious pilgrimage [speech of william h. seward at a banquet held at plymouth, mass., december , . preceding this banquet mr. seward delivered an oration on "the pilgrims and liberty." the speech here given is his response to the toast proposed at the banquet, "the orator of the day, eloquent in his tribute to the virtues of the pilgrims; faithful, in his life, to the lessons they taught."] ladies and gentlemen:--the puritans were protestants, but they were not protestants against everybody and everything, right or wrong. they did not protest indiscriminately against everything they found in england. on the other hand, we have abundant indications in the works of genius and art which they left behind them that they had a reverence for all that is good and true; while they protested against everything that was false and vicious. they had a reverence for the good taste and the literature, science, eloquence, and poetry of england, and so i trust it is with their successors in this once bleak and inhospitable, but now rich and prosperous land. they could appreciate poetry, as well as good sense and good taste, and so i call to your recollection the language of a poet who had not loomed up at the time of the puritans as he has since. it was addressed to his steed, after an ill-starred journey to islingtontown. the poet said:-- "'twas for your pleasure you came here, you shall go back for mine." being a candid and frank man, as one ought to be who addresses the descendants of the puritans, i may say that it was not at all for your pleasure that i came here. though i may go back to gratify you, yet i came here for my own purposes. the time has passed away when i could make a distant journey from a mild climate to a cold though fair region, without inconvenience; but there was one wish, i might almost say there was only one wish of my heart that i was anxious should be gratified. i had been favored with many occasions to see the seats of empire in this western world, and had never omitted occasions to see where the seats of empire were planted, and how they prospered. i had visited the capital of my own and of many other american states. i had regarded with admiration the capital of this great republic, in whose destinies, in common with you all, i feel an interest which can never die. i had seen the capitals of the british empire, and of many foreign empires, and had endeavored to study for myself the principles which have prevailed in the foundation of states and empires. with that view i had beheld a city standing where a migration from the netherlands planted an empire on the bay of new york, at manhattan, or perhaps more properly at fort orange. they sought to plant a commercial empire, and they did not fail; but in new york now, although they celebrate the memories and virtues of fatherland, there is no day dedicated to the colonization of new york by the original settlers, the immigrants from holland. i have visited wilmington, on christina creek, in delaware, where a colony was planted by the swedes, about the time of the settlement of plymouth, and though the old church built by the colonists still stands there, i learned that there did not remain in the whole state a family capable of speaking the language, or conscious of bearing the name of one of the thirty-one original colonists. i have stood on the spot where a treaty was made by william penn with the aborigines of pennsylvania, where a seat of empire was established by him, and, although the statue of the good man stands in public places, and his memory remains in the minds of men, yet there is no day set apart for the recollection of the time and occasion when civil and religious liberty were planted in that state. i went still farther south, and descending the james river, sought the first colony of virginia at jamestown. there remains nothing but the broken, ruined tower of a poor church built of brick, in which pocahontas was married, and over the ruins of which the ivy now creeps. not a human being, bond or free, is to be seen within a mile from the spot, nor a town or city as numerously populated as plymouth, on the whole shores of the broad, beautiful, majestic river, between richmond at the head, and norfolk, where arms and the government have established fortifications. nowhere else in america, then, was there left a remembrance by the descendants of the founders of colonies, of the virtues, the sufferings, the bravery, the fidelity to truth and freedom of their ancestors; and more painful still, nowhere in europe can be found an acknowledgment or even a memory of these colonists. in holland, in spain, in great britain, in france, nowhere is there to be found any remembrance of the men they sent out to plant liberty on this continent. so on the way to the mississippi, i saw where de soto planted the standard of spain, and, in imagination at least, i followed the march of cortez in mexico, and pizarro in peru; but their memory has gone out. civil liberty perishes, and religious liberty was never known in south america; nor does spain, any more than other lands, retain the memory of the apostles she sent out to convert the new world to a purer faith, and raise the hopes of mankind for the well-being of the future. there was one only place, where a company of outcasts, men despised, contemned, reproached as malcontents and fanatics, had planted a colony, and that colony had grown and flourished; and there had never been a day since it was planted that the very town, and shore, and coast, where it was planted had not grown and spread in population, wealth, prosperity, and happiness, richer and stronger continually. it had not only grown and flourished like a vigorous tree, rejoicing in its own strength, but had sent out offshoots in all directions. everywhere the descendants of these colonists were found engaged in the struggles for civil and religious liberty, and the rights of man. i had found them by my side, the champions of humanity, upon whose stalwart arms i might safely rely. i came here, then, because the occasion offered, and if i pretermitted this, it might be the last, and i was unwilling that any friend or any child, who might lean upon me, who reckoned upon my counsel or advice, should know that i had been such a truant to the cause of religious liberty and humanity, as never to have seen the rock of plymouth. my mission being now accomplished, having shed tears in the first church of the puritans, when the heartfelt benediction was pronounced over my unworthy head by that venerable pastor, i have only to ask that i be dismissed from further service with your kind wishes. i will hold the occasion ever dear to my remembrance, for it is here i have found the solution of the great political problem. like archimedes, i have found the fulcrum by whose aid i may move the world--the moral world--and that fulcrum is plymouth rock. william tecumseh sherman the army and navy [speech of general william t. sherman at the first annual dinner of the new england society in the city of brooklyn, december , . the president, benjamin d. silliman, on announcing the toast, "the army and navy--great and imperishable names and deeds have illustrated their history," said: "in response to this toast, i have the privilege of calling on the great captain who commands the armies of the republic; of whom it has been said, that he combines the skill and valor of the soldier, with the wisdom of the statesman, and whose name will ever live in the history of the nation. we shall have the great satisfaction of listening to general sherman."] mr. president and gentlemen:--while in washington i was somewhat embarrassed by receiving invitations from two different new england societies to dine with them on different days in commemoration of the same event. i hoped, under cover of that mistake, to escape one or the other, but i find that each claims its day to be the genuine anniversary of the landing of their fathers on plymouth rock. i must leave some of you to settle this controversy, for i don't know whether it was the st or d; you here in brooklyn say the st; they in new york say it was the d. laboring under this serious doubt, when i came on the stand and found my name enrolled among the orators and statesmen present, and saw that i was booked to make a speech, i appealed to a learned and most eloquent attorney to represent me on this occasion. i even tried to bribe him with an office which i could not give; but he said that he belonged to that army sometimes described as "invincible in peace, invisible in war." [laughter.] he would not respond for me. therefore i find myself upon the stand at this moment compelled to respond, after wars have been abolished by the honorable secretary of state, and men are said to have risen to that level where they are never to do harm to each other again--with the millennium come, in fact, god grant it may be so? [applause.] i doubt it. i heard henry clay announce the same doctrine long before our civil war. i heard also assertions of the same kind uttered on the floor of our senate by learned and good men twenty years ago when we were on the very threshold of one of the most bloody wars which ever devastated this or any other land. therefore i have some doubt whether mankind has attained that eminence where it can look backward upon wars and rumors of war, and forward to a state of perpetual peace. no, my friends, i think man remains the same to-day, as he was in the beginning. he is not alone a being of reason; he has passions and feelings which require sometimes to be curbed by force; and all prudent people ought to be ready and willing to meet strife when it comes. to be prepared is the best answer to that question. [applause.] now my friends, the toast you have given me to-night to respond to is somewhat obscure to me. we have heard to-night enumerated the principles of your society--which are called "new england ideas." they are as perfect as the catechism. [applause and laughter.] i have heard them supplemented by a sort of codicil, to the effect that a large part of our country--probably one-half--is still disturbed, and that the northern man is not welcome there. i know of my own knowledge that two-thirds of the territory of the united states are not yet settled. i believe that when our pilgrim fathers landed on plymouth rock, they began the war of civilization against barbarism, which is not yet ended in america. the nation then, as mr. beecher has well said, in the strife begun by our fathers, aimed to reach a higher manhood--a manhood of virtue, a manhood of courage, a manhood of faith, a manhood that aspires to approach the attributes of god himself. whilst granting to every man the highest liberty known on earth, every yankee believes that the citizen must be the architect of his own fortune; must carry the same civilization wherever he goes, building school-houses and churches for all alike, and wherever the yankee has gone thus far he has carried his principles and has enlarged new england so that it now embraces probably a third or a half of the settled part of america. that has been a great achievement, but it is not yet completed. your work is not all finished. you who sit here in new york, just as your london cousins did two hundred and fifty years ago, know not the struggle that is beyond. at this very moment of time there are miles standishes, under the cover of the snow of the rocky mountains, doing just what your forefathers did two hundred and fifty years ago. they have the same hard struggle before them that your fathers had. you remember they commenced in new england by building log cabins and fences and tilling the sterile, stony, soil, which mr. beecher describes, and i believe these have been largely instrumental in the development of the new england character. had your ancestors been cast on the fertile shores of the lower mississippi, you might not be the same vigorous men you are to-day. your fathers had to toil and labor. that was a good thing for you, and it will be good for your children if you can only keep them in the same tracks. but here in new york and in brooklyn, i do not think you now are exactly like your forefathers, but i can take you where you will see real live yankees, very much the same as your fathers were. in new york with wealth and station, and everything that makes life pleasant, you are not the same persons physically, though you profess the same principles, yet as prudent men, you employ more policemen in new york--a larger proportion to the inhabitants of your city than the whole army of the united states bears to the people of the united states. you have no indians here, though you have "scalpers." [applause and laughter.] you have no "road-agents" here, and yet you keep your police; and so does our government keep a police force where there are real indians and real road-agents, and you, gentlemen, who sit here at this table to-night who have contributed of your means whereby railroads have been built across the continent, know well that this little army, which i represent here to-night, is at this moment guarding these great roadways against incursions of desperate men who would stop the cars and interfere with the mails and travel, which would paralyze the trade and commerce of the whole civilized world, that now passes safely over the great pacific road, leading to san francisco. others are building roads north and south, over which we soldiers pass almost yearly, and there also you will find the blue-coats to-day, guarding the road, not for their advantage, or their safety, but for your safety, for the safety of your capital. so long as there is such a thing as money, there will be people trying to get that money; they will struggle for it, and they will die for it sometimes. we are a good-enough people, a better people it may be than those of england, or france, though some doubt it. still we believe ourselves a higher race of people than have ever been produced by any concatenation of events before. [laughter.] we claim to be, and whether it be due to the ministers of new england, or to the higher type of manhood, of which mr. beecher speaks--which latter doctrine i prefer to submit to--i don't care which, there is in human nature a spark of mischief, a spark of danger, which in the aggregate will make force as necessary for the government of mankind as the almighty finds the electric fluid necessary to clear the atmosphere. [applause.] you speak in your toast of "honored names"; you are more familiar with the history of your country than i am, and know that the brightest pages have been written on the battle-field. is there a new englander here who would wipe "bunker hill" from his list for any price in wall street? not one of you! yet you can go out into pennsylvania and find a thousand of bigger hills which you can buy for ten dollars an acre. it is not because of its money value, but because warren died there in defence of your government which makes it so dear to you. turn to the west. what man would part with the fame of harrison and of perry? they made the settlement of the great northwest by your yankees possible. they opened that highway to you, and shall no honor be given to them? had it not been for the battles on the thames by harrison, and by perry on lake erie, the settlement of the great west would not have occurred by new england industry and thrift. therefore i say that there is an eloquence of thought in those names as great as ever was heard on the floor of congress, or in the courts of new york. [applause.] so i might go on, and take new orleans, for example, where general jackson fought a battle with the assistance of pirates, many of them black men and slaves, who became free by that act. there the black man first fought for his freedom, and i believe black men must fight for their freedom if they expect to get it and hold it secure. every white soldier in this land will help him fight for his freedom, but he must first strike for it himself. "who would be free, themselves must strike the blow." [cheers.] that truth is ripening, and will manifest itself in due time. i have as much faith in it as i have that the manhood, and faith, and firmness, and courage of new england has contributed so much to the wealth, the civilization, the fame, and glory of our country. there is no danger of this country going backward. the civil war settled facts that remain recorded and never will be obliterated. taken in that connection i say that these battles were fought after many good and wise men had declared all war to be a barbarism--a thing of the past. the fields stained with patriotic blood will be revered by our children and our children's children, long after we, the actors, may be forgotten. the world will not stop; it is moving on; and the day will come when all nations will be equal "brothers all," when the scotchman and the englishman will be as the son of america. we want the universal humanity and manhood that mr. beecher has spoken of so eloquently. you yankees don't want to monopolize all the virtues; if you do, you won't get them. [laughter.] the germans have an industry and a type of manhood which we may well imitate. we find them settling now in south america, and in fact they are heading you yankees off in the south american trade. it won't do to sit down here and brag. you must go forth and settle up new lands for you and your children, as your fathers did. that is what has been going on since plymouth rock, and will to the end. the end is not yet, but that it will come and that this highest type of manhood will prevail in the end i believe as firmly as any man who stands on this floor. it will be done not by us alone, but by all people uniting, each acting his own part; the merchant, the lawyer, the mechanic, the farmer, and the soldier. but i contend that so long as man is man there is a necessity for organized force, to enable us to reach the highest type of manhood aimed at by our new england ancestors. [loud applause.] * * * * * a reminiscence of the war [speech of general william t. sherman at the eighty-first annual dinner of the new england society in the city of new york, december , . judge horace russell presided and introduced general sherman as a son of new england whom the society delighted to honor. the toast proposed was, "health and long life to general sherman." the general was visibly affected by the enthusiastic greeting he received when he rose to respond.] mr. president and gentlemen of the new england society of new york:--were i to do the proper thing, i would turn to my friend on the left [t. dewitt talmage] and say, amen; for he has drawn a glorious picture of war in language stronger than even i or my friend, general schofield, could dare to use. but looking over the society to-night--so many young faces here, so many old and loved ones gone--i feel almost as one of your forefathers. [laughter and applause.] many and many a time have i been welcomed among you. i came from a bloody civil war to new york twenty or twenty-one years ago, when a committee came to me in my room and dragged me unwillingly before the then new england society of new york. they received me with such hearty applause and such kindly greetings that my heart goes out to you now to-night as their representatives. [applause.] god knows i wish you, one and all, the blessings of life and enjoyment of the good things you now possess, and others yet in store for you. i hope not to occupy more than a few minutes of your time, for last night i celebrated the same event in brooklyn, and at about two or three o'clock this morning i saw this hall filled with lovely ladies waltzing [laughter], and here again i am to-night. [renewed laughter. a voice, "you're a rounder, general."] but i shall ever, ever recur to the early meetings of the new england society, in which i shared, with a pride and satisfaction which words will not express; and i hope the few i now say will be received in the kindly spirit they are made in, be they what they may, for the call upon me is sudden and somewhat unexpected. i have no toast. i am a rover. [laughter.] i can choose to say what i may--not tied by any text or formula. i know when you look upon old general sherman, as you seem to call him [oh, oh!]--pretty young yet, my friends, not all the devil out of me yet, and i hope still to share with you many a festive occasion--whenever you may assemble, wherever the sons of new england may assemble, be it here under this delmonico roof, or in brooklyn, or even in boston, i will try to be there. [applause.] my friends, i have had many, many experiences, and it always seems to me easier to recur to some of them when i am on my feet, for they come back to me like the memory of a dream, pleasant to think of. and now, to-night, i know the civil war is uppermost in your minds, although i would banish it as a thing of trade, something too common to my calling; yet i know it pleases the audience to refer to little incidents here and there of the great civil war, in which i took a humble part. [applause.] i remember, one day away down in georgia, somewhere between, i think, milledgeville and millen, i was riding on a good horse and had some friends along with me to keep good-fellowship. [laughter.] a pretty numerous party, all clever good fellows. [renewed laughter.] riding along, i spied a plantation. i was thirsty, rode up to the gate and dismounted. one of these men with sabres by their side, called orderlies, stood by my horse. i walked up on the porch, where there was an old gentleman, probably sixty years of age, white-haired and very gentle in his manners--evidently a planter of the higher class. i asked him if he would be kind enough to give me some water. he called a boy, and soon he had a bucket of water with a dipper. i then asked for a chair, and called one or two of my officers. among them was, i think, dr. john moore, who recently has been made surgeon-general of the army, for which i am very glad--indebted to mr. cleveland. [laughter and applause.] we sat on the porch, and the old man held the bucket, and i took a long drink of water, and maybe lighted a cigar [laughter], and it is possible i may have had a little flask of whiskey along. [renewed laughter.] at all events, i got into a conversation; and the troops drifted along, passing down the roadway closely by fours, and every regiment had its banner, regimental or national, sometimes furled and sometimes afloat. the old gentleman says:-- "general, what troops are these passing now?" as the color-bearer came by, i said: "throw out your colors. that is the th iowa." "the th iowa! th iowa! iowa! th! what do you mean by th?" "well," said i, "habitually, a regiment, when organized, amounts to , men." "do you pretend to say iowa has sent , men into this cruel civil war?" [laughter.] "why, my friend, i think that may be inferred." "well," says he, "where's iowa?" [laughter.] "iowa is a state bounded on the east by the mississippi, on the south by missouri, on the west by unknown country, and on the north by the north pole." "well," says he, " , men from iowa! you must have a million men." says i: "i think about that." presently another regiment came along. "what may that be?" i called to the color-bearer: "throw out your colors and let us see," and it was the st or d wisconsin--i have forgotten which. "wisconsin! northwest territory! wisconsin! is it spelled with an o or a w?" "why, we spell it now with a w. it used to be spelled ouis." "the d! that makes , men?" "yes, i think there are a good many more than that. wisconsin has sent about , men into the war." then again came along another regiment from minnesota. "minnesota! my god! where is minnesota?" [laughter.] "minnesota!" "minnesota is away up on the sources of the mississippi river, a beautiful territory, too, by the way--a beautiful state." "a state?" "yes; has senators in congress; good ones, too. they're very fine men--very fine troops." "how many men has she sent to this cruel war?" "well, i don't exactly know; somewhere between , and , men, probably. don't make any difference--all we want." [laughter.] "well," says he, "now we must have been a set of fools to throw down the gage of battle to a country we didn't know the geography of!" [laughter and applause.] "when i went to school that was the northwest territory, and the northwest territory--well," says he, "we looked upon that as away off, and didn't know anything about it. fact is, we didn't know anything at all about it." said i: "my friend, think of it a moment. down here in georgia, one of the original thirteen states which formed the great union of this country, you have stood fast. you have stood fast while the great northwest has been growing with a giant's growth. iowa to-day, my friend, contains more railroads, more turnpikes, more acres of cultivated land, more people, more intelligence, more schools, more colleges--more of everything which constitutes a refined and enlightened state--than the whole state of georgia." "my god," says the man, "it's awful. i didn't dream of that." "well," says i, "look here, my friend; i was once a banker, and have some knowledge of notes, indorsements, and so forth. did you ever have anything to do with indorsements?" says he: "yes, i have had my share. i have a factor in savannah, and i give my note and he indorses it, and i get the money somehow or other. i have to pay it in the end out of the crop." "well," says i, "now look here. in the southern states had , , slaves as property, for which the states of pennsylvania, new york, ohio, indiana, illinois, and so forth, were indorsers. we were on the bond. your slaves were protected by the same law which protects land and other property. now, you got mad at them because they didn't think exactly as you did about religion, and about this thing and t'other thing; and like a set of fools you first took your bond and drew your pen through the indorser's names. do you know what the effect will be? you will never get paid for those niggers at all." [laughter.] "they are gone. they're free men now." "well," says he, "we were the greatest set of fools that ever were in the world." [laughter.] and so i saw one reconstructed man in the good state of georgia before i left it. [laughter and applause.] yes, my friends, in those days things looked gloomy to us, but the decree came from a higher power. no pen, no statesman, in fact, no divine could have solved the riddle which bound us at that time; nothing but the great god of war. and you and your fathers, your ancestors, if you please, of whom i profess to be one [applause], had to resort to the great arbiter of battles, and call upon jove himself. and now all men in america, north and south, east and west, stand free before the tribunal of the almighty, each man to work out his own destiny according to his ability, and according to his virtue, and according to his manhood. [applause.] i assure you that we who took part in that war were kindly men. we did not wish to kill. we did not wish to strike a blow. i know that i grieved as much as any man when i saw pain and sorrow and affliction among the innocent and distressed, and when i saw burning and desolation. but these were incidents of war, and were forced upon us--forced upon us by men influenced by a bad ambition; not by the men who owned those slaves, but by politicians who used that as a pretext, and forced you and your fathers and me and others who sit near me, to take up arms and settle the controversy once and forever. [cries of "good," and loud applause.] now, my friends of new england, we all know what your ancestors are recorded to have been; mine were of the same stock. both my parents were from norwalk, connecticut. i think and feel like you. i, too, was taught the alphabet with blows, and all the knowledge i possessed before i went to west point was spanked into me by the ferule of those old schoolmasters. [laughter.] i learned my lesson well, and i hope that you, sons of new england, will ever stand by your country and its flag, glory in the achievements of your ancestors, and forever--and to a day beyond forever, if necessary, giving you time to make the journey to your last resting-place--honor your blood, honor your forefathers, honor yourselves, and treasure the memories of those who have gone before you. [enthusiastic applause.] ballard smith the press of the south [speech of ballard smith at the annual banquet given by the southern society of new york, february , . john c. calhoun, one of the vice-presidents of the society, presided. mr. smith spoke to the toast, "the press of the south."] mr. president and gentlemen:--the newspaper has always been a potent factor in the south--for many years almost exclusively political, but since the war occupying its more proper sphere and assisting more largely in the material development of the country. i think every southern man will agree with me that the change of procession has been to the very great advantage of our section. the columns of the ante-bellum newspaper were too often the opportunity for the indulgence of excited passions, political and social, and i doubt if our people could not have better spared the newspaper altogether than to have permitted the license of accusation, political incitement, and personal rancor which characterized so largely the journals of thirty years ago. [applause.] but they were virile hands which held editorial pens in those days and the faults were doubtless faults of the period rather than of the men themselves. it was a splendid galaxy--that company which included george d. prentiss, rhett, forsythe, hughes, henry d. wise, john mitchell, and thomas ritchie. but it is of southern journalism during these last twenty years of which i would speak. i have known something of it because my own apprenticeship was served in one of the most brilliant journals of this or any other time and of this or any other country. the services of henry watterson to the south and to the country are a part of the history of our time. [applause.] his loyalty toward his section could never have been doubted, and his firmness and broad patriotism served it at a time of need to a degree which perhaps the firmness and patriotism of no other man in the south could have equalled. he had for the vehicle of his eloquent fervor a newspaper which commanded the affection of his own people and the respect of the north. [applause.] with the restoration of order great newspapers--fair rivals to their great contemporaries in the eastern and northern states--have grown to prosperity in the various centres of the south, and they have acted out a mission which is in some respects peculiar to themselves. more important than politics to the south, more important than the advocacy of good morals--for of that our people took good care themselves in city as in country--has been the material development of our resources. the war left us very poor. the carpet-bag governments stole a very large part of the little that was left. injudicious speculations in cotton during a few years of madness almost completed our bankruptcy. with fertile fields, cheap labor, extraordinary mineral resources, our almost undisputed control of one of the great staples of the world, the year found us a prostrate people almost beyond precedent. to this breach came several thoughtful, public-spirited, eloquent men of the newspaper guild. it was our good fortune that in dawson of the "charleston news and courier," in major burke, page m. baker, and colonel nicholson of new orleans; in major belo of galveston; in the editors of "the nashville banner," "the american," "the memphis appeal," "the richmond dispatch and state," and above all, in henry w. grady, of "the atlanta constitution" [applause], we had spokesmen who, day in and day out, in season and out, year after year devoted their thoughts, their study, and their abilities to showing the world, first, the sturdy intention of our people to recuperate their lost fortunes; and second, the extraordinary resources of their section. [applause.] certainly not in the history of my profession and perhaps not in any history of such endeavor, have men, sinking mere personal interests and ignoring the allurements of ambition, through a more dramatic exercise of their talents so devoted themselves to the practical interests of their people. [applause.] we saw the results in the awakened curiosity of the world, and in the speedy influx of capital to aid us in our recuperation. [applause.] charles emory smith ireland's struggles [speech of charles emory smith at the banquet given by the hibernian society of philadelphia, st. patrick's day, march , . mr. smith was introduced by the society's president, john field, and called upon to speak to the toast, "the press."] mr. president and gentlemen:--these annual dinners of the hibernian society, several of which i have had the honor of attending, are distinguished by a peculiar association and spirit. the sons of other nationalities, englishmen, welshmen, scotchmen, germans, and those among whom i count myself--the sons of new england--are accustomed to meet annually on the anniversary of a patron saint or on some great historic occasion as you do. and those of us who have the opportunity of going from one to the other will, i am sure, agree with me that nowhere else do we find the patriotic fire and the deep moving spirit which we find here. something of this, mr. president, is due to the buoyant quality of blood which flows in every irishman's veins--a quality which makes the irishman, wherever he may be and under all circumstances, absolutely irrepressible. something, i say, is due to this buoyant quality of the irish blood. still, some of it is due to the fact that he is moved by a deep sense of the woes and the wrongs, of the sadness and the sorrows of his native land. oppression and injustice only inflame the spirit of nationality. the heel of the oppressor may crush and tear the form or reduce the strength, but nothing crushes the inward resolve of the heart. the americans were never so american as when they revolted against england and threw the tea overboard into boston harbor, and punished the red-coats at bunker hill. the heavy yoke of austria rested grievously upon hungary, but they raised themselves in revolt and fought fearlessly for their home rule, for their freedom and their rights. and they were defeated by treason in their camps and by the combined forces of austria and russia. yet, sir, they persevered until they achieved home rule--as will ireland at no distant day. the long history of oppression and injustice in ireland has not only not extinguished the flame of irish patriotism and feeling, but has served to kindle it, to make it more glowing to-day than ever before. for seven centuries ireland has wrestled with and been subjected to misrule--to england's misrule: a rule great and noble in many things, as her priceless statesman says, but with this one dark, terrible stain upon an otherwise noble history. only a day or two ago there reached our shores the last number of an english periodical, containing an article from the pen of that great statesman, to whom not only all ireland, but all the civilized world is looking to-day to battle for freedom in england. the article presents, in the most striking form that i have ever seen, statements of what is properly called ireland's demands. and i was struck there with the most extraordinary statement coming from this great statesman of england, of the character of england's rule, or rather england's misrule, of ireland during those seven centuries. for all those centuries, he says, were centuries not only of subjection, but of extreme oppression. the fifth century was the century of confiscation; the sixth was a century of penal laws--penal laws, which, he says, "we cannot defend and which we must condemn and wash our hands of the whole proceedings"--a century of penal laws, except from to , which he calls the golden age of ireland. and as i stop for a moment to recollect what had distinguished that period, and as you stop here to-night and recollect for a single moment what had distinguished that short period of that century and made it the golden age of ireland, you will understand why it was so called. it was the period when henry grattan, the great leader of the first battle for home rule, poured forth his learned and masterly eloquence; when curran made his powerful plea for religious emancipation. the period when robert emmet--to whom such glorious tribute has been paid here to-night--was learning, in the bright early morn of that career which promised to be so great and to do so much, those lessons of patriotism which enabled him, when cut down in the flower of youth, to meet even his ignominious death with marvellous nerve and firm confidence, with courage and patriotism. and, gentlemen, i believe that it is one glorious trait of the american press that during this struggle which has gone on now for years, this struggle for justice in ireland, that the press of america has been true to the best inspirations of liberty; and i unhesitatingly say to england and to the english ministers, that if they would conform to the judgment of the civilized world they must abandon their course of intoleration and oppression, and must do justice to long oppressed ireland. the press, the united press of philadelphia, and of other great cities of the country, have done their part in promoting that work which has been going on among our people for the last few years to attain this end. the press of philadelphia aided in raising that magnificent fund of $ , which went from this side; and if it need be, it will put its hand to the plough and renew work. it was the remark of mr. gladstone, that looking at past events, they [england] could not cite a single witness in behalf of the cause which they represented. the american people began their contributions in , to prevent the starvation of many of those people, and they continued their contributions to stop evictions, and to pay the landlords; they continued their contributions to promote that work of freedom and justice and home rule, for which we stand united, inflexible and immovable until it shall be finally accomplished. [applause.] * * * * * the president's prelude [speech of charles emory smith at the thirteenth annual dinner of the new england society of pennsylvania, philadelphia, december , . mr. smith, then president of the society, delivered the usual introductory address of the presiding officer, immediately after ex-president benjamin f. harrison had spoken.] honored guests and fellow-members:--i am sure that you have greatly enjoyed the brilliant and witty speech to which you have just listened--a speech which shows that our distinguished guest is as felicitous at the dinner-table as he is signally successful in other fields of oratory. but if you have deluded yourself with the idea that because of this change in the programme you are to escape the infliction of the usual address by the president of the society, it is now my duty to undeceive you. [laughter.] even the keen reflections of general harrison respecting the prepared impromptu speeches shall not deter us. the rest of us who are not as gifted as he is have expended too much midnight oil and sacrificed too much of the gray matter of the brain to lose our opportunity. you will see that we have anticipated his impromptu observations by carefully premeditating our impromptu reply. [laughter.] lord beaconsfield said that carlyle had reasons to speak civilly of cromwell, for cromwell would have hanged him. [laughter.] general harrison has been hanging the rest of us--yes, hanging and quartering us--though this is far from being the only reason for speaking civilly of him, and yet we must go on with the exhibition. you have observed that on the programme, as arranged by the committee, the first number is a prelude by the president and the last a hymn by the society. the committee evidently intended to begin and end with music. what particular solo they expect me to perform i am somewhat uncertain. but the truth is you have already had a part of the music and you will have the rest when i am done. for my part is only that of the leader in the old puritan choir--to take up the tuning fork and pitch the key; and i do this when i say that we are assembled for the two hundred and seventy-third time [laughter] to commemorate the landing of the pilgrims on plymouth rock. if any one doubts the correctness of that chronology, let him consult brothers shortridge and lewis and clark and cornish, who have been with us from the beginning. [laughter.] we have met to celebrate these fourfathers [laughter], as well as some others, and to glorify ourselves. if we had any doubts about the duty we owe our ancestors, we have no scruples about the satisfaction we take in their posterity. "my idea of first-rate poetry," said josh billings, "is the kind of poetry that i would have writ." so our idea of first-rate posterity is the kind of posterity we are. [laughter.] but while not forgetting the posterity, it is not forbidden at these dinners to make an occasional and casual allusion to the pilgrim fathers. thackeray tells us of an ardent young lady who had a devotion of the same sort to "nicholas nickleby." when she wanted instruction, she read "nicholas nickleby." when she wanted amusement, she read "nicholas nickleby." when she had leisure, she read "nicholas nickleby." when she was busy, she read "nicholas nickleby." when she was sick, she read "nicholas nickleby," and when she got well, she read "nicholas nickleby" over again. [laughter.] we return with the same infrequent, inconstant and uncertain fidelity to the memory of the pilgrim fathers. if we seek the light persiflage and airy humor of the after-dinner spirit, we find an inexhaustible fountain in the quaint customs and odd conceits of the pilgrim fathers. if we seek the enkindling fire and the moral elevation of high principle and profound conviction and resolute courage, we find a never-ceasing inspiration in the unfaltering earnestness and imperishable deeds of the pilgrim fathers. [applause.] after praying for all the rest of mankind, the good colored preacher closed up with the invocation "and, finally, o lord! bless the people of the uninhabited portions of the globe." [laughter.] we are sometimes as comprehensive in our good-will as the colored brother; but to-night we fix our thoughts upon that more limited portion of mankind which belongs in nativity or ancestry to that more restricted part of the globe known as new england. we are here to sing the praises of these sturdy people. they, too, sang--and sang with a fervor that was celebrated in the memorable inscription on one of the pews of old salem church:-- "could poor king david but for once to salem church repair, and hear his psalms thus warbled out, good lord! how he would swear." and it was not in salem church, either, that the psalms were sung with the peculiar variations of which we have record. an enterprising establishment proposed to furnish all the hymn-books to a congregation not abundantly blessed with this world's goods, provided it might insert a little advertisement. the thrifty congregation in turn thought there would be no harm in binding up any proper announcement with watt and doddridge; but when they assembled on christmas morning, they started back aghast as they found themselves singing-- "hark! the herald angels sing, beecham's pills are just the thing; peace on earth and mercy mild, two for man and one for child." but if the pilgrim fathers were not the sweetest warblers, they at least never wobbled. they always went direct to their mark. as emerson said of napoleon, they would shorten a straight line to get at a point. they faced the terrors of the new england northeast blast and starved in the wilderness in order that we might live in freedom. we have literally turned the tables on them and patiently endure the trying hardships of this festive board in order that their memories may not die in forgetfulness. we can never forget the hardships which they were forced to endure, but at the same time we must recognize that they had some advantages over us. they escaped some of the inflictions to which we have been compelled to submit. they braved the wintry blast of plymouth, but they never knew the everlasting wind of the united states senate. [laughter.] they slumbered under the long sermons of cotton mather, but they never dreamed of the fourteen consecutive hours of nebraska allen or nevada stewart. they battled with armenian dogmas and antinomian heresies, but they never experienced the exhilarating delights of the silver debate or throbbed under the rapturous and tumultuous emotions of a tariff schedule. [laughter.] they had their days of festivity. they observed the annual day of thanksgiving with a reverent, and not infrequently with a jocund, spirit; but advanced as they were in many respects, they never reached that sublime moral elevation and that high state of civilization which enable us in our day to see that the only true way to observe thanksgiving is to shut up the churches and revel in the spiritual glories of the flying wedge and the triumphant touchdown. [laughter.] their calendar had three great red-letter days of celebration: commencement day, which expressed and emphasized the foremost place they gave to education in their civil and religious polity; training or muster day, which illustrated the spirit and the skill that gave them victory over the indians and made them stand undaunted on bunker hill under warren and putnam until above the gleaming column of red-coats they could look into the whites of the enemies' eyes; and election day, upon which, with its election sermon and its solemn choice of rulers, they acted out their high sense of patriotic duty to the commonwealth. we are deeply concerned in these days about the debasement of the ballot-box. perhaps we could find a panacea in the practice of our pilgrim fathers. they enacted a law that the right of suffrage should be limited to church members in good standing. suppose we had such a law now, what a mighty revolution it would work either in exterminating fraud or in promoting piety! "men and brethren!" said the colored parson, "two ways are open before you, the broad and narrow way which leads to perdition, and the straight and crooked way which leads to damnation." [laughter.] we have before us now the two ways of stuffed ballot-boxes and empty pews, and our problem is to change the stuffing from the ballot-boxes to the pews. i am not altogether sure which result would be accomplished; but it is quite clear that if the law of our fathers did not destroy corruption in politics, it would at least kindle a fresh interest in the church. [laughter.] gentlemen, it is with honest pride and fresh inspiration that we gather once a year to revive our enkindling story. the santa maria, with its antique form and its flying pennant, contrasting the past with the present, amid the dazzling and now vanishing splendors of the wondrous white city, has this year recalled the discovery of america. but the jewel is more precious than the casket. the speaking picture appeals to us more than its stately setting. and heroic as was the voyage of the santa maria across a trackless sea to an unknown continent, it was the nobler mission of the mayflower to bring the priceless seeds of principle and liberty which have blossomed in the resplendent development and progress of our great free republic. conscience incarnate in brewster and bradford, in winthrop and winslow, smote plymouth rock; and from that hour there has poured forth from its rich fountain a perennial stream of intellectual and moral force which has flooded and fertilized a broad continent. the puritan spirit was duty; the puritan creed was conscience; the puritan principle was individual freedom; the puritan demand was organized liberty, guaranteed and regulated by law. [applause.] that spirit is for to-day as much as for two centuries ago. it fired at lexington the shot heard round the world, and it thundered down the ages in the emancipation proclamation. it lives for no narrow section and it is limited to no single class. the soul that accepts god and conscience and equal manhood has the puritan spirit, whether he comes from massachusetts or virginia, from vermont or indiana; whether you call him quaker or catholic, disciple of saint nicholas or follower of saint george. [applause.] the puritan did not pass away with his early struggles. he has changed his garb and his speech; he has advanced with the progress of the age; but in his fidelity to principle and his devotion to duty he lives to-day as truly as he lived in the days of the puritan revolution and the puritan pilgrimage. his spirit shines in the lofty teachings of channing and in the unbending principles of sumner, in the ripened wisdom of emerson and in the rhythmical lessons of longfellow. the courageous john pym was not more resolute and penetrating in leading the great struggle in the long parliament than was george f. edmunds in the senate of the united states. and the intrepid and sagacious john hampden, heroic in battle and supreme in council, wise, steadfast, and true, was but a prototype of benjamin harrison. herbert spencer the gospel of relaxation [speech of herbert spencer at a dinner given in his honor in new york city, november , . william m. evarts presided.] mr. president and gentlemen:--along with your kindness there comes to me a great unkindness from fate; for now, that above all times in my life i need the full command of what powers of speech i possess, disturbed health so threatens to interfere with them, that i fear i shall often inadequately express myself. any failure in my response you must please ascribe, in part at least, to a greatly disordered nervous system. regarding you as representing americans at large, i feel that the occasion is one on which arrears of thanks are due. i ought to begin with the time, some two and twenty years ago, when my highly valued friend, professor youmans, making efforts to diffuse my books here, interested on their behalf messrs. appleton, who have ever treated me so honorably and so handsomely; and i ought to detail from that time onward the various marks and acts of sympathy by which i have been encouraged in a struggle which was for many years disheartening. but intimating thus briefly my general indebtedness to my numerous friends most of them unknown on this side of the atlantic, i must name more especially the many attentions and proffered hospitalities met with during my late tour as well as, lastly and chiefly, this marked expression of the sympathies and good wishes which many of you have travelled so far to give at great cost of that time which is so precious to an american. i believe i may truly say that the better health which you have so cordially wished me will be in a measure furthered by the wish; since all pleasurable emotion is conducive to health, and as you will fully believe, the remembrance of this evening will ever continue to be a source of pleasurable emotion exceeded by few if any of my remembrances. and now that i have thanked you sincerely though too briefly, i am going to find fault with you. already in some remarks drawn from me respecting american affairs and american character, i have passed criticisms which have been accepted far more good-naturedly than i could reasonably have expected; and it seems strange that i should now again propose to transgress. however, the fault i have to comment upon is one which most will scarcely regard as a fault. it seems to me that in one respect americans have diverged too widely from savages. i do not mean to say that they are in general unduly civilized. throughout large parts of the population even in long-settled regions there is no excess of those virtues needed for the maintenance of social harmony. especially out in the west men's dealings do not yet betray too much of the "sweetness and light" which we are told distinguish the cultured man from the barbarian; nevertheless there is a sense in which my assertion is true. you know that the primitive man lacks power of application. spurred by hunger, by danger or revenge he can exert himself energetically for a time, but his energy is spasmodic. monotonous daily toil is impossible to him. it is otherwise with the more developed man. the stern discipline of social life has gradually increased the aptitude for persistent industry; until among us, and still more among you, work has become with many a passion. this contrast of nature is another aspect. the savage thinks only of present satisfactions and leaves future satisfactions uncared for. contrariwise the american, eagerly pursuing a future good almost ignores what good the passing day offers him; and when the future good is gained, he neglects that while striving for some still remoter good. what i have seen and heard during my stay among you has forced on me the belief that this slow change from habitual inertness to persistent activity has reached an extreme from which there must begin a counter-change--a reaction. everywhere i have been struck with the number of faces which told in strong lines of the burdens that had to be borne. i have been struck, too, with the large proportion of gray-haired men; and inquiries have brought out the fact that with you the hair commonly begins to turn some ten years earlier than with us. moreover, in every circle i have met men who had themselves suffered from nervous collapse due to the stress of business, or named friends who had either killed themselves by overwork or had been permanently incapacitated or had wasted long periods in endeavors to recover health. i do but echo the opinion of all the observant persons i have spoken to that immense injury is being done by this high-pressure life--the physique is being undermined. that subtle thinker and poet whom you have lately had to mourn--emerson,--says in his "essay on the gentleman," that the first requisite is that he shall be a good animal. the requisite is a general one--it extends to man, the father, the citizen. we hear a great deal about the "vile body"; and many are encouraged by the phrase to transgress the laws of health. but nature quietly suppresses those who treat thus disrespectfully one of her highest products and leaves the world to be peopled by the descendants of those who are not so foolish. beyond these immediate mischiefs, there are remoter mischiefs. exclusive devotion to work has the result that amusements cease to please; and when relaxation becomes imperative, life becomes dreary from lack of its sole interest--the interest in business. the remark current in england that when the american travels, his aim is to do the greatest amount of sight-seeing in the shortest time, i find current here also; it is recognized that the satisfaction of getting on devours nearly all other satisfactions. when recently at niagara, which gave us a whole week's pleasure, i learned from the landlord of the hotel that most americans come one day and go away the next. old froissart, who said of the english of his day that "they take their pleasures sadly after their fashion," would doubtless, if he lived now, say of the americans that "they take their pleasures hurriedly after their fashion." in large measure with us, and still more with you, there is not that abandonment to the moment which is requisite for full enjoyment; and this abandonment is prevented by the ever-present sense of multitudinous responsibilities. so that beyond the serious physical mischief caused by overwork, there is the further mischief that it destroys what value there would otherwise be in the leisure part of life. nor do the evils end here. there is the injury to posterity. damaged constitutions re-appear in their children and entail on them far more of ill than great fortunes yield them of good. when life has been duly rationalized by science, it will be seen that among a man's duties the care of the body is imperative not only out of regard for personal welfare, but also out of regard for descendants. his constitution will be considered as an entailed estate which he ought to pass on uninjured if not improved to those who follow; and it will be held that millions bequeathed by him will not compensate for feeble health and decreased ability to enjoy life. once more, there is the injury to fellow-citizens taking the shape of undue regard of competitors. i hear that a great trader among you deliberately endeavored to crush out everyone whose business competed with his own; and manifestly the man who, making himself a slave to accumulation, absorbs an inordinate share of the trade or profession he is engaged in, makes life harder for all others engaged in it and excludes from it many who might otherwise gain competencies. thus, besides the egoistic motive, there are two altruistic motives which should deter from this excess in work. the truth is there needs a revised ideal of life. look back through the past, or look abroad through the present, and we find that the ideal of life is variable and depends on social conditions. everyone knows that to be a successful warrior was the highest aim among all ancient peoples of note, as it is still among many barbarous peoples. when we remember that in the norseman's heaven, the time was to be passed in daily battles with magical healing of wounds, we see how deeply rooted may become the conception that fighting is man's proper business and that industry is fit only for slaves and people of low degree. that is to say, when the chronic struggles of races necessitate perpetual wars there is evolved an ideal of life adapted to the requirements. we have changed all that in modern civilized societies, especially in england and still more in america. with the decline of militant activity and the growth of industrial activity the occupations once disgraceful have become honorable. the duty to work has taken the place of the duty to fight; and in the one case as in the other the ideal of life has become so well established that scarcely anybody dreams of questioning it. practical business has been substituted for war as the purpose of existence. is this modern ideal to survive throughout the future? i think not. while all other things undergo continuous change, it is impossible that ideals should remain fixed. the ancient ideal was appropriate to the ages of conquest by man over man and spread of the strongest races. the modern ideal is appropriate to ages in which conquest of the earth and subjection of the powers of nature to human use is the predominant need. but hereafter, when both these ends have in the main been achieved, the ideal formed will probably differ considerably from the present one. may we not foresee the nature of the difference? i think we may. some twenty years ago, a good friend of mine and a good friend of yours, too, though you never saw him, john stuart mill, delivered at st. andrew's an inaugural address on the occasion of his appointment to the lord rectorship. it contained much to be admired, as did all he wrote; there ran through it, however, the tacit assumption that life is for learning and working. i felt at the time that i should have liked to take up the opposite thesis. i should have liked to contend that life is not for learning nor is life for working, but learning and working are for life. the primary use of knowledge is for such guidance of conduct under all circumstances as shall make living complete--all other uses of knowledge are secondary. it scarcely needs saying that the primary use of work is that of supplying the materials and aids to living completely; and that any other uses of work are secondary. but in men's conceptions the secondary has in great measure usurped the place of the primary. the apostle of culture, as culture is commonly conceived, mr. matthew arnold, makes little or no reference to the fact that the first use of knowledge is the right ordering of all actions; and mr. carlyle, who is a good exponent of current ideas about work, insists on its virtues for quite other reasons than that it achieves sustentation. we may trace everywhere in human affairs a tendency to transform the means into the end. all see that the miser does this when making the accumulation of money his sole satisfaction; he forgets that money is of value only to purchase satisfactions. but it is less commonly seen that the like is true of the work by which the money is accumulated--that industry, too, bodily or mental, is but a means, and that it is as irrational to pursue it to the exclusion of that complete living it subserves as it is for the miser to accumulate money and make no use of it. hereafter when this age of active material progress has yielded mankind its benefits there will, i think, come a better adjustment of labor and enjoyment. among reasons for thinking this there is the reason that the processes of evolution throughout the world at large bring an increasing surplus of energies that are not absorbed in fulfilling material needs and point to a still larger surplus for humanity of the future. and there are other reasons which i must pass over. in brief, i may say that we have had somewhat too much of the "gospel of work." it is time to preach the gospel of relaxation. this is a very unconventional after-dinner speech. especially it will be thought strange that in returning thanks i should deliver something very much like a homily. but i have thought i could not better convey my thanks than by the expression of a sympathy which issues in a fear. if, as i gather, this intemperance in work affects more especially the anglo-american part of the population, if there results an undermining of the physique not only in adults, but also in the young, who as i learn from your daily journals are also being injured by overwork--if the ultimate consequence should be a dwindling away of those among you who are the inheritors of free institutions and best adapted to them, then there will come a further difficulty in the working out of that great future which lies before the american nation. to my anxiety on this account you must please ascribe the unusual character of my remarks. and now i must bid you farewell. when i sail by the germanic on saturday, i shall bear with me pleasant remembrances of my intercourse with many americans, joined with regrets that my state of health has prevented me from seeing a larger number. arthur penrhyn stanley america visited [speech of arthur penrhyn stanley, dean of westminster, at the breakfast given by the century club, new york city, november , .] mr. president and gentlemen:--the hospitality shown to me has been no exception to that with which every englishman meets in this country, in the endless repetition of kind words and the overwhelming pressure of genial entertainment which has been thrust upon me. that famous englishman, dr. johnson, when he went from england to scotland, which, at that time, was a more formidable undertaking than is a voyage from england to america at the present time, met at a reception at st. andrew's a young professor who said, breaking the gloomy silence of the occasion: "i trust you have not been disappointed!" and the famous englishman replied: "no; i was told that i should find men of rude manners and savage tastes, and i have not been disappointed." so, too, when i set out for your shores i was told that i should meet a kindly welcome and the most friendly hospitality. i can only say, with dr. johnson, i have not been disappointed. but in my vivid though short experience of american life and manners, i have experienced not only hospitality, but considerate and thoughtful kindness, for which i must ever be grateful. i can find it in my heart even to forgive the reporters who have left little of what i have said or done unnoted, and when they have failed in this, have invented fabulous histories of things which i never did and sayings which i never uttered. sometimes when i have been questioned as to my impressions and views of america, i have been tempted to say with an englishman who was hard pressed by his constituents with absurd solicitations: "gentlemen, this is the humblest moment of my life, that you should take me for such a fool as to answer all your questions." but i know their good intentions and i forgive them freely. the two months which i have spent on these shores seem to me two years in actual work, or two centuries rather, for in them i have lived through all american history. in virginia i saw the era of the earliest settlers, and i met john smith and pocahontas on the shores of the james river. in philadelphia i lived with william penn, but in a splendor which i fear would have shocked his simple soul. at salem i encountered the stern founders of massachusetts; at plymouth i watched the mayflower threading its way round the shoals and promontories of that intricate bay. on lake george and at quebec i followed the struggle between the english and the french for the possession of this great continent. at boston and concord i followed the progress of the war of independence. at mount vernon i enjoyed the felicity of companionship with washington and his associates. i pause at this great name, and carry my recollections no further. but you will understand how long and fruitful an experience has thus been added to my life, during the few weeks in which i have moved amongst the scenes of your eventful history. and then, leaving the past for the present, a new field opens before me. there are two impressions which are fixed upon my mind as to the leading characteristics of the people among whom i have passed, as the almanac informs me, but two short months. on the one hand i see that everything seems to be fermenting and growing, changing, perplexing, bewildering. in that memorable hour--memorable in the life of every man, memorable as when he sees the first view of the pyramids, or of the snow-clad range of the alps--in the hour when for the first time i stood before the cataracts of niagara, i seemed to see a vision of the fears and hopes of america. it was midnight, the moon was full, and i saw from the suspension bridge the ceaseless contortion, confusion, whirl, and chaos, which burst forth in clouds of foam from that immense central chasm which divides the american from the british dominion; and as i looked on that ever-changing movement, and listened to that everlasting roar, i saw an emblem of the devouring activity, and ceaseless, restless, beating whirlpool of existence in the united states. but into the moonlight sky there rose a cloud of spray twice as high as the falls themselves, silent, majestic, immovable. in that silver column, glittering in the moonlight, i saw an image of the future of american destiny, of the pillar of light which should emerge from the distractions of the present--a likeness of the buoyancy and hopefulness which characterize you both as individuals and as a nation. you may remember wordsworth's fine lines on "yarrow unvisited," "yarrow visited," and "yarrow revisited." "america unvisited"--that is now for me a vision of the past; that fabulous america, in which, before they come to your shores, englishmen believe pennsylvania to be the capital of massachusetts, and chicago to be a few miles from new york--that has now passed away from my mind forever. "america visited"; this, with its historic scenes and its endless suggestions of thought, has taken the place of that fictitious region. whether there will ever be an "america revisited" i cannot say; but if there should be, it will then be to me not the land of the pilgrim fathers and washington, so much as the land of kindly homes, and enduring friendships, and happy recollections, which have now endeared it to me. one feature of this visit i fear i cannot hope to see repeated, yet one without which it could never have been accomplished. my two friends, to whom such a pleasing reference has been made by dr. adams, who have made the task easy for me which else would have been impossible; who have lightened every anxiety; who have watched over me with such vigilant care that i have not been allowed to touch more than two dollars in the whole course of my journey--they, perchance, may not share in "america revisited." but if ever such should be my own good fortune, i shall remember it as the land which i visited with them; where, if at first they were welcomed to your homes for my sake, i have often felt as the days rolled on that i was welcomed for their sake. and you will remember them. when in after years you read at the end of some elaborate essay on the history of music or on biblical geography the name of george grove, you will recall with pleasure the incessant questionings, the eager desire for knowledge, the wide and varied capacity for all manner of instruction, which you experienced in your conversations with him here. and when also hereafter there shall reach to your shores the fame of the distinguished physician, dr. harper, whether in england or in new zealand, you will be the more rejoiced because it will bring before you the memory of the youthful and blooming student who inspected your hospitals with such keen appreciation, so impartially sifting the good from the evil. i part from you with the conviction that such bonds of kindly intercourse will cement the union between the two countries even more than the wonderful cable, on which it is popularly believed in england that my friend and host, mr. cyrus field, passes his mysterious existence appearing and reappearing at one and the same moment in london and in new york. of that unbroken union there seemed to me a likeness, when on the beautiful shores of lake george, the loch katrine of america, i saw a maple and an oak-tree growing together from the same stem, perhaps from the same root--the brilliant fiery maple, the emblem of america; the gnarled and twisted oak, the emblem of england. so may the two nations always rise together, so different each from each, and representing so distinct a future, yet each springing from the same ancestral root, each bound together by the same healthful sap, and the same vigorous growth. henry morton stanley through the dark continent [speech of henry m. stanley at a dinner given in his honor by the lotos club, new york city, november , . whitelaw reid, president of the lotos club, in welcoming mr. stanley, said: "well, gentlemen, your alarm of yesterday and last night was needless. the atlantic ocean would not break even a dinner engagement for the man whom the terrors of the congo and the nile could not turn back, and your guest is here. [applause.] it is fourteen years since you last gave him welcome. then he came to you fresh from the discovery of livingstone. the credulity which even doubted the records of that adventurous march or the reality of his brilliant result had hardly died out. our young correspondent, after seeing the war end here without his having a fair chance to win his spurs, had suddenly made a wonderful hit out of the expedition which nobody had really believed in and most people had laughed at. we were proud of him, and right glad to see him, and a little bit uneasy, but vastly amused over his peppery dealings with the royal geographers. [laughter.] in spite of our admiration for his pluck and his luck we did not take him quite seriously. [laughter.] in fact we did not take anything very seriously in those days. the lotos club at first was younger in that hearty enthusiastic reception to stanley fourteen years ago in that gay little clubhouse next to the academy of music; we were thinking far more of a hearty greeting to the comrade of the quill who had been having a hard time but had scored 'a big beat' [laughter] than of adequate recognition to the man already well launched on a career that ranks him among the foremost explorers of the century. [loud cheers.] it is the character in which you must welcome him now. the royal geographical society has no further doubt as to the credit to which he is entitled. he brings its diploma of honorary membership ["hear! hear!"], he bears the gold medal of victor emmanuel, the decorations of the khedive, the commission of the king of the belgians. more than any of them he cherishes another distinction--what american would not prize it?--the vote of thanks of the legislature and the recognition of his work by our government. the young war-correspondent has led expeditions of his own--the man who set out merely to find livingstone, has himself done a work greater than livingstone's. [applause.] he has explored equatorial africa, penetrated the dark continent from side to side, mapped the nile, and founded the free state on the congo.' [applause.] all honor to our returning guest! the years have left their marks upon his frame and their honors upon his name. let us make him forget the fevers that have parched him, the wild beasts and the more savage men that have pursued him. ["hear! hear!"] he is once more among the friends of his youth, in the land of his adoption. let us make him feel at home. [applause.] i give you the health of our friend and comrade."] mr. chairman and gentlemen of the lotos club: one might start a great many principles and ideas which would require to be illustrated and drawn out in order to present a picture of my feelings at the present moment. i am conscious that in my immediate vicinity there are people who were great when i was little. i remember very well when i was unknown to anybody, how i was sent to report a lecture by my friend right opposite, mr. george alfred townsend, and i remember the manner in which he said: "galileo said: 'the world moves round,' and the world does move round," upon the platform of the mercantile hall in st. louis--one of the grandest things out. [laughter and applause.] the next great occasion that i had to come before the public was mark twain's lecture on the sandwich islands, which i was sent to report. and when i look to my left here i see colonel anderson, whose very face gives me an idea that bennett has got some telegraphic despatch and is just about to send me to some terrible region for some desperate commission. [laughter.] and, of course, you are aware that it was owing to the proprietor and editor of a newspaper that i dropped the pacific garb of a journalist and donned the costume of an african traveller. it was not for me, one of the least in the newspaper corps, to question the newspaper proprietor's motives. he was an able editor, very rich, desperately despotic. [laughter.] he commanded a great army of roving writers, people of fame in the news-gathering world; men who had been everywhere and had seen everything from the bottom of the atlantic to the top of the very highest mountain; men who were as ready to give their advice to national cabinets [laughter] as they were ready to give it to the smallest police courts in the united states. [laughter.] i belonged to this class of roving writers, and i can truly say that i did my best to be conspicuously great in it, by an untiring devotion to my duties, an untiring indefatigability, as though the ordinary rotation of the universe depended upon my single endeavors. [laughter.] if, as some of you suspect, the enterprise of the able editor was only inspired with a view to obtain the largest circulation, my unyielding and guiding motive, if i remember rightly, was to win his favor by doing with all my might that duty to which according to the english state church catechism, "it had pleased god to call me." [laughter and applause.] he first despatched me to abyssinia--straight from missouri to abyssinia! what a stride, gentlemen! [laughter.] people who lived west of the missouri river have scarcely, i think, much knowledge of abyssinia, and there are gentlemen here who can vouch for me in that, but it seemed to mr. bennett a very ordinary thing, and it seemed to his agent in london a very ordinary thing indeed, so i of course followed suit. i took it as a very ordinary thing, and i went to abyssinia, and somehow or other good-luck followed me and my telegrams reporting the fall of magdala happened to be a week ahead of the british government's. the people said i had done right well, though the london papers said i was an impostor. [laughter.] the second thing i was aware of was that i was ordered to crete to run the blockade, describe the cretan rebellion from the cretan side, and from the turkish side; and then i was sent to spain to report from the republican side and from the carlist side, perfectly dispassionately. [laughter.] and then, all of a sudden, i was sent for to come to paris. then mr. bennett, in that despotic way of his, said: "i want you to go and find livingstone." as i tell you, i was a mere newspaper reporter. i dared not confess my soul as my own. mr. bennett merely said: "go," and i went. he gave me a glass of champagne and i think that was superb. [laughter.] i confessed my duty to him, and i went. and as good-luck would have it, i found livingstone. [loud and continued cheering.] i returned as a good citizen ought and as a good reporter ought and as a good correspondent ought, to tell the tale, and arriving at aden, i telegraphed a request that i might be permitted to visit civilization before i went to china. [laughter.] i came to civilization, and what do you think was the result? why, only to find that all the world disbelieved my story. [laughter.] dear me! if i were proud of anything, it was that what i said was a fact ["good!"]; that whatever i said i would do, i would endeavor to do with all my might, or, as many a good man had done before, as my predecessors had done, to lay my bones behind. that's all. [loud cheering.] i was requested in an off-hand manner--just as any member of the lotos club here present would say--"would you mind giving us a little résumé of your geographical work?" i said: "not in the least, my dear sir; i have not the slightest objection." and do you know that to make it perfectly geographical and not in the least sensational, i took particular pains and i wrote a paper out, and when it was printed, it was just about so long [indicating an inch]. it contained about a hundred polysyllabic african words. [laughter.] and yet "for a' that and a' that" the pundits of the geographical society--brighton association--said that they hadn't come to listen to any sensational stories, but that they had come to listen to facts. [laughter.] well now, a little gentleman, very reverend, full of years and honors, learned in cufic inscriptions and cuneiform characters, wrote to "the times" stating that it was not stanley who had discovered livingstone but that it was livingstone who had discovered stanley. [laughter.] if it had not been for that unbelief, i don't believe i should ever have visited africa again; i should have become, or i should have endeavored to become, with mr. reid's permission, a conservative member of the lotos club. [laughter.] i should have settled down and become as steady and as stolid as some of these patriots that you have around here, i should have said nothing offensive. i should have done some "treating." i should have offered a few cigars and on saturday night, perhaps, i would have opened a bottle of champagne and distributed it among my friends. but that was not to be. i left new york for spain and then the ashantee war broke out and once more my good-luck followed me and i got the treaty of peace ahead of everybody else, and as i was coming to england from the ashantee war a telegraphic despatch was put into my hands at the island of st. vincent, saying that livingstone was dead. i said: "what does that mean to me? new yorkers don't believe in me. how was i to prove that what i have said is true? by george! i will go and complete livingstone's work. i will prove that the discovery of livingstone was a mere fleabite. i will prove to them that i am a good man and true." that is all that i wanted. [loud cheers.] i accompanied livingstone's remains to westminster abbey. i saw those remains buried which i had left sixteen months before enjoying full life and abundant hope. the "daily telegraph's" proprietor cabled over to bennett: "will you join us in sending stanley over to complete livingstone's explorations?" bennett received the telegram in new york, read it, pondered a moment, snatched a blank and wrote: "yes. bennett." that was my commission, and i set out to africa intending to complete livingstone's explorations, also to settle the nile problem, as to where the head-waters of the nile were, as to whether lake victoria consisted of one lake, one body of water, or a number of shallow lakes; to throw some light on sir samuel baker's albert nyanza, and also to discover the outlet of lake tanganyika, and then to find out what strange, mysterious river this was which had lured livingstone on to his death--whether it was the nile, the niger, or the congo. edwin arnold, the author of "the light of asia," said: "do you think you can do all this?" "don't ask me such a conundrum as that. put down the funds and tell me to go. that is all." ["hear! hear!"] and he induced lawson, the proprietor, to consent. the funds were put down, and i went. first of all, we settled the problem of the victoria that it was one body of water, that instead of being a cluster of shallow lakes or marshes, it was one body of water, , square miles in extent. while endeavoring to throw light upon sir samuel baker's albert nyanza, we discovered a new lake, a much superior lake to albert nyanza--the dead locust lake--and at the same time gordon pasha sent his lieutenant to discover and circumnavigate the albert nyanza and he found it to be only a miserable miles, because baker, in a fit of enthusiasm had stood on the brow of a high plateau and looking down on the dark blue waters of albert nyanza, cried romantically: "i see it extending indefinitely toward the southwest!" indefinitely is not a geographical expression, gentlemen. [laughter.] we found that there was no outlet to the tanganyika, although it was a sweet-water lake; we, settling that problem, day after day as we glided down the strange river that had lured livingstone to his death, we were in as much doubt as livingstone had been, when he wrote his last letter and said: "i will never be made black man's meat for anything less than the classic nile." after travelling miles we came to the stanley falls, and beyond them, we saw the river deflect from its nileward course toward the northwest. then it turned west, and then visions of towers and towns and strange tribes and strange nations broke upon our imagination, and we wondered what we were going to see, when the river suddenly took a decided turn toward the southwest and our dreams were put an end to. we saw then that it was aiming directly for the congo, and when we had propitiated some natives whom we encountered, by showing them crimson beads and polished wire, that had been polished for the occasion, we said: "this is for your answer. what river is this?" "why, it is _the_ river, of course." that was not an answer, and it required some persuasion before the chief, bit by bit digging into his brain, managed to roll out sonorously that, "it is the ko-to-yah congo." "it is the river of congo-land." alas for our classic dreams! alas for crophi and mophi, the fabled fountains of herodotus! alas for the banks of the river where moses was found by the daughter of pharaoh! this is the parvenu congo! then we glided on and on past strange nations and cannibals--not past those nations which have their heads under their arms--for , miles, until we arrived at the circular extension of the river and my last remaining companion called it the stanley pool, and then five months after that our journey ended. after that i had a very good mind to come back to america, and say, like the queen of uganda: "there, what did i tell you?" but you know, the fates would not permit me to come over in . the very day i landed in europe the king of italy gave me an express train to convey me to france, and the very moment i descended from it at marseilles there were three ambassadors from the king of the belgians asked me to go back to africa. "what! go back to africa? never! [laughter.] i have come for civilization; i have come for enjoyment. i have come for love, for life, for pleasure. not i. go and ask some of those people you know who have never been to africa before. i have had enough of it." "well, perhaps, by and by?" "ah, i don't know what will happen by and by, but, just now, never! never! not for rothschild's wealth!" [laughter and applause.] i was received by the paris geographical society, and it was then i began to feel "well, after all, i have done something, haven't i?" i felt superb [laughter], but you know i have always considered myself a republican. i have those bullet-riddled flags, and those arrow-torn flags, the stars and stripes that i carried in africa, for the discovery of livingstone, and that crossed africa, and i venerate those old flags. i have them in london now, jealously guarded in the secret recesses of my cabinet. i only allow my very best friends to look at them, and if any of you gentlemen ever happen in at my quarters, i will show them to you. [applause.] after i had written my book, "through the dark continent," i began to lecture, using these words: "i have passed through a land watered by the largest river of the african continent, and that land knows no owner. a word to the wise is sufficient. you have cloths and hardware and glassware and gunpowder and these millions of natives have ivory and gums and rubber and dye-stuffs, and in barter there is good profit." [laughter.] the king of the belgians commissioned me to go to that country. my expedition when we started from the coast numbered colored people and fourteen europeans. we returned with , trained black men and europeans. the first sum allowed me was $ , a year, but it has ended at something like $ , a year. thus, you see, the progress of civilization. we found the congo, having only canoes. to-day there are eight steamers. it was said at first that king leopold was a dreamer. he dreamed he could unite the barbarians of africa into a confederacy and called it the free state, but on february , , the powers of europe and america also ratified an act, recognizing the territories acquired by us to be the free and independent state of the congo. perhaps when the members of the lotos club have reflected a little more upon the value of what livingstone and leopold have been doing, they will also agree that these men have done their duty in this world and in the age that they lived, and that their labor has not been in vain on account of the great sacrifices they have made to the benighted millions of dark africa. [loud and enthusiastic applause.] edmund clarence stedman tribute to richard henry stoddard [speech of edmund clarence stedman as chairman of the dinner given by the authors' club to richard henry stoddard, new york city, march , .] gentlemen:--the members of the authors' club are closely associated to-night with many other citizens in a sentiment felt by one and all--that of love and reverence for the chief guest of the evening. he has our common pride in his fame. he has what is, i think, of even more value to him, our entire affection. we have heard something of late concerning the "banquet habit," and there are banquets which make it seem to the point. but there are also occasions which transfigure even custom, and make it honored "in the observance." nor is this a feast of the habitual kind, as concerns its givers, its recipient, and the city in which it is given. the authors' club, with many festivals counted in its private annals, now, for the first time, offers a public tribute to one of its own number; in this case, one upon whom it long since conferred a promotion to honorary membership. as for new york, warder of the gates of the ocean, and by instinct and tradition first to welcome the nation's visitors, it constantly offers bread and salt--yes, and speeches--to authors, as to other guests, from older lands, and many of us often have joined in this function. but we do not remember that it has been a habit for new york to tender either the oratorical bane or the gustatory antidote to her own writers. except within the shade of their own coverts they have escaped these offerings, unless there has been something other than literary service to bring them public recognition. in the latter case, as when men who are or have been members of our club become ambassadors, because they are undeniably fitted for the missions to great britain and france, even authors are made to sit in state. to-night's gathering, then, is, indeed, exceptional, being in public honor of an american author here resident--of "one of our own"--who is not booked for a foreign mission, nor leaving the country, nor returning, nor doing anything more unusual than to perform his stint of work, and to sing any song that comes to him--as he tells us, "not because he woos it long, but because it suits its will, tired at last of being still." our homage is rendered, with love and enthusiasm, for his service to "mere literature"--for his indomitable devotion throughout half a century to the joy and toil of his profession, in which he has so fought the fight and kept the faith of a working man of letters. it is rendered to the most distinguished poet, of his country and generation, still remaining with us and still in full voice. it is rendered to the comrade--to the man who, with his modesty and fortitude and the absence of self-seeking--with the quips and quirks that cover his gravest moods, with his attachment for the city which has given him that which lamb so loved, "the sweet security of streets"--it is rendered, i say, to the man who best preserves for us, in his living presence, the traditions of all that an english-speaking poet and book-fellow should be to constitute a satisfying type. there is, perhaps, a special fitness in our gathering at this time. i sometimes have thought upon the possible career of our poet if his life had been passed in the suburbs of the down-east athens, among serenities and mutualities so auspicious to the genius and repute of that shining group lately gathered to the past. one thing is certain, he would not have weathered his seventieth birthday, at any season, without receiving such a tribute as this, nor would a public dinner have reminded him of days when a poet was glad to get any dinner at all. through his birth, massachusetts claims her share in his distinction. but, having been brought to new york in childhood, he seems to have reasoned out for himself the corollary to a certain famous epigram, and to have thought it just as well to stay in the city which resident bostonians keep as the best place to go to while still in the flesh. probably he had not then realized the truth, since expressed in his own lines:-- "yes, there's a luck in most things, and in none more than in being born at the right time!" his birthday, in fact, comes in midsummer, when new york is more inert than an analytic novel. this dinner, then, is one of those gifts of love which are all the more unstinted because by chance deferred. it was in the order of things, and no cause for blame, that, after this town passed from the provincial stage, there was so long a period when it had to be, as de quincey said of oxford street, a stony-hearted mother to her bookmen and poets; that she had few posts for them and little of a market. even her colleges had not the means, if they had the will, to utilize their talents and acquirements. we do owe to her newspapers and magazines, and now and then to the traditional liking of uncle sam for his bookish offspring, that some of them did not fall by the way, even in that arid time succeeding the civil war, when we learned that letters were foregone, not only inter arma, but for a long while afterward. those were the days when english went untaught, and when publishers were more afraid of poetry than they now are of verse. yet here is one who was able to live through it all, and now sees a changed condition, to the evolution of which he contributed his full share. but he is no more a child of the past than of the present, nor need he repine like cato, as one who has to account for himself to a new generation. he is with us and of us, and in the working ranks, as ever. for all this he began long enough ago to have his early poetry refused by poe, because it was too good to be the work of an obscure stripling, and to have had hawthorne for his sponsor and friend. his youth showed again how much more inborn tendency has to do with one's life than any external forces--such as guardianship, means, and what we call education. the thrush takes to the bough, wheresoever hatched and fledged. many waters cannot quench genius, neither can the floods drown it. the story of dickens's boyhood, as told by himself, is not more pathetic--nor is its outcome more beautiful--than what we know of our guest's experiences--his orphanage, his few years' meagre schooling, his work as a boy in all sorts of shifting occupations, the attempt to make a learned blacksmith of him, his final apprenticeship to iron-moulding, at which he worked on the east side from his eighteenth to his twenty-first year. as dr. griswold put it, he began to mould his thoughts into the symmetry of verse while he moulded the molten metal into shapes of grace. mr. stoddard, however, says that a knowledge of foundries was not one of the learned doctor's strong points. yet the young artisan somehow got hold of books, and not only made poetry, but succeeded in showing it to such magnates as park benjamin and willis. the kindly willis said that he had brains enough to make a reputation, but that "writing was hard work to do, and ill paid when done." but the youth was bound to take the road to arcady. he asked for nothing better than this ill-paid craft. his passion for it, doubtless was strengthened by his physical toil and uncongenial surroundings. for one i am not surprised that much of his early verse, which is still retained in his works, breathes the spirit of keats, though where and how this strayed singer came to study that most perfect and delicate of masters none but himself can tell. the fact remains that he somehow, also, left his moulding and trusted to his pen. to use his own words, he "set resolutely to work to learn the only trade for which he seemed fitted--that of literature." from that time to this, a half century, he has clung to it. never in his worst seasons did he stop to think how the world treated him, or that he was entitled to special providences. he accepted poverty or good-luck with an equal mind, content with the reward of being a reader, a writer, and, above all, a poet. he managed not to loaf, and yet to invite his soul--and his songs are evidence that the invitation was accepted. if to labor is to pray, his industry has been a religion, for i doubt if there has been a day in all these fifty years when, unless disabled bodily, he has not worked at his trade. we all know with what results. he has earned a manly living from the first, and therewithal has steadily contributed a vital portion to the current, and to the enduring, literature of his land and language. there was one thing that characterized the somewhat isolated new york group of young writers in his early prime--especially himself and his nearest associates, such as taylor and boker, and, later, aldrich and winter. they called themselves squires of poesy, in their romantic way, but they had neither the arrogance nor the chances for a self-heralding, more common in these chipper modern days. they seem to have followed their art because they adored it, quite as much as for what it could do for them. of mr. stoddard it may be said that there have been few important literary names and enterprises, north or south, but he has "been of the company." if he found friends in youth, he has abundantly repaid his debt in helpful counsel to his juniors--among whom i am one of the eldest and most grateful. but i cannot realize that thirty-seven years of our close friendship have passed since i showed my first early work to him, and he took me to a publisher. just as i found him then, i find him any evening now, in the same chair, in the same corner of the study, "under the evening lamp." we still talk of the same themes; his jests are as frequent as ever, but the black hair is silvered and the active movements are less alert. i then had never known a mind so stored with bookish lore, so intimate with the lives of rare poets gone by, yet to what it then possessed he, with his wonderful memory, has been adding ever since. if his early verse was like keats, how soon he came to that unmistakable style of his own--to the utterance of those pure lyrics, "most musical, most melancholy"--"to the perfection of his matchless songs," and again, to the mastery of blank verse, that noblest measure, in "the fisher and charon"--to the grace and limpid narrative verse of "the king's bell," to the feeling, wisdom--above all, to the imagination--of his loftier odes, among which that on lincoln remains unsurpassed. this is not the place to eulogize such work. but one thing may be noted in the progress of what in berkeley's phrase may be called the planting of arts and letters in america. mr. stoddard and his group were the first after poe to make poetry--whatever else it might be--the rhythmical creation of beauty. as an outcome of this, and in distinction from the poetry of conviction to which the new england group were so addicted, look at the "songs of summer" which our own poet brought out in . for beauty pure and simple it still seems to me fresher and more significant than any single volume produced up to that date by any eastern poet save emerson. it was "poetry or nothing," and though it came out of time in that stormy period, it had to do with the making of new poets thereafter. in conclusion, i am moved to say, very much as i wrote on his seventieth birthday, that our poet's laborious and nobly independent life, with all its lights and shadows, has been one to be envied. there is much in completeness--its rainbow has not been dissevered--it is a perfect arc. as i know him, it has been the absolute realization of his young desire, the unhasting, unresting life of a poet and student, beyond that of any other writer among us. its compensations have been greater than those of ease and wealth. even now he would not change it, though at an age when one might well have others stay his hands. he had the happiness to win in youth the one woman he loved, with the power of whose singular and forceful genius his own is inseparably allied. these wedded poets have been blessed in their children, in the exquisite memory of the dead, in the success and loyalty of the living. his comrades have been such as he pictured to his hope in youth--poets, scholars, artists of the beautiful, with whom he has "warmed both hands before the fire of life." none of them has been a more patient worker or more loved his work. to it he has given his years, whether waxing or waning; he has surrendered for it the strength of his right hand, he has yielded the light of his eyes, and complains not, nor need he, "for so were milton and mæonides." what tears this final devotion may have caused to flow, come from other eyes than his own. and so, with gratulation void of all regrets, let us drink to the continued years, service, happiness of our strong and tender-hearted elder comrade, our white-haired minstrel, richard henry stoddard. leslie stephen the critic [speech of leslie stephen at the annual banquet of the royal academy, london, april , , in response to the toast, "literature." sir frederic leighton, president of the academy, spoke of literature as "that in which is garnered up the heat that feeds the spiritual life of men." in the vein of personal compliment he said: "for literature i turn to a distinguished writer whose acute and fearless mind finds a fit vehicle in clear and vigorous english and to me seems winged by that vivid air which plays about the alpine peaks his feet have in the past so dearly loved to tread--i mean my friend, mr. leslie stephen."] mr. president, your royal highness, my lords, and gentlemen:--when a poet or a great imaginative writer has to speak in this assembly he speaks as to brethren-in-arms, to persons with congenial tastes and with mutual sympathies, but when, instead of the creative writer, the academy asks a critic to speak to them, then nothing but your proverbial courtesy can conceal the fact that they must really think they are appealing to a natural enemy. i have the misfortune to be a critic [laughter], but in this assembly i must say i am not an art critic. friends have made a presumptuous attempt to fathom the depth of my ignorance upon artistic subjects, and they have thought that in some respects i must be admirably qualified for art criticism. [laughter.] as a literary critic i have felt, and i could not say i was surprised to find how unanimously critics have been condemned by poets and artists of all generations. i need only quote the words of the greatest authority, shakespeare, who in one of his most pathetic sonnets reckons up the causes of the weariness of life and speaks of the spectacle of-- "art made tongue-tied by authority, and folly (doctor-like), controlling skill." the great poet probably wrote these words after the much misrepresented interview with lord bacon in which the chancellor explained to the poet how "hamlet" should have been written, and from which it has been inferred that he took credit for having written it himself. [laughter.] shakespeare naturally said what every artist must feel; for what is an artist? that is hardly a question to be asked in such an assembly, where i have only to look round to find plenty of people who realize the ideal artist, persons who are simple, unconventional, spontaneous, sweet-natured [laughter], who go through the world influenced by impressions of everything that is beautiful, sublime, and pathetic. sometimes they seem to take up impressions of a different kind [laughter]; but still this is their main purpose--to receive impressions of images, the reproduction of which may make this world a little better for us all. for such people a very essential condition is that they should be spontaneous; that they should look to nothing but telling us what they feel and how they feel it; that they should obey no external rules, and only embody those laws which have become a part of their natural instinct, and that they should think nothing, as of course they do nothing, for money; though they would not be so hard-hearted as to refuse to receive the spontaneous homage of the world, even when it came in that comparatively vulgar form. [laughter.] but what is a critic? he is a person who enforces rules upon the artist, like a gardener who snips a tree in order to make it grow into a preconceived form, or grafts upon it until it develops into a monstrosity which he considers beautiful. we have made some advance upon the old savage. the man who went about saying, "this will never do," has become a thing of the past. the modern critic if he has a fault has become too genial; he seems not to distinguish between the functions of a critic and the founder of a new religious sect. [laughter.] he erects shrines to his ideals, and he burns upon them good, strong, stupefying incense. this may be less painful to the artist than the old-fashioned style; but it may be doubted whether it is not equally corrupting, and whether it does not stimulate a selfishness equally fatal to spontaneous production; whether it does not in the attempt to encourage originality favor a spurious type which consists merely in setting at defiance real common sense, and sometimes common decency. i hope that critics are becoming better, that they have learned what impostors they have been, and that their philosophy has been merely the skilful manipulation of sonorous words, and that on the whole, they must lay aside their magisterial role and cease to suppose they are persons enforcing judicial decisions or experts who can speak with authority about chemical analysis. i hope that critics will learn to lay aside all pretension and to see only things that a critic really can see, and express genuine sympathy with human nature; and when they have succeeded in doing that they will be received as friends in such gatherings as the banquet of the royal academy. [cheers.] richard salter storrs the victory at yorktown [speech of rev. dr. richard s. storrs at a banquet of the chamber of commerce of the state of new york, given november , , in new york city, in honor of the guests of the nation, the french diplomatic representatives in america, and members of the families descended from our foreign sympathizers and helpers, general lafayette, count de rochambeau, count de grasse, baron von steuben and others, who had been present at the centennial celebration of the victory at yorktown. the chairman, james m. brown, vice president of the chamber of commerce, proposed the toast to which dr. storrs responded, "the victory at yorktown: it has rare distinction among victories, that the power which seemed humbled by it looks back to it now without regret, while the peoples who combined to secure it, after the lapse of a century of years, are more devoted than ever to the furtherance of the freedom to which it contributed."] mr. president and gentlemen of the chamber of commerce:--it is always pleasant to respond to your invitations and to join with you on these festival occasions. you remember the reply of the english lady [lady dufferin] perhaps, when the poet rogers sent her a note saying: "will you do me the favor to breakfast with me to-morrow?" to which she returned the still more laconic autograph, "won't i?" [laughter.] perhaps one might as well have that lithographed as his reply to your cordial and not infrequent invitations. [laughter.] i do not know whether you are aware of it, on this side of the east river--perhaps you don't read the newspapers much--but in that better part of the great metropolis in which it is my privilege to live, we think of showing our appreciation of this chamber of commerce by electing for mayor next week, one of your younger members, the son of one of your older and most distinguished members, my honored friend, mr. low. [applause.] it is certainly especially pleasant to be here this evening, mr. president and gentlemen, when we meet together, men of commerce, men of finance, lawyers, journalists, physicians, clergymen, of whatever occupation, all of us, i am sure, patriotic citizens, to congratulate each other upon what occurred at yorktown a hundred years ago, on the th of october, , and to express our hearty honor and esteem for these distinguished descendants or representatives of the gallant men who then stood with our fathers as their associates and helpers. [applause.] it has always seemed to me one of the most significant and memorable things connected with our revolutionary struggle, that it attracted the attention, elicited the sympathy, inspired the enthusiasm, and drew out the self-sacrificing co-operation of so many noble spirits, loving freedom, in different parts of western and central europe. [applause.] you remember that lord camden testified from his own observation in , about the time of the battle of concord bridge, that the merchants, tradesmen, and common people of england were on the side of the colonists, and that only the landed interest really sustained the government. so the more distant poland sent to us count pulaski of noble family, who had been a brilliant leader for liberty at home, who fought gallantly in our battles, and who poured out his life in our behalf in the assault upon savannah. [cheers.] and it sent another, whose name has been one to conjure with for freedom from that day to this; who planned the works on bemis heights, against which burgoyne in vain hurled his assault; who superintended the works at west point; who, returning to his own country, fought for poland as long as there was a poland to fight for; whom the very empire against which he had so long and so fiercely contended on behalf of his country, honored and eulogized after his death--thaddeus kosciusko. [cheers.] germany sent us von steuben; one, but a host, whose services in our war were of immense and continual aid to our troops; who fought gallantly at yorktown; and who, chose afterwards, to finish his life in the country for which he had fearlessly drawn his sword. [applause.] france sent us lafayette [loud cheers], young, brilliant, with everything to detain him at home, who had heard of our struggle, at metz, you remember, in a conversation with the duke of gloucester, in whom the purpose was there formed, in a flash, to identify himself with the fortunes of the remote, poor, unfriended, and almost unknown colonists; who came, against every opposition, in a ship which he had bought and fitted for the purpose, and whose name, as has well been said in the sentiment in which we have already united, will be joined imperishably with that of washington, as long as the history of our country continues. [applause.] with him came john dekalb, the intrepid alsatian, who, after fighting gallantly through the war, up to the point of his death, fell at camden, pierced at last by many wounds. [cheers.] with them, or after them, came others, gouvion, duportail--some of their names are hardly now familiar to us--duplessis, duponceau, afterward distinguished in literature and in law, in the country in which he made his residence. there came great supplies of military equipment, important, we may say indispensable, aids of money, clothing, and of all the apparatus of war; and, finally, came the organized naval and military force, with great captains at the head, rochambeau [loud cheers], chastellux, de choisy, de lauzun, st. simon, de grasse--all this force brilliantly representative, as we know, of our foreign allies, in the victory at yorktown. [applause.] i suppose there has never been a stranger contrast on any field of victory, than that which was presented, between the worn clothing of the american troops, soiled with mud, rusted with storm, wet with blood, and the fresh white uniforms of the french troops, ornamented with colored trimmings; the poor, plain battle-flags of the colonists, stained with smoke and rent with shot, compared with the shining and lofty standards of the french army, bearing on a ground of brilliant white silk emblazoned in gold embroidery the bourbon lilies. [applause.] indeed such a contrast went into everything. the american troops were made up of men who had been, six years before, mechanics, farmers, merchants, fishermen, lawyers, teachers, with no more thought of any exploits to be accomplished by them on fields of battle than they had of being elected czars of all the russias. they had a few victories to look back to; bennington, stillwater, cowpens, kings mountain, and the one great triumph of saratoga. they had many defeats to remember; brandywine, where somebody at the time said that the mixture of the two liquors was too much for the sober americans [laughter], camden, guilford court-house, and others, with one tragic and terrible defeat on the heights of long island. there were men who had been the subjects, and many of them officers of the very power against which they were fighting; and some of the older among them might have stood for that power at louisbourg or quebec. on the other hand, the french troops were part of an army, the lustre of whose splendid history could be traced back for a thousand years, beyond the crusaders, beyond charlemagne. their officers had been trained in the best military schools of the time. they were amply provided with the last and choicest equipments of war. they had gallantly achieved victory, or as gallantly sustained defeat on almost every principal battle-field in europe. they were now confronting an enemy whom that army had faced in previous centuries on sea and land; and very likely something of special exhilaration and animation went into their spirit from thought of this, as they assailed the english breastworks, swarming into the trenches, capturing the redoubts, storming the lines with that strange battle-shout, in our republican american air: "vive le roi!" [applause.] a singular combination! undoubtedly, to unfold the influences which had led to it would take months instead of minutes, and occupy volumes rather than sentences. i think however, that we reckon too much on national rivalry, or national animosity, when we seek to explain it, although these no doubt had their part in it. doubtless the eager efforts of silas dean, our first diplomatic representative in europe--efforts too eager for courtesy or wisdom--had a part in it; and the skilful diplomacy of franklin had, as we know, a large and important influence upon it. the spirit of adventure, the desire for distinction upon fresh fields, had something to do with it. but the principal factor in that great effort was the spirit of freedom--the spirit that looked to the advancement and the maintenance of popular liberty among the peoples of the earth, wherever civilization had gone; that spirit which was notably expressed by van der capellen, the dutch orator and statesman, when he vehemently said, in presence of the states-general of holland, in reply to an autograph letter of george iii soliciting their aid, that this was a business for hired janissaries rather than for soldiers of a free state; that it would be, in his judgment, "superlatively detestable" to aid in any way to overcome the americans, whom he regarded as a brave people, righting in a manly, honorable, religious manner, not for the rights which had come to them, not from any british legislation but from god almighty. [applause.] that spirit was native to holland. but that spirit was also widely in france. the old temper and enthusiasm for liberty, both civil and religious, had not passed away. sixty years and more since the accession of louis xv had perhaps only intensified this spirit. it had entered the higher philosophical minds. they were meditating the questions of the true social order, with daring disregard of all existing institutions, and their spirit and instructions found an echo even in our declaration of independence. they made it more theoretical than english state papers have usually been. palpably, the same spirit which afterward broke into fierce exhibition, when the bastille was stormed in , or when the first republic was declared in , was already at work in france, at work there far more vitally and energetically than was yet recognized by those in authority; while it wrought perhaps in the field offered by this country, more eagerly and largely because it was repressed at home. so it was that so many brilliant frenchmen came as glad volunteers. it was because of this electric and vital spirit looking toward freedom. travelling was slow. communication between continents was tardy and difficult. a sailing ship, dependent upon the wind, hugged the breeze or was driven before the blast across the stormy north atlantic. the steamship was unknown. the telegraph wire was no more imagined than it was imagined that the rhine might flow a river of flame or that the jungfrau or the weisshorn might go out on a journey. but there was this distributed spirit of freedom, propagating itself by means which we cannot wholly trace, and to an extent which was scarcely recognized, which brought volunteers in such numbers to our shores, that washington, you know, at one time, expressed himself as embarrassed to know what to do with them; and there were fervent and high aspirations going up from multitudes of households and of hearts in central and in western europe, which found realization in what we claim as the greatest and most fruitful of american victories. [applause.] the impulse given by that victory to the same spirit is one on which we can never look back without gratitude and gladness. it was an impulse not confined to one nation but common to all which had had part in the struggle. we know what an impulse it gave to everything greatest and best in our own country. the spirit of popular exhilaration, rising from that victory at yorktown, was a force which really established and moulded our national government. the nation rose to one of those exalted points, those supreme levels, in its public experience, where it found a grander wisdom, where it had nobler forecast than perhaps it otherwise could have reached. in consequence of it, our government came, which has stood the storm and stress of a hundred years. we may have to amend its constitution in time to come, as it has been amended in the past; but we have become a nation by means of it. it commands the attention--to some extent, the admiration--of other people of the earth; at all events, it is bound to endure upon this continent as long as there remains a continent here for it to rest upon. [cheers.] then came the incessant movement westward: the vast foreign immigration, the occupation of the immense grainfields, which might almost feed the hungry world; the multiplication of manufacturers, supplying everything, nearly, that we need; the uncovering of mines, bringing out the wealth which has actually disturbed the money standards of the world; the transforming of territories into states by a process as swift and magical almost as that by which the turbid mixture of the chemist is crystallized into its delicate and translucent spars; the building of an empire on the western coast, looking out toward the older continent of asia. [cheers.] we know, too, what an impulse was given to popular rights and hopes in england. we rejoice in all the progress of england. that salute fired at the british flag the other day at yorktown [cheers] was a stroke of the hammer on the horologe of time, which marks the coming of a new era, when national animosities shall be forgotten, and only national sympathies and good-will shall remain. it might seem, perhaps, to have in it a tone of the old "diapason of the cannonade"; but on the thoughtful ear, falls from the thundering voice of those guns, a note of that supreme music which fell on the ear of longfellow, when "like a bell with solemn sweet vibration" he heard "once more the voice of christ say: 'peace!'" [loud applause.] we rejoice in the progress of english manufactures, which extracts every force from each ounce of coal, and pounds or weaves the english iron into nearly everything for human use except boots and brown-bread [laughter]; in the commerce which spreads its sails on all seas; in the wealth and splendor that are assembled in her cities; but we rejoice more than all in the constant progress of those liberal ideas to which such an impulse was given by this victory of yorktown. [cheers.] you remember that fox is said to have heard of it "with a wild delight"; and even he may not have anticipated its full future outcome. you remember the hissing hate with which he was often assailed, as when the tradesman of westminster whose vote he had solicited, flung back at him the answer: "i have nothing for you, sir, but a halter," to which fox, by the way, with instant wit and imperturbable good-nature, smilingly responded: "i could not think, my dear sir, of depriving you of such an interesting family relic." [laughter.] look back to that time and then see the prodigious advance of liberal ideas in england, the changed political condition of the workingman. look at the position of that great commoner, who now regulates the english policy, who equals fox in his liberal principles and surpasses him in his eloquence--mr. gladstone. [cheers.] the english troops marched out of yorktown, after their surrender, to that singularly appropriate tune, as they thought it, "the world turned upside down." [laughter.] but that vast disturbance of the old equilibrium which had balanced a king against a nation, has given to england the treasures of statesmanship, the treasures of eloquence, a vast part of the splendor and the power which are now collected under the reign of that one royal woman in the world, to whom every american heart pays its eager and unforced fealty--queen victoria. [loud applause.] we know what an impulse was given to the same spirit in germany. mr. schurz will tell us of it in eloquent words. but no discourse that he can utter, however brilliant in rhetoric; no analysis, however lucid; no clear and comprehensive sweep of his thought, though expressed in words which ring in our ears and live in our memories, can so fully and fittingly illustrate it to us as does the man himself, in his character and career--an old world citizen of the american republic whose marvellous mastery of our tough english tongue is still surpassed by his more marvellous mastery over the judgments and the hearts of those who hear him use it. [cheers.] what an impulse was given to the same spirit in france we know. at first, it fell upon a people not altogether prepared to receive it. there was, therefore, a passionate effervescence, a fierce ebullition into popular violence and popular outrage which darkened for the time the world's annals. but we know that the spirit never died; and through all the winding and bloody paths in which it has marched, it has brought france the fair consummation of its present power and wealth and renown. [cheers.] we rejoice in its multiform manufactures, which weave the woollen or silken fibre into every form and tissue of fabric; in the delicate, dainty skill which keeps the time of all creation with its watchwork and clockwork; which ornaments beauty with its jewelry, and furnishes science with its finest instruments; we rejoice in the , miles of railway there constructed, almost all of it within forty years; we rejoice in the riches there accumulated; we rejoice in the expansion of the population from the twenty-three millions of the day of yorktown to the thirty-eight millions of the present; but we rejoice more than all in the liberal spirit evermore there advancing, which has built the fifteen universities, and gathered the , students into them; which builds libraries and higher seminaries, and multiplies common schools: which gives liberty if not license to the press. [cheers.] we rejoice in the universal suffrage which puts the deputies into the chamber and which combines the chamber of deputies with the senate into a national assembly to elect the president of the republic. we rejoice in the rapid political education now and always going on in france, and that she is to be hereafter a noble leader in europe, in illustrating the security and commending the benefits of republican institutions. [applause.] france has been foremost in many things; she was foremost in chivalry, and the most magnificent spectacles and examples which that institution ever furnished were on her fields. she was foremost in the crusades and the volcanic country around auvergne was not more full of latent fire than was the spirit of her people at the council of clermont or before the appeal of peter the hermit and st. bernard. she led the march of philosophical discussion in the middle ages. she has been foremost in many achievements of science and art. she is foremost to-day in piercing with tunnels the mountain-chains, that the wheels of trade may roll unobstructed through rocky barriers, and cutting canals through the great isthmuses that the keels of commerce may sweep unhindered across the seas. but she has never yet had an office so illustrious as that which falls to her now--to show europe how republican institutions stimulate industry, guarantee order, promote all progress in enterprise and in thought, and are the best and surest security for a nation's grandest advancement. that enthusiasm which has led her always to champion ideas, which led her soldiers to say in the first revolution: "with bread and iron we will march to china," entering now into fulfilment of this great office, will carry her influence to china and beyond it; her peaceful influence on behalf of the liberty for which she fought with us at yorktown, and for which she has bled and struggled with a pathetic and lofty stubbornness ever since. [cheers.] i do not look back merely then from this evening; i see illustrated at yorktown the lesson of that hour; that colonies maturing into great commonwealths, and peoples combining for common liberties are the best pledges of the world's future, but i look forward as well and see france in europe, a republic, the united states on this continent, a republic, standing again in the future as before, shoulder to shoulder, expecting with tranquil and exultant spirit the grander victory yet to come, the outcome of which shall be liberty to all the peoples of the world, and that benign and divine peace which is the sure and sovereign fruit of such a liberty. [applause.] william scudder stryker dutch heroes of the new world [speech of william s. stryker at the fifth annual dinner of the holland society of new york, january , . the vice-president, robert b. roosevelt, presided, and called upon general stryker to respond to the toast, "the dutch soldier in america."] mr. president:--as well-born dutchmen, full, of course, to-night of the spirit which creates dutch courage, it is pleasant for us to look across the seas, to recall the martial life of our progenitors and to speak of their great deeds for liberty. it is conducive to our family pride to trace back the source of the blessings we enjoy to-day through all the brilliant pages of netherland history to the time when the soldiers of freedom--the "beggars"--chose rather to let in the merciless ocean waves than to surrender to the ruthless invader. [applause.] we love to say that we can see in the glory of free institutions in this century the steady outgrowth of that germ of human liberty which was planted by the sturdy labor, which was watered by the tears and blood, and fructified by the precious lives of those who fought by land and sea in the battles of the sixteenth century. [applause.] although we make our boast of the indomitable courage, the many self-denials, the homely virtues of our forefathers, think you that we in america are degenerate sons of noble sires? i trow not! [renewed applause.] that irascible old governor who stamped his wooden leg on the streets of new amsterdam, who ruled with his iron will and his cane the thrifty burghers of this young city, did he not, when called upon to show a soldier's courage, wage a successful contest with savage foes, with the testy puritans of connecticut and with the obdurate swedes on christiana creek? before the old dutch church in millstone on the raritan river, in the summer of , a hundred of the young men of the village were drilled every night. they had on their long smock-frocks, broad-brimmed black hats, and leggings. their own firelocks were on their shoulders, twenty-three cartridges in their cartouches, the worm, the priming-wire, and twelve flints in their pockets. these were the bold minute-men of new jersey, and frederick frelinghuysen was their gallant dutch captain, who stood ready to march, in case an alarm bonfire burned on sourland mountain, to fight any enemy. [applause.] when fighting under bradstreet on the oswego river in the old french war, when laboring against great odds at fort edward, when retarding the british advance after the evacuation of ticonderoga, when urging on a force to the relief of fort stanwix, when planning the campaign which ended in the capture of burgoyne, and placing laurels, now faded, on the head of gates, the character of our own knickerbocker general, philip schuyler, the pure patriot, the noble soldier, is lustrous with evidences of his sagacious counsels, his wonderful energy, and his military skill. [renewed applause.] the good blood of the patroons never flowed purer or brighter than when, as soldiers, they battled for a nation's rights. in the fight at saratoga, colonel henry kiliaen van rensselaer greatly distinguished himself and carried from the field an ounce of british lead, which remained in his body thirty-five years. captain solomon van rensselaer fought most courageously by the side of mad anthony wayne in the miami campaign. being seriously wounded in a brilliant charge, he refused to be carried off the field on a litter, but insisted that, as a dragoon, he should be allowed to ride his horse from the battle and, if he dropped, to die where he fell. [applause.] worn and bleeding were the feet, scant the clothing of our ragged continentals, as, turning upon their foe, they recrossed the icy delaware on christmas night, surprised rall and his revellers in trenton's village, punished the left of cornwallis's column at princeton, and then, on their way to the mountains of morris county, fell by the wayside with hunger and wretchedness, perishing with the intense cold. but, in the darkness of the night, a partisan trooper, with twenty horsemen, surrounded the baggage-wagons of the british force, fired into the two hundred soldiers guarding them, and, shouting like a host of demons, captured the train, and the doughty captain with my own ancestral name woke up the weary soldiers of washington's army with the rumbling of wagons heavily laden with woollen clothing and supplies, bravely stolen from the enemy. [applause.] the poisoned arrows whistled in the newtown fight as the new york contingent pressed forward toward seneca castle, the great capitol-house of the six nations. the redskins and their tory allies, under brant, tried hard to resist the progress of that awful human wedge that was driven with relentless fury among the wigwams of those who had burned the homes in beautiful wyoming, who had despoiled with the bloody tomahawk the settlement at german flats, and had closed the horrid campaign with the cruel massacre at cherry valley. bold and daring in this revengeful expedition was colonel philip van cortlandt, a name honored in all dutch civil and military history. [continued applause.] as a leader of three thousand cavalrymen the youthful general bayard [great cheers], proud of his dutch descent, fell on the heights of bloody fredericksburg. like the good knight, he was "without fear and without reproach." full of zeal for the cause, the bravest of the brave, his sword flashed always where dangers were the thickest. when a bursting shell left him dead on the field of honor, his brave men mourned him and the foe missed him. [cheers.] in the leaden tempest which rained around drury's bluff, a boyish officer led a column of riflemen, gallant and daring. his uniform was soiled with the grim dirt of many a battle, but his bright blue eye took in every feature of the conflict. the day was just closing when an angry bullet pierced his throat as he was cheering on his men, and the young life of my college friend, abram zabriskie, of jersey city, as chivalric a dutch colonel as ever drew a blade in battle, was breathed out in the mighty throes of civil war. [applause.] as we picture to ourselves the appearance of that grand figure of william of orange, as he led his heroic people through and out of scenes of darkness and hunger and death into the sweet light of freedom; as we turn the pages of history that recount the deeds of glory of vander werf, the burgomaster of leyden; of count egmont and count horn, of de ruyter and van tromp, let us not forget that the same sturdy stock has developed in the new world the same zeal for human rights, the same high resolves of duty, the same devotion to liberty. if ever again this nation needs brave defenders, your sons and mine will, i trust, be able to show to the world that the patriotism of dutchmen, that true dutch valor, still fills the breasts of the soldiers of america! [prolonged cheering.] sir arthur sullivan music [speech of sir arthur sullivan at the annual banquet of the royal academy, may , . sir frederic leighton, president of the academy, occupied the chair. "in response for music," said the president, "i shall call on a man whose brilliant and many-sided gifts are not honored in his own country alone, and who has gathered laurels with full hands in every field of musical achievement--my old friend, sir arthur sullivan."] your royal highness, my lords and gentlemen: it is gratifying to find that at the great representative art-gathering of the year the sister arts are now receiving at the hands of the painters and sculptors of the united kingdom that compliment to which their members are justly entitled. art is a commonwealth in which all the component estates hold an equal position, and it has been reserved for you, sir, under your distinguished presidency, to give full and honorable recognition to this important fact. you have done so in those terms of delicate, subtle compliment, which whilst displaying the touch of the master, also bear the impress of genuine sympathy, by calling upon my friend mr. irving, and myself, as representatives of the drama and of music, to return thanks for those branches of art to which our lives' efforts have been devoted. i may add, speaking for my own art, that there is a singular appropriateness that this compliment to music should be paid by the artist whose brain has conceived and whose hand depicted a most enchanting "music lesson." you, sir, have touched with eloquence and feeling upon some of the tenderer attributes of music; i would with your permission, call attention to another--namely, its power and influence on popular sentiment; for of all the arts i think music has the most mighty, universal, and immediate effect. ["hear! hear!"] i know there are many educated and intelligent people who, absorbed in commerce, politics, and other pursuits, think that music is a mere family pastime--an ear-gratifying enjoyment. great popularity has its drawbacks as well as its advantages, and there is no doubt that the widespread, instantaneous appreciation and popularity of melody has detracted somewhat from the proper recognition of the higher and graver attributes of music. but that music is a power and has influenced humanity with dynamic force in politics, religion, peace, and war, no one can gainsay. who can deny the effect in great crises of the world's history of the lutheran chorale, "ein' feste burg," which roused the enthusiasm of whole towns and cities and caused them to embrace the reformed faith en masse--of the "Ça ira," with its ghastly association of tumbril and guillotine, and of the still more powerful "marseillaise?" these three tunes alone have been largely instrumental in varying the course of history. [cheers.] amongst our own people, no one who has visited the greater britain beyond the seas but must be alive to the depth of feeling stirred by the first bar of "god save the queen." it is not too much to say that this air has done more than any other single agency to consolidate the national sentiment which forms the basis of our world-wide empire. [cheers.] but, sir, my duty is not to deliver a dissertation on music, my duty is to thank you for the offering and the acceptation of this toast, which i do most sincerely. with regard to the more than generous terms in which you, sir, have alluded to my humble individuality, i need not say how deeply i feel the spirit in which they were spoken. this much i would add--that highly as i value your kindly utterances, i count still more highly the fact that i should have been selected by you to respond for music, whose dignity and whose progress in england are so near and dear to me at heart. [cheers.] charles sumner intercourse with china [speech of charles sumner at the banquet given by the city of boston, august , , to the hon. anson burlingame, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary from china, and his associates, chih ta-jin and sun ta-jin, of the chinese embassy to the united states and the powers of europe.] mr. mayor:--i cannot speak on this interesting occasion without first declaring the happiness i enjoy at meeting my friend of many years in the exalted position which he now holds. besides being my personal friend, he was also an honored associate in representing the good people of this community, and in advancing a great cause, which he championed with memorable eloquence and fidelity. such are no common ties. permit me to say that this splendid welcome, now offered by the municipal authorities of boston, is only a natural expression of the sentiments which must prevail in this community. here his labors and triumphs began. here, in your early applause and approving voices, he first tasted of that honor which is now his in such ample measure. he is one of us, who, going forth into a strange country, has come back with its highest trusts and dignities. once the representative of a single congressional district, he now represents the most populous nation of the globe. once the representative of little more than a third of boston, he is now the representative of more than a third part of the human race. the population of the globe is estimated at twelve hundred millions; that of china at more than four hundred millions, and sometimes even at five hundred millions. if, in this position, there be much to excite wonder, there is still more for gratitude in the unparalleled opportunity which it affords. what we all ask is opportunity. here is opportunity on a surpassing scale--to be employed, i am sure, so as to advance the best interests of the human family; and, if these are advanced, no nation can suffer. each is contained in all. with justice and generosity as the reciprocal rule, and nothing else can be the aim of this great embassy, there can be no limits to the immeasurable consequences. for myself, i am less solicitous with regard to concessions or privileges, than with regard to that spirit of friendship and good neighborhood, which embraces alike the distant and the near, and, when once established, renders all else easy. the necessary result of the present experiment in diplomacy will be to make the countries which it visits better known to the chinese, and also to make the chinese better known to them. each will know the other better and will better comprehend that condition of mutual dependence which is the law of humanity. in the relations among nations, as in common life, this is of infinite value. thus far, i fear that the chinese are poorly informed with regard to us. i am sure that we are poorly informed with regard to them. we know them through the porcelain on our tables with its lawless perspective, and the tea-chest with its unintelligible hieroglyphics. there are two pictures of them in the literature of our language, which cannot fail to leave an impression. the first is in "paradise lost," where milton, always learned even in his poetry, represents satan as descending in his flight, ... on the barren plains of sericana, where _chineses_ drive, with sails and wind their cany wagons light. the other is that admirable address on the study of the law of nature and nations, where sir james mackintosh, in words of singular felicity, alludes to "the tame but ancient and immovable civilization of china." it will be for us now to enlarge these pictures and to fill the canvas with life. i do not know if it has occurred to our honored guest, that he is not the first stranger who, after sojourning in this distant unknown land, has come back loaded with its honors, and with messages to the christian powers. he is not without a predecessor in his mission. there is another career as marvellous as his own. i refer to the venetian, marco polo, whose reports, once discredited as the fables of a traveller, are now recognized among the sources of history, and especially of geographical knowledge. nobody can read them without feeling their verity. it was in the latter part of the far-away thirteenth century, that this enterprising venetian, in company with his father and uncle, all of them merchants, journeyed from venice, by the way of constantinople, trebizond, on the black sea, and central asia, until they reached first the land of prester john, and then that golden country, known as cathay, where the great ruler, kubla khan, treated them with gracious consideration, and employed young polo as his ambassador. this was none other than china, and the great ruler, called the grand khan, was none other than the first of its mongolian dynasty, having his imperial residence in the immense city of kambalu, or peking. after many years of illustrious service, the venetian, with his companions, was dismissed with splendor and riches, charged with letters for european sovereigns, as our bostonian is charged with similar letters now. there were letters for the pope, the king of france, the king of spain, and other christian princes. it does not appear that england was expressly designated. her name, so great now, was not at that time on the visiting list of the distant emperor. such are the contrasts in national life. marco polo, with his companions, reached venice on his return in , at the very time when dante, in florence, was meditating his divine poem, and when roger bacon, in england, was astonishing the age with his knowledge. these were two of his greatest contemporaries. the return of the venetian to his native city was attended by incidents which have not occurred among us. bronzed by long residence under the sun of the east--wearing the dress of a tartar--and speaking his native language with difficulty, it was some time before he could persuade his friends of his identity. happily there is no question on the identity of our returned fellow-citizen; and surely it cannot be said that he speaks his native language with difficulty. there was a dinner given at venice, as now at boston, and the venetian dinner, after the lapse of nearly five hundred years, still lives in glowing description. on this occasion marco polo, with his companions, appeared first in long robes of crimson satin reaching to the floor, which, after the guests had washed their hands, were changed for other robes of crimson damask, and then again, after the first course of the dinner, for other robes of crimson velvet, and at the conclusion of the banquet, for the ordinary dress worn by the rest of the company. meanwhile the other costly garments were distributed in succession among the attendants at the table. in all your magnificence to-night, mr. mayor, i have seen no such largess. then was brought forward the coarse threadbare clothes in which they had travelled, when, on ripping the lining and patches with a knife, costly jewels, in sparkling showers, leaped forth before the eyes of the company, who for a time were motionless with wonder. then at last, says the italian chronicler, every doubt was banished, and all were satisfied that these were the valiant and honorable gentlemen of the house of polo. i do not relate this history in order to suggest any such operation on the dress of our returned fellow-citizen. no such evidence is needed to assure us of his identity. the success of marco polo is amply attested. from his habit of speaking of millions of people and millions of money, he was known as _millioni_, or the millionnaire, being the earliest instance in history of a designation so common in our prosperous age. but better than "millions" was the knowledge he imparted, and the impulse that he gave to that science, which teaches the configuration of the globe, and the place of nations on its surface. his travels, as dictated by him, were reproduced in various languages, and, after the invention of printing, the book was multiplied in more than fifty editions. unquestionably it prepared the way for the two greatest geographical discoveries of modern times, that of the cape of good hope, by vasco de gama, and the new world, by christopher columbus. one of his admirers, a learned german, does not hesitate to say that, when, in the long series of ages, we seek the three men, who, by the influence of their discoveries, have most contributed to the progress of geography and the knowledge of the globe, the modest name of the venetian finds a place in the same line with alexander the great and christopher columbus. it is well known that the imagination of the genoese navigator was fired by the revelations of the venetian, and that, in his mind, all the countries embraced by his transcendent discovery were none other than the famed cathay, with its various dependencies. in his report to the spanish sovereigns, cuba was nothing else than xipangu, or japan, as described by the venetian, and he thought himself near a grand khan, meaning, as he says, a king of kings. columbus was mistaken. he had not reached cathay or the grand khan; but he had discovered a new world, destined in the history of civilization to be more than cathay, and, in the lapse of time, to welcome the ambassador of the grand khan. the venetian on his return home, journeyed out of the east, westward. our marco polo on his return home, journeyed out of the west, eastward; and yet they both came from the same region. their common starting-point was peking. this change is typical of that transcendent revolution under whose influence the orient will become the occident. journeying westward, the first welcome is from the nations of europe. journeying eastward, the first welcome is from our republic. it only remains that this welcome should be extended until it opens a pathway for the mightiest commerce of the world, and embraces within the sphere of american activity that ancient ancestral empire, where population, industry and education, on an unprecedented scale, create resources and necessities on an unprecedented scale also. see to it, merchants of the united states, and you, merchants of boston, that this opportunity is not lost. and this brings me, mr. mayor, to the treaty, which you invited me to discuss. but i will not now enter upon this topic. if you did not call me to order for speaking too long, i fear i should be called to order in another place for undertaking to speak of a treaty which has not yet been proclaimed by the president. one remark i will make and take the consequences. the treaty does not propose much; but it is an excellent beginning, and, i trust, through the good offices of our fellow-citizen, the honored plenipotentiary, will unlock those great chinese gates which have been bolted and barred for long centuries. the embassy is more than the treaty, because it will prepare the way for further intercourse and will help that new order of things which is among the promises of the future. * * * * * the qualities that win [speech of charles sumner at the sixty-eighth annual dinner of the new england society in the city of new york, december , . the president, isaac h. bailey, in proposing the toast, "the senate of the united states," said: "we are happy to greet on this occasion the senior in consecutive service, and the most eminent member of the senate, whose early, varied, and distinguished services in the cause of freedom have made his name a household word throughout the world--the honorable charles sumner." on rising to respond, mr. sumner was received with loud applause. the members of the society rose to their feet, applauded and waved handkerchiefs.] mr. president and brothers of new england:--for the first time in my life i have the good fortune to enjoy this famous anniversary festival. though often honored by your most tempting invitation, and longing to celebrate the day in this goodly company of which all have heard so much, i could never excuse myself from duties in another place. if now i yield to well-known attractions, and journey from washington for my first holiday during a protracted public service, it is because all was enhanced by the appeal of your excellent president, to whom i am bound by the friendship of many years in boston, in new york, and in a foreign land. [applause.] it is much to be a brother of new england, but it is more to be a friend [applause], and this tie i have pleasure in confessing to-night. it is with much doubt and humility that i venture to answer for the senate of the united states, and i believe the least i say on this head will be the most prudent. [laughter.] but i shall be entirely safe in expressing my doubt if there is a single senator who would not be glad of a seat at this generous banquet. what is the senate? it is a component part of the national government. but we celebrate to-day more than any component part of any government. we celebrate an epoch in the history of mankind--not only never to be forgotten, but to grow in grandeur as the world appreciates the elements of true greatness. of mankind i say--for the landing on plymouth rock, on december , , marks the origin of a new order of ages, by which the whole human family will be elevated. then and there was the great beginning. throughout all time, from the dawn of history, men have swarmed to found new homes in distant lands. the tyrians, skirting northern africa, stopped at carthage; carthaginians dotted spain and even the distant coasts of britain and ireland; greeks gemmed italy and sicily with art-loving settlements; rome carried multitudinous colonies with her conquering eagles. saxons, danes, and normans violently mingled with the original britons. and in more modern times, venice, genoa, portugal, spain, france, and england, all sent forth emigrants to people foreign shores. but in these various expeditions, trade or war was the impelling motive. too often commerce and conquest moved hand in hand, and the colony was incarnadined with blood. on the day we celebrate, the sun for the first time in his course looked down upon a different scene, begun and continued under a different inspiration. a few conscientious englishmen, in obedience to the monitor within, and that they might be free to worship god according to their own sense of duty, set sail for the unknown wilds of the north american continent. after a voyage of sixty-four days in the ship mayflower, with liberty at the prow and conscience at the helm [applause], they sighted the white sandbanks of cape cod, and soon thereafter in the small cabin framed that brief compact, forever memorable, which is the first written constitution of government in human history, and the very corner-stone of the american republic; and then these pilgrims landed. this compact was not only foremost in time, it was also august in character, and worthy of perpetual example. never before had the object of the "civil body public" been announced as "to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices from time to time as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony." how lofty! how true! undoubtedly, these were the grandest words of government with the largest promise of any at that time uttered. if more were needed to illustrate the new epoch, it would be found in the parting words of the venerable pastor, john robinson, addressed to the pilgrims, as they were about to sail from delfshaven--words often quoted, yet never enough. how sweetly and beautifully he says: "and if god should reveal anything to you by any other instrument of his, be as ready to receive it as ever you were to receive any truth by my ministry; but i am confident that the lord hath more light and truth yet to break forth out of his holy word." and then how justly the good preacher rebukes those who close their souls to truth! "the lutherans, for example, cannot be drawn to go beyond what luther saw, and whatever part of god's will he hath further imparted to calvin, they will rather die than embrace, and so the calvinists stick where he left them. this is a misery much to be lamented, for though they were precious, shining lights in their times, god hath not revealed his whole will to them." beyond the merited rebuke, here is a plain recognition of the law of human progress little discerned at the time, which teaches the sure advance of the human family, and opens the vista of the ever-broadening, never-ending future on earth. our pilgrims were few and poor. the whole outfit of this historic voyage, including £ , of trading stock, was only £ , , and how little was required for their succor appears in the experience of the soldier captain miles standish, who, being sent to england for assistance--not military, but financial--(god save the mark!) succeeded in borrowing--how much do you suppose?--£ sterling. [laughter.] something in the way of help; and the historian adds, "though at fifty per cent. interest." so much for a valiant soldier on a financial expedition. [laughter, in which general sherman and the company joined.] a later agent, allerton, was able to borrow for the colony £ at a reduced interest of thirty per cent. plainly, the money-sharks of our day may trace an undoubted pedigree to these london merchants. [laughter.] but i know not if any son of new england, oppressed by exorbitant interest, will be consoled by the thought that the pilgrims paid the same. and yet this small people--so obscure and outcast in condition--so slender in numbers and in means--so entirely unknown to the proud and great--so absolutely without name in contemporary records--whose departure from the old world took little more than the breath of their bodies--are now illustrious beyond the lot of men; and the mayflower is immortal beyond the grecian argo, or the stately ship of any victorious admiral. though this was little foreseen in their day, it is plain now how it has come to pass. the highest greatness surviving time and storm is that which proceeds from the soul of man. [applause.] monarchs and cabinets, generals and admirals, with the pomp of courts and the circumstance of war, in the gradual lapse of time disappear from sight; but the pioneers of truth, though poor and lowly, especially those whose example elevates human nature and teaches the rights of man, so that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth [great applause], such harbingers can never be forgotten, and their renown spreads coextensive with the cause they served. i know not if any whom i now have the honor of addressing have thought to recall the great in rank and power filling the gaze of the world as the mayflower with her company fared forth on their adventurous voyage. the foolish james was yet on the english throne, glorying that he had "peppered the puritans." the morose louis xiii, through whom richelieu ruled, was king of france. the imbecile philip iii swayed spain and the indies. the persecuting ferdinand the second, tormentor of protestants, was emperor of germany. paul v, of the house of borghese, was pope of rome. in the same princely company and all contemporaries were christian iv, king of denmark, and his son christian, prince of norway; gustavus adolphus, king of sweden; sigismund the third, king of poland; frederick, king of bohemia, with his wife, the unhappy elizabeth of england, progenitor of the house of hanover; george william, margrave of brandenburg, and ancestor of the prussian house that has given an emperor to germany; maximilian, duke of bavaria; maurice, landgrave of hesse; christian, duke of brunswick and lunenburg; john frederick, duke of würtemberg and teck; john, count of nassau; henry, duke of lorraine; isabella, infanta of spain and ruler of the low countries; maurice, fourth prince of orange; charles emanuel, duke of savoy and ancestor of the king of united italy; cosmo de' medici, third grand duke of florence; antonio priuli, ninety-third doge of venice, just after the terrible tragedy commemorated on the english stage as "venice preserved"; bethlehem gabor, prince of unitarian transylvania, and elected king of hungary, with the countenance of an african; and the sultan mustapha, of constantinople, twentieth ruler of the turks. such at that time were the crowned sovereigns of europe, whose names were mentioned always with awe, and whose countenances are handed down by art, so that at this day they are visible to the curious as if they walked these streets. mark now the contrast. there was no artist for our forefathers, nor are their countenances now known to men; but more than any powerful contemporaries at whose tread the earth trembled is their memory sacred. [applause.] pope, emperor, king, sultan, grand-duke, duke, doge, margrave, landgrave, count--what are they all by the side of the humble company that landed on plymouth rock? theirs, indeed, were the ensigns of worldly power, but our pilgrims had in themselves that inborn virtue which was more than all else besides, and their landing was an epoch. who in the imposing troop of worldly grandeur is now remembered but with indifference or contempt? if i except gustavus adolphus, it is because he revealed a superior character. confront the mayflower and the pilgrims with the potentates who occupied such space in the world. the former are ascending into the firmament, there to shine forever, while the latter have been long dropping into the darkness of oblivion, to be brought forth only to point a moral or illustrate the fame of contemporaries whom they regarded not. [applause.] do i err in supposing this an illustration of the supremacy which belongs to the triumphs of the moral nature? at first impeded or postponed, they at last prevail. theirs is a brightness which, breaking through all clouds, will shine forth with ever-increasing splendor. i have often thought that if i were a preacher, if i had the honor to occupy the pulpit so grandly filled by my friend near me [gracefully inclining toward mr. beecher], one of my sermons should be from the text, "a little leaven shall leaven the whole lump." nor do i know a better illustration of these words than the influence exerted by our pilgrims. that small band, with the lesson of self-sacrifice, of just and equal laws, of the government of a majority, of unshrinking loyalty to principle, is now leavening this whole continent, and in the fulness of time will leaven the world. [great applause.] by their example, republican institutions have been commended, and in proportion as we imitate them will these institutions be assured. [applause.] liberty, which we so much covet, is not a solitary plant. always by its side is justice. [applause.] but justice is nothing but right applied to human affairs. do not forget, i entreat you, that with the highest morality is the highest liberty. a great poet, in one of his inspired sonnets, speaking of this priceless possession, has said, "but who loves that must first be wise and good." therefore do the pilgrims in their beautiful example teach liberty, teach republican institutions, as at an earlier day, socrates and plato, in their lessons of wisdom, taught liberty and helped the idea of the republic. if republican government has thus far failed in any experiment, as, perhaps, somewhere in spanish america, it is because these lessons have been wanting. there have been no pilgrims to teach the moral law. mr. president, with these thoughts, which i imperfectly express, i confess my obligations to the forefathers of new england, and offer to them the homage of a grateful heart. but not in thanksgiving only would i celebrate their memory. i would if i could make their example a universal lesson, and stamp it upon the land. [applause.] the conscience which directed them should be the guide for our public councils. the just and equal laws which they required should be ordained by us, and the hospitality to truth which was their rule should be ours. nor would i forget their courage and steadfastness. had they turned back or wavered, i know not what would have been the record of this continent, but i see clearly that a great example would have been lost. [applause.] had columbus yielded to his mutinous crew and returned to spain without his great discovery; had washington shrunk away disheartened by british power and the snows of new jersey, these great instances would have been wanting for the encouragement of men. but our pilgrims belong to the same heroic company, and their example is not less precious. [applause.] only a short time after the landing on plymouth rock, the great republican poet, john milton, wrote his "comus," so wonderful for beauty and truth. his nature was more refined than that of the pilgrims, and yet it requires little effort of imagination to catch from one of them, or at least from their beloved pastor, the exquisite, almost angelic words at the close-- "mortals, who would follow me, love virtue; she alone is free; she can teach ye how to climb higher than the sphery chime. or if virtue feeble were, heaven itself would stoop to her." [at the conclusion of senator sumner's speech the audience arose and gave cheer upon cheer.] thomas dewitt talmage behold the american! [speech of rev. dr. t. dewitt talmage at the eighty-first annual dinner of the new england society in the city of new york, december , . the president of the society, judge horace russell, introduced dr. talmage to speak to the toast, "forefathers' day."] mr. president, and all you good new englanders: if we leave to the evolutionists to guess where we came from and to the theologians to prophesy where we are going to, we still have left for consideration the fact that we are here; and we are here at an interesting time. of all the centuries this is the best century, and of all the decades of the century this is the best decade, and of all the years of the decade this is the best year, and of all the months of the year this is the best month, and of all the nights of the month this is the best night. [applause and laughter.] many of these advantages we trace straight back to forefathers' day, about which i am to speak. but i must not introduce a new habit into these new england dinners and confine myself to the one theme. for eighty-one years your speakers have been accustomed to make the toast announced the point from which they start, but to which they never return. [laughter.] so i shall not stick to my text, but only be particular to have all i say my own, and not make the mistake of a minister whose sermon was a patchwork from a variety of authors, to whom he gave no credit. there was an intoxicated wag in the audience who had read about everything, and he announced the authors as the minister went on. the clergyman gave an extract without any credit to the author, and the man in the audience cried out: "that's jeremy taylor." the speaker went on and gave an extract from another author without credit for it, and the man in the audience said: "that is john wesley." the minister gave an extract from another author without credit for it, and the man in the audience said: "that is george whitefield." when the minister lost his patience and cried out, "shut up, you old fool!" the man in the audience replied: "that is your own." [laughter.] well, what about this forefathers' day? in brooklyn they say the landing of the pilgrims was december the st; in new york you say it was december the d. you are both right. not through the specious and artful reasoning you have sometimes indulged in, but by a little historical incident that seems to have escaped your attention. you see, the forefathers landed in the morning of december the st, but about noon that day a pack of hungry wolves swept down the bleak american beach looking for a new england dinner [laughter], and a band of savages out for a tomahawk picnic hove in sight, and the pilgrim fathers thought it best for safety and warmth to go on board the mayflower and pass the night. [renewed laughter.] and during the night there came up a strong wind blowing off shore that swept the mayflower from its moorings clear out to sea, and there was a prospect that our forefathers, having escaped oppression in foreign lands, would yet go down under an oceanic tempest. but the next day they fortunately got control of their ship and steered her in, and the second time the forefathers stepped ashore. brooklyn celebrated the first landing; new york the second landing. so i say hail! hail! to both celebrations, for one day, anyhow, could not do justice to such a subject; and i only wish i could have kissed the blarney stone of america, which is plymouth rock, so that i might have done justice to this subject. [laughter and applause.] ah, gentlemen, that mayflower was the ark that floated the deluge of oppression, and plymouth rock was the ararat on which it landed. but let me say that these forefathers were of no more importance than the foremothers. [applause.] as i understand it, there were eight of them--that is, four fathers and four mothers--from whom all these illustrious new englanders descended. now i was not born in new england, though far back my ancestors lived in connecticut, and then crossed over to long island and there joined the dutch, and that mixture of yankee and dutch makes royal blood. [applause.] neither is perfect without the other, the yankee in a man's nature saying "go ahead!" the dutch in his blood saying, "be prudent while you do go ahead!" some people do not understand why long island was stretched along parallel with all of the connecticut coast. i have no doubt that it was so placed that the dutch might watch the yankees. [laughter.] but though not born in new england, in my boyhood i had a new england schoolmaster, whom i shall never forget. he taught us our a, b, c's. "what is that?" "i don't know, sir." "that's a" [with a slap]. "what is that?" "i don't know, sir." [with a slap]--"that is b." [laughter.] i tell you, a boy that learned his letters in that way never forgot them; and if the boy was particularly dull, then this new england schoolmaster would take him over the knee, and then the boy got his information from both directions. [renewed laughter.] but all these things aside, no one sitting at these tables has higher admiration for the pilgrim fathers than i have--the men who believed in two great doctrines, which are the foundation of every religion that is worth anything: namely, the fatherhood of god and the brotherhood of man--these men of backbone and endowed with that great and magnificent attribute of stick-to-it-iveness. macaulay said that no one ever sneered at the puritans who had met them in halls of debate or crossed swords with them on the field of battle. [applause.] they are sometimes defamed for their rigorous sabbaths, but our danger is in the opposite direction of no sabbaths at all. it is said that they destroyed witches. i wish that they had cleared them all out, for the world is full of witches yet, and if at all these tables there is a man who has not sometimes been bewitched, let him hold up his glass of ice-water. [laughter.] it is said that these forefathers carried religion into everything, and before a man kissed his wife he asked a blessing, and afterward said: "having received another favor from the lord, let us return thanks." [laughter.] but our great need now is more religion in every-day life. i think their plain diet had much to do with their ruggedness of nature. they had not as many good things to eat as we have, and they had better digestion. now, all the evening some of our best men sit with an awful bad feeling at the pit of their stomach, and the food taken fails to assimilate, and in the agitated digestive organs the lamb and the cow lie down together and get up just as they have a mind to. [laughter.] after dinner i sat down with my friend to talk. he had for many years been troubled with indigestion. i felt guilty when i insisted on his taking that last piece of lemon pie. i knew that pastry always made him crusty. i said to him: "i never felt better in all my life; how do you feel?" and putting one hand over one piece of lemon pie and the other hand over the other piece of lemon pie, he said: "i feel miserable." smaller varieties of food had the old fathers, but it did them more good. still, take it all in all, i think the descendants of the pilgrim fathers are as good as their ancestors, and in many ways better. children are apt to be an echo of their ancestors. we are apt to put a halo around the forefathers, but i expect that at our age they were very much like ourselves. people are not wise when they long for the good old days. they say: "just think of the pride of people at this day! just look at the ladies' hats!" [laughter.] why, there is nothing in the ladies' hats of to-day equal to the coal-scuttle hats a hundred years ago. they say: "just look at the way people dress their hair!" why, the extremest style of to-day will not equal the top-knots which our great-grandmothers wore, put up with high combs that we would have thought would have made our great-grandfathers die with laughter. the hair was lifted into a pyramid a foot high. on the top of that tower lay a white rose. shoes of bespangled white kid, and heels two or three inches high. grandfather went out to meet her on the floor with a coat of sky-blue silk and vest of white satin embroidered with gold lace, lace ruffles around his wrist and his hair flung in a queue. the great george washington had his horse's hoofs blackened when about to appear on a parade, and writes to europe ordering sent for the use of himself and family, one silver-lace hat, one pair of silver shoe-buckles, a coat made of fashionable silk, one pair of gold sleeve-buttons, six pairs of kid gloves, one dozen most fashionable cambric pocket-handkerchiefs, besides ruffles and tucker. that was george. [laughter.] talk about dissipations, ye who have ever seen the old-fashioned sideboard! did i not have an old relative who always, when visitors came, used to go upstairs and take a drink through economical habits, not offering anything to his visitors? [laughter.] on the old-fashioned training days the most sober men were apt to take a day to themselves. many of the familiar drinks of to-day were unknown to them, but their hard cider, mint julep, metheglin, hot toddy, and lemonade in which the lemon was not at all prominent, sometimes made lively work for the broad-brimmed hats and silver knee-buckles. talk of dissipating parties of to-day and keeping of late hours! why, did they not have their "bees" and sausage-stuffings and tea-parties and dances, that for heartiness and uproar utterly eclipsed all the waltzes, lanciers, redowas, and breakdowns of the nineteenth century, and they never went home till morning. and as to the old-time courtships, oh, my! washington irving describes them. [laughter.] but though your forefathers may not have been much, if any, better than yourselves, let us extol them for the fact that they started this country in the right direction. they laid the foundation for american manhood. the foundation must be more solid and firm and unyielding than any other part of the structure. on that puritanic foundation we can safely build all nationalities. [applause.] let us remember that the coming american is to be an admixture of all foreign bloods. in about twenty-five or fifty years the model american will step forth. he will have the strong brain of the german, the polished manners of the french, the artistic taste of the italian, the stanch heart of the english, the steadfast piety of the scotch, the lightning wit of the irish, and when he steps forth, bone, muscle, nerve, brain entwined with the fibres of all nationalities, the nations will break out in the cry: "behold the american!" [applause.] columbus discovered only the shell of this country. agassiz came and discovered fossiliferous america. silliman came and discovered geological america. audubon came and discovered bird america. longfellow came and discovered poetic america; and there are a half-dozen other americas yet to be discovered. i never realized what this country was and is as on the day when i first saw some of these gentlemen of the army and navy. it was when at the close of the war our armies came back and marched in review before the president's stand at washington. i do not care whether a man was a republican or a democrat, a northern man or a southern man, if he had any emotion of nature, he could not look upon it without weeping. god knew that the day was stupendous, and he cleared the heaven of cloud and mist and chill, and sprung the blue sky as the triumphal arch for the returning warriors to pass under. from arlington heights the spring foliage shook out its welcome, as the hosts came over the hills, and the sparkling waters of the potomac tossed their gold to the feet of the battalions as they came to the long bridge and in almost interminable line passed over. the capitol never seemed so majestic as that morning: snowy white, looking down upon the tides of men that came surging down, billow after billow. passing in silence, yet i heard in every step the thunder of conflicts through which they had waded, and seemed to see dripping from their smoke-blackened flags the blood of our country's martyrs. for the best part of two days we stood and watched the filing on of what seemed endless battalions, brigade after brigade, division after division, host after host, rank beyond rank; ever moving, ever passing; marching, marching; tramp, tramp, tramp--thousands after thousands, battery front, arms shouldered, columns solid, shoulder to shoulder, wheel to wheel, charger to charger, nostril to nostril. commanders on horses with their manes entwined with roses, and necks enchained with garlands, fractious at the shouts that ran along the line, increasing from the clapping of children clothed in white, standing on the steps of the capitol, to the tumultuous vociferation of hundreds of thousands of enraptured multitudes, crying "huzza! huzza!" gleaming muskets, thundering parks of artillery, rumbling pontoon wagons, ambulances from whose wheels seemed to sound out the groans of the crushed and the dying that they had carried. these men came from balmy minnesota, those from illinois prairies. these were often hummed to sleep by the pines of oregon, those were new england lumbermen. those came out of the coal-shafts of pennsylvania. side by side in one great cause, consecrated through fire and storm and darkness, brothers in peril, on their way home from chancellorsville and kenesaw mountain and fredericksburg, in lines that seemed infinite they passed on. we gazed and wept and wondered, lifting up our heads to see if the end had come, but no! looking from one end of that long avenue to the other, we saw them yet in solid column, battery front, host beyond host, wheel to wheel, charger to charger, nostril to nostril, coming as it were from under the capitol. forward! forward! their bayonets, caught in the sun, glimmered and flashed and blazed, till they seemed like one long river of silver, ever and anon changed into a river of fire. no end to the procession, no rest for the eyes. we turned our heads from the scene, unable longer to look. we felt disposed to stop our ears, but still we heard it, marching, marching; tramp, tramp, tramp. but hush,--uncover every head! here they pass, the remnant of ten men of a full regiment. silence! widowhood and orphanage look on and wring their hands. but wheel into line, all ye people! north, south, east, west--all decades, all centuries, all millenniums! forward, the whole line! huzza! huzza! [great applause.] * * * * * what i know about the dutch [speech of rev. dr. t. dewitt talmage at the seventh annual dinner of the holland society of new york, january , . the president of the society, george m. van hoesen, said: "the next regular toast is: 'what i know about the dutch,' which will be responded to by a gentleman who needs no introduction--the rev. dr. t. dewitt talmage."] oh, judge van hoesen, this is not the first time we have been side by side, for we were college boys together; and i remember that there was this difference between us--you seemed to know about everything, and it would take a very large library, a library larger than the vatican, to tell all that i didn't know. it is good to be here. what a multitude of delightful people there are in this world! if you and i had been consulted as to which of all the stars we would choose to walk upon, we could not have done a wiser thing than to select this. i have always been glad that i got aboard this planet. there are three classes of people that i especially admire--men, women, and children. i have enjoyed this banquet very much, for there are two places where i always have a good appetite--at home and away from home. i have not been interfered with as were some gentlemen that i heard of at a public dinner some years ago. a greenhorn, who had never seen a great banquet, came to the city, and, looking through the door, said to his friends who were showing him the sights: "who are those gentlemen who are eating so heartily?" the answer was: "they are the men who pay for the dinner." "and who are those gentlemen up there on the elevation looking so pale and frightened and eating nothing?" "oh," said his friend, "those are the fellows who make the speeches." it is very appropriate that we should celebrate the hollanders by hearty eating, for you know the royal house that the hollanders admire above any other royal house, is named after one of the most delicious fruits on this table--the house of orange. i feel that i have a right to be here. while i have in my arteries the blood of many nationalities, so that i am a cosmopolitan and feel at home anywhere, there is in my veins a strong tide of dutch blood. my mother was a van nest, and i was baptized in a dutch church and named after a dutch domini, graduated at a dutch theological seminary, and was ordained by a dutch minister, married a dutch girl, preached thirteen years in a dutch church, and always took a dutch newspaper; and though i have got off into another denomination, i am thankful to say that, while nearly all of our denominations are in hot water, each one of them having on a big ecclesiastical fight--and you know when ministers do fight, they fight like sin--i am glad that the old dutch church sails on over unruffled seas, and the flag at her masthead is still inscribed with "peace and good-will to men." departed spirits of john livingston and gabriel ludlow, and dr. van draken and magnificent thomas de witt, from your thrones witness! gentlemen here to-night have spoken much already in regard to what holland did on the other side of the sea; and neither historian's pen, nor poet's canto, nor painter's pencil nor sculptor's chisel, nor orator's tongue, can ever tell the full story of the prowess of those people. isn't it strange that two of the smallest sections of the earth should have produced most of the grandest history of the world? palestine, only a little over miles in length, yet yielding the most glorious event of all history; and little holland, only about one quarter of the size of the state of new jersey, achieving wonderful history and wonderful deeds not only at home, but starting an influence under which robert burns wrote "a man's a man for a' that," and sending across the atlantic a thunder of indignation against oppression of which the american declaration of independence, and yorktown and bunker hill, and monmouth and gettysburg, are only the echoes! as i look across the ocean to-night, i say: england for manufactories, germany for scholarship, france for manners, italy for pictures--but holland for liberty and for god! and leaving to other gentlemen to tell that story--for they can tell it better than i can--i can to-night get but little further than our own immediate dutch ancestors, most of whom have already taken the sacrament of the dust. ah, what a glorious race of old folks they were! may our right hand forget its cunning, and our tongue cleave to the roof of the mouth, if we forget to honor their memories! what good advice they gave us; and when they went away forever--well, our emotions were a little different as we stood over the silent forms of the two old folks. in one case i think the dominant emotion was reverence. in the other case i think it was tenderness, and a wish that we could go with her.-- "backward, turn backward, o time, in your flight; make me a child again, just for to-night! mother, come back from the echoless shore, take me again to your heart as of yore; kiss from my forehead the furrows of care, smooth the few silver threads out of my hair; over my slumbers a loving watch keep;-- rock me to sleep, mother--rock me to sleep!" my, my! doesn't the old dutch home come back to us, and don't we see the plain cap, and the large round spectacles, and the shoulders that stoop from carrying our burden! was there ever any other hand like hers to wipe away a tear, or to bind up a wound; for when she put the far-sighted spectacles clear up on her forehead, so that her eyes might the nearer look at the wound, it felt better right away! and have we ever since heard any music like that which she hushed us to sleep with--could any prima donna sing as she could! and could any other face so fill a room with light and comfort and peace! mr. president, dutch blood is good blood. we do not propose to antagonize any other to-night; but at our public dinners, about december st, we are very apt to get into the mayflower and sail around the new england coast. i think it will be good for us to-night to take another boat quite as good, and sail around new york harbor in the half-moon. i heard, years ago, the difference illustrated between the yankee and the dutchman. there was an explosion on a mississippi river steamboat; the boiler burst, and the passengers were thrown into the air. after the accident, the captain came around to inquire in regard to them, and he found the dutchman, but not the yankee; and he said to the dutchman, "did you see anything of that yankee?" the dutchman replied, "oh, yes; when i vas going up, he vas coming down." now, the dutch blood may not be quite so quick as the yankee, but it is more apt to be sure it is right before it goes ahead. dutch blood means patience, fidelity, and perseverance. it means faith in god also. yes, it means generosity. i hardly ever knew a mean dutchman. that man who fell down dead in my native village couldn't have had any dutch blood in him. he was over eighty years of age, and had never given a cent to any benevolent object during his life; but in a moment of weakness, when he saw a face of distress, he gave a cent to an unfortunate man, and immediately dropped dead; and the surgeon declared, after the post-mortem examination, that he died of sudden enlargement of the heart. neither is there any such mean man among the dutch as that man who was so economical in regard to meat that he cut off a dog's tail and roasted it and ate the meat, and then gave the bone back to the dog. or that other mean man i heard of, who was so economical that he used a wart on the back of his neck for a collar-button. i have so much faith in holland blood, that i declare the more hollanders come to this country the better we ought to like it. wherever they try to land, let them land on our american soil; for all this continent is going to be after a while under one government. i suppose you have noticed how the governments on the southern part of the continent are gradually melting into our own; and soon the difficulty on the north between canada and the united states will be amicably settled and the time will come when the united states government will offer hand and heart in marriage to beautiful and hospitable canada; and when the united states shall so offer its hand in marriage, canada will blush and look down, and, thinking of her allegiance across the sea, will say, "ask mother." in a suggestive letter which the chairman of the committee wrote me, inviting me to take part in this entertainment, he very beautifully and potently said that the republic of the netherlands had given hospitality in the days that are past to english puritans and french huguenots and polish refugees and portuguese jews, and prospered; and i thought, as i read that letter, "why, then, if the republic of the netherlands was so hospitable to other nations, surely we ought to be hospitable to all nations, especially to hollanders." oh, this absurd talk about "america for americans!" why, there isn't a man here to-night that is not descended from some foreigner, unless he is an indian. why, the native americans were modocs, chippewas, cherokees, chickasaws, and seminoles, and such like. suppose, when our fathers were trying to come to this country, the indians had stood on plymouth rock and at the highlands of the navesink, and when the hollanders and the pilgrim fathers attempted to land, had shouted, "back with you to holland and to england; america for americans!" had that watchword been an early and successful cry, where now stand our cities would have stood indian wigwams; and canoes instead of steamers would have tracked the hudson and the connecticut; and, instead of the mississippi being the main artery of the continent, it would have been only a trough for deer and antelope and wild pigeons to drink out of. what makes this cry of "america for the americans" the more absurd and the more inhuman is that some in this country, who themselves arrived here in their boyhood or only one or two generations back, are joining in the cry. having escaped themselves into this beautiful land, they say: "shut the door of escape for others." getting themselves on our shores in the life-boat from the shipwreck, they say: "haul up the boat on the beach, and let the rest of the passengers go to the bottom." men who have yet on them a holland, or scotch, or german, or english, or irish brogue, are crying out: "america for the americans!" what if the native inhabitants of heaven (i mean the angels, the cherubim, and the seraphim, for they were born there) should say to us when we arrive there at last, "go back. heaven for the heavenians!" of course, we do not want foreign nations to make this a convict colony. we wouldn't let their thieves and anarchists land here, nor even wipe their feet on the mat of the outside door of this continent. when they send their criminals here, let us put them in chains and send them back. this country must not be made the dumping-ground for foreign vagabondism. but for the hard-working and industrious people who come here, do not let us build up any wall around new york harbor to keep them out, or it will after a while fall down with a red-hot thunderburst of god's indignation. suppose you are a father, and you have five children. one is named philip, and philip says to his brothers and sisters: "now, john, you go and live in the small room at the end of the hall. george, you go and stay up in the garret. mary, you go and live in the cellar, and fannie, you go and live in the kitchen, and don't any of you come out. i am philip, and will occupy the parlor; i like it; i like the lambrequins at the window, and i like the pictures on the wall. i am philip, and, being philip, the parlor shall only be for the philipians." you, the father, come home, and you say: "fannie, what are you doing in the kitchen? come out of there." and you say to mary, "mary, come out of that cellar." and you say to john, "john, don't stay shut up in that small room. come out of there." and you say to george, "george, come down out of that garret." and you say to the children, "this is my house. you can go anywhere in it that you want to." and you go and haul philip out of the parlor, and you tell him that his brothers and sisters have just as much right in there as he has, and that they are all to enjoy it. now, god is our father, and this world is a house of several rooms, and god has at least five children--the north american continent, the south american continent, the asiatic continent, the european continent, and the african continent. the north american continent sneaks away, and says: "i prefer the parlor. you south americans, asiatics, europeans, and africans, you stay in your own rooms; this is the place for me; i prefer it, and i am going to stay in the parlor; i like the front windows facing on the atlantic, and the side windows facing on the pacific, and the nice piazza on the south where the sun shines, and the glorious view from the piazza to the north." and god, the father, comes in and sends thunder and lightning through the house, and says to his son, the american continent: "you are no more my child than are all these others, and they have just as much right to enjoy this part of my house as you have." it will be a great day for the health of our american atmosphere when this race prejudice is buried in the earth. come, bring your spades, and let us dig a grave for it; and dig it deep down into the heart of the earth, but not clear through to china, lest the race prejudice should fasten the prejudice on the other side. having got this grave deeply dug, come, let us throw in all the hard things that have been said and written between jew and gentile, between protestant and catholic, between turk and russian, between french and english, between mongolian and anti-mongolian, between black and white; and then let us set up a tombstone and put upon it the epitaph: "here lies the monster that cursed the earth for nearly three thousand years. he has departed to go to perdition, from which he started. no peace to his ashes." from this glorious holland dinner let us go out trying to imitate the virtues of our ancestors, the men who built the holland dikes, which are the only things that ever conquered the sea, slapping it in the face and making it go back. there was a young holland engineer who was to be married to a maiden living in one of the villages sheltered by these dikes, and in the evening there was to be a banquet in honor of the wedding, which was to be given to the coming bridegroom. but all day long the sea was raging and beating against the dikes. and this engineer reasoned with himself: "shall i go to the banquet which is to be given in my honor, or shall i go and join my workmen down on the dikes?" and he finally concluded that it was his duty to go and join his workmen on the dikes, and he went. and when the poor fellows toiling there saw that their engineer was coming to help them, they set up a cheer. the engineer had a rope put around him and was lowered down into the surf, and other men came and had ropes put about them, and they were lowered down. and after a while the cry was heard: "more mortar and more blocks of stone!" but there were no more. "now," said the holland engineer, "men, take off your clothes!" and they took them off, and they stopped up the holes in the dikes. but still the stones were giving way against the mighty wrath of the strong sea which was beating against them. and then the holland engineer said: "we cannot do any more. my men, get on your knees and pray to god for help." and they got down on their knees and they prayed; and the wind began to silence, and the sea began to cease its angry wavings, and the wall was saved; and all the people who lived in the village went on with the banquet and the dance, for they did not know their peril, and they were all saved. what you and i ought to do is to go out and help build up the dikes against the ocean of crime and depravity and sin which threatens to overwhelm this nation. men of holland, descend!--to the dikes! to the dikes! bring all the faith and all the courage of your ancestors to the work, and then get down on your knees, and kneel with us on the creaking wall, and pray to the god of the wind and of the sea that he may hush the one and silence the other. bayard taylor tribute to goethe [speech of bayard taylor at a reception given in his honor by the goethe club, new york city, march , . the reception was held in recognition of mr. taylor's appointment as united states minister to germany. dr. a. ruppaner, president of the club, presided.] it is difficult for me to respond fitly to what you have done, fellow-members of the goethe club, and what my old friend parke godwin has said. i may take gratefully whatever applies to an already accomplished work, but i cannot accept any reference to any work yet to be done without a feeling of doubt and uncertainty. no man can count on future success without seeming to invoke the evil fates. i am somewhat relieved in knowing that this reception, by which i am so greatly honored, is not wholly owing to the official distinction which has been conferred upon me by the president. i am informed that it had been already intended by the goethe club as a large and liberal recognition of my former literary labors, and i will only refer a moment to the diplomatic post in order that there may be no misconception of my position in accepting it. the fact that for years past i have designed writing a new biography of the great german master, is generally known; there was no necessity for keeping it secret; it has been specially mentioned by the press since my appointment, and i need not hesitate to say that the favor of our government will give me important facilities in the prosecution of the work. [applause.] but the question has also been asked, here and there--and very naturally--is a minister to a foreign court to be appointed for such a purpose? i answer, no! the minister's duty to the government and to the interests of his fellow-citizens is always paramount. i shall go to berlin with the full understanding of the character of the services i may be expected to render, and the honest determination to fulfil them to the best of my ability. but, as my friends know, i have the power and the habit of doing a great deal of work; and i think no one will complain if, instead of the recreation which others allow themselves, i should find my own recreation in another form of labor. i hope to secure at least two hours out of each twenty-four for my own work, without detriment to my official duties--and if two hours are not practicable, one must suffice. i shall be in the midst of the material i most need--i shall be able to make the acquaintance of the men and women who can give me the best assistance--and without looking forward positively to the completion of the task, i may safely say that this opportunity gives me a cheerful hope of being able to complete it. i was first led to the study of goethe's life by the necessity of making the full meaning of his greatest poem clear to the readers of our language. i found that he himself was a better guide for me than all his critics and commentators. i learned to understand the grand individuality of his nature, and his increasing importance as an intellectual force in our century. i owe as much to him in the way of stimulus as to any other poet whatever. except shakespeare, no other poet has ever so thoroughly inculcated the value of breadth, the advantage of various knowledge, as the chief element of the highest human culture. through the form of his creative activity, shakespeare could only teach this lesson indirectly. goethe taught it always in the most direct and emphatic manner, for it was the governing principle of his nature. it is not yet fifty years since he died, but he has already become a permanent elemental power, the operation of which will continue through many generations to come. the fact that an association bearing his name exists and flourishes here in new york is a good omen for our own development. we grow, not by questioning or denying great minds--which is a very prevalent fashion of the day--but by reverently accepting whatever they can give us. the "heir of all the ages" is unworthy of his ancestors if he throws their legacy away. it is enough for me if this honor to-night reaches through and far beyond me, to goethe. it is his name not mine, which has brought us together. let me lay upon him--he is able to bear even that much--whatever of the honor i am not truly worthy to receive, and to thank you gratefully for what remains. [applause.] slason thompson the ethics of the press [speech of slason thompson at the seventy-fourth dinner and fourth "ladies' night" of the sunset club, chicago, ill., april , . the secretary, alexander a. mccormick, presided. mr. thompson spoke on the general topic of the evening's discussion, "the ethics of the press."] mr. president and gentlemen:--it would be interesting, i think, for the gentlemen of the press who are here to-night if they could find out from what newspaper in chicago the last speaker [howard l. smith] derives his idea of the press of chicago. i stand here to say that there is no such paper printed in this city. there may be one that, perhaps, comes close down to his ideas of the press of chicago, but there is only one--a weekly--and i believe it is printed in new york. the reverend gentleman who began the discussion to-night started into this subject very much like a coon, and as we listened, as he went on, we perceived he came out a porcupine. he was scientific in everything he said in favor of the press; unscientific in everything against it. he spoke to you in favor of the suppression of news, which means, i take it, the dissemination of crime. he spoke to you in favor of the suppression of sewer-gas. chicago to-day owes its good health to the fact that we do discuss sewer-gas. a reverend gentleman once discussing the province of the press, spoke of its province as the suppression of news. if some gentlemen knew the facts that come to us, they would wonder at our lenience to their faults. the question of an anonymous press has been brought up. if you will glance over the files of the newspapers throughout the world, you will find in that country where the articles are signed the press is most corrupt, weakest, most venal, and has the least influence of any press in the world. to tell me that a reporter who writes an article is of more consequence than the editor, is to tell me a thing i believe you do not believe. when charles a. dana was asked what was the first essential in publishing a newspaper, he is said to have replied, "raise cain and sell papers." whether the story is true or not, his answer comes as near a general definition of the governing principle in newspaper offices as you are likely to get. strictly speaking, there is no such thing as ethics of the press. each newspaper editor, publisher, or proprietor--whoever is the controlling spirit behind the types, the man who pockets the profits, or empties his pockets to make good the losses--his will, his judgment, his conscience, his hopes, necessities, or ambitions, constitute the ethics of one newspaper--no more! there is no association of editors, no understanding or agreement to formulate ethics for the press. and if there were, not one of the parties to it would live up to it any more than the managers of railways live up to the agreements over which they spend so much time. the general press prints what the public wants; the specific newspaper prints what its editor thinks the class of readers to which it caters wants. if he gauges his public right, he succeeds; if he does not, he fails. you can no more make the people read a newspaper they do not want than you can make a horse drink when he is not thirsty. in this respect the pulpit has the better of the press. it can thrash over old straw and thunder forth distasteful tenets to its congregations year after year, and at least be sure of the continued attention of the sexton and the deacon who circulates the contribution-box. what are the ethics of the press of chicago? they are those of joseph medill, victor f. lawson, h. h. kohlsaat, john r. walsh, carter harrison, jr., washington hesing, individually, not collectively. as these gentlemen are personally able, conscientious, fearless for the right, patriotic, incorruptible, and devoted to the public good, so are their respective newspapers. if they are otherwise, so are their respective newspapers. as i have said before this club on another occasion, the citizens of chicago are fortunate above those of any other great city in the united states in the average high character of their newspapers. they may have their faults, but who has not? let him or her who is without fault throw stones. if the newspaper press is as bad as some people always pretend to think, how comes it that every good cause instinctively seeks its aid with almost absolute confidence of obtaining it? and how comes it that the workers of evil just as instinctively aim to fraudulently use it or silence it, and with such poor success? to expose and oppose wrong is an almost involuntary rule among newspaper workers--from chief to printer's devil. they make mistakes like others, they are tempted and fall like others, but i testify to a well-recognized intention of our profession, the rule is to learn the facts, and print them, too--to know the truth and not hide it under a bushel. nine-tenths of the criticisms of the press one hears is the braying of the galled jades or the crackling of thorns under a pot. the press stands for light, not darkness. it is the greatest power in our modern civilization. thieves and rascals of high and low degree hate and malign it, but no honest man has reasonable cause to fear the abuse of its power. it is a beacon, and not a false light. it casts its blessed beams into dark places, and while it brings countless crimes to light, it also reveals to the beneficence of the world the wrongs and needs of the necessitous. it is the embodiment of energy in the pursuit of news, for its name is light, and its aim is knowledge. ignorance and crime flee from before it like mist before the god of light. it stands to-day "for the truth that lacks assistance, for the wrong that needs resistance, for the future in the distance, and the good that it can do." it has no license to do wrong; it has boundless liberty and opportunity to do good. theodore tilton woman [speech of theodore tilton at the sixtieth annual dinner of the new england society in the city of new york, december , . the chairman, joseph h. choate, gave the following toast, "woman--the strong staff and beautiful rod which sustained and comforted our forefathers during every step of the pilgrims' progress." theodore tilton was called upon to respond.] gentlemen:--it is somewhat to a modest man's embarrassment, on rising to this toast, to know that it has already been twice partially spoken to this evening--first by my friend, senator lane from indiana, and just now, most eloquently, by the mayor-elect of new york [john t. hoffman], who could not utter a better word in his own praise than to tell us that he married a massachusetts wife. [applause.] in choosing the most proper spot on this platform as my standpoint for such remarks as are appropriate to such a toast, my first impulse was to go to the other end of the table; for hereafter, mr. chairman, when you are in want of a man to speak for woman, remember what hamlet said, "bring me the recorder!"[ ] [laughter.] but, on the other hand, here, at this end, a prior claim was put in from the state of indiana, whose venerable senator [henry s. lane] has expressed himself disappointed at finding no women present. so, as my toast introduces that sex, i feel bound to stand at the senator's end of the room--not, however, too near the senator's chair, for it may be dangerous to take woman too near that "good-looking man." [laughter and applause.] therefore, gentlemen, i stand between these two chairs--the army on my right [general hancock], the navy on my left [admiral farragut]--to hold over their heads a name that conquers both--woman! [applause.] the chairman has pictured a vice-admiral tied for a little while to a mast; but it is the spirit of my sentiment to give you a vice-admiral tied life-long to a master. [applause.] in the absence of woman, therefore, from this gilded feast, i summon her to your golden remembrance. there is an old english song--older, sir, than the pilgrims:-- "by absence, this good means i gain, that i can catch her where none can watch her, in some close corner of my brain: there i embrace and kiss her: and so i both enjoy and miss her!" you must not forget, mr. president, in eulogizing the early men of new england, who are your clients to-night, that it was only through the help of the early women of new england, who are mine, that your boasted heroes could ever have earned their title of the pilgrim fathers. [great laughter.] a health, therefore, to the women in the cabin of the mayflower! a cluster of may-flowers themselves, transplanted from summer in the old world to winter in the new! counting over those matrons and maidens, they numbered, all told, just eighteen. their names are now written among the heroines of history! for as over the ashes of cornelia stood the epitaph "the mother of the gracchi," so over these women of the pilgrimage we write as proudly "the mothers of the republic." [applause.] there was good mistress bradford, whose feet were not allowed of god to kiss plymouth rock, and who, like moses, came only near enough to see but not to enter the promised land. she was washed overboard from the deck--and to this day the sea is her grave and cape cod her monument! [applause.] there was mistress carver, wife of the first governor, and who, when her husband fell under the stroke of sudden death, followed him first with heroic grief to the grave, and then, a fortnight after, followed him with heroic joy up into heaven! [applause.] there was mistress white--the mother of the first child born to the new england pilgrims on this continent. and it was a good omen, sir, that this historic babe was brought into the world on board the mayflower between the time of the casting of her anchor and the landing of her passengers--a kind of amphibious prophecy that the new-born nation was to have a birthright inheritance over the sea and over the land. [great applause.] there, also, was rose standish, whose name is a perpetual june fragrance, to mellow and sweeten those december winds. and there, too, was mrs. winslow, whose name is even more than a fragrance; it is a taste; for, as the advertisements say, "children cry for it"; it is a soothing syrup. [great laughter.] then, after the first vessel with these women, there came other women--loving hearts drawn from the olden land by those silken threads which afterwards harden into golden chains. for instance, governor bradford, a lonesome widower, went down to the sea-beach, and, facing the waves, tossed a love-letter over the wide ocean into the lap of alice southworth in old england, who caught it up, and read it, and said, "yes, i will go." and she went! and it is said that the governor, at his second wedding, married his first love! which, according to the new theology, furnishes the providential reason why the first mrs. bradford fell overboard! [great laughter.] now, gentlemen, as you sit to-night in this elegant hall, think of the houses in which the mayflower men and women lived in that first winter! think of a cabin in the wilderness--where winds whistled--where wolves howled--where indians yelled! and yet, within that log-house, burning like a lamp was the pure flame of christian faith, love, patience, fortitude, heroism! as the star of the east rested over the rude manger where christ lay, so--speaking not irreverently--there rested over the roofs of the pilgrims a star of the west--the star of empire; and to-day that empire is the proudest in the world! [applause.] and if we could summon up from their graves, and bring hither to-night, that olden company of long-mouldered men, and they could sit with us at this feast--in their mortal flesh--and with their stately presence--the whole world would make a pilgrimage to see those pilgrims! [applause.] how quaint their attire! how grotesque their names! how we treasure every relic of their day and generation! and of all the heirlooms of the earlier times in yankeeland, what household memorial is clustered round about with more sacred and touching associations than the spinning-wheel! the industrious mother sat by it doing her work while she instructed her children! the blushing daughter plied it diligently, while her sweetheart had a chair very close by. and you remember, too, another person who used it more than all the rest--that peculiar kind of maiden, well along in life, who, while she spun her yarn into one "blue stocking," spun herself into another. [laughter.] but perhaps my toast forbids me to touch upon this well-known class of yankee women--restricting me, rather, to such women as "comforted" the pilgrims. [laughter.] but, my friends, such of the pilgrim fathers as found good women to "comfort" them had, i am sure, their full share of matrimonial thorns in the flesh. for instance, i know of an early new england epitaph on a tombstone, in these words: "obadiah and sarah wilkenson--their warfare is accomplished." [uproarious laughter.] and among the early statutes of connecticut--a state that began with blue laws, and ends with black [laughter]--there was one which said: "no gospel minister shall unite people in marriage; the civil magistrates shall unite people in marriage; as they may do it with less scandal to the church." [loud laughter.] now, gentlemen, since yankee clergymen fared so hard for wedding-fees in those days, is it to be wondered at that so many yankee clergymen have escaped out of new england, and are here to-night? [laughter.] dropping their frailties in the graves which cover their ashes, i hold up anew to your love and respect the forefathers of new england! and as the sons of the pilgrims are worthy of their sires, so the daughters of the pilgrims are worthy of their mothers. i hold that in true womanly worth, in housewifely thrift, in domestic skill, in every lovable and endearing quality, the present race of yankee women are the women of the earth! [applause.] and i trust that we shall yet have a republic which, instead of disfranchising one-half its citizens, and that too by common consent its "better half," shall ordain the political equality, not only of both colors, but of both sexes! i believe in a reconstructed union wherein every good woman shall have a wedding-ring on her finger, and a ballot in her hand! [sensation.] and now, to close, let me give you just a bit of good advice. the cottages of our forefathers had few pictures on the walls, but many families had a print of "king charles's twelve good rules," the eleventh of which was, "make no long meals." now king charles lost his head, and you will have leave to make a long meal. but when, after your long meal, you go home in the wee small hours, what do you expect to find? you will find my toast--"woman, a beautiful rod!" [laughter.] now my advice is, "kiss the rod!" [great laughter, during which mr. tilton took his seat.] joseph hopkins twichell yankee notions [speech of rev. joseph h. twichell, of hartford, conn., at the eighty-second annual dinner of the new england society in the city of new york, december , . the president, horace russell, occupied the chair. mr. twichell responded to the first toast, "forefathers' day."] mr. president and gentlemen:--i have heard of an irishman who, on being asked by a kind-hearted person if he would have a drink of whiskey, made no reply at first, but struck an attitude and stood gazing up into the sky. "what are you looking at, mike?" inquired his friend. "bedad, sir," said mike, "i thought an angel spoke to me." [much laughter.] somewhat so did i feel, mr. president, when i got your invitation to be here this evening and speak. i own i was uncommonly pleased by it. i considered it the biggest compliment of the kind i had ever received in my life. for that matter it was too big, as i had to acknowledge. that, however, sir, was your affair; and so, without stopping much to think, and before i could muster the cowardice to decline, i accepted it. [laughter.] but as soon as i began to reflect, especially when i came to ask myself what in the world i had or could have to say in this august presence, i was scared to think of what i had done. i was like the man who while breaking a yoke of steers that he held by a rope, having occasion to use both his hands in letting down a pair of bars, fetched the rope a turn around one of his legs. that instant something frightened the steers, and that unfortunate farmer was tripped up and snaked off feet first on a wild, erratic excursion, a mile or so, over rough ground, as long as the rope lasted, and left in a very lamentable condition, indeed. his neighbors ran to him and gathered him up and laid him together, and waited around for him to come to; which, when he did, one of them inquired of him how he came to do such a thing as hitch a rope around his leg under such circumstances. "well," said he, "we hadn't gone five rods 'fore i see my mistake." [hearty laughter.] but here i am, and the president has passed the tremendous subject of forefathers' day, like a rugby ball, into my hands--after making elegant play with it himself--and, frightful as the responsibility is, i realize that i've got to do something with it--and do it mighty quick. [laughter.] this is a festive hour, and even a preacher mustn't be any more edifying in his remarks, i suppose, than he can help. and i promise accordingly to use my conscientious endeavors to-night to leave this worshipful company no better than i found it. [laughter.] but, gentlemen, well intending as one may be to that effect, and lightly as he may approach the theme of the forefathers, the minute he sets foot within its threshold he stops his fooling and gets his hat off at once. [applause.] those unconscious, pathetic heroes, pulling their shallop ashore on the cape yonder in --what reverence can exceed their just merit! what praise can compass the virtue of that sublime, unconquerable manhood, by which in the calamitous, woful days that followed, not accepting deliverance, letting the mayflower go back empty, they stayed perishing by the graves of their fallen; rather, stayed fast by the flickering flame of their living truth, and so invoked and got on their side forever the force of that great law of the universe, "except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." how richly and how speedily fruitful that seed was, we know. it did not wait for any large unfolding of events on these shores to prove the might of its quickening. "westward the star of empire takes its way." yes, but the first pulse of vital power from the new state moved eastward. for behold it still in its young infancy--if it can be said to have had an infancy--stretching a strong hand of help across the sea to reinforce the cause of that commonwealth, the rise of which marks the epoch of england's new birth in liberty. [applause.] the pen of new england, fertilized by freedom and marvellously prolific ere a single generation passed, was indeed the commonwealth's true nursing mother. cromwell, hampden, sidney, milton, owen, were disciples of teachers mostly from this side the atlantic. professor masson, of edinburgh university, in his admirable "life of milton," enumerates seventeen new england men whom he describes as "potent" in england in that period. numbers went to england in person, twelve of the first twenty graduates of harvard college prior to , among them; and others, not a few representing the leading families of the colonies, who going over with their breasts full of new england milk, nourished the heart of the great enterprise; "performed," so palfrey tells us, "parts of consequence in the parliamentary service, and afterward in the service of the protectorate." it is not too much to say that on the fields of marston moor and naseby new england appeared; and that those names may fairly be written on her banners. [applause.] that, i would observe--and mr. grady would freely concede it--was before there was much mingling anywhere of the puritan and the cavalier blood, save as it ran together between cromwell's ironsides and rupert's troopers. i would observe also that the propagation eastward inaugurated in that early day has never ceased. the immigration of populations hither from europe, great a factor as it has been in shaping the history of this continent, has not been so great a factor as the emigration of ideas the other way has been, and continues to be, in shaping the history of europe, and of the mother country most of all. but that carries me where i did not intend to go. an inebriated man who had set out to row a boat across a pond was observed to pursue a very devious course. on being hailed and asked what the matter was, he replied that it was the rotundity of the earth that bothered him; he kept sliding off. so it is the rotundity of my subject that bothers me. but i do mean to stay on one hemisphere of it if possible. [laughter.] the forefathers were a power on earth from the start--and that by the masterful quality of their mind and spirit. they had endless pluck, intellectual and moral. they believed that the kingdom in this world was with ideas. it was, you might say, one of their original yankee notions that it was the property of a man to have opinions and to stand by them to the death. judged from the standpoint of their times, as any one who will take the pains to look will discover, they were tolerant men; but they were fell debaters, and they were no compromisers. they split hairs, if you will, but they wouldn't split the difference. [laughter.] a german professor of theology is reported to have said in lecturing to his students on the existence of god, that while the doctrine, no doubt, was an important one, it was so difficult and perplexed that it was not advisable to take too certain a position upon it, as many were disposed to do. there were those, he remarked, who were wont in the most unqualified way to affirm that there was a god. there were others who, with equal immoderation, committed themselves to the opposite proposition--that there was no god. the philosophical mind, he added, will look for the truth somewhere between these extremes. the forefathers had none of that in theirs. [laughter and applause.] they were men who employed the great and responsible gift of speech honestly and straightforwardly. there was a sublime sincerity in their tongues. they spoke their minds. their sons, i fear, have declined somewhat from their veracity at that precise point. at times we certainly have, and have had to be brought back to it by severest pains--as, for example, twenty-six years ago by the voice of beauregard's and sumter's cannon, which was a terrible voice indeed, but had this vast merit that it told the truth, and set a whole people free to say what they thought once more. [great applause.] our fathers of the early day were not literary; but they were apt, when they spoke, to make themselves understood. there was in my regiment during the war--i was a chaplain--a certain corporal, a gay-hearted fellow and a good soldier, of whom i was very fond--with whom on occasion of his recovery from a dangerous sickness i felt it my duty to have a serious pastoral talk; and while he convalesced i watched for an opportunity for it. as i sat one day on the side of his bed in the hospital tent chatting with him, he asked me what the campaign, when by and by spring opened, was going to be. i told him that i didn't know. "well," said he, "i suppose that general mcclellan knows all about it." (this was away back in , not long after we went to the field.) i answered: "general mcclellan has his plans, of course, but he doesn't know. things may not turn out as he expects." "but," said the corporal, "president lincoln knows, doesn't he?" "no," i said, "he doesn't know, either. he has his ideas, but he can't see ahead any more than general mcclellan can." "dear me," said the corporal, "it would be a great comfort if there was somebody that did know about things"--and i saw my chance. "true, corporal," i observed, "that's a very natural feeling; and the blessed fact is there is one who does know everything, both past and future, about you and me, and about this army; who knows when we are going to move, and where to, and what's going to happen; knows the whole thing." "oh," says the corporal, "you mean old scott!" [laughter.] the forefathers generally spared people the trouble of guessing what they were driving at. [applause.] that for which they valued education was that it gave men power to think and reason and form judgments and communicate and expound the same, and so capacitated them for valid membership of the church and of the state. and that was still another original yankee notion. not often has the nature and the praise of it been more worthily expressed, that i am aware of, than in these sentences, which i lately happened upon, the name of whose author i will, by your leave, reserve till i have repeated them: "next to religion they prized education. if their lot had been cast in some pleasant place of the valley of the mississippi, they would have sown wheat and educated their children; but as it was, they educated their children and planted whatever might grow and ripen on that scanty soil with which capricious nature had tricked off and disguised the granite beds beneath. other colonies would have brought up some of the people to the school; they, if i may be allowed so to express it, let down the school to all the people, not doubting but by doing so the people and the school would rise of themselves." i do not know if cardinal gibbons is present; i do not recognize him. if he is, i am pleased to have had the honor to recite in his hearing and to commend to his attention these words, so true, so just, so appreciative, of a distinguished ecclesiastic of his communion; for they were spoken by the late archbishop hughes in a public lecture in this city in . [applause.] i would, however, much rather have recited them in the ears of those protestant americans--alas, that there should be born new englanders among them, that is, such according to the flesh, not according to the spirit--who are wont to betray a strange relish for disparaging both the principles and the conduct of our great sires in that early day when they were sowing in weakness what has ever since been rising with power. there have always, indeed, been those who were fond of spying the blemishes of new england, of illustrating human depravity by instances her sinners contributed. with the open spectacle of armies of beggars--god's beggars they are; i do not object to them--continually swarming in across her borders, as bees to their meadows, and returning not empty, they keep on calling her close-fisted. they even blaspheme her weather--her warm-hearted summers and her magnificent winters. there is, to be sure, a time along in march--but let that pass. [laughter.] i refer to this without the least irritation. i do not complain of it. on the contrary, i glory in it. i love her for the enemies she has made. [laughter.] she is the church member among the communities, and must catch it accordingly. it is the saints who are always in the wrong. [laughter.] elijah troubled israel. daniel was a nuisance in babylon. and long may new england be such as to make it an object to find fault with her. [hearty applause.] such she will be so long as she is true to herself--true to her great traditions; true to the principles of which her life was begotten; so long as her public spirit has supreme regard to the higher ranges of the public interest; so long as in her ancient glorious way she leaves the power of the keys in the hands of the people; so long as her patriotism springs, as in the beginning it sprang, from the consciousness of rights wedded to the consciousness of duties; so long as by her manifold institutions of learning, humanity, religion, thickly sown, multitudinous, universal, she keeps the law of the forefathers' faith, that "man lives not by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of god." [prolonged applause.] * * * * * the soldier stamp [speech of rev. joseph h. twichell, of hartford, conn., at the eighty-sixth annual dinner of the new england society in the city of new york, december , . j. pierpont morgan, the president, occupied the chair. mr. twichell responded to the toast, "forefathers' day."] mr. president and gentlemen of the new england society:--the posture of my mind the last fortnight relative to the duty of the present hour--which, indeed, i was proud to be assigned to, as i ought to have been, but which has been a black care to me ever since i undertook it--has a not inapt illustration in the case of the old new england parson who, when asked why he was going to do a certain thing that had been laid upon him, yet the thought of which affected him with extreme timidity, answered: "i wouldn't if i didn't suppose it had been foreordained from all eternity--and i'm a good mind to not as it is." [laughter.] however, i have the undisguised good-will of my audience to begin with, and that's half the battle. the forefathers, in whose honor we meet, were men of good-will, profoundly so; but they were, in their day, more afraid of showing it, in some forms, than their descendants happily are. the first time i ever stood in the pulpit to preach was in the meeting-house of the ancient connecticut town where i was brought up. that was a great day for our folks and all my old neighbors, you may depend. after benediction, when i passed out into the vestibule, i was the recipient there of many congratulatory expressions. among my friends in the crowd was an aged deacon, a man in whom survived, to a rather remarkable degree, the original new england puritan type, who had known me from the cradle, and to whom the elevation i had reached was as gratifying as it could possibly be to anybody. but when he saw the smile of favor focussed on me there, and me, i dare say, appearing to bask somewhat in it, the dear old man took alarm. he was apprehensive of the consequences to that youngster. and so, taking me by the hand and wrestling down his natural feelings--he was ready to cry for joy--he said: "well, joseph, i hope you'll live to preach a great deal better than that!" [laughter.] it was an exceedingly appropriate remark, and a very tender one if you were at the bottom of it. that severe, undemonstrative new england habit, that emotional reserve and self-suppression, though it lingers here and there, has mostly passed away and is not to be regretted. as much as could be has been made of it to our forefathers' discredit, as has been made of everything capable of being construed unfavorably to them. they to whom what they call the cant of the puritan is an offence, themselves have established and practise a distinct anti-puritan cant with which we are all familiar. the very people who find it abhorrent and intolerable that they were such censors of the private life of their contemporaries, do not scruple to bring to bear on their private life a search-light that leaves no accessible nook of it unexplored, and regarding any unpretty trait espied by that unsparing inquest the rule of judgment persistently employed--as one is obliged to perceive--tends to be: "no explanation wanted or admitted but the worst." [applause.] accordingly, the infestive deportment characteristic of the new england colonist has been extensively interpreted as the indisputable index of his sour and morose spirit, begotten of his religion. i often wonder that, in computing the cause of his rigorous manners, so inadequate account is wont to be made of his situation, as in a principal and long-continuing aspect substantially military--which it was. the truth is, his physiognomy was primarily the soldier stamp on him. if you had been at gettysburg on the morning of july , , as i was, and had perused the countenance of the first and eleventh corps, exhausted and bleeding with the previous day's losing battle, and the countenance of the second, third, and twelfth corps, getting into position to meet the next onset, which everybody knew was immediately impending, you would have said that it was a sombre community--that army of the potomac--with a good deal of grimness in the face of it; with a notable lack of the playful element, and no fiddling or other fine arts to speak of. as sure as you live, gentlemen, that is no unfair representation of how it was with the founders of the new england commonwealths in their planting period. the puritan of the seventeenth century lived, moved, and had his being on the field of an undecided struggle for existence--the new england puritan most emphatically so. he was under arms in body much of the time--in mind all the time. nothing can be truer than to say that. and yet people everlastingly pick and poke at him for being stern-featured and deficient in the softer graces of life. it was his beauty that he was so, for it grew out of and was befitting his circumstances. and i, for one, love to see that austere demeanor so far as it is yet hereditary on the old soil--and some of it is left--thinking of its origin. it is the signature of a fighting far more than of an ascetic ancestry--memorial of a new pass of thermopylæ held by the latest race of spartans on the shores of a new world. [applause.] it may be doubted if ever in the history of mankind was displayed a quality of public courage--of pure, indomitable pluck--surpassing that of the new england plantations in their infant day. no condition of its extremest proof was lacking. while the bay colony, for example, was in the pinch of its first wrestle with nature for a living, much as ever able to furnish its table with a piece of bread--with the hunger-wolf never far away from the door, and behind that wolf the narragansett and the pequot, at what moment to burst into savagery none could tell--in the season when mere existence was the purchase of physical toil, universal and intense, and of watching night and day--there came from the old country, from the high places of authority, the peremptory mandate: send us back that charter! under the clause of it granting you the rule of your own affairs, you are claiming more than was intended or can be allowed. send it back! and what was the answer? mind, there were less than , souls of them, all told: less than , grown men. on the one hand the power of england--on the other that scrap of a new-born state, sore pressed with difficulties already. what was the answer? why, they got out some old cannon they had and mounted them, and moulded a stock of bullets, and distributed powder, and took of every male citizen above the age of sixteen an oath of allegiance to massachusetts--and then set their teeth and waited to see what would happen. and that was their answer. it meant distinctly: our charter, which we had of the king's majesty (and therefore came we hither), is our lawful possession--fair title to the territory we occupy and the rights we here exercise. and whoever wants it has got to come and take it. surrender it we never will! [applause.] nor was that the only time. again and again during the colony's initial stage, when it was exceedingly little of stature and had enough to do to keep the breath of life in it, that demand was renewed with rising anger and with menaces; yet never could those puritans of the bay be scared into making a solitary move of any kind toward compliance with it. david with his sling daring goliath in armor is an insufficient figure of that nerve, that transcendent grit, that superb gallantry. where will you look for its parallel? i certainly do not know. [applause.] they used to tell during the war of a colonel who was ordered to assault a position which his regiment, when they had advanced far enough to get a good look at it, saw to be so impossible that they fell back and became immovable. whereupon (so the story ran) the colonel, who took the same sense of the situation that his command did, yet must do his duty, called out in an ostensibly pleading and fervid voice: "oh, don't give it up so! forward again! forward! charge! great heavens, men, do you want to live forever?" [laughter.] how those first new england puritans we are speaking of were to come off from their defiance of the crown alive could scarcely be conjectured. the only ally they had was distance. the thing they ventured on was the chance that the royal government, which had troubles nearer home, would have its hands too full to execute its orders , miles away across the sea by force. but they accepted all hazards whatsoever of refusing always to obey those orders. they held on to their charter like grim death, and they kept it in their time. more than once or twice it seemed as good as gone; but delay helped them; turns of events helped them; god's providence delivered them, they thought; anyhow, they kept it; that intrepid handful against immeasurable odds, mainly because it lay not in the power of mortal man to intimidate them. and i contend that, all things considered, no more splendid exhibition of the essential stuff of manhood stands on human record. they were no hot-heads. all that while, rash as they appeared, their pulse was calm. the justifying reasons of their course were ever plain before their eyes. they were of the kind of men who understood their objects. the representative of an english newspaper, sent some time since to ireland to move about and learn by personal observation the real political mind of the people there, reported on his return that he had been everywhere and talked with all sorts, and that as nearly as he could make out, the attitude of the irish might be stated about thus: "they don't know what they want--and they are bound to have it." [laughter.] but those unbending forefathers well knew what they wanted that charter for. it was their legal guarantee of the privilege of a spacious freedom, civil and religious, and all that they did and risked for its sake is witness of the price at which they held that privilege. it was not that they had any special objection to the interference in the province of their domestic administration of the king as a king; for you find them presently crying "hands off!" to the puritan parliament as strenuously as ever they said it to the agents of charles i. it was simply and positively the value they set on the self-governing independence that had been pledged them at the beginning of the enterprise. and who that has a man's heart in him but must own that their inspiration to such a degree, with such an idea and sentiment in the time, place, and circumstances in which they stood, was magnificent? was the inexorable unrelaxing determination with which they, being so few and so poor, maintained their point somewhat wrought into their faces? very probably. strange if it had not been. of course, it was. but if they were stern-visaged in their day, it was that we in our day, which in vision they foresaw, might of all communities beneath the sun have reason for a cheerful countenance. [applause.] they achieved immense great things for us, those puritan men who were not smiling enough to suit the critics. the real foundation on which the structure of american national liberty subsequently rose was laid by them in those first heroic years. and what a marvel it was, when you stop to think, that in conditions so hard, so utterly prosaic, calculated to clip the wings of generous thought, they maintained themselves in that elevation of sentiment, that supreme estimate of the unmaterial, the ideal factors of life that distinguished them--in such largeness of mind and of spirit altogether. while confronting at deadly close quarters their own necessities and perils, their sympathies were wide as the world. to their brethren in old england, contending with tyranny, every ship that crossed the atlantic carried their benediction. look at the days of thanksgiving and of fast with which they followed the shifting fortunes of the wars of protestantism--which were wars for humanity--on the continent! look at the vital consequence they attached to the interest of education; at the taxes that in their penury, and while for the most part they still lived in huts, they imposed on themselves to found and to sustain the institution of the school! [applause.] "child," said a matron of primitive new england to her young son, "if god make thee a good christian and a good scholar, thou hast all that ever thy mother asked for thee." and so saying she spoke like a true daughter of the puritans. they were poets--those brave, stanch, aspiring souls, whose will was adamant and who feared none but god. only, as charles kingsley has said, they did not sing their poetry like birds, but acted it like men. [applause.] it was their high calling to stand by the divine cause of human progress at a momentous crisis of its evolution, and they were worthy to be put on duty at that post. evolution! i hardly dare speak the word, knowing so little about the thing. it represents a very great matter, which i am humbly conscious of being about as far from surrounding as was a simple-minded irish priest i have been told of, who, having heard that we were descended from monkeys, yet not quite grasping the chronology of the business, the next time he visited a menagerie, gave particular and patient attention to a large cage of our alleged poor relations on exhibition there. he stood for a long time intently scrutinizing their human-like motions, gestures, and expressions. by and by he fancied that the largest of them, an individual of a singularly grave demeanor, seated at the front of the cage, gave him a glance of intelligence. the glance was returned. a palpable wink followed, which also was returned, as were other like signals; and so it went on until his reverence, having cast an eye around to see that nobody was observing him, leaned forward and said, in a low, confidential tone: "av ye'll spake one w-u-r-r-d, i'll baptize ye, begorra!" [laughter.] but, deficient as one's knowledge of evolution, scientifically and in detail, may be, he may have attained to a not unintelligent perception of the all-embracing creative process called by that name as that in which, in the whole range of the advancing universal movement of life, what is ascends from what was, and fulfils it. and what i wish to say for my last word is, that whoever of us in tracing back along the line of its potent and fruitful sources that which is his noblest heritage as an american and a member of the english race, leaves out that hard-featured forefather of ours on the shore of massachusetts bay in the seventeenth century, and makes not large account of the tremendous fight he fought which was reflected in the face he wore, misses a chief explanation of the fortune to which we and our children are born. [loud applause.] john tyndall art and science [speech of professor john tyndall at the annual banquet of the royal academy, london, may , . the toast to science was coupled with that to literature, to the latter of which william e. h. lecky was called upon to respond. in introducing professor tyndall, the president, sir frederic leighton, said: "on behalf of science, on whom could i call more fitly than on my old friend professor tyndall. ["hear! hear!"] fervid in imagination, after the manner of his race, clothing thoughts luminous and full of color in a sharply chiselled form, he seems to me to be, in very deed, an artist and our kin; and i, as an artist, rejoice to see that in this priest within the temple of science, knowledge has not clipped the wings of wonder, and that to him the tint of heaven is not the less lovely that he can reproduce its azure in a little phial, nor does, because science has been said to unweave it, the rainbow lift its arc less triumphantly in the sky."] your royal highness, my lords, and gentlemen: faraday, whose standing in the science of the world needs not to be insisted on, used to say to me that he knew of only two festivals that gave him real pleasure. he loved to meet, on tower hill, the frank and genial gentlemen-sailors of the trinity house; but his crowning enjoyment was the banquet of the royal academy. the feeling thus expressed by faraday is a representative feeling: for surely it is a high pleasure to men of science to mingle annually in this illustrious throng, and it is an honor and a pleasure to hear the toast of science so cordially proposed and so warmly responded to year after year. art and science in their widest sense cover nearly the whole field of man's intellectual action. they are the outward and visible expressions of two distinct and supplementary portions of our complex human nature--distinct, but not opposed, the one working by the dry light of the intellect, the other in the warm glow of the emotions; the one ever seeking to interpret and express the beauty of the universe, the other ever searching for its truth. one vast personality in the course of history, and one only, seems to have embraced them both. ["hear! hear!"] that transcendent genius died three days ago plus three hundred and sixty-nine years--leonardo da vinci. emerson describes an artist who could never paint a rock until he had first understood its geological structure; and the late lord houghton told me that an illustrious living poet once destroyed some exquisite verses on a flower because on examination he found that his botany was wrong. this is not saying that all the geology in the world, or all the botany in the world, could create an artist. in illustration of the subtle influences which here come into play, a late member of this academy once said to me--"let raphael take a crayon in his hand and sweep a curve; let an engineer take tracing paper and all other appliances necessary to accurate reproduction, and let him copy that curve--his line will not be the line of raphael." in these matters, through lack of knowledge, i must speak, more or less, as a fool, leaving it to you, as wise men, to judge what i say. rules and principles are profitable and necessary for the guidance of the growing artist and for the artist full-grown; but rules and principles, i take it, just as little as geology and botany, can create the artist. guidance and rule imply something to be guided and ruled. and that indefinable something which baffles all analysis, and which when wisely guided and ruled emerges in supreme excellence, is individual genius, which, to use familiar language, is "the gift of god." [cheers.] in like manner all the precepts of bacon, linked together and applied in one great integration, would fail to produce a complete man of science. in this respect art and science are identical--that to reach their highest outcome and achievement they must pass beyond knowledge and culture, which are understood by all, to inspiration and creative power, which pass the understanding even of him who possesses them in the highest degree. [cheers.] george roe van de water dutch traits [speech of rev. dr. george r. van de water at the eighth annual dinner of the holland society of new york, january , . the president, judge augustus van wyck, said: "the next toast is: 'holland--a lesson to oppressors, an example to the oppressed, and a sanctuary for the rights of mankind.' this toast will be responded to by one of the greatest stars in new york's constellation of the embassadors of him on high--rev. dr. george r. van de water, rector of st. andrew's church, harlem."] mr. president and members of the holland society:--one loves to observe a fitness in things. there is manifest fitness in one coming to new york from harlem to speak to the members of the holland society and their friends. there is also manifest fitness in taking the words of this country's earliest benefactor, the marquis de lafayette, and, removing them from their original association with this fair and favored land, applying them to that little but lovely, lowly yet lofty, country of the netherlands. geologists tell us that, minor considerations waived, the character of a stream can be discerned as well anywhere along its course as at its source. whether this be true or not, anything that can be said of the fundamental principles of liberty, upon which our national fabric has been built, can be said with even increased emphasis of the free states of the netherlands. from the dutch our free america has secured the inspiration of her chartered liberties. of the dutch, then, we can appropriately say, as lafayette once said of free america, "they are a lesson to oppressors, an example to the oppressed, and a sanctuary for the rights of mankind." we are here to-night to glorify the dutch. fortunately for us, to do this we have not by the addition of so much as a jot or a tittle to magnify history. the facts are sufficient to justify our boast and fortify our pride. we need to detract nothing from other nationalities that have contributed much to the formation of our modern national conglomerate, although it is easily seen that the superior qualities of other nations have had a large infusion of dutch virtue. all that we claim is that no nation under the heavens can make such an exhibit of marvellous success against adverse circumstances as does holland. from the days when julius cæsar mentions their bravery under the name of batavians, to the notable time when, voluntarily assuming the title of reproach, they became "the beggars of the sea," and for nearly a century fought for their chartered rights against the most powerful and unscrupulous of foes, the dutch have shown the most splendid of human virtues in most conspicuous light. in doing this they have made a noble name for themselves, and furnished the worthiest of examples for all the nations of the earth. this is not the time nor the place to deal with mere facts of history. yet i take it that even this jolly assembly will take pleasure in the mention of the deeds that have now become eternally historic. who that knows anything of the son of charles v, who in made promises to holland that he never meant to keep, and for years after sought in every way to break; who that has ever read of this fanatical, heartless, cruel, and despotic philip ii of spain, or of that wonderful, pure, magnanimous, noblest dutchman of all, william of orange, or of that fickle and false margaret of parma, the wicked sister in holland, who lived to execute the will of a wicked brother in spain, or of those monsters at the head of spanish armies, alva, requesens, and don juan; who that has been fired by the sieges of leyden and haarlem, by the assassinations concocted in the council of blood, by the patient, faithful, undying patriotism of the netherlanders in protesting for the truth of god and the rights of man, will need any response to the toast "a lesson to oppressors"? a little land, fighting for the right, succeeded in overcoming the power of the mightiest nation of europe. "truth crushed to earth will rise again." when once we consider the earnestness for civil and religious liberty, the record of no nation can stand comparison with that of holland. some of the english puritans fled across the atlantic from persecutions very slight compared with those inflicted upon dutchmen by philip, here to found a new england. those who did not flee remained in old england, fought a few battles, and tried to establish a commonwealth, which in less than fifteen years ended disastrously, because the founders were unfit for government. but these puritans of holland, to their everlasting praise be it remembered, battled for their homes, lives, and liberty for eighty years. for four-fifths of a century they faced not only the best and bravest soldiers of europe, but they faced, along with their wives, their children, and their old folk, the flame, the gibbet, the flood, the siege, the pestilence, the famine, "and all men know, or dream, or fear of agony," all for one thing--to teach the oppressor that his cause must fail. it is difficult, sitting around a comfortable board at a public dinner, to make men realize what their forefathers suffered that the heritage of priceless liberty should be their children's pride. but read motley, or the recent and remarkably well-written volumes of douglas campbell, and you will see that every atrocity that spanish hatred, religious intolerance, and mediæval bigotry could invent, every horror that ever followed in the train of war, swept over and desolated holland. and yet, to teach a lesson to oppressors, they endured, they fought, they suffered, they conquered; and when they conquered, the whole world was taught the lesson--worth all the dutchmen's agony to teach it--that the children of a heavenly father are born free and equal, and that it is neither the province of nation or church to coerce them into any religious belief or doctrine whatsoever. the principle of protestantism was won in the eighty-year war of the netherlanders. during all this time the dutch were notably giving a lesson to oppressors. but then and afterward they furnished a brilliant and commendable example to the oppressed. though they fought the wrong, they never opposed the truth. they were fierce, but never fanatical. they loved liberty, but they never encouraged license; they believed in freedom and the maintenance of chartered rights, but they never denied their lawful allegiance to their governor, nor refused scriptural submission to the powers ordained of god. the public documents throughout the eighty years of war invariably recognized philip as lawful king. even the university of leyden, founded as a thanksgiving offering for their successful resistance to the spanish siege, observed the usual legal fiction, and acknowledged the king as ruler of the realm. and, although the dutch had abundant reason to be vindictive, once the opportunity offered, the desire for persecution vanished. william the silent, as early as , in a public speech before the regent and her council, says, "force can make no impression on one's conscience." "it is the nature of heresy," he goes on to say (would we had the spirit of william in our churches to-day)--"it is the nature of heresy, if it rests it rusts: he that rubs it whets it." his was an age when religious toleration, except as a political necessity, was unknown. holland first practised it, then taught it to the world. no less in her example to the oppressed than in her warning to oppressors, is holland conspicuous, is holland great. during the reign of william of orange, first a romanist, then a calvinist, never a bigot, always gentle, at last a christian, in holland and in zeeland, where for years he was almost military dictator, these principles of tolerance were put to severest test. fortunately for the world, they were sufficiently strong to stand the strain. the people about him had been the sad victims of a horrible persecution which had furrowed their soil with graves, and filled their land with widows and orphans. we know what is human nature. but dutch nature is a little more generous than ordinary human nature. a dutchman's heart is big, a dutchman travels on a broad-gauge track; a dutchman can forgive and forget an injury; a dutchman has no fears and few frowns; a dutchman is never icebergy, nor sullen, nor revengeful. he may make mistakes from impulse, he never wounds with intention; he will never put his foot twice in the same trap, nor will he take any pleasure in seeing his enemy entrapped. all of a dutchman's faults come from an over-indulgence of a dutchman's virtues. he is not cold, nor calculating, nor cruel. generally happy himself, he desires others to be happy also. if he cannot get on with people, he lets them alone. he does not seek to ruin them. such are traits of the dutch character. when, after driving out the awful, vindictive, bloodthirsty spaniards, the dutch came into power, it was but natural to think of retaliation: banish the papists, or persecute the anabaptists, suppress their paganism, or crush their fanaticism, would have been most natural. against any such ideas the nation as a whole set its face like a wall of adamant. very soon the sober convictions of the people were triumphant. and after the most atrociously cruel war, in which these men had suffered untold agonies, they became an example to the oppressed, the like of which the world had never witnessed since the son of god and saviour of men cried out from his cross, "father, forgive them: they know not what they do." when the union was formed between holland and zeeland, it was provided that no inquisition should be made into any man's belief or conscience, nor should any man by cause thereof suffer injury or hindrance. toleration for the oppressor by the oppressed, full forgiveness of enemies by the victors, became thus the corner-stone of the republic, under which all sects of christians, the roman catholic church, jews, turks, infidels, and even heretics, throve and prospered. now, do you need anything said after thus showing holland to have been the teacher of a lesson to oppressors, and the example to the oppressed, to show that she has ever been the sanctuary for the rights of mankind? in the nature of things, she could not have been otherwise. the little country of holland, that in , on the accession of philip ii to the sovereignty, was the richest jewel in his crown, and of the five millions poured annually into his treasury contributed nearly half, emerged as a republic out of the war with spain of eighty years' duration, and remained for two full centuries the greatest republic in the world. she has been the instructor of the world in art, in music, in science; has outstripped other nations in the commercial race; had wealth and luxury, palaces and architectural splendor, when england's yeomanry lived in huts and never ate a vegetable; discovered oil-painting, originated portrait and landscape-painting, was foremost in all the mechanical arts; invented wood-engraving, printing from blocks, and gave to the world both telescope and microscope, thus furnishing the implements to see the largest things of the heavens above, and the smallest of both earth beneath and waters under the earth. the corner-stone was liberty, and especially religious liberty and toleration. as such holland could not have been other than the sanctuary for the rights of mankind. the great number of englishmen in the netherlands, and the reciprocal influence of the netherlands upon these englishmen--an influence all too little marked by english historians--prepared the way for transplanting to this country the seeds from which has sprung the large tree beneath the bounteous shade of which nearly seventy millions of people take shelter to-day, and, while they rest, rejoice in full security of their rights and their freedom. two hundred years ago, the english courtiers about charles ii, regardless of the fact that the netherlands had been the guide and the instructor of england in almost everything which had made her materially great, regarded the dutchman as a boor, plain and ill-mannered, and wanting in taste, because as a republican the hollander thought it a disgrace to have his wife or his daughter debauched by king or noble. from the aristocratic point of view, the dutchman was not altogether a gentleman. to-day we have some representatives of the charles ii courtiers, who affect to ape the english, and would, no doubt, despise the dutch. but he who appreciates the genuine meaning of a man, born in the image and living in the fear of his god, has nothing but direst disgust for a dude, nothing but the rarest respect for a dutchman. marion j. verdery the south in wall street [speech of marion j. verdery at the third annual banquet of the southern society of new york, february , . the president, john c. calhoun, presided, and in introducing mr. verdery, said: "the next toast is 'the south in wall street.' what our friend mr. verdery has to say in response to this toast i'm sure i don't know; but if he proposes to tell us how there is any money for the south in wall street--to give us a straight tip on the market--he may be sure of a very attentive audience. now, mr. verdery, if you will tell us what to do to-morrow, we will all of us cheerfully give you half of what we make--that is, of course, if you will guarantee us against loss.".] mr. chairman and gentlemen:--when colonel fellows concluded his speech and sat down next to me, after he had by his matchless oratory electrified this audience and had immersed me in the flood of his eloquence, both literally and figuratively, for in the graceful swing of his gestures, he turned over a goblet of water in my lap [laughter], i felt very much as the little boy did who had stood at the head of his spelling-class for three weeks, and then was stumped by the word kaleidoscope. he thought for a moment or two, and then seriously said, "he didn't believe there was a boy on earth who could spell it." i did not believe, after colonel fellows finished, that there was another man on earth who could follow him. [applause.] mr. chairman, in the course of my experience i never knew of but one absolutely straight tip in wall street. to that, you and this society are perfectly welcome. if you act on it, i will cheerfully guarantee you against loss, without exacting that you shall divide with me the profits. it is a point that the late mr. travers gave our friend henry grady. [laughter.] they had been to attend a national convention at chicago, and on returning were seriously disappointed because of the failure to have nominated their chosen candidate. as they came across the ferry in the gray light of the morning, grady, who was seeking consolation, said: "mr. travers, what is the best thing i can buy in wall street?" the noted wit of the stock exchange replied: "the best thing you can buy is a ticket back to atlanta." [laughter.] two old darkies, lounging on a street corner in richmond, va., one day, were suddenly aroused by a runaway team that came dashing toward them at breakneck speed. the driver, scared nearly to death, had abandoned his reins, and was awkwardly climbing out of the wagon at the rear end. one of the old negroes said: "brer' johnson, sure as you born man, de runaway horse am powerful gran' and a monstrous fine sight to see." johnson shook his head doubtfully, and then replied, philosophically, "dat 'pends berry much, nigger, on whedder you be standin' on de corner obsarvin' of him, or be gittin' ober de tail-board ob de waggin." and likewise, it strikes me that any keen enjoyment to be gotten out of after-dinner speaking is peculiarly contingent--"'pendin' berry much on whedder you is standin' off lookin' on, or gittin' ober de tail-board of de waggin." [laughter.] if wall street is all that spiteful cynics and ignorant fanatics say of it--if we are to admit that it is a den of thieves, where only falsehood, treachery, and iniquitous schemes are propagated; if there is any ground for believing that all the exchanges are side-shows to hell [laughter], and their members devils incarnate [laughter], i fail to appreciate any advantage to the south in being there, and in no place where her presence could not be counted a credit would i assist in discovering her. but if, on the other hand, we repudiate such wholesale abuse of the place, and insist, for truth's sake, upon an acknowledgment of facts as they exist, then the south can well afford to be found in wall street, and if prominent there we may proudly salute her. wall street is the throbbing heart of america's finance. it is a common nursery for an infinite variety of enterprises, all over our land. innumerable manufactories, north, south, east, and west, have drawn their capital from wall street. the industrial progress and material development of our blessed southland is being pushed forward vigorously to-day by the monetary backing of wall street. the vast fields of the fertile west, luxurious in the beauty and rich in the promise of tasselled corn and bearded grain, are tilled and harvested by helpful loans from wall street. old railroads, run down in their physical condition and thereby seriously impaired for public service, are constantly being rehabilitated with wall street money, while eight out of every ten new ones draw the means for their construction and equipment from this same source of financial supply. to all attacks recklessly made on the methods of wall street, it seems to me there is ample answer in this one undeniable fact--the daily business done there foots up in dollars and cents more than the total trade of any whole state of the union, except new york; and, although the great bulk of transactions are made in the midst of intense excitement, incident to rapid and sometimes violent fluctuation of values, and, although gigantic trades are made binding by only a wink or a nod, nine hundred and ninety-nine times out of a thousand, the contracting parties stand rigidly by their bargains, prove they good or bad. [applause.] so much for the heroic integrity of the so-called bulls and bears. out in the broader realm of commercial vocation, and through the wider fields of pastoral pursuit, it occurs to me this lesson might be learned without any reduction of existing morality. [applause.] in wall street the brainiest financiers are congregated. vigorous energy, unremitting industry, clear judgment, and unswerving nerve are absolutely essential to personal success. in the light of those requirements, we venture to ask what place has the south taken. honorable abram s. hewitt in his speech before this society one year ago, said: "if by some inscrutable providence this list of gentlemen [meaning members of the southern society] were suddenly returned to the homes which i suppose will know them no longer, there would be in this city what the quack medicine men call 'a sense of goneness,' and i think we should have to send to the wise men of the east, dr. atkinson, for example, to tell us how to supply the vacuum." taking my cue from that generous compliment, i venture to suggest that if the south should suddenly withdraw from wall street, it would occasion such a contraction of the currency in that district as would demand even a more liberal policy than secretary fairchild has practised in purchasing government bonds. [applause and laughter.] the aggregate wealth of southerners in wall street to-day is over $ , , and the great bulk of that vast amount has been accumulated within the last twenty years. that is to say, "the south in wall street," has made at least $ , , annually since the war. under all the circumstances, who will dispute the magnificence of that showing? it must be remembered that the great majority of southern men on entering wall street were poor; so poor, indeed, that they might almost have afforded to begin their career on the terms that i once heard of a man in south carolina proposing to some little negroes. he told them if they would pick wild blackberries from morning till night he would give them half they gathered. [laughter.] the southerners of wall street, with but very few exceptions, entered that great field of finance with but one consolation, and that was the calm consciousness of being thoroughly protected against loss from the simple fact that they had nothing to lose. [applause and laughter.] a hundred millions of dollars is no small pile when stacked up beside--nothing. of course we are not called upon to analyze this fortune, nor do i mean to imply that it is evenly divided. some of us it must be admitted spoil the average dreadfully, but we all may get the same satisfaction out of it that the childless man derived, who said that he and his brother together had three boys and two girls. [laughter.] the south is a power in wall street. she is identified with the management of many leading financial institutions, and has also founded private banking-houses and built up other prosperous business establishments on her own account. it would be in bad taste to mention names unless i had the roll of honor at hand and could read it off without exception. the president of the cotton exchange and nearly forty per cent. of its members are southerners. one of the oldest and strongest firms on the produce exchange is essentially southern. that private banking-house in wall street, which has stood longest without any change in the personnel of its partnership, and which ranks to-day with the most reputable and successful establishments of its kind, is southern in every branch of its membership. seven of the national banks have southern men for presidents, and the list of southern cashiers and tellers is long and honorable. it was a southern boy who, ten years ago, counted himself lucky on getting the humble place of mail carrier in one of the greatest banking houses of america. that very boy, when not long since he resigned to enter business on his own account, was filling one of the most responsible positions and drawing the third largest salary in that same great establishment. another instance of signal success is told in this short story: less than six years ago a young georgian tacked up a cheap little sign on the door of a sky-lit room in the "evening post" building. to-day his is the leading name of one of the most conspicuous houses in the street, and the rent of his present quarters is more per month than the first office he occupied cost for a whole year. one of the most famous southern leaders in wall street to-day [john h. inman] was so little known when he first attracted attention there that many people assumed he must in some way be connected with a certain great ocean steamship line, simply because he bore the same name. to-day it is just as often supposed that the steamship line is an offshoot from him, because it bears his name. a great italian painter once vitalized a canvas with the expression of his poetic thought and called it "aurora." in looking at that masterpiece of art i have sometimes been reminded of this distinguished southerner. immediately after the war the south was enveloped in darkness. out of that gloom this man emerged and came here to the east, where the sun shines first in the morning. judging him to-day by the record he has made, we are warranted in saying that on coming here he adopted usefulness as his chariot, and that thereto he harnessed the spirited steeds of enterprise, progress, and development. to-day we see him driving that triumphal car through the land of his birth, and making the sunlight of prosperity to shine there. [tremendous applause.] sharing with him the honors of their firm name is another southerner, whose career of usefulness and record of splendid success suffer nothing by comparison. two other southern representatives, because of admirable achievements and brilliant strokes of fortune, have recently gained great distinction and won much applause in wall street. if i called their names it would awake an echo in the temple of history, where an illustrious ancestor is enshrined in immortal renown. [applause and cries of "calhoun! calhoun!"] it is not only as financiers and railroad magnates that the south ranks high in wall street, but southern lawyers likewise have established themselves in this dollar district, and to-day challenge attention and deserve tribute. under the brilliant leadership of two commanding generals, the younger barristers are steadily winning wider reputation and pressing forward in professional triumph. one question, with its answer, and i shall have done: are these southerners in wall street divorced in spirit and sympathy from their old homes? [cries of "no! no!"] you say "no." let the record of their deeds also make reply. one of them had done a thing so unique and beautiful that i cannot refrain from alluding to it. it touches the chord of humanity in every true heart and makes it vibrate with sacred memories. in the cemetery of the little town of hopkinsville, ky., there stands a splendid monument dedicated to "the unknown confederate dead." there is no inscription that even hints at who erected it. the builder subordinated his personality to the glory of his purpose, and only the consummate beauty of the memorial stands forth. the inspiration of his impulse was only equalled by the modesty of his method. truth, touched by the tenderness and beauty of the tribute to those heroes who died "for conscience sake," has revealed the author, and in him we recognize a generous surviving comrade. [applause, and cries of "latham! latham! john latham!"] turning from this epitome of sentiment, we are confronted by abundant evidence of the substantial interest taken by wall street southerners in the material affairs of the south. what they have done to reclaim the waste places and develop the resources of their native states is beyond estimate. they have not only contributed liberally by personal investment, but they have used every honorable endeavor to influence other men to do likewise. loyalty has stimulated their efforts. their hearts are in the present and prospective glory of the new south. they are untiring in their furtherance of legitimate enterprises, and the fruit of their labor is seen to-day in every southern state where new railroads are building, various manufacturing enterprises springing up, and vast mining interests being developed. the steady flow of capital into all those channels is greatly due to their influence. there is more money drifting that way to-day than ever before, and the time will soon come, if it is not already here, when the sentiment to which i have responded will admit of transposition, and we can with as much propriety toast "wall street in the south," as to-night we toast "the south in wall street." [great and long-continued applause.] king edward vii. the colonies [speech of albert edward, prince of wales [edward vii, crowned king of england january , ], at the banquet given at the mansion house, london, july , , by the lord mayor of london [sir william mcarthur], to the prince of wales, as president of the colonial institute, and to a large company of representatives of the colonies--governors, premiers, and administrators. this speech was delivered in response to the toast proposed by the lord mayor, "the health of the prince of wales, the princess of wales, and the other members of the royal family."] my lord mayor, your majesty, my lords, and gentlemen:--for the kind and remarkably flattering way in which you, my lord mayor, have been good enough to propose this toast, and you, my lords and gentlemen, for the kind and hearty way in which you have received it, i beg to offer you my most sincere thanks. it is a peculiar pleasure to me to come to the city, because i have the honor of being one of its freemen. but this is, indeed, a very special dinner, one of a kind that i do not suppose has ever been given before; for we have here this evening representatives of probably every colony in the empire. we have not only the secretary of the colonies, but governors past and present, ministers, administrators, and agents, are all i think, to be found here this evening. i regret that it has not been possible for me to see half or one-third of the colonies which it has been the good fortune of my brother, the duke of edinburgh, to visit. in his voyages round the world he has had opportunities more than once of seeing all our great colonies. though i have not been able personally to see them, or have seen only a small portion of them, you may rest assured it does not diminish in any way the interest i take in them. it is, i am sorry to say, now going on for twenty-one years since i visited our large north american colonies. still, though i was very young at the time, the remembrance of that visit is as deeply imprinted upon my memory now as it was at that time. i shall never forget the public receptions which were accorded to me in canada, new brunswick, nova scotia, and prince edward island, and if it were possible for me at any time to repeat that visit, i need not tell you gentlemen, who now represent here those great north american colonies, of the great pleasure it would give me to do so. it affords me great gratification to see an old friend, sir john macdonald, the premier of canada, here this evening. it was a most pressing invitation, certainly, that i received two years ago to visit the great australasian colonies, and though at the time i was unable to give an answer in the affirmative or in the negative, still it soon became apparent that my many duties here in england, would prevent my accomplishing what would have been a long, though a most interesting voyage. i regret that such has been the case, and that i was not able to accept the kind invitation i received to visit the exhibitions at sydney and at melbourne. i am glad, however, to know that they have proved a great success, as has been testified to me only this evening by the noble duke [manchester] by my side, who has so lately returned. though, my lords and gentlemen, i have, as i said before, not had the opportunity of seeing these great australasian colonies, which every day and every year are making such immense development, still, at the international exhibitions of london, paris, and vienna, i had not only an opportunity of seeing their various products there exhibited, but i had the pleasure of making the personal acquaintance of many colonists--a fact which has been a matter of great importance and great benefit to myself. it is now thirty years since the first international exhibition took place in london, and then for the first time colonial exhibits were shown to the world. since that time, from the exhibitions which have followed our first great gathering in , the improvements that have been made are manifest. that in itself is a clear proof of the way in which the colonies have been exerting themselves to make their vast territories of the great importance that they are at the present moment. but though, my lord mayor, i have not been to australasia, as you have mentioned, i have sent my two sons on a visit there; and it has been a matter of great gratification, not only to myself, but to the queen, to hear of the kindly reception they have met with everywhere. they are but young, but i feel confident that their visit to the antipodes will do them an incalculable amount of good. on their way out they visited a colony in which, unfortunately, the condition of affairs was not quite as satisfactory as we could wish, and as a consequence they did not extend their visits in that part of south africa quite so far inland as might otherwise have been the case. i must thank you once more, my lord mayor, for the kind way in which you have proposed this toast. i thank you in the name of the princess and the other members of the royal family, for the kind reception their names have met with from all here to-night, and i beg again to assure you most cordially and heartily of the great pleasure it has given me to be present here among so many distinguished colonists and gentlemen connected with the colonies, and to have had an opportunity of meeting your distinguished guest, the king of the sandwich islands. if your lordship's visit to his dominions remains impressed on your mind, i think your lordship's kindly reception of his majesty here to-night is not likely soon to be forgotten by him. hugh c. wallace the southerner in the west [speech of hugh c. wallace at the fifth annual banquet of the new york southern society, february , . the president, hugh r. garden, occupied the chair. in introducing mr. wallace, he said: "it was said of old that the southerner was wanting in that energy and fixedness of purpose which make a successful american. no broader field has existed for the exercise of those qualities than the great region west of the rocky mountains. we are fortunate in the presence of a gentleman whose young life is already a successful refutation of that opinion, and i turn with confidence to 'the southerner of the pacific slope,' and invite mr. hugh c. wallace, of the state of washington, to respond."] mr. chairman and gentlemen:--for more than one hundred years upon this continent a silent army has been marching from the east toward the west. no silken banners have waved above it, and no blare of trumpet or beat of drum has heralded its progress. and yet its conquests have been grander than those of peru or mexico, its victories more glorious than those of marengo, of friedland, or of austerlitz. it has subdued an empire richer than the indies without inflicting the cruelties of clive, or the exactions of hastings, and that empire is to-day, mr. president, a part of your heritage and mine. [applause.] for more than thirty years past the region in which most of those i see around me first saw the light has lain prostrate, borne down by a titanic struggle whose blighting force fell wholly upon her. for more than a generation her enterprise has seemed exhausted, her strength wasted, and her glory departed. and yet she has not failed to furnish her full quota to the grand army of conquest to carry to completion the great work which boone, crockett, and houston, all her sons--began, and which her genius alone made possible. [applause.] turn back with me the pages of time to the beginning of this imposing march and glance for a moment at its resplendent progress. its beginning was in virginia. virginians led by that first of southerners whose natal day we celebrate to-night and whose fame grows brighter in the lengthening perspective of the years, conquered the savage and his little less than savage european ally, and saved for the nation then unborn the whole northwest. the pinckneys, the rutledges, and the gwinetts forced the hand of spain from the throat of the mississippi, and left the current of trade free to flow to the gulf unvexed by foreign influence. another virginian, illustrious through all time as the great vindicator of humanity, doubled the area of the national possession of his time by the louisiana purchase, and lewis and clarke, both sons of the old dominion, in first trod the vast uninhabited wilds of the far northwest to find a land richer in all the precious products of the east than mortal eyes had yet beheld. so were our borders extended from the gulf and the rio grande to the th parallel and from the atlantic to the pacific--but for southern enterprise they might have stopped at ohio, the monongahela, and the niagara. [applause.] the empire thus secured remained to be subdued. from the states in which you and i, gentlemen, were born has come a noble wing of the grand army of subjugation, all of whose battles have been victories and all of whose victories have been victories of civilization. moving first from the old states of the south it took possession of territory along the gulf and of tennessee and of kentucky's "dark and bloody ground." fame crowned the heroes of these campaigns with the patriot's name, and glorified them as pioneers. as their advance guards swept across the mississippi and took possession of missouri, arkansas, and territory farther north, envy called it invasion, and when their scouts appeared in nebraska and kansas they were repelled amid the passion of the hour. meanwhile, a new element, whose quickening power is scarcely yet appreciated, had joined the grand movement. early in the forties a south carolinian captain of engineers, the pathfinder, john c. fremont, had marked the way to the far west coast, and added a new realm to the national domain. [applause.] it was the domain soon famed for its delightful climate, its wealth of resources, and its combination of every natural advantage that human life desires. the gleaming gold soon after found in the sands of sutter's fort spread its fame afar and attracted to it the superb band of men who came from every state to lay firm and sure the foundation of the new commonwealth. there were only fourteen southerners in the constitutional convention at monterey, but their genius for government made them a fair working majority in the body of forty-eight members. not content with building a grand state like this, the united army gathered from the north and south alike turned its face toward the desert and fastnesses of the eternal hills and "continuous woods where rolls the oregon and hears no sound save his own dashings," and pitched their tents, rolled back the awful silence that through ages had reigned there; and learned the secrets that desolation guarded, alluring to them from their fastnesses a renewed stream of treasure which has resulted in making us the envy of all other nations. in conspicuous contrast to the attitude and sentiment of the south, the east has never followed to encourage nor sympathize with the west. whether it be in legislation or politics or finance, the western idea has ever failed to command the earnest attention to which it is entitled. there is a sentiment which is growing more general and vigorous every day in the far west, that the time is near at hand when it will decline to adhere to the fortunes of any leader or body which recklessly ignores its claims or persistently refuses to it recognition. it is a very significant fact, mr. president, that this great region, containing one-fourth of the national area, one-seventeenth of the population, and constituting one-seventh of the whole number of states has had up to this time, but one member of the cabinet. in the present cabinet, fourteen states (east of the mississippi and north of the old mason and dixon's line) have seven members and the remaining thirty states have but one. those thirty states will see to it in the future that the party which succeeds through their support has its representation their efforts have deserved. i cannot close, mr. president, without giving expression to a sentiment to which southerners in the west are peculiarly alive--the sentiment of sympathy and fraternity which exists between the south and the west. [applause.] the course of historical development which i have outlined of the western man has wrought a bond of friendship between them, and that bond is not a reminiscence, but a living, vital, and efficient fact. only but yesterday, politicians, thank god not the people, sought for selfish ends to cast back the south into stygian gloom from which she had slowly and laboriously but gloriously emerged, to forge upon her again hope-killing shackles of a barbarous rule. in that hour of trial which you and i, sir, know to have been a menace and a reality to whom did she turn for succor? to this man of the west, and quick and glorious was the response. samuel baldwin ward the medical profession [speech of dr. samuel b. ward at the annual banquet of the new york state bar association, in the city of albany, january , .] mr. president and gentlemen:--that a medical man should be asked to be in attendance at a banquet such as this was natural, and when i looked over the list of toasts and found that the clergymen had been omitted, i took it as an intended though perhaps rather dubious compliment to my profession, the supposition being that the services of the clergy would not of course be required. when i was asked to respond to this toast, in an unguarded moment of good nature, which is remarkable even in me, i was beguiled into consenting by the persuasive eloquence of your worthy president and secretary, and a day or two after i visited the executive chamber with the view of endeavoring to make "a little bargain" with his excellency. being myself neither a lawyer, a politician, nor the editor of a brooklyn newspaper [laughter], i was totally unacquainted with such things, but still i am the reader of a weekly republican newspaper (that is spelled with two e's and not an a, and has no reference to the "albany evening journal"), and have ascertained that among a certain class of men, these "bargains" were exceedingly common. respecting the exact nature of the proposition i shall not reveal? but suffice it to say i failed most ignominiously. after leaving the executive chamber i spent a good part of the morning in reflection as to the cause of the failure. among other things it occurred to me that perhaps the newspaper statement, that "bargains" were so common among officials was untrue, but when i reflected that my newspaper was a republican organ and that the executive was a democratic official i knew that every word that organ would say about a political opponent must be absolutely true. it occurred to me that perhaps inasmuch as i was not a politician, his excellency might have feared to trust me, but i recollected to have read of the dire misfortune that befalls certain politicians in new york from trusting each other. as the governor's shrewdness was well-known, i knew that he felt that if he could trust any one, it would be one of my profession, and therefore that excuse would not answer. it also occurred to me, that perhaps i was somewhat green and unwise in consenting to make this bargain in the presence of witnesses, but when i thought of all the sagacity and shrewdness and reticence that was concealed behind colonel rice's outspoken countenance, and of the numerous "arrangements" of which he was cognizant, and in relation to which he had never said a word, i felt assured that that was not the reason. i finally came to the conclusion that the governor was a man to be trusted; that if there still be cynics who believe that "every man has his price," they would find the governor's price far too high for them ever to reach. [applause.] in the play of king henry vi occurs an expression by dick, the butcher, which is so short and so pointed that i may be pardoned for reproducing it in its completeness. it runs thus: "the first thing we do, let's kill the lawyers." this is not at all the attitude of our profession toward yours. on the contrary the most stupid charge that is ever laid to the door of the medical man is that he intentionally, or ever either by luck or intention, kills his patients. ere the coffin-lid closes the doctor's harvest is reaped, but how different it is with you gentlemen. [laughter.] not more than a few days after the debt of nature has been paid by the unfortunate patient, your harvest--and especially if he has had the unusual fortune to make a will--begins, and oh! how we are sometimes tempted to envy you. through how many seasons this harvest will be prolonged no one can foretell. that it will be carefully garnered to the last we can fully rely upon. there is perhaps only one state of circumstances under which the medical man is likely to re-echo the sentiment, and that is when he steps down from the witness-stand, having served as an "expert." you lawyers have a duty to discharge to your clients which necessitates your "taking a part." even though a man be guilty, there may be "extenuating circumstances," and it is your right, as it is your duty, "to do all that lies within your power in his behalf." the "medical expert" should go upon the stand in a purely judicial frame of mind, and as a rule i believe he does. but by the manner in which questions are propounded to him, and by the exercise of every little persuasive art incident to your calling, he is inevitably led into taking "sides." he is surrounded by circumstances that are to him entirely strange. he is more or less annoyed and flurried by his surroundings, and then comes the necessity of making a categorical answer to questions that are put to him more especially upon the cross-examination, which cannot be correctly answered categorically. unfortunately in a profession like ours, in a science of art like ours, it often is absolutely impossible to answer a question categorically without conveying an erroneous impression to the jury. in addition to this, we are subjected at the close of the examination to what you are pleased to term a "hypothetical question." the theory of this "hypothetical question" is that it embraces or expresses in a few words, and not always so very few either [laughter], the main features of the case under consideration. in nine cases out of ten if the expert makes a direct and unqualified answer to the question he leaves an absolutely erroneous idea upon the minds of the jury, and this is the explanation of why so many experts have made answers to questions which have elicited adverse criticism. in my judgment, after a not very long experience i must admit, but a sorry one, in some instances, there is but one way in which this matter of expert evidence should be conducted. the judge should appoint three experts, one of them at the suggestion of the counsel upon either side, and the third one at his own discretion. these three appointees should present their report in writing to the court, and the compensation for the service should be equally divided between the parties interested. in that way can expert evidence escape the disrepute now attaching to it, and the ends of justice be furthered. now, gentlemen, the hour is getting late, and i have but one wish to express to you. the medical profession of the state of new york has an organization very similar to your own, which has now reached very nearly its ninetieth year, with a membership of almost , , and with an annual attendance something double that of your own. i can only hope that your association may live on and develop until it reaches as vigorous and flourishing an old age as that of the medical profession. [applause.] charles dudley warner the rise of "the atlantic" [speech of charles dudley warner at the "whittier dinner" in celebration of the poet's seventieth birthday and the twentieth birthday of "the atlantic monthly," given by the publishers, messrs. houghton, mifflin & co., at boston, mass., december , .] mr. chairman:--it is impossible to express my gratitude to you for calling on me. there is but one pleasure in life equal to that of being called on to make an after-dinner speech, and that is not being called on. it is such an enjoyment to sit through the courses with this prospect like a ten-pound weight on your digestive organs! if it were ever possible to refuse anything in this world, except by the concurrence of the three branches of government--the executive, the obstructive, and the destructive, i believe they are called--i should hope that we might some time have our speeches first, so that we could eat our dinner without fear or favor. i suppose, however, that i am called up not to grumble, but to say that the establishment of "the atlantic monthly" was an era in literature. i say it cheerfully. i believe, nevertheless, it was not the first era of the sort. the sanguine generations have been indulging in them all along, and as "eras" they are apt to flat out, or, as the editor of the "atlantic" would say, they "peter out." but the establishment of the "atlantic" was the expression of a genuine literary movement. that movement is the most interesting because it was the most fruitful in our history. it was nicknamed transcendentalism. it was, in fact, a recurrence to realism. they who were sitting in boston saw a great light. the beauty of this new realism was that it required imagination, as it always does, to see truth. that was the charm of the teufelsdröckh philosophy; it was also poetry. mr. emerson puts it in a phrase--the poet is the seer. most of you recall the intellectual stir of that time. mr. carlyle had spread the german world to us. mr. emerson lighted his torch. the horizon of english literature was broken, and it was not necessary any longer to imitate english models. criticism began to assert itself. mr. lowell launched that audacious "fable for critics"--a lusty colt, rejoicing in his young energy, had broken into the old-fashioned garden, and unceremoniously trampled about among the rows of box, the beds of pinks and sweet-williams, and mullen seed. i remember how all this excited the imagination of the college where i was. it was what that great navigator who made the "swellings from the atlantic" called "a fresh-water college." everybody read "sartor resartus." the best writer in college wrote exactly like carlyle--why, it was the universal opinion--without carlyle's obscurity! the rest of them wrote like jean paul richter and like emerson, and like longfellow, and like ossian. the poems of our genius you couldn't tell from ossian. i believe it turned out that they were ossian's. [laughter.] something was evidently about to happen. when this tumult had a little settled the "atlantic" arose serenely out of boston bay--a consummation and a star of promise as well. the promise has been abundantly fulfilled. the magazine has had its fair share in the total revolution of the character of american literature--i mean the revolution out of the sentimental period; for the truth of this i might appeal to the present audience, but for the well-known fact that writers of books never read any except those they make themselves. [laughter.] i distinctly remember the page in that first "atlantic" that began with--"if the red slayer thinks he slays--" a famous poem, that immediately became the target of all the small wits of the country, and went in with the "opinions," paragraphs of that autocratic talk, which speedily broke the bounds of the "atlantic," and the pacific as well, and went round the world. [applause.] yes, the "atlantic" has had its triumphs of all sorts. the government even was jealous of its power. it repeatedly tried to banish one of its editors, and finally did send him off to the court of madrid [james russell lowell]. and i am told that the present editor [william dean howells] might have been snatched away from it, but for his good fortune in being legally connected with a person who is distantly related to a very high personage who was at that time reforming the civil service. mr. chairman, there is no reason why i should not ramble on in this way all night; but then, there is no reason why i should. there is only one thing more that i desire to note, and that is, that during the existence of the "atlantic," american authors have become very nearly emancipated from fear or dependence on english criticisms. in comparison with former days they care now very little what london says. this is an acknowledged fact. whether it is the result of a sturdy growth at home or of a visible deterioration of the quality of the criticism--a want of the discriminating faculty--the contributors' club can, no doubt, point out. [in conclusion, mr. warner paid a brief but eloquent tribute to the quaker poet.] [illustration: _henry watterson_ _photogravure after a photograph from life_] henry watterson our wives [speech of henry watterson at the dinner held on the anniversary of general w. t. sherman's birthday, washington, d. c., february , . colonel george b. corkhill presided, and introduced mr. watterson to speak to the toast, "our wives."] gentlemen:--when one undertakes to respond to such a sentiment as you do me the honor to assign me, he knows in advance that he is put, as it were, upon his good behavior. i recognize the justice of this and accepted the responsibility with the charge; though i may say that if general sherman's wife resembles mine--and i very much suspect she does--he has a sympathy for me at the present moment. once upon a festal occasion, a little late, quite after the hour when cinderella was bidden by her godmother to go to bed, i happened to extol the graces and virtues of the newly wedded wife of a friend of mine, and finally, as a knockdown argument, i compared her to my own wife. "in this case," said he, dryly, "you'll catch it when you get home." it is a peculiarity they all have: not a ray of humor where the husband is concerned; to the best of them and to the last he must be and must continue to be--a hero! now, i do not wish you to believe, nor to think that i myself believe, that all women make heroes of their husbands. women are logical in nothing. they naturally hate mathematics. so, they would have their husbands be heroes only to the rest of the world. there is a charming picture by john leech, the english satirist, which depicts jones, who never looked askance at a woman in his life, sitting demurely at table, stuck with his nose on his plate, and mrs. jones opposite, redundant to a degree, observing with gratified severity, "now, mr. jones, don't let me see you ogling those smith girls again!" she, too, was like the rest--the good ones, i mean--seeing the world through her husband; no happiness but his comfort; no vanity but his glory; sacrificing herself to his wants, and where he proves inadequate putting her imagination out to service and bringing home a basket of flowers to deck his brow. of our sweethearts the humorist hath it:-- "where are the marys and anns and elizas, lovely and loving of yore? look in the columns of old 'advertisers,' married and dead by the score." but "our wives." we don't have far to look to find them; sometimes, i am told, you army gentlemen have been known to find them turning unexpectedly up along the ranges of the rocky mountains, and making their presence felt even as far as the halls of the montezumas. yet how should we get on without them? rob mankind of his wife and time could never become a grandfather. strange as you may think it our wives are, in a sense, responsible for our children; and i ask you seriously how could the world get on if it had no children? it might get on for a while, i do admit; but i challenge the boldest among you to say how long it could get on without "our wives." it would not only give out of children; in a little--a very little--while it would have no mother-in-law, nor sister-in-law, nor brother-in-law, nor any of those acquired relatives whom it has learned to love, and who have contributed so largely to its stock of harmless pleasure. but, as this is not exactly a tariff discussion, though a duty, i drop statistics; let me ask you what would become of the revenues of man if it were not for "our wives?" we should have no milliners but for "our wives." but for "our wives" those makers of happiness and furbelows, those fabricators of smiles and frills, those gentle beings who bias and scollop and do their sacking at both ends of the bill, and sometimes in the middle, would be compelled to shut up shop, retire from business, and return to the good old city of mantua, whence they came. the world would grow too rich; albeit, on this promise i do not propose to construct an argument in favor of more wives. one wife is enough, two is too many, and more than two are an abomination everywhere, except in utah and the halls of our national legislature. i beg you will forgive me. i do but speak in banter. it has been said that a good woman, fitly mated, grows doubly good; but how often have we seen a bad man mated to a good woman turned into a good man? why, i myself was not wholly good till i married my wife; and, if the eminent soldier and gentleman in whose honor we are here--and may he be among us many and many another anniversary, yet always sixty-three--if he should tell the story of his life, i am sure he would say that its darkest hours were cherished, its brightest illuminated by the fair lady of a noble race, who stepped from the highest social eminence to place her hand in that of an obscure young subaltern of the line. the world had not become acquainted with him, but with the prophetic instinct of a true woman she discovered, as she has since developed, the mine. so it is with all "our wives." whatever there is good in us they bring it out; wherefor may they be forever honored in the myriad of hearts they come to lighten and to bless. [loud applause.] * * * * * the puritan and the cavalier [speech of henry watterson at the eighty-ninth anniversary banquet of the new england society in the city of new york, december , . elihu root, president of the society, introduced mr. watterson in the following words: "gentlemen, we are forced to recognize the truth of the observation that all the people of new england are not puritans; we must admit an occasional exception. it is equally true, i am told, that all the people of the south are not cavaliers; but there is one cavalier without fear and without reproach [applause], the splendid courage of whose convictions shows how close together the highest examples of different types can be among godlike men--a cavalier of the south, of southern blood and southern life, who carries in thought and in deed all the serious purpose and disinterested action that characterized the pilgrim fathers whom we commemorate. he comes from an impressionist state where the grass is blue [laughter], where the men are either all white or all black, and where, we are told, quite often the settlements are painted red. [laughter.] he is a soldier, a statesman, a scholar, and, above all, a lover; and among all the world which loves a lover the descendants of those who, generation after generation, with tears and laughter, have sympathized with john alden and priscilla, cannot fail to open their hearts in sympathy to henry watterson and his star-eyed goddess. [applause.] i have the honor and great pleasure of introducing him to respond to the toast of 'the puritan and the cavalier.'"] mr. president and gentlemen:--eight years ago, to-night, there stood where i am standing now a young georgian, who, not without reason, recognized the "significance" of his presence here--"the first southerner to speak at this board"--a circumstance, let me add, not very creditable to any of us--and in words whose eloquence i cannot hope to recall, appealed from the new south to new england for a united country. he was my disciple, my protege, my friend. he came to me from the southern schools, where he had perused the arts of oratory and letters, to get a few hints in journalism, as he said; needing so few, indeed, that, but a little later, i sent him to one of the foremost journalists of this foremost city, bearing a letter of introduction, which described him as "the greatest boy ever born in dixie, or anywhere else." he is gone now. but, short as his life was, its heaven-born mission was fulfilled; the dream of his childhood was realized; for he had been appointed by god to carry a message of peace on earth, good-will to men, and, this done, he vanished from the sight of mortal eyes, even as the dove from the ark. i mean to take up the word where grady left it off, but i shall continue the sentence with a somewhat larger confidence, and, perhaps, with a somewhat fuller meaning; because, notwithstanding the puritan trappings, traditions, and associations which surround me--visible illustrations of the self-denying fortitude of the puritan character and the sombre simplicity of the puritan taste and habit--i never felt less out of place in all my life. to tell you the truth, i am afraid that i have gained access here on false pretences; for i am no cavalier at all; just plain scotch-irish; one of those scotch-irish southerners who ate no fire in the green leaf and has eaten no dirt in the brown, and who, accepting, for the moment, the terms puritan and cavalier in the sense an effete sectionalism once sought to ascribe to them--descriptive labels at once classifying and separating north and south--verbal redoubts along that mythical line called mason and dixon, over which there were supposed by the extremists of other days to be no bridges--i am much disposed to say, "a plague o' both your houses!" each was good enough and bad enough in its way, whilst they lasted; each in its turn filled the english-speaking world with mourning; and each, if either could have resisted the infection of the soil and climate they found here, would be to-day striving at the sword's point to square life by the iron rule of theocracy, or to round it by the dizzy whirl of a petticoat! it is very pretty to read about the maypole in virginia and very edifying and inspiring to celebrate the deeds of the pilgrim fathers. but there is not cavalier blood enough left in the old dominion to produce a single crop of first families, whilst out in nebraska and iowa they claim that they have so stripped new england of her puritan stock as to spare her hardly enough for farm hands. this i do know, from personal experience, that it is impossible for the stranger-guest, sitting beneath a bower of roses in the palmetto club at charleston, or by a mimic log-heap in the algonquin club at boston, to tell the assembled company apart, particularly after ten o'clock in the evening! why, in that great, final struggle between the puritans and the cavaliers--which we still hear sometimes casually mentioned--although it ended nearly thirty years ago, there had been such a mixing up of puritan babies and cavalier babies during the two or three generations preceding it, that the surviving grandmothers of the combatants could not, except for their uniforms, have picked out their own on any field of battle! turning to the cyclopædia of american biography, i find that webster had all the vices that are supposed to have signalized the cavalier, and calhoun all the virtues that are claimed for the puritan. during twenty years three statesmen of puritan origin were the chosen party leaders of cavalier mississippi: robert j. walker, born and reared in pennsylvania; john a. quitman, born and reared in new york, and sargent s. prentiss, born and reared in the good old state of maine. that sturdy puritan, john slidell, never saw louisiana until he was old enough to vote and to fight; native here--an alumnus of columbia college--but sprung from new england ancestors. albert sidney johnston, the most resplendent of modern cavaliers--from tip to toe a type of the species--the very rose and expectancy of the young confederacy--did not have a drop of southern blood in his veins; yankee on both sides of the house, though born in kentucky a little while after his father and mother arrived there from connecticut. the ambassador who serves our government near the french republic was a gallant confederate soldier and is a representative southern statesman; but he owns the estate in massachusetts where his father was born, and where his father's fathers lived through many generations. and the cavaliers, who missed their stirrups, somehow, and got into yankee saddles? the woods were full of them. if custer was not a cavalier, rupert was a puritan. and sherwood and wadsworth and kearny, and mcpherson and their dashing companions and followers! the one typical puritan soldier of the war--mark you!--was a southern, and not a northern, soldier; stonewall jackson, of the virginia line. and, if we should care to pursue the subject farther back, what about ethan allen and john stark and mad anthony wayne--cavaliers each and every one? indeed, from israel putnam to "buffalo bill," it seems to me the puritans have had rather the best of it in turning out cavaliers. so the least said about the puritan and the cavalier--except as blessed memories or horrid examples--the better for historic accuracy. if you wish to get at the bottom facts, i don't mind telling you--in confidence--that it was we scotch-irish who vanquished both of you--some of us in peace--others of us in war--supplying the missing link of adaptability--the needed ingredient of common sense--the conservative principle of creed and action, to which this generation of americans owes its intellectual and moral emancipation from frivolity and pharisaism--its rescue from the scarlet woman and the mailed hand--and its crystallization into a national character and polity, ruling by force of brains and not by force of arms. gentlemen--sir--i, too, have been to boston. strange as the admission may seem, it is true; and i live to tell the tale. i have been to boston; and when i declare that i found there many things that suggested the cavalier and did not suggest the puritan, i shall not say i was sorry. but among other things, i found there a civilization perfect in its union of the art of living with the grace of life; an americanism ideal in its simple strength. grady told us, and told us truly, of that typical american who, in dr. talmage's mind's eye, was coming, but who, in abraham lincoln's actuality, had already come. in some recent studies into the career of that great man, i have encountered many startling confirmations of this judgment; and from that rugged trunk, drawing its sustenance from gnarled roots, interlocked with cavalier sprays and puritan branches deep beneath the soil, shall spring, is springing, a shapely tree--symmetric in all its parts--under whose sheltering boughs this nation shall have the new birth of freedom lincoln promised it, and mankind the refuge which was sought by the forefathers when they fled from oppression. thank god, the axe, the gibbet, and the stake have had their day. they have gone, let us hope, to keep company with the lost arts. it has been demonstrated that great wrongs may be redressed and great reforms be achieved without the shedding of one drop of human blood; that vengeance does not purify, but brutalizes; and that tolerance, which in private transactions is reckoned a virtue, becomes in public affairs a dogma of the most far-seeing statesmanship. else how could this noble city have been redeemed from bondage? it was held like a castle of the middle ages by robber barons, who levied tribute right and left. yet have the mounds and dykes of corruption been carried--from buttress to bell-tower the walls of crime have fallen--without a shot out of a gun, and still no fires of smithfield to light the pathway of the victor, no bloody assizes to vindicate the justice of the cause; nor need of any. so i appeal from the men in silken hose who danced to music made by slaves--and called it freedom--from the men in bell-crowned hats, who led hester prynne to her shame--and called it religion--to that americanism which reaches forth its arms to smite wrong with reason and truth, secure in the power of both. i appeal from the patriarchs of new england to the poets of new england; from endicott to lowell; from winthrop to longfellow; from norton to holmes; and i appeal in the name and by the rights of that common citizenship--of that common origin--back both of the puritan and the cavalier--to which all of us owe our being. let the dead past, consecrated by the blood of its martyrs, not by its savage hatreds--darkened alike by kingcraft and priestcraft--let the dead past bury its dead. let the present and the future ring with the song of the singers. blessed be the lessons they teach, the laws they make. blessed be the eye to see, the light to reveal. blessed be tolerance, sitting ever on the right hand of god to guide the way with loving word, as blessed be all that brings us nearer the goal of true religion, true republicanism and true patriotism, distrust of watchwords and labels, shams and heroes, belief in our country and ourselves. it was not cotton mather, but john greenleaf whittier, who cried: "dear god and father of us all, forgive our faith in cruel lies, forgive the blindness that denies. "cast down our idols--overturn our bloody altars--make us see thyself in thy humanity!" [applause and cheers.] heman lincoln wayland the force of ideas [speech of rev. dr. heman l. wayland at the fourth annual dinner of the new england society of pennsylvania, philadelphia, december , . dr. wayland, as president of the society, occupied the chair, and delivered the following address in welcoming the guests.] fellow new englanders--or, in view of our habitual modesty and self-depreciation, i ought, perhaps, rather to say, fellow pharisees [laughter]--i congratulate you that we are able to show our guests a little real new england weather--weather that recalls the sleigh-rides, and crossing the bridges, and the singing-school. you are reminded of the observation of the british tar, who, after a long cruise in the mediterranean, as he came into the eternal fog which surrounds the "tight little island," exclaimed, "this is weather as is weather; none of your blasted blue sky for me!" [laughter.] let me also apologize to our guests for the extreme plainness and frugality of the entertainment. they will kindly make allowance, when they remember that this is washing-day. [laughter.] i am aware that the occasion is so large as to dwarf all merely personal considerations; but i cannot omit to return you my thanks for the unmerited kindness which has placed me in the position i occupy. i must add that the position is at once the more honorable and the more onerous, because i am called to follow a gentleman whose administration of the office has been so superlatively successful. in making this allusion to my honored predecessor, i am reminded of an event in which we all feel a common pride. on the th of last june, amid the hills which overshadow dartmouth college, our then president laid the corner-stone of "rollins chapel" for christian worship, while on the same day, at the same place, on the grounds traversed in earlier years by webster and choate, another son of new england laid the corner-stone of the "wilson library building." thus does intelligent industry, large-hearted benevolence, and filial piety, plant upon the granite hills of new england the olive-groves of academus and the palms of judea. [applause.] but perhaps there may be here some intelligent stranger who asks me to define an expression which is now and then heard on these occasions: "what is this new england of which you speak so seldom and so reluctantly? is it a place?" yes, it is a place; not indeed only a place, but it is a place; and he cannot know new england who has not traversed it from watch hill to mount washington, from champlain to passamaquoddy. in no other wise can one realize how the sterile soil and the bleak winds and the short summer have been the rugged parents of that thrift, that industry, that economy, that regard for the small savings, which have made new england the banker of america. as the population grew beyond the capacity of the soil, her sons from her myriad harbors swarmed out upon the sea, an army of occupation, and annexed the grand banks, making them national banks before the days of secretary chase. [laughter.] when the limits of agriculture were reached, they enslaved the streams, and clothed the continent. they gathered hides from iowa and texas, and sold them, in the shape of boots, in dubuque and galveston. sterile new england underlaid the imperial northwest with mortgages, and overlaid it with insurance. i chanced to be in chicago two or three days after the great fire of . as i walked among the smoking ruins, if i saw a man with a cheerful air, i knew that he was a resident of chicago; if i saw a man with a long face, i knew that he represented a hartford insurance company. [laughter.] really, the cheerful resignation with which the chicago people endured the losses of new england did honor to human nature. [laughter.] perhaps it is well that new england is not yet more sterile, for it would have owned the whole of the country, and would have monopolized all the wealth, as it has confessedly got a corner on all the virtues. and while the narrow limit of the season, called by courtesy "summer," has enforced promptness and rapidity of action, the long winters have given pause for reflection, have fostered the red school-house, have engendered reading and discussion, have made her sons and her daughters thoughtful beings. the other day, in reading the life of a new england woman,[ ] i met with a letter written when she was seventeen years old: "i have begun reading dugald stewart. how are my sources of enjoyment multiplied. by bringing into view the various systems of philosophers concerning the origin of our knowledge, he enlarges the mind, and extends the range of our ideas, ... while clearly distinguishing between proper objects of inquiry and those that must forever remain inexplicable to man in the present state of his faculties. reasonings from induction are delightful." [laughter.] i think you will agree with me that only where there was a long winter, and long winter evenings, would such a letter be written by a girl in her teens. the question has often been asked why there are so many poets in new england. a traveller passing through concord inquired, "how do all these people support themselves?" the answer was, "they all live by writing poems for 'the atlantic monthly.'" [laughter.] now, any one who thinks of it must see that it is the weather which makes all these poets, or rather the weathers, for there are so many. as mr. choate said: "cold to-day, hot to-morrow; mercury at eighty in the morning, with wind at southeast; and in three hours more a sea-turn, wind at east, a thick fog from the bottom of the ocean, and a fall of forty degrees; now, so dry as to kill all the beans in new hampshire; then, a flood, carrying off the bridges on the penobscot; snow in portsmouth in july, and the next day a man and a yoke of oxen killed by lightning down in rhode island." [laughter.] the commonplace question: "how is the weather going to be?" gives a boundless play to the imagination, and makes a man a poet before he knows it. and then a poet must have grand subjects in nature. and what does a poet want that he does not find in new england? wooded glens, mysterious ravines, inaccessible summits, hurrying rivers; the white hills, keeping up, as starr king said, "a perpetual peak against the sky"; the old man of the mountains looking down the valley of the pemigewasset, and hearing from afar the ammonoosuc as it breaks into a hundred cataracts; katahdin, kearsarge, setting its back up higher than ever since that little affair off cherbourg; the everlasting ocean inviting to adventure, inspiring to its own wild freedom, and making a harbor in every front yard, so that the hardy mariner can have his smack at his own doorstep. [laughter.] (need i say i mean his fishing-smack?) what more can a poet desire? and then life in new england, especially new england of the olden time, has been an epic poem. it was a struggle against obstacles and enemies, and a triumph over nature in behalf of human welfare. what would a poet sing about, i wonder, who lived on the kankakee flats? of course, the epic poet must have a hero, and an enemy, and a war. the great enemy in those parts is shakes; so, as virgil began, "i sing of arms and the man," the kankakee poet would open: "i sing the glories of cinchona and the man who first invented calomel." yes, if the pilgrims had landed upon the far western prairies or the southern savannas, they would never have made america; they would never have won a glory beyond that of columbus, who only discovered america, whereas these men created it. [applause.] but not a place alone. new england is also a race; the race that plants colonies and makes nations; the race that carries everywhere a free press, a free pulpit, an open bible, and that has almost learned to spell and parse its own language; the race which began the battle for civil and religious liberty in the time of elizabeth, which fought the good fight at edgehill, which, beside concord bridge, "fired the shot heard round the world," which made a continent secure for liberty at appomattox. [applause.] and new england is not alone a place and a race; it is as well an idea, or a congeries of ideas, so closely joined as properly to be called but one; and this idea is not the idea of force, but the force of ideas. but, gentlemen, i am in danger of forgetting that a marked characteristic of new englanders is an unwillingness to talk, and especially to talk about themselves. and i know that you are eager to listen to the illustrious men whom we have the honor to gather about our humble board this evening. * * * * * causes of unpopularity [speech of rev. dr. heman l. wayland at the eighty-fourth annual dinner of the new england society in the city of new york, december , . the president, cornelius n. bliss, proposed the query for dr. wayland, "why are new englanders unpopular?" enforcing it with the following quotations: "do you question me as an honest man should do for my simple true judgment?" [much ado about nothing, act i, sc. i], and "merit less solid less despite has bred: the man that makes a character makes foes" [edward young]. turning to dr. wayland, mr. bliss said: "our sister, the new england society of philadelphia, to-night sends us greeting in the person of her honored president, whom i have the pleasure of presenting to you." the eloquence of dr. wayland was loudly applauded; and chauncey m. depew declared that he had heard one of the best speeches to which he had ever listened at a new england dinner.] mr. president and gentlemen:--that i am here this evening is as complete a mystery to me as to you. i do not know why your society, at whose annual meetings orators are as the sand upon the seashore for multitude, should call upon philadelphia, a city in which the acme of eloquence is attained by a friends' yearly meeting, "sitting under the canopy of silence." i can only suppose that you designed to relieve the insufferable brilliancy of your annual festival, that you wished to dilute the highly-flavored, richly-colored, full-bodied streams of the croton with the pure, limpid, colorless (or, at any rate, only drab-colored) waters of the schuylkill. [laughter.] my first and wiser impulse was to decline the invitation with which you honored me, or rather the society of which i am the humblest member. but i considered the great debt we have been under to you for the loan of many of your most accomplished speakers: of curtis, whose diction is chaste as the snows of his own new england, while his zeal for justice is as fervid as her july sun; of depew, who, as i listen to him, makes me believe that the doctrine of transmigration is true, and that in a former day his soul occupied the body of one of the puritan fathers, and that for some lapse he was compelled to spend a period of time in the body of a hollander [laughter]; of beaman,[ ] one of the lights of your bar; of evarts, who, whether as statesman or as orator, delights in making historic periods. and this year you have favored us with general porter,[ ] whom we have been trying to capture for our annual dinner, it seems to me, ever since the mayflower entered plymouth bay. we have condoled with these honored guests as they with tears have told us of their pitiful lot, have narrated to us how, when they might have been tilling the soil (or what passes for soil) of the new hampshire hills, shearing their lambs, manipulating their shares (with the aid of plough-handles), and watering their stock at the nearest brook, and might have been on speaking acquaintance with the ten commandments and have indulged a hope of some day going to heaven, and possibly to boston [laughter]--on the other hand, a hard fate has compelled them to be millionaires, living in palaces on murray hill, to confine their agricultural operations to the swamp, and to eke out a precarious livelihood by buying what they do not want and selling what they have not got. [laughter and applause.] remembering this debt, i thought that it was at least due to you that, in recognition of your courtesy, i should come over and confess judgment, and put you out of suspense by telling you at once that the assets will not pay for the expenses of distribution. the best i can do is to make you a preferred creditor. [laughter.] i have heard that an israelite without guile, doing business down in chatham street, called his creditors together, and offered them in settlement his note for ten per cent, on their claims, payable in four months. his brother, one of the largest creditors, rather "kicked"; but the debtor took him aside and said, "do not make any objections, and i will make you a preferred creditor." [laughter and applause.] so the proposal was accepted by all. presently, the preferred brother said, "well, i should like what is coming to me." "oh," was the reply, "you won't get anything; they won't any of them get anything." "but i thought i was a preferred creditor." "so you are. these notes will not be paid when they come due; but it will take them four months to find out that they are not going to get anything. but you know it now; you see you are preferred." [renewed laughter.] in casting about for a subject (in case i should unhappily be called on to occupy your attention for a moment), i had thought on offering a few observations upon plymouth rock; but i was deterred by a weird and lurid announcement which i saw in your papers, appearing in connection with the name of an eminent clothing dealer, which led me to apprehend that plymouth rock was getting tired. [laughter.] the announcement read, "plymouth rock pants!" i presumed that plymouth rock was tired in advance, at the prospect of being trotted out once more, from the old colony down to new orleans, thence to san francisco, thence to the cities of the unsalted seas, and so on back to the point of departure. [great laughter.] upon fuller examination, i found that the legend read, "plymouth rock pants for $ ." it seemed to me that, without solicitation on my part, there ought to be public spirit enough in this audience to make up this evening the modest sum which would put plymouth rock at ease. [great laughter.] as i look along this board, mr. president, and gaze upon these faces radiant with honesty, with industry, with wisdom, with benevolence, with frugality, and, above all, with a contented and cheerful poverty, i am led to ask the question, suggested by the topic assigned me in the programme, "why are we new englanders so unpopular?" why those phrases, always kept in stock by provincial orators and editors, "the mean yankees," "the stingy yankees," "the close-fisted yankees," "the tin-peddling yankees," and, above all, the terse and condensed collocation, "those d----d--those blessed yankees," the blessing being comprised between two d's, as though conferred by a benevolent doctor of divinity. [laughter.] i remember in the olden time, in the years beyond the flood, when the presidential office was vacant and james buchanan was drawing the salary, at a period before the recollection of any one present except myself, although possibly my esteemed friend, your secretary, mr. hubbard, may have heard his grandparents speak of it as a reminiscence of his youth, there was a poem going about, descriptive of the feelings of our brethren living between us and the equator, running somewhat thus: "'neath the shade of the gum-tree the southerner sat, a-twisting the brim of his palmetto hat, and trying to lighten his mind of a'load by humming the words of the following ode: 'oh! for a nigger, and oh! for a whip; oh! for a cocktail, and oh! for a nip; oh! for a shot at old greeley and beecher; oh! for a crack at a yankee school-teacher.' and so he kept oh-ing for all he had not, not contented with owing for all that he'd got." why does the world minify our intelligence by depreciating our favorite article of diet, and express the ultimate extreme of mental pauperism by saying of him on whose intellect they would heap contempt, "he doesn't know beans"? [laughter.] and it is within my recollection that there was a time when it was proposed to reconstruct the union of the states, with new england left out. why, i repeat it, the intense unpopularity of new england? for one thing, it seems to me, we are hated because of our virtues; we are ostracized because men are tired of hearing about "new england, the good." the virtues of new england seem to italicize the moral poverty of mankind at large. the fact that the very first act of our foremothers, even before the landing was made, two hundred and sixty-nine years ago, was to go on shore and do up the household linen, which had suffered from the voyage of ninety days, is a perpetual reproof to those nations among whom there is a great opening for soap, who have a great many saints' days, but no washing day. [laughter and applause.] when men nowadays are disposed to steal a million acres from the indians, it detracts from their enjoyment to read what governor josiah winslow wrote in _ _: "i think i can clearly say that, before the present troubles broke out, the english did not possess one foot of land in this colony but what was fairly obtained by honest purchase of the indian proprietors." when our fellow-citizens of other states look at their public buildings, every stone in which tells of unpaid loans; when they remember how they have scaled and scaled the unfortunate people who were guilty of the crime of having money to lend, until the creditors might be considered obnoxious to the mosaic law, which looked with disfavor upon scaleless fish, it is naturally aggravating to them to remember that, at the close of king philip's war, plymouth colony was owing a debt more than equal to the personal property of the colony, and that the debt was paid to the last cent [applause]; to remember the time, not very far gone by, when the bay state paid the interest on her bonds in gold, though it cost her two hundred and seventy-six cents on every dollar to do it, and when it was proposed to commend the bonds of the united states to the bankers of the world by placing upon them the indorsement of massachusetts [applause]; to remember that never has new england learned to articulate the letters that spell the word "repudiation." [great applause.] to those members of the human family who are disposed to entertain too high an estimate of themselves there is something aggravating in the extreme humility and sensitive self-depreciation of the real new englander. and the virtues of new england are all the more offensive because they are exhibited in such a way as to take from her enemies the comfort that grows out of a grievance. said a chicago wife, "it is real mean for charlie to be so good to me; i want to get a divorce and go on the stage; but he is so kind i cannot help loving him, and that is what makes me hate him so." when there comes the news that some far-off region is desolated by fire, or flood, or tempest, or pestilence, the first thing is a meeting in the metropolis of new england, and the dispatching of food and funds and physicians and nurses; and the relieved sufferers are compelled to murmur, "oh, dear, it is too bad! we want to hate them, and they won't let us." [applause.] one can manage to put up with goodness, however, if it is not too obtrusive. the honored daughter of connecticut, the author of "uncle tom" and "dred," now in the peaceful evening of her days,[ ] has said, "what is called goodness is often only want of force." a good man, according to the popular idea, is a man who doesn't get in anybody's way. but the restless new englanders not only have virtues, but they have convictions which are perpetually asserting themselves in the most embarrassing manner. [applause.] i pass over the time, two centuries ago, when cromwell and hampden, those new englanders who have never seen new england, made themselves exceedingly offensive to charles i, and gave him at last a practical lesson touching the continuity of the spinal column. later, when our fellow-citizens desired to "wallop their own niggers," and to carry the patriarchal institution wherever the american flag went, they were naturally irritated at hearing that there was a handful of meddling fanatics down in essex county who, in their misguided and malevolent ingenuity, had invented what they called liberty and human rights. [applause.] presently, when it was proposed (under the inspiration of a man recently deceased, who will stand in history as a monument to the clemency and magnanimity of a great and free people) to break up the union in order to insure the perpetuity of slavery, then a man, plain of speech, rude of garb[ ] descended from the lincolns of hingham, in plymouth county, sounded a rally for union and freedom [tremendous applause]; and, hark! there is the tramp, tramp of the fishermen from marblehead; there are the connecticut boys from old litchfield; and there is the first rhode island; and there are the sailors from casco bay; and the farmers' sons from old coos, and from along the onion river, their hearts beating with the enthusiasm of liberty, while their steps keep pace with the drum-beat that salutes the national flag. [applause.] and, see! is that a thunder-cloud in the north? no, it is the fifty-fourth massachusetts, made up of american citizens of african descent, officered by the best blood of suffolk, and at their head robert g. shaw, going down to die in the trenches before fort wagner. and there is the man whom a kindly providence yet spares to us, descended from the shermans of connecticut, preparing for the march that is to cleave the confederacy in twain. [cheers for general sherman.] and there is the silent man, eight generations removed from matthew grant (who landed at dorchester in ), destined to make the continent secure for liberty and to inaugurate the new south, dating from appomattox, with traditions of freedom, teeming with a prosperity rivalling that of new england, a prosperity begotten of the marriage of labor and intelligence. [continued applause.] in times somewhat more recent, when a political campaign was under full headway, and when politicians were husbanding truth with their wonted frugality and dispensing fiction with their habitual lavishness, there sprung up a man removed by only two generations from the lows of salem, who, in the resources of a mind capable of such things, devised what he was pleased to call "sunday-school politics"; who has had the further hardihood to be made president of the college which is the glory of your metropolis, designing, no doubt, to infuse into the mind of the tender youth of the new amsterdam his baleful idea, which, so far as i can make out, has as its essence the conduct of political affairs on the basis of the decalogue. the campaign over, when the victors are rolling up their sleeves and are preparing to dispense the spoils according to the hunger and thirst of their retainers, to their amazed horror there is heard the voice of a native of rhode island, who has conceived a scheme almost too monstrous for mention, which he designates "civil service reform," and who with characteristic effrontery has got up a society, of which he is president, for the purpose of diffusing his blood-curdling sentiments. do we need to look further for a reply to the question, "why are the new englanders unpopular?" almost any man is unpopular who goes around with his pockets full of moral dynamite. [applause.] but perhaps i have not yet reached the most essential cause of the odium. men will forgive a man almost anything if he only fails; but we, alas! have committed the crime of success. [laughter and applause.] it makes people angry when they see new england prospering, influential, the banker of the country, leading public sentiment, shaping legislation. men would not mind so much if this success were attained by a happy accident, or were the result of a favoring fortune; but it is aggravating to see the new englanders, to whom providence has given nothing but rocks and ice and weather--a great deal of it--and a thermometer [laughter], yet mining gold in colorado, chasing the walrus off the aleutian islands, building railroads in dakota, and covering half the continent with insurance, and underlying it with a mortgage. success is the one unpardonable crime. [renewed laughter and applause.] it is true, when a man has so far acknowledged his participation in the common frailty as to die, then men begin to condone his faults; and by the time he is dead one or two hundred years they find him quite tolerable. an eminent ecclesiastic in the anglican church recently pronounced the greatest of the puritans, oliver cromwell, "the most righteous ruler england ever had." a man who is dead is out of the way. we live in the home which he built, and are not disturbed by the chips and sawdust and noise, and perhaps the casualties and mistakes, which attended its building. i will offer a definition (without charge) to the editors of the magnificent "century dictionary": "saint--a man with convictions, who has been dead a hundred years; canonized now, cannonaded then." [laughter and applause.] we are building monuments now to the abolitionists. it is quite possible that when a hundred winters shall have shed their snows upon the lonely grave at north elba, the old dominion will take pride in the fact that she for a little while gave a home to the latest--i trust not the last--of the puritans; and the traveller, in , as he goes through harper's ferry, may see upon the site of the old engine-house, looking out upon the regenerate commonwealth, cunningly graven in bronze, copied perhaps from the bust in your own union league, the undaunted features of john brown. [applause.] and the south that is to be, standing uncovered beside the grave of the union soldier, will say: "it was for us, too, that he died," and will render beside the tomb in the capital city of illinois a reverence akin to that which she pays amid the shades of mount vernon. [great applause.] the czar of to-day honors the memory of john howard (who died a hundred years ago next january), and offers , roubles for an essay on his life; but when george kennan, following in the steps of howard, draws back the curtain and shows the shuddering horrors in the prisons of siberia, the czar would willingly offer much more than , roubles for a successful essay upon his life. john howard sleeps in innocuous silence at kherson; george kennan speaks through the everywhere-present press to the court of last appeal, the civilized world. [applause.] there was not much money, there was not much popularity then, in being a puritan, in being a pilgrim; there is not much profit, there is not much applause, in being to-day a son of the puritans, in standing as they did for great ideas and convictions, for liberty and righteousness, in holding the same relation to our age that they held to theirs. but let us be satisfied if, through unpopularity and loneliness and obloquy, we shall have done our duty as they did theirs, and let us hope that when another hundred years have passed, and when the ideal of to-day has become the commonplace of to-morrow, another generation may write over your grave and mine, "a son of the puritans." daniel webster the constitution and the union [speech of daniel webster at the dinner of the new england society in the city of new york, december , . the early published form of this address is very rare. it bears the following title-page: "speech of mr. webster at the celebration of the new york new england society, december , . washington: printed by gideon & co., ." the presiding officer of the celebration, moses h. grinnell, asked attention of the company to a toast not on the catalogue. he gave, "the constitution and the union, and their chief defender." this sentiment was received with great applause, which became most tumultuous when mr. webster rose to respond.] mr. president, and gentlemen of the new york new england society:--ye sons of new england! ye brethren of the kindred tie! i have come hither to-night, not without some inconvenience, that i might behold a congregation whose faces bear lineaments of a new england origin, and whose hearts beat with full new england pulsations. [cheers.] i willingly make the sacrifice. i am here, to meet this assembly of the great off-shoot of the pilgrim society of massachusetts, the pilgrim society of new york. and, gentlemen, i shall begin what i have to say, which is but little, by tendering to you my thanks for the invitation extended to me, and by wishing you, one and all, every kind of happiness and prosperity. gentlemen, this has been a stormy, a cold, a boisterous and inclement day. the winds have been harsh, the skies have been severe; and if we had no houses over our heads; if we had no shelter against this howling and freezing tempest; if we were wan and worn out; if half of us were sick and tired, and ready to descend into the grave; if we were on the bleak coast of plymouth, houseless, homeless, with nothing over our heads but the heavens, and that god who sits above the heavens; if we had distressed wives on our arms, and hungry and shivering children clinging to our skirts, we should see something, and feel something, of that scene, which, in the providence of god, was enacted at plymouth on december , . [illustration: _the national monument to the forefathers_ _photogravure after a photograph_ the corner-stone of the national monument to the forefathers at plymouth, mass., was laid august , . the monument was completed in october, , and dedicated with appropriate ceremonies, august , . it is built entirely of granite. the plan of the principal pedestal is octagonal, with four small, and four large faces; from the small faces project four buttresses. on the main pedestal stands the heroic figure of faith, said to be the largest and finest piece of granite statuary in the world. the sculptor was joseph archie, a spaniard. upon the four buttresses are seated figures emblematical of the principles upon which the pilgrims founded their commonwealth--morality, education, law, and freedom. each was wrought from a solid block of granite. on the face of the buttresses, beneath these figures are alto-reliefs in marble, representing scenes from pilgrim history. upon the four faces of the main pedestal are large panels for records. the right and left panels contain the names of those who came over in the mayflower. the rear panel is plain, being reserved for an inscription at some future day. the front panel is inscribed as follows: "national monument to the forefathers. erected by a grateful people in remembrance of their labors, sacrifices and sufferings for the cause of civil and religious liberty."] thanks to almighty god, who from that distressed, early condition of our fathers, has raised us to a height of prosperity and of happiness, which they neither enjoyed, nor could have anticipated! we have learned much of them; they could have foreseen little of us. would to god, my friends, would to god, that when we carry our affections and our recollections back to that period, we could arm ourselves with something of the stern virtues which supported them, in that hour of peril, and exposure, and suffering. would to god that we possessed that unconquerable resolution, stronger than bars of brass or iron, which nerved their hearts; that patience, "sovereign o'er transmuted ill," and, above all, that faith, that religious faith, which, with eyes fast fixed upon heaven, tramples all things earthly beneath her triumphant feet! [applause.] gentlemen, the scenes of this world change. what our ancestors saw and felt, we shall not see nor feel. what they achieved, it is denied to us even to attempt. the severer duties of life, requiring the exercise of the stern and unbending virtues, were theirs. they were called upon for the exhibition of those austere qualities, which, before they came to the western wilderness, had made them what they were. things have changed. in the progress of society, the fashions, the habits of life, and all its conditions, have changed. their rigid sentiments, and their tenets, apparently harsh and exclusive, we are not called on, in every respect, to imitate or commend; or rather to imitate, for we should commend them always, when we consider that state of society in which they had been adopted, and in which they seemed necessary. our fathers had that religious sentiment, that trust in providence, that determination to do right, and to seek, through every degree of toil and suffering, the honor of god, and the preservation of their liberties, which we shall do well to cherish, to imitate, and to equal, so far as god may enable us. it may be true, and it is true, that in the progress of society the milder virtues have come to belong more especially to our day and our condition. the pilgrims had been great sufferers from intolerance; it was not unnatural that their own faith and practice, as a consequence, should become somewhat intolerant. this is the common infirmity of human nature. man retaliates on man. it is to be hoped, however, that the greater spread of the benignant principles of religion, and of the divine charity of christianity, has, to some extent, improved the sentiments which prevailed in the world at that time. no doubt the "first comers," as they were called, were attached to their own forms of public worship and to their own particular and strongly cherished religious sentiments. no doubt they esteemed those sentiments, and the observances which they practised, to be absolutely binding on all, by the authority of the word of god. it is true, i think, in the general advancement of human intelligence, that we find what they do not seem to have found, that a greater toleration of religious opinion, a more friendly feeling toward all who profess reverence for god, and obedience to his commands, is not inconsistent with the great and fundamental principles of religion--i might rather say is, itself, one of those fundamental principles. so we see in our day, i think, without any departure from the essential principles of our fathers, a more enlarged and comprehensive christian philanthropy. it seems to be the american destiny, the mission which god has intrusted to us here on this shore of the atlantic, the great conception and the great duty to which we are born, to show that all sects, and all denominations, professing reverence for the authority of the author of our being, and belief in his revelations, may be safely tolerated without prejudice either to our religion or to our liberties. [cheers.] we are protestants, generally speaking; but you all know that there presides at the head of the supreme judicature of the united states a roman catholic; and no man, i suppose, through the whole united states, imagines that the judicature of the country is less safe, that the administration of public justice is less respectable or less secure, because the chief justice of the united states has been, and is, an ardent adherent to that religion. and so it is in every department of society amongst us. in both houses of congress, in all public offices, and all public affairs, we proceed on the idea that a man's religious belief is a matter above human law; that it is a question to be settled between him and his maker, because he is responsible to none but his maker for adopting or rejecting revealed truth. and here is the great distinction which is sometimes overlooked, and which i am afraid is now too often overlooked, in this land, the glorious inheritance of the sons of the pilgrims. men, for their religious sentiments, are accountable to god, and to god only. religion is both a communication and a tie between man and his maker; and to his own master every man standeth or falleth. but when men come together in society, establish social relations, and form governments for the protection of the rights of all, then it is indispensable that this right of private judgment should in some measure be relinquished and made subservient to the judgment of the whole. religion may exist while every man is left responsible only to god. society, civil rule, the civil state, cannot exist, while every man is responsible to nobody and to nothing but to his own opinion. and our new england ancestors understood all this quite well. gentlemen, there is the "constitution" which was adopted on board the mayflower in november, , while that bark of immortal memory was riding at anchor in the harbor of cape cod. what is it? its authors honored god; they professed to obey all his commandments, and to live ever and in all things in his obedience. but they say, nevertheless, that for the establishment of a civil polity, for the greater security and preservation of their civil rights and liberties, they agree that the laws and ordinances, and i am glad they put in the word "constitutions," invoking the name of the deity on their resolution; they say, that these laws and ordinances, and constitutions, which may be established by those they should appoint to enact them, they, in all due submission and obedience, will support. this constitution is not long. i will read it. it invokes a religious sanction and the authority of god on their civil obligations; for it was no doctrine of theirs that civil obedience was a mere matter of expediency. here it is: "in the name of god, amen: we whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign lord, king james, by the grace of god, of great britain, france, and ireland, king, and defender of the faith, etc., having undertaken, for the glory of god and advancement of the christian faith, and honor of our king and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the heathen parts of virginia, do by these presents solemnly and mutually, in the presence of god and of one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation, and furtherance of the ends aforesaid, and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience." the right of private judgment in matters between the creator and himself, and submission and obedience to the will of the whole, upon whatsoever respects civil polity and the administration of such affairs as concerned the colony about to be established, they regarded as entirely consistent; and the common sense of mankind, lettered and unlettered, everywhere establishes and confirms this sentiment. indeed, all must see, that it is the very ligament, the very tie, which connects man to man, in the social system; and these sentiments are embodied in that constitution. gentlemen, discourse on this topic might be enlarged, but i pass from it. gentlemen, we are now two hundred and thirty years from that great event. there is the mayflower [pointing to a small figure of a ship, in the form of confectionery, that stood before him]. there is a little resemblance, but a correct one, of the mayflower. sons of new england! there was in ancient times a ship that carried jason to the acquisition of the golden fleece. there was a flag-ship at the battle of actium which made augustus cæsar master of the world. in modern times, there have been flag-ships which have carried hawkes, and howe, and nelson on the other continent, and hull, and decatur, and stewart, on this, to triumph. what are they all; what are they all, in the chance of remembrance among men, to that little bark, the mayflower, which reached these shores on december , . yes, brethren of new england, yes! that mayflower was a flower destined to be of perpetual bloom! [cheers.] its verdure will stand the sultry blasts of summer, and the chilling winds of autumn. it will defy winter; it will defy all climate, and all time, and will continue to spread its petals to the world, and to exhale an ever-living odor and fragrance to the last syllable of recorded time. [cheers.] gentlemen, brethren, ye of new england! whom i have come some hundreds of miles to meet this night, let me present to you one of the most distinguished of those personages who came hither on the deck of the mayflower. let me fancy that i now see elder william brewster entering the door at the further end of this hall. a tall and erect figure, of plain dress, of no elegance of manner beyond a respectful bow, mild and cheerful, but of no merriment that reaches beyond a smile. let me suppose that his image stood now before us, or that it was looking in upon this assembly. "are ye, are ye," he would say, with a voice of exultation, and yet softened with melancholy, "are ye our children? does this scene of refinement, of elegance, of riches, of luxury, does all this come from our labors? is this magnificent city, the like of which we never saw nor heard of on either continent, is this but an offshoot from plymouth rock? "'... quis jam locus ... quæ regio in terris nostri non plena laboris?' "is this one part of the great reward, for which my brethren and myself endured lives of toil and of hardship? we had faith and hope. god granted us the spirit to look forward, and we did look forward. but this scene we never anticipated. our hopes were on another life. of earthly gratifications we tasted little; for human honors we had little expectation. our bones lie on the hill in plymouth churchyard, obscure, unmarked, secreted to preserve our graves from the knowledge of savage foes. no stone tells where we lie. and yet, let me say to you, who are our descendants, who possess this glorious country, and all it contains, who enjoy this hour of prosperity, and the thousand blessings showered upon it by the god of your fathers, we envy you not; we reproach you not. be rich, be prosperous, be enlightened. live in pleasure, if such be your allotment on earth; but live, also, always to god and to duty. spread yourselves and your children over the continent; accomplish the whole of your great destiny; and if so be, that through the whole you carry puritan hearts with you; if you still cherish an undying love of civil and religious liberty, and mean to enjoy them yourselves, and are willing to shed your heart's blood to transmit them to your posterity, then are you worthy descendants of carver and allerton and bradford, and the rest of those who landed from stormy seas on the rock of plymouth." [loud and prolonged cheers.] gentlemen, that little vessel, on december , , made her safe landing on the shore of plymouth. she had been tossed on a tempestuous ocean; she approached the new england coast under circumstances of great distress and trouble; yet amidst all the disasters of her voyage, she accomplished her end, and she placed the feet of a hundred precious souls on the shore of the new world. gentlemen, let her be considered this night as an emblem of new england, as new england now is. new england is a ship, stanch, strong, well-built, and particularly well-manned. she may be occasionally thrown into the trough of the sea, by the violence of winds and waves, and may wallow there for a time; but, depend upon it, she will right herself. she will, ere long, come round to the wind, and will obey her helm. [cheers and applause.] we have hardly begun, my brethren, to realize the vast importance, on human society, and on the history and happiness of the world, of the voyage of that little vessel which brought the love of civil and religious liberty hither, and the bible, the word of god, for the instruction of the future generations of men. we have hardly begun to realize the consequences of that voyage. heretofore the extension of our race, following our new england ancestry, has crept along the shore. but now the race has extended. it has crossed the continent. it has not only transcended the alleghany, but has capped the rocky mountains. it is now upon the shores of the pacific; and on this day, or if not on this day, then this day twelvemonth, descendants of new england will there celebrate the landing--[a voice: "to-day; they celebrate to-day."] god bless them! here's to the health and success of the california society of pilgrims assembled on the shores of the pacific. [prolonged applause.] and it shall yet go hard, if the three hundred millions of people of china--if they are intelligent enough to understand anything--shall not one day hear and know something of the rock of plymouth too! [laughter and cheers.] but, gentlemen, i am trespassing too long on your time. [cries of "no, no! go on!"] i am taking too much of what belongs to others. my voice is neither a new voice, nor is it the voice of a young man. it has been heard before in this place, and the most that i have thought or felt concerning new england history and new england principles, has been before, in the course of my life, said here or elsewhere. your sentiment, mr. president, which called me up before this meeting, is of a larger and more comprehensive nature. it speaks of the constitution under which we live; of the union, which for sixty years has been over us, and made us associates, fellow-citizens of those who settled at yorktown and the mouth of the mississippi and their descendants, and now, at last, of those who have come from all corners of the earth and assembled in california. i confess i have had my doubts whether the republican system under which we live could be so vastly extended without danger of dissolution. thus far, i willingly admit, my apprehensions have not been realized. the distance is immense; the intervening country is vast. but the principle on which our government is established, the representative system, seems to be indefinitely expansive; and wherever it does extend, it seems to create a strong attachment to the union and the constitution that protects it. i believe california and new mexico have had new life inspired into all their people. they consider themselves subjects of a new being, a new creation, a new existence. they are not the men they thought themselves to be, now that they find they are members of this great government, and hailed as citizens of the united states of america. i hope, in the providence of god, as this system of states and representative governments shall extend, that it will be strengthened. in some respects the tendency is to strengthen it. local agitations will disturb it less. if there has been on the atlantic coast, somewhere south of the potomac--and i will not define further where it is--if there has been dissatisfaction, that dissatisfaction has not been felt in california; it has not been felt that side the rocky mountains. it is a localism, and i am one of those who believe that our system of government is not to be destroyed by localisms, north or south! [cheers.] no; we have our private opinions, state prejudices, local ideas; but over all, submerging all, drowning all, is that great sentiment, that always, and nevertheless, we are all americans. it is as americans that we are known, the whole world over. who asks what state you are from, in europe, or in africa, or in asia? is he an american--is he of us? does he belong to the flag of the country? does that flag protect him? does he rest under the eagle and the stars and stripes? if he does, if he is, all else is subordinate and worthy of little concern. [cheers.] now it is our duty, while we live on the earth, to cherish this sentiment, to make it prevail over the whole country, even if that country should spread over the whole continent. it is our duty to carry english principles--i mean, sir [said mr. webster turning to sir henry bulwer], anglo-saxon american principles, over the whole continent--the great principles of magna charta, of the english revolution, and especially of the american revolution, and of the english language. our children will hear shakespeare and milton recited on the shores of the pacific. nay, before that, american ideas, which are essentially and originally english ideas, will penetrate the mexican--the spanish mind; and mexicans and spaniards will thank god that they have been brought to know something of civil liberty, of the trial by jury, and of security for personal rights. as for the rest, let us take courage. the day-spring from on high has visited us; the country has been called back, to conscience and to duty. there is no longer imminent danger of dissolution in these united states. [loud and repeated cheers.] we shall live, and not die. we shall live as united americans; and those who have supposed that they could sever us, that they could rend one american heart from another, and that speculation and hypothesis, that secession and metaphysics, could tear us asunder, will find themselves dreadfully mistaken. [cheers.] let the mind of the sober american people remain sober. let it not inflame itself. let it do justice to all. and the truest course, and the surest course, to disappoint those who meditate disunion, is just to leave them to themselves, and see what they can make of it. no, gentlemen; the time for meditated secession is past. americans, north and south, will be hereafter more and more united. there is a sternness and severity in the public mind lately aroused. i believe that, north and south, there has been, in the last year, a renovation of public sentiment, an animated revival of the spirit of union, and, more than all, of attachment to the constitution, regarding it as indispensably necessary; and if we would preserve our nationality, it is indispensable that the spirit of devotion should be still more largely increased. and who doubts it? if we give up that constitution, what are we? you are a manhattan man; i am a boston man. another is a connecticut, and another a rhode island man. is it not a great deal better, standing hand to hand, and clasping hands, that we should remain as we have been for sixty years--citizens of the same country, members of the same government, united all--united now and united forever? that we shall be, gentlemen. there have been difficulties, contentions, controversies--angry controversies; but i tell you that, in my judgment,-- "those opposed eyes, which, like the meteors of a troubled heaven, all of one nature, of one substance bred, did lately meet in th' intestine shock, shall now, in mutual well-beseeming ranks, march all one way." [mr. webster, on closing, was greeted with the most hearty, prolonged, and tumultuous applause.] joseph wheeler the american soldier [speech of joseph wheeler prepared for the tenth annual banquet of the confederate veteran camp of new york, new york city, january , . edward owen, commander of the camp, presided. as general wheeler was ill and unable to attend the banquet, his speech was read by j. e. graybill.] history has many heroes whose martial renown has fired the world, whose daring and wonderful exploits have altered the boundaries of nations and changed the very face of the earth. to say nothing of the warriors of biblical history and homeric verse, as the ages march along every great nation leaves us the glorious memory of some unique character, such as alexander, hannibal, cæsar. even the wild hordes of northern europe and the barbaric nations of the east had their grand military leaders whose names will ever live on history's pages, to be eclipsed only by that of napoleon, the man of destiny, who, as a military genius, stands alone and unrivalled: "grand, gloomy, peculiar, he sat upon the throne, a sceptred hermit, wrapped in the solitude of his awful originality." the mediæval ages gave us noble examples of devotedness and chivalry; but it belonged to the american republic, founded and defended by freedom's sons, to give to the world the noblest type of warrior; men in whom martial renown went hand in hand with the noblest of virtues, men who united in their own characters the highest military genius with the loftiest patriotism, the most daring courage with the gentlest courtesy, the most obstinate endurance with the utmost self-sacrifice, the genius of a cæsar with the courage and purity of a bayard. patriotism and love of liberty, the most ennobling motives that can fire the heart of man, expanding and thriving in the atmosphere of free america, added a refining touch to the martial enthusiasm of our forefathers and elevated the character of the american soldier to a standard never attained by fighting men of any other age or nation. to recall their names and recount their deeds would lead me far beyond the time and space allotted. volumes would never do justice to the valorous achievements of george washington and his compeers, the boys of ' --of the heroes of and of ; of the men in blue who fought under grant, sherman, sheridan, thomas, and farragut; of the men in gray who followed the lead of johnston, jackson, and lee from to ; of the intrepid band that sailed with dewey into manila bay, or of the small but heroic army of that fought at las guasimas, el caney, and san juan, and left the stars and stripes floating in triumph over the last stronghold of spain in the new world. but above the grand heroic names immortalized by historian and poet shines with an undimmed lustre, all its own, the immortal name of robert edmund lee.-- "ah, muse! you dare not claim a nobler man than he-- nor nobler man hath less of blame, nor blameless man hath purer name, nor purer name hath grander fame, nor fame--another lee." the late benjamin h. hill, of georgia, in an address delivered at the time of general lee's death, thus beautifully describes his character: "he was a foe without hate; a friend without treachery; a soldier without cruelty; a victor without oppression, and a victim without murmuring. he was a public officer without vices; a private citizen without wrong; a neighbor without reproach; a christian without hypocrisy, and a man without guile. he was cæsar without his ambition; frederick without his tyranny; napoleon without his selfishness, and washington without his reward. he was as obedient to authority as a servant, and royal in authority as a true king. he was gentle as a woman in life, and modest and pure as a virgin in thought; watchful as a roman vestal in duty; submissive to law as socrates, and grand in battle as achilles!" forty-four years ago last june, i found myself in the presence of colonel lee, who was then superintendent of the military academy at west point. i have never in all my life seen another form or face which so impressed me, as embodying dignity, modesty, kindness, and all the characteristics which indicate purity and nobility. while he was then only a captain and brevet-colonel, he was so highly regarded by the army that it was generally conceded that he was the proper officer to succeed general scott. his wonderful career as leader of the army of northern virginia, as its commander, is so familiar to all of you that any comment would seem to be unnecessary. but to give some of the younger generation an idea of the magnitude of the struggle in which general lee was the central and leading figure, i will call attention to the fact that in the battles of the wilderness and spottsylvania (which really should be called one battle), the killed and wounded in general grant's army by the army under general lee, was far greater than the aggregate killed and wounded in all the battles of all the wars fought by the english-speaking people on this continent since the discovery of america by columbus. to be more explicit: take the killed and wounded in all the battles of the french and indian war, take the aggregate killed and wounded in the revolutionary war, take the aggregate killed and wounded in the war of , take the aggregate killed and wounded in the mexican war, take the aggregate killed and wounded in all our wars with the indians, and they amount to less than the killed and wounded in grant's army in the struggle from the wilderness to spottsylvania. in order further to appreciate the magnitude of the struggle, let us make a comparison between the losses in some of the great battles of our civil war, and those of some of the most famous battles of modern europe. the official reports give the following as the losses in killed and wounded of the federal army in seven, out of nearly a thousand severely contested struggles during the four years' of war: seven days fight, , ; antietam, , ; murfreesboro, , ; gettysburg, , ; chickamauga, , ; wilderness and spottsylvania, , . in the battle of marengo, the french lost in killed and wounded, , , the austrians, , . in the battle of hohenlinden, the french loss in killed and wounded was , , the austrian loss was , ; at austerlitz the french loss was , ; at waterloo, wellington lost , in killed and wounded, blucher lost , , making the total loss of the allies, , . i mention these facts because such sanguinary conflicts as those of our civil war could only have occurred when the soldiers of both contending armies were men of superb determination and courage. such unquestioned prowess as this should be gratifying to all americans, showing to the world as they did that the intrepid fortitude and courage of americans have excelled that of any other people upon the earth. and as the world will extol the exhibition of these qualities by the soldiers that fought under grant, the historian will find words inadequate to express his admiration of the superb heroism of the soldiers led by the intrepid lee. meeting a thoroughly organized, and trebly equipped and appointed army, they successfully grappled in deadly conflict with these tremendous odds, while civilization viewed with amazement this climax of unparalleled and unequal chivalry, surpassing in grandeur of action anything heretofore portrayed either in story or in song. whence came these qualities? they were the product of southern chivalry, which two centuries had finally perfected. a chivalry which esteemed stainless honor as a priceless gem, and a knighthood which sought combat for honor's sake, generously yielding to an antagonist all possible advantage; the chivalry which taught southern youth to esteem life as nothing when honor was at stake, a chivalry which taught that the highest, noblest, and most exalted privilege of man was the defence of woman, family, and country. it was this southern chivalry that formed such men as lee and stonewall jackson; they were the central leading figures, but they were only prototypes of the soldiers whom they led. it is this character of men who meet in banquet to-night to honor the name they revere and the noble life they seek to emulate. i say, god bless you all, the whole world breathes blessings upon you. among the foremost in these sentiments are the brave soldiers against whom you were once arrayed in battle, and they, together with seventy million americans know that in future perils to our country, you and your children will be foremost in the battle-line of duty, proud of the privilege of defending the glory, honor, and prestige of our country, presenting under the folds of our national ensign an unbroken phalanx of united hearts--an impregnable bulwark of defence against any power that may arise against us. edwin percy whipple china emerging from her isolation [speech of edwin p. whipple at the banquet given by the city of boston, august , , to the hon. anson burlingame, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary from china, and his associates, chih ta-jin and sun ta-jin, of the chinese embassy to the united states and the european powers. mr. whipple responded to the toast, "the press."] mr. mayor:--one cannot attempt to respond here for the press, without being reminded that the press and the chinese embassy have been on singularly good terms from the start. to record the progress, applaud the object, extend the influence, and cordially eulogize the members of that embassy, have been for months no inconsiderable part of the business of all newspapers; and if china anticipated us, by some five hundred years, in the invention of printing, our chinese guests will still admit that, in the minute account we have given both of what they have, and of what they have not, said and done, since they arrived in the country, we have carried the invention to a perfection of which they never dreamed--having not only invented printing, but invented a great deal of what we print. but, apart from the rich material they have furnished the press in the way of news, there is something strangely alluring and inspiring to the editorial imagination in the comprehensive purpose which has prompted their mission to the civilized nations of the west. that purpose is doubly peaceful, for it includes a two-fold commerce of material products and of immaterial ideas. probably the vastest conception which ever entered into the mind of a conqueror was that which was profoundly meditated, and, in its initial steps, practically carried out, by alexander the great. he was engaged in a clearly defined project of assimilating the populations of europe and asia, when, at the early age of thirty-three, he was killed--i tremble to state it here--by a too eager indulgence in an altogether too munificent public dinner! alexander's weapon was force, but it was at least the force of genius, and it was exerted in the service of a magnificent idea. his successors in modern times have but too often availed themselves of force divested of all ideas, except the idea of bullying or outwitting the asiatics in a trade. as to china, this conduct aroused an insurrection of chinese conceit against european conceit. the chinese were guilty of the offence of calling the representatives of the proudest and most supercilious of all civilizations, "outside barbarians"; illustrating in this that too common conservative weakness of human nature, of holding fixedly to an opinion long after the facts which justified it have changed or passed away. it certainly cannot be questioned that at a period which, when compared with the long date of chinese annals, may be called recent, we were outside barbarians as contrasted with that highly civilized and ingenious people. at the time when our european ancestors were squalid, swinish, wolfish savages, digging with their hands into the earth for roots to allay the pangs of hunger, without arts, letters, or written speech, china rejoiced in an old, refined, complicated civilization; was rich, populous, enlightened, cultivated, humane; was fertile in savants, poets, moralists, metaphysicians, saints; had invented printing, gunpowder, the mariner's compass, the sage's rule of life; had, in one of her three state religions--that of confucius--presented a code of morals never become obsolete; and had, in another of her state religions--that of buddha--solemnly professed her allegiance to that equality of men, which buddha taught twenty-four hundred years before our jefferson was born, and had at the same time vigorously grappled with that problem of existence which our emerson finds as insolvable now as it was then. well, sir, after all this had relatively changed, after the western nations had made their marvellous advances in civilization, they were too apt to exhibit to china only their barbaric side--that is, their ravenous cupidity backed by their insolent strength. we judge, for example, of england by the poetry of shakespeare, the science of newton, the ethics of butler, the religion of taylor, the philanthropy of wilberforce; but what poetry, science, ethics, religion, or philanthropy was she accustomed to show in her intercourse with china? did not john bull, in his rough methods with the celestial empire, sometimes literally act "like a bull in a china shop"? you remember, sir, that "intelligent contraband" who, when asked his opinion of an offending white brother, delicately hinted his distrust by replying: "sar, if i was a chicken, and that man was about, i should take care to roost high." well, all that we can say of china is, that for a long time she "roosted high"--withdrew suspiciously into her own civilization to escape the rough contact with the harsher side of ours. but, by a sudden inspiration of almost miraculous confidence, springing from a faith in the nobler qualities of our caucasian civilization, she has changed her policy. she has learned that in the language, and on the lips, and in the hearts of most members of the english race, there is such a word as equity, and at the magic of that word she has nearly emerged from her isolation. and, sir, what we see here to-day reminds me that, some thirty years ago, boston confined one of her citizens in a lunatic asylum, for the offence of being possessed by a too intensified boston "notion." he had discovered a new and expeditious way of getting to china. "all agree," he said, "that the earth revolves daily on its own axis. if you desire," he therefore contended, "to go to china, all you have to do is to go up in a balloon, wait till china comes round, then let off the gas, and drop softly down." now i will put it to you, mr. mayor, if you are not bound to release that philosopher from confinement, for has not his conception been realized?--has not china, to-day, unmistakably come round to us? and now, sir, a word as to the distinguished gentleman at the head of the embassy--a gentleman specially dear to the press. judging from the eagerness with which the position is sought, i am led to believe that the loftiest compliment which can be paid to a human being is, that he has once represented boston in the national house of representatives. after such a distinction as that, all other distinctions, however great, must still show a sensible decline from political grace. but i trust that you will all admit, that next to the honor of representing boston in the house of representatives comes the honor of representing the vast empire of china in "the parliament of man, the federation of the world." having enjoyed both distinctions, mr. burlingame may be better qualified than we are to discriminate between the exultant feelings which each is calculated to excite in the human breast. but we must remember that the population, all brought up on a system of universal education, of the empire he represents, is greater than the combined population of all the nations to which he is accredited. most bostonians have, or think they have, a "mission"; but certainly no other bostonian ever had such a "mission" as he; for it extends all round the planet, makes him the most universal ambassador and minister plenipotentiary the world ever saw; is, in fact, a "mission" from everybody to everybody, and one by which it is proposed that everybody shall be benefited. to doubt its success would be to doubt the moral soundness of christian civilization. it implies that christian doctrines will find no opponents provided that christian nations set a decent example of christianity. its virtues herald the peaceful triumph of reason over prejudice, of justice over force, of humanity over the hatreds of class and race, of the good of all over the selfish blindness of each, of the "fraternity" of the great commonwealth of nations over the insolent "liberty" of any of them to despise, oppress, and rob the rest. * * * * * the sphere of woman [speech of edwin p. whipple at the "ladies' night" banquet of the papyrus club, boston, february , , in response to a toast in his honor as "one whose gentle mind, delicate fancy, keen wit, and profound judgment have made for him a high and secure place among american authors."] mr. chairman:--i suppose that one of the most characteristic follies of young men, unmarried, or in the opinion of prudent mammas, unmarriageable, is, when they arrive at the age of indiscretion, to dogmatize on what they call the appropriate sphere of woman. you remember the thundering retort which came, like a box on the ears, to one of these philosophers, when he was wisely discoursing vaguely on his favorite theme. "and pray, my young sir," asked a stern matron of forty, "will you please to tell us what is the appropriate sphere of woman?" thus confronted, he only babbled in reply, "a celestial sphere, madam!" but the force of this compliment is now abated; for the persons who above all others are dignified with the title of "celestials" are the chinese; and these the congress of the united states seems determined to banish from our soil as unworthy--not only of the right of citizenship and the right of suffrage, but the right of residing in our democratic republic. accordingly, we must find some more appropriate sphere for women than the celestial. nobody, i take it, however bitterly he may be opposed to what are called the rights of women, objects to their residing in this country, or to their coming here in vast numbers. [applause.] do you remember to what circumstance chicago owed its fame? when the spot where a great city now looks out on lake michigan was the habitation of a small number of men only, a steamboat was seen in the distance, and the report was that it contained a cargo of women, who were coming to the desolate place for the purpose of being married to the forlorn men. every bachelor hastened to the pier, with a telescope in one hand and a speaking-trumpet in the other. by the aid of the telescope each lover selected his mate, and by the aid of the speaking-trumpet each lover made his proposals. in honor of the women who made the venturesome voyage, the infant city was named "she-cargo." [laughter and applause.] therefore, there is no possibility of a doubt that there is no objection to women as residents of this country. the only thing to be considered is, whether or not they shall have the right of voting. i think nobody present here this evening has conceit enough to suppose that he is more competent to give an intelligent vote on any public question than the intelligent ladies who have done the club the honor to be present on this occasion. the privilege of voting is simply an opportunity, by which certain persons legally qualified are allowed to exercise power. the formal power is so subdivided that each legally qualified person exercises but little. but where meanwhile is the substance of power? certainly in the woman of the household as well as in the man. indeed, i recollect that when an objection was raised that to give the right of suffrage to women would create endless quarrels between husband and wife, a married woman curtly replied that the wives would see to it that no such disturbance should really take place. [applause.] and, as the question now stands, i pity the man who is so fortunate to be married to a noble woman, coming home to meet her reproachful glance, when he has deposited in the ballot-box a vote for a measure which is base and for a candidate who is equally base. then, in his humiliation before that rebuking eye, he must feel that in her is the substance of power, and in him only the formal expression of power. [applause.] but we have the good fortune to-night to have at the table many women of letters, who have in an eminent degree exercised the substance of power, inasmuch as they have domesticated themselves at thousands of firesides where their faces have never been seen. their brain-children have been welcomed and adopted by fathers and mothers, by brothers and sisters, as members of the family; and their sayings and doings are quoted as though they were "blood" relations. two instances recur to my memory. in lecturing in various portions of the country, i have often been a guest in private houses. on one occasion i happened to mention mrs. whitney as a lady i had often met; and, instantly, old and young crowded round, pouring in a storm of questions, demanding to know where the author of "faith gartney" lived, how she looked, and was she so delightful in society as she was in her books. on another occasion, my importance in a large family was raised immensely when a chance remark indicated that i numbered miss alcott among my friends. all the little men and all the little women of the household, all the old men and all the old ladies, rallied round me, in order that i might tell them all i knew of the author of "little women" and "little men." [applause.] now these are only two examples of the substance of power which cultivated women already possess. that such women, and all women, can obtain the formal power of voting at elections is, in the end, sure, if they really wish to exercise that power; and that the power is withheld from them is not due to the opposition of men, but is due to the fact that they are not, by an overwhelming majority, in favor of it themselves. when the champions of woman's rights get this majority on their side, i have a profound pity for the men who venture to oppose it. [applause.] andrew dickson white commerce and diplomacy [speech of andrew d. white at the th annual dinner of the new york chamber of commerce, may , . the president of the chamber, samuel d. babcock, introduced mr. white as follows: "the next toast is 'commerce and diplomacy--twin guardians of the world--peace and prosperity.' [applause.] the gentleman who is to respond to the toast is one who is about to represent our country at the court of berlin. i am quite sure there is not a man present who does not feel that a more creditable representative of the people of the united states could not be sent abroad. [applause.] i hope, gentlemen, you will receive him with all the honors."] mr. chairman and gentlemen:--speaking in this place and at this time i am seriously embarrassed; for when charges have been made upon the american people on account of municipal mismanagement in this city, now happily past, we have constantly heard the statement made that american institutions are not responsible for it; that new york is not an american city. [applause.] i must confess that when very hard pressed i have myself taken refuge in this statement. but now it comes back to plague me, for on looking over the general instructions furnished me by the state department i find it laid down that american ministers on the way to their posts are strictly forbidden to make speeches in any foreign city, save in the country to which they are accredited. you will pardon me, then, if i proceed very slowly and cautiously in discussing the sentiment allotted to me. no one, i think, will dispute the statement that commerce has become a leading agency among men in the maintenance of peace. [applause.] commercial interests have become so vast that they embrace all the world, and so minute that they permeate every hamlet of every nation. war interferes with these interests and thwarts them. hence commerce more and more tends to make war difficult. [applause.] as to the fact then, involved in your toast, it needs no argument in its support. we all concede it. were we to erect a statue of commerce in the midst of this great commercial metropolis, we should doubtless place in her hand, as an emblem, a ship-like shuttle and represent her as weaving a web between the great nations of the earth tending every day to fasten them more securely and more permanently in lasting peace. [applause.] nor, i think, will the other part of the sentiment be disputed by any thoughtful person. of course much may be said upon the solemn nothings which have occupied diplomatists; much historic truth may be adduced to show that diplomats have often proved to be what carlyle calls "solemnly constituted impostors." but after all, i think no one can look over the history of mankind without feeling that it was a vast step when four centuries ago the great modern powers began to maintain resident representatives at the centres of government; and from that day to this these men have proved themselves, with all their weaknesses, worth far more than all their cost in warding off or mitigating the horrors of war, and in increasing the facilities of commerce. not long since i made a pilgrimage to that quaint town hall in that old german city of munster, where was signed the treaty of westphalia. there i saw the same long table, the same old seats, where once sat the representatives of the various powers who in made the treaty which not only ended the thirty years' war, the most dreadful struggle of modern times--but which has forever put an end to wars of religion. i have stood in the midst of grand cathedrals and solemn services, but never have i sat in any room or in any presence with a greater feeling of awe than in that old hall where the diplomatists of europe signed that world-renowned treaty so fruitful in blessing not only to germany, but to all mankind. [applause.] we shall all doubtless concede then that on the whole it is best to have a diplomatic body, that if it only once in ten, or twenty, or one hundred years, prevents serious misunderstanding between nations, it will far more than repay its cost. [applause.] but the point to which i wish to call your attention, in what little i have to say this evening, is this: that this idea of the value of commerce and diplomacy in maintaining peace has by no means always been held as fully as now, nor are commerce and diplomacy and all they represent at this moment out of danger. two hundred years ago a really great practical statesman in france [colbert], by crude legislation in behalf, as he thought, of manufactures and commerce, brought his country into wars which at last led her to ruin. the history of the colonial policy of england also is fruitful in mistaken legislation on commercial, political, and social questions, which have produced the most terrible evils. indeed, in all nations we have constantly to lament the short-sighted policies, ill-considered constitutions, crude legislation, which have dealt fearful blows to the interests of commerce, of diplomacy, of political and social life, and of peace. nor has our own country been free from these; in our general government and in all our forty legislatures, there are measures frequently proposed striking at commercial interests, at financial interests, at vested rights, to say nothing of great political and social interests, which, though often thwarted by the common sense of the people, are sometimes too successful. at this very moment the news comes to us that a slight majority, led by arrant demagogues, have fastened upon the great empire state of the pacific a crude, ill-digested constitution, which while it doubtless contains some good features, embodies some of the most primitive and pernicious notions regarding commerce and manufactures and the whole political and social fabric of that commonwealth. [applause.] so, too, in regard to diplomacy, there is constant danger and loss from this same crudeness in political thinking. a year or two since, in the congress of the united states, efforts were put forth virtually to cripple the diplomatic service; but what was far worse, to cripple the whole consular system of the united states. although the consular service of our country more than pays for itself directly, and pays for itself a thousand times over indirectly; although its labors are constantly directed to increasing commerce, to finding new markets, to sending home valuable information regarding foreign industries, to enlarging the foreign field for our own manufactures, and, although the question involved not only financial questions of the highest importance, but the honor of the country, the matter was argued by many of our legislators in a way which would have done discredit to a class of college sophomores. i am glad to say that the best men of both parties at washington at last rallied against this monstrous legislation and that among them were some representing both parties of the state and city of new york. [applause.] the injury wrought upon this country in its national legislature and in its multitude of state legislatures by want of knowledge is simply enormous. no one who knows anything of the history of the legislation of any state will dispute this for a moment. the question now arises, is such a state of things necessarily connected with a republican government? to this i answer decidedly, no. the next question is, is there any practical means of improving this state of things? to this i answer decidedly, yes. [applause.] here comes the practical matter to which i would call your attention. recently, in the presence of some of you, i spoke at length on the necessity of training men in the institutions of higher learning in this country for the highest duties of citizenship, and especially for practical leadership. i cannot here go into details as i was able to do in that paper, but i can at least say that if there is anything to which a portion of the surplus wealth of men who have been enriched in commerce and trade may well be devoted, it is to making provision in our institutions of learning for meeting this lack of young men trained in history, political and social science, and general jurisprudence--in those studies which fit men to discuss properly and to lead their fellow-citizens rightly in the discussion of the main questions relating to commerce, to diplomacy, and to various political and social subjects. [applause.] i fully believe that one million dollars distributed between four or five of our great institutions of learning for this purpose would eventually produce almost a revolution for good in this country, and that in a very few years the effect of such endowments would be seen to be most powerful and most salutary. provision on the largest scale should be made for the training of young men in political and social science, in such institutions as harvard, yale, amherst, columbia, princeton, union, johns hopkins university, the state universities of michigan, wisconsin, virginia, minnesota, and california, and i trust that you will permit me to add, cornell. [applause.] i do not pretend, of course, that this would supersede practical training--no theoretical training can do this--but it would give young men, at any rate, a knowledge of the best thoughts of the best thinkers, on such subjects as taxation, representation, pauperism, crime, insanity, and a multitude of similar questions; it would remove the spectacle which so often afflicts us in our national and state legislatures, of really strong men stumbling under loads of absurdity and fallacy, long ago exploded by the best and most earnest thought of the world, and it would teach young men to reason wisely and well on such subjects, and then, with some practical experience, we should have in every state a large number of well-trained men ready to reason powerfully and justly, ready to meet at a moment's warning pernicious heresies threatening commerce and trade and our best political and social interests. had there been scattered through california during the recent canvass for their new constitution, twenty men really fitted to show in the press and in the forum the absurdities of that constitution, it would never have been established. [loud applause.] ten thousand dollars to any one of these colleges or universities would endow a scholarship or fellowship which would enable some talented graduate to pursue advanced studies in this direction. ten thousand to twenty thousand dollars would endow a lectureship which would enable such a college or university to call some acknowledged authority on political subjects to deliver a valuable course of lectures. thirty to fifty thousand dollars would endow a full professorship--though i must confess that in subjects like this, i prefer lectureships for brief terms to life-long professorships--and at any of these institutions the sum of two hundred thousand or three hundred thousand dollars, under the management of such men as may be found in any one of them, would equip nobly a department in which all these subjects may be fully treated and fitly presented to young men. such a department would send out into our journalism, into our various professions, and into our public affairs, a large number of young men who could not fail to improve the political condition of the country, and would do much to ward off such dealings with commerce, with currency, with taxation, and with the diplomatic and consular service as have cost the world and our own nation so dear hitherto. [applause.] i can think of no more noble monument which any man of wealth could rear to himself than a lectureship or professorship or a department of this kind, at one of our greater institutions of learning, where large numbers of vigorous and ambitious youths are collected from all parts of the country; i do not, of course, say that all of these men would be elected to public office; in the larger cities, they perhaps would not, at least, at first; in the country, they would be very frequently chosen, and they could hardly fail to render excellent service. [applause.] any man worthy of the name, leaving his country for a long residence outside its borders, feels more and more impressed with what is needed to improve it. if i were called upon solemnly at this hour to declare my conviction as to what can best be done by men blessed with wealth in this republic of ours, i would name this very thing to which i have now called your attention. [applause.] it has been too long deferred; our colleges and universities have as a rule only had the means to give a general literary and scientific education, with very little instruction fitting men directly for public affairs. but the events of the last few years show conclusively that we must now begin to prepare the natural leaders of the people for the work before them, and by something more than a little primary instruction in political economy and the elements of history in the last terms of a four years' course. [applause.] the complexity of public affairs is daily becoming greater; more and more it is necessary that men be trained for them. not that practical men, trained practically in public affairs will not always be wanted--practical men will always be in demand--but we want more and more a judicious admixture of men trained in the best thought which has been developed through the ages on all the great questions of government and of society. [applause.] no country presents a more striking example of the value of this training than does that great nation with which my duties are shortly to connect me. [applause.] several years since she began to provide in all her universities for the training of men in political and social questions, for political life at home and for diplomatic life abroad. this at first was thought to be another example of german pedantry, but the events of the last fifteen years have changed that view. we can now see that it was a part of that great and comprehensive scheme begun by such men as stein and hardenbergh and carried out by such as bismarck and his compeers. [applause.] other nations are beginning to see this. in france, within a few years, very thoroughly equipped institutions have been established to train men in the main studies required in public life and in diplomacy; the same thing is true in england and in italy. can there be again, i ask, a more fitting object for some of the surplus wealth of our merchant princes than in rendering this great service to our country, in furnishing the means by which young men can have afforded them a full, thorough, and systematic instruction in all those matters so valuable to those who are able to take the lead in public affairs. [applause.] mr. president, in concluding, allow me to say that in so far as any efforts of mine may be useful i shall make every endeavor that whatever diplomatic service i may render may inure to the benefit of commerce, knowing full well that, in the language of the sentiment, "commerce and diplomacy are the twin guardians of peace and prosperity." [applause.] in spite of the present depression of business in germany and the united states, there are evidences of returning confidence. the great, sturdy, vigorous german nation and our own energetic people cannot long be held back in their career, and in this restoration of business, which is certain, unless gross mismanagement occurs, i believe that these two nations, america and germany, will become more and more friendly; more and more commerce will weave her web uniting the two countries, and more and more let us hope that diplomacy may go hand in hand with commerce in bringing in an era of peace which shall be lasting, and of prosperity which shall be substantial. [loud applause.] harvey washington wiley the ideal woman [speech of dr. harvey w. wiley at the banquet of the american chemical society, washington, d. c, december, . dr. wiley responded to the toast, "woman."] mr. president and fellow-members of the chemical society:--i propose to introduce an innovation to after-dinner speaking and stick to my text. in my opinion, it is too late in the day to question the creator's purpose in making woman. she is an accomplished fact! she is here! she has come to stay, and we might as well accept her. she has broken into our society, which, until within a year or two, has remained entirely masculine. she has not yet appeared at our annual dinners, but i am a false prophet if she be not here to speak for herself ere long. and why not? chemistry is well suited to engage the attention of the feminine mind. the jewels woman wears, the paints she uses, the hydrogen peroxide with which she blondines her hair are all children of chemistry. the prejudice against female chemists is purely selfish and unworthy of a great mind. there is only enough work in the world to keep half of humanity busy. every time a woman gets employment a man must go idle. but if the woman will only marry the man, all will be forgiven. i think i know why you have called on an old bachelor to respond to this toast. a married man could not. he would be afraid to give his fancies full rein. someone might tell his wife. a young man could see only one side of the subject--the side his sweetheart is on. but the old bachelor fears no caudle lecture, and is free from any romantic bias. he sees things just as they are. if he be also a true chemist, lovely woman appeals to him in a truly scientific way. her charms appear to him in the crucible and the beaker: i know a maiden, charming and true, with beautiful eyes like the cobalt blue of the borax bead, and i guess she'll do if she hasn't another reaction. her form is no bundle of toilet shams, her beauty no boon of arsenical balms, and she weighs just sixty-two kilograms to a deci-decimal fraction. her hair is a crown, i can truthfully state 'tis a metre long, nor curly nor straight, and it is as yellow as plumbic chromate in a slightly acid solution. and when she speaks from parlor or stump, the words which gracefully gambol and jump sound sweet like the water in sprengel's pump in magnesic phosphate ablution. i have bought me a lot, about a hectare, and have built me a house ten metres square, and soon, i think, i shall take her there, my tart little acid radicle. perhaps little sailors on life's deep sea will be the salts of this chemistry, and the lisp of the infantile a, b, c be the refrain of this madrigal. no one but a scientific man can have any idea of the real nature of love. the poet may dream, the novelist describe the familiar feeling, but only the chemist knows just how it is: a biochemist loved a maid in pure actinic ways; the enzymes of affection made a ferment of his days. the waves emergent from her eyes set symphonies afloat, these undulations simply struck his fundamental note. no longer could he hide his love, nor cultures could he make, and so he screwed his courage up, and thus to her he spake: "oh, maid of undulations sweet, inoculate my veins, and fill my thirsty arteries up with amorous ptomaines. "in vain i try to break this thrall, in vain my reason fights, my inner self tempestuous teems with microcosmic mites. "i cannot offer you a crown of gold--i cannot tell of terrapin or wine for us, but rations balanced well. "a little fat just now and then, some carbohydrates sweet, and gluten in the bakers' bread, are what we'll have to eat. "the days will pass in rapture by, with antitoxine frills, and on our guinea-pigs we'll try the cures for all our ills. "o! maiden fair, wilt thou be mine? come, give me but one kiss, and dwell forever blessed with me. in symbiotic bliss." this maiden, modest, up-to-date, eschewed domestic strife; in mocking accents she replied, "wat t'ell--not on your life." the philosopher and the theologian pretend to understand the origin of things and the foundation of ethics, but what one of them ever had the least idea of how love first started? what one of them can tell you a thing concerning the original osculation--that primary amatory congress which was the beginning of the beginning?-- bathed in bathybian bliss and sunk in the slush of the sea, thrilled the first molecular kiss, the beginning of you and of me. the atom of oxygen blushed when it felt fair hydrogen's breath, the atom of nitrogen rushed eager to life out of death. through ocean's murmuring dell ran a whisper of rapture elysian; across that bathybian jell ran a crack that whispered of fission. alas! that such things should be, that cruel unkind separation, adown in the depths of the sea should follow the first osculation. o tender lover and miss, you cannot remember too well that the first molecular kiss was the first bathybian sell. not only are women rapidly invading the domain of chemistry, but they are also the yellow peril of her sister science, pharmacy. a drug-store without a dimpled damsel is now a fit subject for the sheriff's hammer.-- there in the corner pharmacy, this lithesome lady lingers, and potent pills and philters true are fashioned by her fingers. her phiz behind the soda fount may oft be seen in summer; how sweetly foams the soda fizz, when you receive it from her. while mixing belladonna drops with tincture of lobelia, and putting up prescriptions, she is fairer than ophelia. each poison has its proper place, each potion in its chalice; her dædal fingers are so deft, they call her digit-alice. love has been the theme of every age and of every tongue. it is the test of youth and of the capability of progress. so long as a man can and does love, he is young and there is hope for him. whoever saw a satisfactory definition of love? no one, simply because the science of physical chemistry is yet young, and it is only when moulded by the principles of that science that the definition is complete and intelligible. love is the synchronous vibration of two cardiac cells, both of which, were it not for the ethics of etymology, should begin with an s. love is the source of eternal youth, of senile recrudescence. it is the philosopher's stone, the elixir of life, the fountain of flowers. so love changes not--the particular object is not of much importance. one should never be a bigot in anything and a wise man changes often. the grade of civilization which a nation has reached may be safely measured by three things. if you want me to tell you where to place a nation in the scale, don't tell me the name of it, nor the country it inhabits, nor the religion it professes, nor its form of government. let me know how much sugar it uses per head, what the consumption of soap is, and whether its women have the same rights as its men. that nation which eats the most sugar, uses the most soap, and regards its women as having the same rights as its men, will always be at the top. and nowhere else in the world is more sugar eaten, more soap used, and women more fully admitted to all the rights of men than in our own united states and in the american chemical society. to the chemist, as well as to other scientific men, woman is not only real but also ideal. from the fragments of the real the ideal is reconstructed. this ideal is a trinity, a trinity innominate and incorporeal. she is pallas, aphrodite, artemis, three in one. she is an incognita and an amorph. i know full well i shall not meet her; neither in the crowded street of the metropolis nor in the quiet lane of the country. i know well i shall not find her in the salon of fashion, nor as a shepherdess with her crook upon the mountain-side. i know full well that i need not seek her in the bustling tide of travel, nor wandering by the shady banks of a brook. she is indeed near to my imagination, but far, infinitely far, beyond my reach. nevertheless, i may attempt to describe her as she appears to me. let me begin with that part of my ideal which has been inherited from diana. my ideal woman has a sound body. she has bone, not brittle sticks of phosphate of lime. she has muscles, not flabby, slender ribbons of empty sarcolemma. she has blood, not a thin leucocytic ichor. i have no sympathy with that pseudo-civilization which apparently has for its object the destruction of the human race by the production of a race of bodiless women. if i am to be a pessimist, i will be one out and out, and seek to destroy the race in a high-handed and manly way. indoor life, inactivity, lack of oxygen in the lungs, these are things which in time produce a white skin, but do it by sacrificing every other attribute of beauty. in the second place, my ideal woman is beautiful. i will confess that i do not know what i mean by this; for what is beauty? it is both subjective and objective. it depends on taste and education. it has something to do with habit and experience. i know i shall not be able to describe this trait, yet when i look up into her eyes--eyes, remember, which are mere fictions of my imagination--when i look into her face, when i see her move so statelily into my presence, i recognize there that portion of her which she has inherited from the aphrodite of other days; and this i know is beauty. it is not the beauty of an hallucination, the halo which a heart diseased casts about the head of its idol. it is the beauty which is seen by a sober second thought, a beauty which does not so much dazzle as it delights; a beauty which does not fade with the passing hour, but stays through the heat and burden of the day and until the day is done. the beauty which my ideal woman inherited from aphrodite is not a fading one. it is not simply a youthful freshness which the first decade of womanhood will wither. it is a beauty which abides; it is a beauty in which the charm of seventeen becomes a real essence of seventy; it is a beauty which is not produced by any artificial pose of the head or by any possible banging of the hair; it is a beauty which the art of dressing may adorn but can never create; it is a beauty which does not overwhelm the heart like an avalanche, but which eats it slowly but surely away as a trickling stream cuts and grooves the solid granite. i regard true beauty as the divinest gift which woman has received; and was not pandora, the first of mythical women, endowed with every gift? and was not eve, the first of orthodox women, the type of every feminine perfection? only protogyna, the first of scientific women, was poorly and meanly endowed. if i were a woman i would value health and wealth; i would think kindly of honor and reputation; i would greatly prize knowledge and truth; but above all i would be beautiful--possessed of that strange and mighty charm which would lead a crowd of slaves behind my triumphal car and compel a haughty world to bow in humble submission at my feet. in the third place my ideal woman has inherited the intellect of pallas. and this inheritance is necessary in order to secure for her a true possession of the gifts of aphrodite. for a woman can never be truly beautiful who does not possess intelligence. it is a matter of the utmost indifference to me what studies my ideal has pursued. she may be a panglot or she may scarcely know her vernacular. if she speak french and german and read latin and greek, it is well. if she know conics and curves it is well; if she be able to integrate the vanishing function of a quivering infinitesimal, it is well; if from a disintegrating track which hardening cosmic mud has fixed and fastened on the present, she be able to build a majestic, long extinct mammal, it is well. all these things are marks of learning, but not necessarily of intelligence. a person may know them all and hundreds of things besides, and yet be the veriest fool. my ideal, i should prefer to have a good education in science and letters, but she must have a sound mind. she must have a mind above petty prejudice and giant bigotry. she must see something in life beyond a ball or a ribbon. she must have wit and judgment. she must have the higher wisdom which can see the fitness of things and grasp the logic of events. it will be seen readily, therefore, that my ideal is wise rather than learned. but she is not devoid of culture. without culture a broad liberality is impossible. but what is culture? true culture is that knowledge of men and affairs which places every problem in sociology and politics in its true light. it is that drill and exercise which place all the faculties at their best and make one capable of dealing with the real labors of life. such a culture is not incompatible with a broad knowledge of books, with a deep insight into art, with a clear outlook over the field of letters. indeed it includes all these and is still something more than they are. my ideal then, so regally endowed, is the equal of any man--even if he be the "ideal man" of the american chemical society. my ideal stands before me endowed with all the majesty of this long ancestral line. proud is she in the consciousness of her own equality. her haughty eye looks out upon this teeming sphere and acknowledges only as her peer the "ideal man," and no one as her superior. stand forth, o perfect maiden, sentient with the brain of pallas, radiant with the beauty of venus, quivering with the eager vivacity of diana! make, if possible, thy home on earth. at thy coming the world will rise in an enthusiasm of delight and crown thee queen. [long and enthusiastic applause.] woodrow wilson our ancestral responsibilities [speech of woodrow wilson at the seventeenth annual dinner of the new england society in the city of brooklyn, december , . stewart l. woodford, the president of the society, said, in introducing the speaker: "the next toast is entitled 'the responsibility of having ancestors,' and will be responded to by professor woodrow wilson,[ ] of princeton. i know you will give him such a welcome as will indicate that, while we are mostly yale men here, we are not jealous of princeton."] mr. president, ladies, and gentlemen:--i am not of your blood; i am not a virginia cavalier, as dr. hill [david j. hill. see vol. ii.] has suggested. sometimes i wish i were; i would have more fun. i come, however, of as good blood as yours; in some respects a better. because the scotch-irish, though they are just as much in earnest as you are, have a little bit more gayety and more elasticity than you have. moreover they are now forming a scotch-irish society, which will, as fast as human affairs will allow, do exactly what the new england societies are doing, viz.: annex the universe. [laughter.] we believe with a sincere belief, we believe as sincerely as you do the like, that we really made this country. not only that, but we believe that we can now, in some sort of way, demonstrate the manufacture, because the country has obviously departed in many respects from the model which you claim to have set. not only that, but it seems to me that you yourselves are becoming a little recreant to the traditions you yearly celebrate. it seems to me that you are very much in the position, with reference to your forefathers, that the little boy was with reference to his immediate father. the father was a very busy man; he was away at his work before the children were up in the morning and did not come home till after they had gone to bed at night. one day this little boy was greatly incensed, as he said, "to be whipped by that gentleman that stays here on sundays." i do not observe that you think about your ancestors the rest of the week; i do not observe that they are very much present in your thoughts at any other time save on sunday, and that then they are most irritating to you. i have known a great many men descended from new england ancestors and i do not feel half so hardly toward my ancestors as they do toward theirs. there is a distant respect about the relationship which is touching. there is a feeling that these men are well and safely at a distance, and that they would be indulged under no other circumstances whatever; and that the beauty of it is to have descended from them and come so far away. now, there are serious aspects to this subject. i believe that one of the responsibilities of having ancestors is the necessity of not being ashamed of them. i believe if you have had persons of this sort as your forefathers you must really try to represent them in some sort of way. and you must set yourselves off against the other elements of population in this country. you know that we have received very many elements which have nothing of the puritan about them, which have nothing of new england about them; and that the chief characteristic of these people is that they have broken all their traditions. the reason that most foreigners come to this country is in order to break their traditions, to drop them. they come to this country because these traditions bind them to an order of society which they will no longer endure, and they come to be quit of them. you yourselves will bear me witness that these men, some of them, stood us in good stead upon a very recent occasion: in last november. [applause. "hear! hear!"] we should not at all minimize the vote of the foreign-born population as against the vote of some of the native-born population on the question of silver and gold. but you will observe that there are some things that it would be supposed would belong to any tradition. one would suppose it would belong to any tradition that it was better to earn a dollar that did not depreciate, and these men have simply shown that there are some common-sense elements which are international and not national. one of the particulars in which we are drawn away from our traditions is in respect to the make-up and government of society, and it is in that respect we should retrace our steps and preserve our traditions; because we are suffering ourselves to drift away from the old standards, and we say, with a shrug of the shoulders, that we are not responsible for it; that we have not changed the age, though the age has changed us. we feel very much as the scotchman did who entered the fish market. his dog, being inquisitive, investigated a basket of lobsters, and while he was nosing about incautiously one of the lobsters got hold of his tail, whereupon he went down the street with the lobster as a pendant. says the man, "whustle to your dog, mon." "nay, nay, mon," quoth the scotchman, "you whustle for your lobster." we are very much in the same position with reference to the age; we say, whistle to the age; we cannot make it let go; we have got to run. we feel very much like the little boy in the asylum, standing by the window, forbidden to go out. he became contemplative, and said, "if god were dead and there were not any rain, what fun orphan boys would have." we feel very much that way about these new england traditions. if god were only dead; if it didn't rain; if the times were only good, what times we would have. the present world is not recognizable when put side by side with the world into which the puritan came. i am not here to urge a return to the puritan life; but have you forgotten that the puritans came into a new world? the conditions under which they came were unprecedented conditions to them. but did they forget the principles on which they acted because the conditions were unprecedented? did they not discover new applications for old principles? are we to be daunted, therefore, because the conditions are new? will not old principles be adaptable to new conditions, and is it not our business to adapt them to new conditions? have we lost the old principle and the old spirit? are we a degenerate people? we certainly must admit ourselves to be so if we do not follow the old principles in the new world, for that is what the puritans did. let me say a very practical word. what is the matter now? the matter is, conceal it as we may, gloss it over as we please, that the currency is in a sad state of unsuitability to the condition of the country. that is the fact of the matter; nobody can deny that; but what are we going to do? we are going to have a new tariff. i have nothing to say with regard to the policy of the tariff, one way or the other. we have had tariffs, have we not, every few years, ever since we were born; and has not the farmer become discontented under these conditions? it was the effort to remedy them that produced the silver movement. a new tariff may produce certain economic conditions; i do not care a peppercorn whether it does or not, but this is a thing which we have been tinkering and dickering with time out of mind, and in spite of the tinkering and dickering this situation has arisen. are we going to cure it by more tinkering? we are not going to touch it in this way. now, what are we going to do? it is neither here nor there whether i am a protectionist, or for a tariff for revenue, or whatever you choose to call me. the amount you collect in currency for imports is not going to make any difference. the right thing to do is to apply old principles to a new condition and get out of that new condition something that will effect a practical remedy. i do not pretend to be a doctor with a nostrum. i have no pill against an earthquake. i do not know how this thing is going to be done, but it is not going to be done by having stomachs easily turned by the truth; it is not going to be done by merely blinking the situation. if we blink the situation i hope we shall have no more celebrations in which we talk about our puritan ancestors, because they did not blink the situation, and it is easy to eat and be happy and proud. a large number of persons may have square meals by having a properly adjusted currency. we are very much in the condition described by the reporter who was describing the murder of a certain gentleman. he said that the murderer entered the house, and gave a graphic description of the whole thing. he said that fortunately the gentleman had put his valuables in the safe deposit and lost only his life. we are in danger of being equally wise. we are in danger of managing our policy so that our property will be put in safe deposit and we will lose only our lives. we will make all the immediate conditions of the nation perfectly safe and lose only the life of the nation. this is not a joke, this is a very serious situation. i should feel ashamed to stand here and not say that this is a subject which deserves your serious consideration and ought to keep some of you awake to-night. this is not a simple gratulatory occasion, this is a place where public duty should be realized and public purposes formed, because public purpose is a thing for which our puritan ancestors stood, yours and mine. if this race should ever lose that capacity, if it should ever lose the sense of dignity in this regard, we should lose the great traditions of which we pretend to be proud. [applause.] john winslow the first thanksgiving day [speech of john winslow, in the capacity of presiding officer, at the eighth annual dinner of the new england society in the city of brooklyn, december , .] gentlemen of the new england society of the city of brooklyn, guests and friends:--this is the eighth anniversary of our society and the two hundred and sixty-seventh of the landing of the pilgrim fathers. it will please you all to learn of the continued growth and prosperity of our society. there is in our treasury the sum of $ , . , and we have no debts. [applause.] this shows an increase of $ , . over last year. as occasion requires this money is used for charitable purposes and in other useful ways, as provided by our by-laws. such a gathering as we have here to-night is an inspiration. it must be especially so to the distinguished gentlemen, our guests, who will address you. so it comes to pass that you are to have to-night the advantage of listening to inspired men--an advantage not uncommon in the days of the prophets, but rare in our times. [laughter and applause.] it is proper and agreeable to us all just here and now to recognize as with us our friend and benefactor and president emeritus, the hon. benjamin d. silliman. [a voice: "three cheers for that grand old man." the company rising gave rousing cheers.] he is with us with a young heart and a cheerful mind, and continues to be what he has been from the beginning--a loyal and devoted friend of our society. [applause.] we are here this evening enjoying the sufferings of our pilgrim fathers. [merriment.] their heroic work takes in plymouth rock, ours takes in the saddle rock. they enjoyed game of their own shooting, we enjoy game of other's shooting; they drank cold water, because they could no longer get holland beer. the fact that they must give up dutch beer was one of the considerations (so we are told by one of their governors) that made them loath to leave leyden. [laughter.] we drink cold water because we want it and like it. the pilgrim fathers went to church armed with muskets; we go to church with our minds stuffed and demoralized by the contents of sunday morning newspapers. [laughter.] the pilgrim mothers went to church dressed in simple attire, because they could afford nothing elaborate and because they thought they could better catch and hold the devotional spirit. the pilgrim mothers of our day go to church with costly toilets, because they can afford it, and are quite willing to take the chances as to catching and holding the aforesaid spirit. [laughter.] the pilgrim fathers, when they made the compact on the mayflower, planted the seeds of constitutional freedom; we, their worthy sons, commemorate their work; try to perpetuate it and enjoy the fruits thereof. it is sometimes said the pilgrims were a solemn people; that they were not cheerful. well, in their severe experience in england and holland and at plymouth, there was much to make a born optimist grave and thoughtful. but it is a mistake to suppose that they could not rejoice with those who rejoiced as well as weep with those who wept. take, for instance, the first thanksgiving festival held by the pilgrims. the quaint account of this by one of their governors is always interesting. this first american thanksgiving took place at plymouth in , only about ten months after the landing. it was like a jewish festival, continuing out of doors for a week. the pilgrim writer, governor winslow, describes it thus: "our harvest being gotten in, our governor (meaning governor bradford) sent four men out fowling, so that we might, after a special manner (meaning doubtless a gay and festive manner) rejoice together after (not counting chickens before they were hatched) we had gathered the fruit of our labors." now, listen to this: "they killed in one day so much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week." what this "little help beside" was, is not stated. in our day it would mean that the hunter and the fisherman made heavy drafts upon fulton market for meat, fowl, and fish, to supply what was short. "at which time," says the writer, "among other recreations, we exercised our arms"--this probably means they shot at a mark [laughter]--"many of the indians coming among us"--they were not the mark, at least this time--"and among the rest, their greatest king, massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted." think of that; feasting ninety indians three days, and the whole colony besides. what new england society has ever made so good a showing of hospitality and good cheer? [laughter.] "and they" (the ninety indians), "went out and killed five deer." now, i submit, we have here a clear case of the application of the great principle of honest, even-handed co-operation, no modern device in that line could surpass it. it is true the indians were not an incorporated society, and so there was no receiver appointed to wind them up. [laughter.] "which they brought," says the writer, "to the plantation and bestowed on our governor" (meaning governor bradford), "our captain, and others." governor bradford, in speaking of this, tells us that among the fowl brought in "was a great store of turkeys." thus begins the sad history in this country of the rise and annual fall on thanksgiving days of that exalted biped--the american turkey. after this description of a pilgrim festival day who shall ever again say the pilgrims could not be merry if they had half a chance to be so. why, if the harvard and yale football teams had been on hand with their great national game of banging each others' eyes and breaking bones promiscuously, they could not have added to the spirit of the day though they might to its variety of pastime. [laughter.] it is interesting to remember in this connection that in the earlier years of the colonies, thanksgiving day did not come every year. it came at various periods of the year from may to december, and the intervals between them sometimes four or five years, gradually shortened and then finally settled into an annual festival on the last thursday of november. a few years ago two governors of maine ventured to appoint a day in december for thanksgiving. neither of them was re-elected. [laughter.] the crowning step in this development, which is now national, was when the fortunes of our late war were in favor of the union, and a proclamation for a national thanksgiving was issued by our then president, dear old abraham lincoln. [applause.] that the festival shall hereafter and forever be national is a part of our unwritten law. [applause.] it will thus be seen that we, the sons of the pilgrims, may fairly and modestly claim that this feature of our national life, like most of the others that are valuable, proceeded directly from plymouth rock. the new england society in the city of brooklyn, will ever honor the work and the memory of the fathers. as in the sweet lines of bryant: "till where the sun, with softer fires, looks on the vast pacific's sleep, the children of the pilgrim sires this hallowed day, like us, shall keep." [general applause.] william winter tribute to john gilbert [speech of william winter at a dinner given by the lotos club, new york city, november , , to john gilbert, in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of his first appearance on the stage. whitelaw reid presided. william winter responded to the toast "the dramatic critic."] mr. president and gentlemen:--i thank you very gratefully for this kind welcome, and i think it a privilege to be allowed to take part in a festival so delightful as this, and join with you in paying respect to a name so justly renowned and honored as that of john gilbert. i cannot hope adequately to respond to the personal sentiments which have been so graciously expressed nor adequately celebrate the deeds and the virtues of your distinguished guest. "i am ill at these numbers ... but such answer as i can make you shall command." for since first i became familiar with the stage--in far-away days in old boston, john gilbert has been to me the fulfilment of one of my highest ideals of excellence in the dramatic art; and it would be hard if i could not now say this, if not with eloquence at least with fervor. i am aware of a certain strangeness, however, in the thought that words in his presence and to his honor should be spoken by me. the freaks of time and fortune are indeed strange. i cannot but remember that when john gilbert was yet in the full flush of his young manhood and already crowned with the laurels of success the friend who is now speaking was a boy at his sports--playing around the old federal street theatre, and beneath the walls of the franklin street cathedral, and hearing upon the broad causeways of pearl street the rustle and patter of the autumn leaves as they fell from the chestnuts around the perkins institution and the elms that darkened the sombre, deserted castle of harris's folly. with this sense of strangeness though, comes a sense still more striking and impressive of the turbulent, active, and brilliant period through which john gilbert has lived. byron had been dead but four years [ ] and scott and wordsworth were still writing when he began to act. goethe was still living. the works of thackeray and dickens were yet to be created. cooper, irving, bryant, halleck, and percival were the literary lords of that period. the star of willis was ascending while those of hawthorne and poe were yet to rise; and the dramas of talfourd, knowles, and bulwer were yet to be seen by him as fresh contributions to the literature of the stage. all these great names are written in the book of death. all that part of old boston to which i have referred--the scene equally of gilbert's birth and youth and first successes and of his tender retrospection--has been swept away or entirely changed. gone is the old federal street theatre. gone that quaint english alley with the cosey tobacconist's shop which he used to frequent. gone the hospitable stackpole where many a time at the "latter end of a sea-coal fire" he heard the bell strike midnight from the spire of the old south church! but, though "the spot where many times he triumphed is forgot"--his calm and gentle genius and his hale physique have endured in unabated vigor, so that he has charmed two generations of play-goers, still happily lives to charm men and women of to-day. webster, choate, felton, everett, rantoul, shaw, bartlett, lunt, halleck, starr king, bartol, kirk--these and many more, the old worthies of the bar, bench, and the pulpit in boston's better days of intellect and taste:--all saw him as we see him in the silver-gray elegance and exquisite perfection with which he illustrates the comedies of england. his career has impinged upon the five great cities of boston, new orleans, philadelphia, london, and new york. it touches at one extreme the ripe fame of munden (who died in ' ) and--freighted with all the rich traditions of the stage--it must needs at its other extreme transmit even into the next century the high mood, the scholar-like wit, and the pure style of the finest strain of acting that time has bestowed upon civilized man. by what qualities it has been distinguished this brilliant assemblage is full well aware. the dignity which is its grandeur; the sincerity which is its truth; the thoroughness which is its massive substance; the sterling principle which is its force; the virtue which is its purity; the scholarship, mind, humor, taste, versatile aptitude of simulation, and beautiful grace of method, which are its so powerful and so delightful faculties and attributes, have all been brought home to your minds and hearts by the wealth and clear genius of the man himself! i have often lingered in fancy upon the idea of that strange, diversified, wonderful procession--here the dazzling visage of garrick, there the woful face of mossop; here the glorious eyes of kean; there the sparkling loveliness of an abington or a jordan--which moves through the chambers of the memory across almost any old and storied stage. the thought is endless in its suggestion, and fascinating in its charm. how often in the chimney-corner of life shall we--whose privilege it has been to rejoice in the works of this great comedian, and whose happiness it is to cluster around him to-night in love and admiration--conjure up and muse upon his stately figure as we have seen it in the group of sir peter and sir robert, of jaques and wolsey, and elmore! the ruddy countenance, the twinkling gray eyes, the silver hair, the kind smile, the hearty voice, the old-time courtesy of manner--how tenderly will they be remembered! how dearly are they prized! scholar!--actor!--gentleman! long may he be spared to dignify and adorn the stage--a soother of our cares, and comfort to our hearts--exemplar for our lives!--the edelweiss of his age and of our affections! [great applause.] * * * * * tribute to lester wallack [speech of william winter at a banquet of the lotos club, given to lester wallack, december , . whitelaw reid, the president of the club, occupied the chair. mr. winter was called upon to speak in behalf of the critics.] mr. president and gentlemen:--you have done me great honor in asking me to be present on this occasion, and you have conferred upon me a great privilege in permitting me to participate with you in this tribute of affection and admiration for john lester wallack, your distinguished and most deservedly honored guest and my personal friend these many, many years. [cheers.] i thank you for your thoughtful courtesy and for this distinguished mark of your favor. being well aware of my defects both as a thinker and a speaker, i shrink from such emergencies as this, but having known him so long and having been in a professional way associated with so many of his labors and his triumphs, i should fail in duty if i were not at least to try to add my word of love, feeble and inadequate as it may be, to the noble volume of your sympathy and homage. [cheers.] the presence of this brilliant assemblage, the eloquent words which have fallen from the lips of your honored president and the speeches of your orators, they signify some change--i will not say in regard to the advancement of the stage--but they signify a wonderful advancement in our times in sympathetic and thoughtful and just appreciation of the theatre. this was not always so. it is not very long since so wise and gentle a man as charles lamb expressed his mild astonishment that a person capable of committing to memory and reciting the language of shakespeare could for that reason be supposed to possess a mind congenial with that of the poet. the scorn of carlyle and the scarcely less injurious pity of emerson for the actor are indications that in a time not remote, thought and philosophy have made but little account of the stage. something might be said about this by a voice more competent than mine, for in our time there has been a change in the intelligent spirit of the age, and i am sure that thought and philosophy now are of the opinion that the actor is an intellectual and spiritual force; that he is connected most intimately with the cause of public education; that he brings something of his own, and that, although the part provides the soul, it is the actor who must provide the body, and without the soul and the body, you could not have dramatic representations for the benefit of them. [applause.] i am not one of those writers who believe that it is the business of the newspaper to manage the theatres. the question of what to do to please the public taste, to provide mankind with what they like, or what they want, or, which is the same thing, with what they think they want, opens a very complex inquiry. our dear friend has been puzzled by it himself more than a little. i should not undertake to instruct him, but as the observer of his course i have been struck by wonder and admiration of the way he has carried his theatre through seasons of great competition and great peril. i call to mind one season, now seventeen years ago, i think, when in the course of a very few months, he produced and presented upward of thirty-two plays, showing the best points of these plays and showing his great company to every possible advantage; so have i seen a juggler toss fifty knives in the air and catch them without cutting his fingers. [at the close of his speech mr. winter read the following poem.]-- lester wallack with a glimmer of plumes and a sparkle of lances, with blare of the trumpets and neigh of the steed, at morning they rode where the bright river glances, and the sweet summer wind ripples over the mead; the green sod beneath them was ermined with daisies, smiling up to green boughs tossing wild in their glee, while a thousand glad hearts sang their honors and praises, while the knights of the mountain rode down to the sea. one rode 'neath the banner whose face was the fairest, made royal with deeds that his manhood had done, and the halo of blessing fell richest and rarest on his armor that splintered the shafts of the sun; so moves o'er the waters the cygnet sedately, so waits the strong eagle to mount on the wing, serene and puissant and simple and stately, so shines among princes the form of the king. with a gay bugle-note when the daylight's last glimmer smites crimson and gold on the snow of his crest, at evening he rides through the shades growing dimmer, while the banners of sunset stream red in the west; his comrades of morning are scattered and parted, the clouds hanging low and the winds making moan, but smiling and dauntless and brave and true-hearted, all proudly he rides down the valley alone. sweet gales of the woodland embrace and caress him, white wings of renown be his comfort and light, pale dews of the starbeam encompass and bless him, with the peace and the balm and the glory of night; and, oh! while he wends to the verge of that ocean, where the years like a garland shall fall from his brow, may his glad heart exult in the tender devotion, the love that encircles and hallows him now. [enthusiastic applause.] robert c. winthrop the ottoman empire [speech of robert c. winthrop made at the public dinner given to amin bey by the merchants of boston, mass., november , .] mr. president:--i am greatly honored by the sentiment just proposed, and i beg my good friend, the vice-president [hon. benjamin seaver], to accept my hearty thanks for the kind and complimentary terms in which he has presented my name to the company. i am most grateful for the opportunity of meeting with so large a number of the intelligent and enterprising merchants of boston, and of uniting with them in a tender of deserved hospitality, and in a tribute of just respect, to the commissioner of his imperial majesty, the sultan of turkey. and yet, i cannot but reflect, even as i pronounce these words, how strangely they would have sounded in the ears of our fathers not many generations back, or even in our own ears not many years ago. a deserved tender of hospitality, a just tribute of respect, to the representative of the grand turk! sir, the country from which your amiable and distinguished guest has come, was not altogether unknown to some of the early american discoverers and settlers. john smith--do not smile too soon, mr. president, for though the name has become proverbially generic in these latter days, it was once identified and individualized as the name of one of the most gallant navigators and captains which the world has ever known--that john smith who first gave the cherished name of new england to what the pilgrims of the mayflower called "these northern parts of virginia"--he, i say, was well acquainted with turkey; and two centuries and a half ago, he gave the name of a turkish lady to one of the capes of our own massachusetts bay. but he knew turkey as a prison and a dungeon, and he called what is now cape ann, cape tragabigzanda, only to commemorate his affection for one who had soothed the rigors of a long and loathsome captivity. nor was turkey an unknown land to at least one of those winthrops of the olden time, with whom the vice-president has so kindly connected me. in turning over some old family papers since my return home, i have stumbled on the original autograph of a note from john winthrop, the younger, dated "december th, , at the castles of the hellespont," whither he had gone, as is supposed, as the secretary of sir peter wich, the british ambassador at constantinople. the associations of that day, however, with those remote regions, were by no means agreeable, and i should hardly dare to dwell longer upon them on this occasion and in this presence. i rejoice that events have occurred to break the spell of that hereditary prejudice, which has so long prevailed in the minds of not a few of us, toward the ottoman empire. i rejoice that our associations with turkey are no longer those only of the plague and the bowstring; that we are encouraged and authorized to look to her hereafter for something better than a little coarse wool for our blankets, or a few figs for our dessert, or even a little opium or rhubarb for our medicine-chests; that, in a word, we are encouraged and warranted to look to her, under the auspices and administration of her young, gallant, and generous sultan, for examples of reform, of toleration, of liberality, of a magnanimous and chivalrous humanity, which are worthy of the admiration and imitation of all mankind. i rejoice, especially, that an occasion has been afforded for testifying the deep sense which is entertained throughout our country, of the noble conduct of the sublime porte in regard to the unfortunate exiles of hungary. the influence which the ottoman empire seems destined to exert over the relations of eastern and western europe, is of the most interesting and important character; and, while we all hold steadfastly to the great principle of neutrality which washington established and enforced, we yet cannot suppress our satisfaction that this influence is now in the hands of one who seems determined to wield it fearlessly for the best interests of civilization and humanity. and now, sir, let us hope that our distinguished friend, amin bey, may return home with some not less favorable impressions of our own land. of our enterprise, of our industry, of our immense material production, of our rapid progress in arts and improvements of every kind, of our vast territorial extent, he cannot fail to testify. let us hope that he may be able to speak also of internal order, of domestic tranquillity, of wise and just laws, faithfully administered and promptly obeyed, of a happy, contented, and united people, commending by their practice and example, as well as by their principles and precepts, the institutions under which they live. the distinguished gentleman who preceded me [mr. webster], and whom i have been under the disadvantage of following in other scenes as well as here, has spoken of the union of these states. there is no language so strong or so emphatic, which even he can use, as to the importance of preserving that union, which does not meet with a prompt and cordial echo in my own bosom. to the eyes of amin bey, and to the eyes of all foreign nations, we are indeed but one country, from the atlantic to the pacific. to them there is no boston or new york, no carolina or louisiana. our commerce goes forth under one and the same flag, whether from the bay of massachusetts or from the "golden gate" of california. under that flag, it has been protected, prospered, and extended beyond example. under that flag, new fields are opening to it, and new triumphs are before it. may our distinguished guest take home with him an assurance, founded upon all that he has seen and all that he has heard, of the resolution of us all, that the flag of our union shall still and always remain one and the same, from ocean to ocean, untorn and untarnished, proof alike against everything of foreign assault and everything of domestic dissension! [great applause.] john sergeant wise captain john smith [speech of john s. wise at the eleventh annual dinner of the new england society in the city of brooklyn, december , . the president, willard bartlett, occupied the chair. he called upon mr. wise to speak to the toast, "captain john smith, the ruler of virginia, and admiral of new england," saying: "it was not without a purpose that your committee arranged the order of speaking this evening. i am sure that the gentlemen who have already addressed you will take it in good part, if i say we knew that, by putting one name at the end of the programme, we should be sure to hold the audience here till the doxology. now a speaker who bears the name of the first ruler of virginia i ever knew anything about, will address you upon virginia's still earlier ruler, captain john smith."] mr. chairman:--it is one of the peculiarities of americans, that they attempt to solve the unsolvable problem of successfully mixing gastronomy and oratory. in chemistry there are things known as incompatibles, which it is impossible to blend and at the same time preserve their original characteristics. it is impossible to have as good a dinner as we have had served to-night, and preserve the intellectual faculties of your guests so that they may be seen at their best. i am not unmindful that in the menu the courses grew shorter until they culminated in the pungent and brief episode of cheese, and so i take it that as to the oratory here on tap, you desire it to become gradually more brief and more pungent. now, the task of condensing into a five-minute speech two hundred and seventy years of the history of america, is something that has been assigned to me, and i propose to address myself to it without further delay. [laughter] john smith was at one time president of virginia, and afterward admiral of new england, and ever since then, until lately, new england and virginia have been trying to pull loose from each other, so as not to be under the same ruler. [laughter and applause.] john smith was a godsend to the american settlers, because he was a plain man in a company of titled nonentities, and after they had tried and failed in every effort to make or perpetuate an american colony, plain john smith, a democrat, without a title, took the helm and made it a success. [laughter.] then and there, and ever since, we laid aside the reginald-trebizond-percys of nobility, and stuck to the plain john smiths, honest citizens, of capacity and character. by his example we learned that "kind hearts are more than coronets," and simple men of worth are infinitely better than titled vagabonds of norman blood. [applause.] it is almost three centuries since a tiny vessel, not larger than a modern fishing-smack, turned her head to the sunset across an unknown sea, for the land of conjecture. the ship's company, composed of passengers from england, that wonderful nest of human wanderers, that splendid source of the best civilization of the world, cast anchor by chance in a noble bay for which they had not sailed, and settled a colony; not with any particularly high or noble object, but really in pursuit of gold, and searching for a south sea which they never found. the voyage had been projected without any other object than the accumulation of wealth, which wealth was to be carried back to the old country and enjoyed in that england which they loved, and to which their eyes ever turned backward with affection, reverence, and the hope of return. this band of younger sons and penniless nobility, attempted to make a settlement under the charter known as the london charter of virginia; and while we find to-day men sneering at john smith, the fact remains that he alone was enabled by his strong personality, by his sterling, individual worth, to resist the savages, to make the lazy work, to furnish food for the weak and sickly, to re-inspire those who had lost hope, and to firmly establish a settlement in virginia. his reward was what? sedition in his own camp, ingratitude among his own followers, misrepresentation to his patrons, disappointment, disease, and poverty to himself; a return to england and posthumous fame. but his bulldog fangs, the fangs of that english blood which once sunk in the throat of a savage land remain forever, were placed upon america, to mark it as another conquest and another triumph of anglo-saxon colonization. three years of peace and quiet in england were not to his taste. his mother's spirit craved new adventures, and he sought them in sea voyages to the north. although his task was a much less difficult one, and not quite so prominent as the task he had accomplished in virginia, he prepared the way for the settlement at plymouth rock. to his title of president of virginia was added the title of admiral of new england, because this john smith, without a pedigree, except such as was blazoned on his shield by his slaughter of three turks, turned his attention from the land to the sea, sailed the colder waters of the north, located the colonies of new england, named your own boston, and the result of his voyages and reports were the plymouth charter and settlement. so it is that we have a common founder of the settlements of this country. of all the gallants who embarked in the first adventure, all disappeared save john smith, who bore the plainest and commonest name that human imagination can devise. he became the patron saint of american civilization, as much yours as ours, and as much ours as yours. [laughter and applause.] mr. chairman and gentlemen: we had one founder; we came from one master-mind; one great spirit was the source of both our settlements; and this initial fact in our histories has seemed to inspire the american people through all the centuries with the sentiment that our union should be eternal in spite of all disturbing circumstances. [applause.] when i said, in a light way, that old virginia and massachusetts had sought to rend themselves asunder, it was scarcely true. they have too much that is glorious in common to be aught but loving sisters. the men who are before me will not forget that the settlers of the london colony of virginia, and settlers of the plymouth colony of massachusetts, have been at the front of every great movement which has agitated this nation from its birth. when it came to the question of whether we should dissolve the political ties that bound us to the british king, massachusetts bay and the colony of virginia were the first to form their committees of safety, exchange their messages of mutual support, and strengthen the weak among their sister colonies. [applause.] when it came to the time that tried men's souls in the revolution, it was the men of virginia and the men of massachusetts bay that furnished the largest quotas of revolutionary soldiers who achieved the independence of the american colonies. when it came to the formation of a federal union, virginia, with her washington, gave the first president, and massachusetts, with her adams, stepped proudly to the front with the first vice-president and second president. [applause.] in later years, when differences came--which differences need not be discussed--every man here knows what part virginia and massachusetts bore. it was a part which, however much we may differ with each other, bespoke the origin of the two colonies, and told that true manhood was there to do and die for what it believed was right. when that struggle was ended, the first to clasp hands in mutual friendship and affection were virginia and massachusetts. if we were to blot from the history or geography of the nation the deeds or territory of the ancient dominions of john smith, president of virginia and admiral of new england, a beggarly record of area would be left, in spite of the glorious records of other sections in recent years. the history of america is to me not only of deep and absorbing interest in its every detail, but it is a romance; it is a fascinating detail of wonderful development, the like of which cannot be found in the annals of civilization from the remotest time. we may go back to the time when the curtain rises on the most ancient civilization of the east, and there is nothing to compare with it. we may take up not only the real, but the romantic history of modern european progress, and there is nothing like american history for myself. taking up the story of the quaker invasion of massachusetts as early as , i find lydia wardell, daughter of isaac perkins, a freeman of the colony, whipped in boston, because she had ceased to be a puritan and had become a quakeress. turning then to the history of virginia in , i find colonel edmund scarburgh riding at the head of the king's troops into the boundaries of maryland, placing the broad arrows of the king on the houses of the quakers, and punishing them soundly for non-conformity. upon the question of who was right and who was wrong in these old feuds, there are doubtless men who, even to this day, have deep prejudices. fancy how conflicting are the sentiments of a man in , as to their merits, when he reflects, as i do, that lydia wardell was his grandmother, and colonel scarburgh his grandfather. [applause and laughter.] how absurd seems any comparison between the puritan and cavalier settlers of america. there they are, with all their faults, and all their virtues. others may desire to contrast them. i do not. i stand ready to do battle against anybody who abuses either. their conjoint blood has produced a nation, the like of which no man living before our day had ever fancied. nearly three centuries of intermingling and intermarrying, has made the traditions and the hopes of either the heritage and aspiration of us all. common sufferings, common triumphs, common pride, make the whole glorious history the property of every american citizen, and it is provincial folly to glorify either faction at the expense of the other. we stand to-night on the pinnacle of the third century of american development. look back to the very beginning. there stands the grizzled figure of john smith, the pioneer--president of virginia, and admiral of new england. still united, we look about us and behold a nation blessed with peace and plenty, crowned with honor, and with boundless opportunity of future aggrandizement. the seed planted by john smith still grows. the voice of john smith still lives. that voice has been swelled into the mighty chorus of , , americans singing the song of united states. we look forward to a future whose possibilities stagger all conjecture, to a common ruler of john smith's ancient dominions; to a common destiny, such as he mapped out for us. and with devout and heartfelt gratitude to him, a reunited land proclaims, "whom god hath joined together, let no man put asunder." [great applause.] * * * * * the legal profession [speech of john s. wise at the annual dinner of the new york state bar association, albany, n. y., january , . matthew hale, the president, introduced mr. wise as follows; "the next sentiment in order was, by mistake, omitted from the printed list of sentiments which is before you. the next sentiment is 'the legal profession,' and i call upon a gentleman to respond to that toast who, i venture to say, has practised law in more states of this union than any other gentleman present. i allude to the orator of the day, the hon. john s. wise [applause], formerly of virginia, but now a member of the bar association of the state of new york."] mr. chairman and gentlemen of the bar:--it may not be true that i have practised law in more states of this union than any one present, but it is certainly true that i never did as much speaking in the same length of time, without charging a fee for it, as i have done within the last twenty-four hours. [laughter.] at two o'clock this morning i was in attendance, in the city of new york, upon a ghost dance of the confederate veterans; at two o'clock this evening i resolved myself into a deep, careful, and circumspect lawyer, and now i am with the boys, and propose to have a good time. [laughter.] now, you know, this scene strikes me as ridiculous--our getting here together and glorifying ourselves and nobody to pay for it. my opinion is, that the part of wisdom is to bottle this oratory and keep it on tap at $ a minute. [laughter.] the legal profession--why, of course, we are the best fellows in the world. who is here to deny it? it reminds me of an anecdote told by an old politician in virginia, who said that one day, with his man, he was riding to chesterfield court, and they got discussing the merits of a neighbor, mr. beasley, and he says, "isaac, what do you think of mr. beasley?" "well," he says, "marse frank, i reckon he is a pretty good man." "well, there is one thing about mr. beasley, he is always humbling himself." he says, "marse frank, you are right; i don't know how you is, but i always mistrusts a man that runs hisself down." [laughter.] he says, "i don't know how you is, marse frank, but i tell you how it is with me: this nigger scarcely ever says no harm against hisself." so i say it of the legal profession--this here nigger don't never scarcely say no harm against himself. [great laughter.] of course we are the best profession in the world, but if any of our clients are standing at that door and listening to this oratory, i know what their reflection is. they are laughing in their sleeves and saying: "watch him, watch him; did you ever hear lawyers talk as much for nothing? watch them; it is the funniest scene i ever saw. there are a lot of lawyers with their hands in their own pockets." [laughter.] mr. chairman and gentlemen, another thing. we are not fooling with any judges now. i know who i am talking to and how long i have been doing it. sometimes you can fool a judge into letting you have more time than the rule allows; but with lawyers, enough is enough. we know exactly when to put on the brakes with each other. we are not now earning fees by the yard or charging by the minute, and when a man is through with what he has to say, it is time to sit down, and all i have to say in conclusion is, that the more i watch the legal profession and observe it, the more i am convinced that with the great responsibility, with the great trusts confided to it, with the great issues committed to its keeping, with the great power it has to direct public feeling and public sentiment, with the great responsibilities resulting, take it as a mass--and there are plenty of rascals in it--but take it as a mass, and measure it up, and god never made a nobler body in these united states. [applause.] edward oliver wolcott the bright land to westward [speech of edward o. wolcott at the eighty-second annual dinner of the new england society in the city of new york, december , . the president, ex-judge horace russell, introduced the speaker as follows: "it was an english lawyer who said that the farther he went west the more he was convinced that the wise men came from the east. we may not be so thoroughly convinced of this after we have heard the response to the next regular toast, 'the pilgrim in the west.' i beg to introduce mr. edward o. wolcott, of colorado."] mr. president and gentlemen:--it was with great diffidence that i accepted the invitation of your president to respond to a toast to-night. i realized my incapacity to do justice to the occasion, while at the same time i recognized the high compliment conveyed. i felt somewhat as the man did respecting the shakespeare-bacon controversy; he said he didn't know whether lord bacon wrote shakespeare's works or not, but if he didn't, he missed the greatest opportunity of his life. [laughter.] the west is only a larger, and in some respects a better, new england. i speak not of those rose gardens of culture, missouri and arkansas, but otherwise, generally of the states and territories west of the mississippi, and more particularly, because more advisedly, of colorado, the youngest and most rugged of the-thirty-eight; almost as large in area as all new england and new york combined; "with room about her hearth for all mankind"; with fertile valleys, and with mines so rich and so plentiful that we occasionally, though reluctantly, dispose of one to our new york friends. [laughter.] we have no very rich, no very poor, and no almshouses; and in the few localities where we are not good enough, new england home missionary societies are rapidly bringing us up to the plymouth rock standard and making us face the heavenly music. [laughter.] we take annually from our granite hills wealth enough to pay for the fertilizers your eastern and southern soils require to save them from impoverishment. we have added three hundred millions to the coinage of the world; and, although you call only for gold, we generously give you silver, too. [laughter.] you are not always inclined to appreciate our efforts to swell the circulation, but none the less are we one with you in patriotic desire to see the revenues reformed, provided always that our own peculiar industries are not affected. our mountains slope toward either sea, and in their shadowy depths we find not only hidden wealth, but inspiration and incentive to high thought and noble living, for freedom has ever sought the recesses of the mountains for her stronghold, and her spirit hovers there; their snowy summits and the long, rolling plains are lightened all day long by the sunshine, and we are not only colorado, but colorado claro! [applause.] practically, as little is known of the great west by you of the east as was known a century ago of new england by our british cousins. your interest in us is, unfortunately, largely the interest on our mortgages, your attitude toward us is somewhat critical, and the new england heart is rarely aroused respecting the west except when some noble indian, after painting himself and everything else within his reach red, is sent to his happy hunting grounds. [laughter.] yet, toward the savage, as in all things, do not blame us if we follow the christian example set us by our forefathers. we read that the court at plymouth, more than fifty years after the colony was founded, ordered "that whosoever shall shoot off any gun on any unnecessary occasion, or at any game whatsoever, except an indian or a wolf, shall forfeit five shillings for every such shot"; and our pious ancestors popped over many an indian on their way to divine worship. [laughter.] but when in colorado, settled less than a generation ago, the old new england heredity works itself out and an occasional indian is peppered, the east raises its hands in horror, and our offending cowboys could not find admittance even to an andover probation society. [laughter.] where we have a chance to work without precedent, we can point with pride of a certain sort to methods at least peaceful. when mexico was conquered, we found ourselves with many thousand mexicans on hand. i don't know how they managed it elsewhere, but in colorado we not only took them by the hand and taught them our ways, but both political parties inaugurated a beautiful and generous custom, since more honored in the breach than in the observance, which gave these vanquished people an insight into and an interest in the workings of republican institutions which was marvellous: a custom of presenting to each head of a household, being a voter, on election day, from one to five dollars in our native silver. [great laughter.] if virginia was the mother of presidents, new england is the mother of states. of the population of the western states born in the united states, some five per cent, are of new england birth, and of the native population more than half can trace a new england ancestry. often one generation sought a resting-place in ohio, and its successor in illinois or in iowa, but you will find that the ancestor, less than a century ago, was a god-fearing yankee. new england influences everywhere predominate. i do not mean to say that many men from the south have not, especially since the war, found homes and citizenship in the west, for they have; and most of them are now holding federal offices. [laughter.] it is nevertheless true that from new england has come the great, the overwhelming influence in moulding and controlling western thought. [applause.] new england thrift, though a hardy plant, becomes considerably modified when transplanted to the loam of the prairies; the penny becomes the dime before it reaches the other ocean; ruth would find rich gleanings among our western sheaves, and the palm of forehandedness opens sometimes too freely under the wasteful example which nature sets all over our broad plains; but because the new england ancestor was acquisitive, his western descendant secures first of all his own home. [applause.] the austere and serious views of life which our forefathers cherished have given way to a kindlier charity, and we put more hope and more interrogation points into our theology than our fathers did; but the old puritan teachings, softened by the years and by brighter and freer skies, still keep our homes christian and our home life pure. and more, far more than all else, the blood which flows in our veins, the blood of the sturdy new englanders who fought and conquered for an idea, quickened and kindled by the civil war, has imbued and impregnated western men with a patriotism that overrides and transcends all other emotions. pioneers in a new land, laying deep the foundations of the young commonwealths, they turn the furrows in a virgin soil, and from the seed which they plant there grows, renewed and strengthened with each succeeding year, an undying devotion to republican institutions, which shall nourish their children and their children's children forever. [prolonged applause.] an earnest people and a generous! the civil strife made nothing right that was wrong before, and nothing wrong that was right before; it simply settled the question of where the greater strength lay. we know that "who overcomes by force, hath overcome but half his foe," and that if more remains to be done, it must come because the hearts of men are changed. the war is over; the very subject is hackneyed; it is a tale that is told, and commerce and enlightened self-interest have obliterated all lines. and yet you must forgive us if, before the account is finally closed, and the dead and the woe and the tears are balanced by all the blessings of a reunited country, some of us still listen for a voice we have not yet heard; if we wait for some southern leader to tell us that renewed participation in the management of the affairs of this nation carries with it the admission that the question of the right of secession is settled, not because the south was vanquished, but because the doctrine was and is wrong, forever wrong. [great applause.] we are a plain people, too, and live far away. we find all the excitement we need in the two great political parties, and rather look upon the talk of anybody in either party being better than his party, as a sort of cant. the hypercritical faculty has not reached us yet, and we leave to you of the east the exclusive occupancy of the raised dais upon which it seems necessary for the independent voter to stand while he is counted. [applause and laughter.] we are provincial; we have no distinctive literature and no great poets; our leading personage abroad of late seems to be the honorable "buffalo bill" [laughter], and we use our adjectives so recklessly that the polite badinage indulged in toward each other by your new york editors to us seems tame and spiritless. in mental achievement we may not have fully acquired the use of the fork, and are "but in the gristle and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood." we stand toward the east somewhat as country to city cousins; about as new to old england, only we don't feel half so badly about it, and on the whole are rather pleased with ourselves. [laughter.] there is not in the whole broad west a ranch so lonely or so remote that a public school is not within reach of it. with generous help from the east, western colleges are elevating and directing western thought, and men busy making states yet find time to live manly lives and to lend a hand. all this may not be æsthetic, but it is virile, and it leads up and not down. great poets, and those who so touch the hearts of men that the vibration goes down the ages, must often find their inspiration when wealth brings leisure to a class, or must have "learned in suffering what they teach in song." we can wait for our inspired ones; when they come, the work of this generation, obscure and commonplace, will have paved the way for them; the general intelligence diffused in this half century will, unknown or forgotten, yet live in their numbers, and the vivid imaginations of our new england ancestors, wasted in depicting the joys and torments of the world to come, will, modified by the years, beautify and ennoble the cares of this. [applause.] there are some things even more important than the highest culture. the west is the almighty's reserve ground, and as the world is filling up. he is turning even the old arid plains and deserts into fertile acres, and is sending there the rain as well as the sunshine. a high and glorious destiny awaits us; soon the balance of population will lie the other side of the mississippi, and the millions that are coming must find waiting for them schools and churches, good government, and a happy people: "who love the land because it is their own, and scorn to give aught other reason why; would shake hands with a king upon his throne, and think it kindness to his majesty." we are beginning to realize, however, that the invitation we have been extending to all the world has been rather too general. so far we have been able to make american citizens in fact as well as name out of the foreign-born immigrants. the task was light while we had the honest and industrious to deal with, but the character of some of the present immigration has brought a conviction which we hope you share, that the sacred rights of citizenship should be withheld from a certain class of aliens in race and language, who seek the protection of this government, until they shall have at least learned that the red in our flag is commingled with the white and blue and the stars. [great applause.] in everything which pertains to progress in the west, the yankee reinforcements step rapidly to the front. every year she needs more of them, and as the country grows the annual demand becomes greater. genuine new englanders are to be had on tap only in six small states, and remembering this we feel that we have the right to demand that in the future even more than in the past, the heads of the new england households weary not in the good work. [laughter and applause.] in these later days of "booms" and new souths and great wests; when everybody up north who fired a gun is made to feel that he ought to apologize for it, and good fellowship everywhere abounds, there is a sort of tendency to fuse; only big and conspicuous things are much considered; and new england being small in area and most of her distinguished people being dead, she is just now somewhat under an eclipse. but in her past she has undying fame. you of new england and her borders live always in the atmosphere of her glories; the scenes which tell of her achievements are ever near at hand, and familiarity and contact may rob them of their charms, and dim to your eyes their sacredness. the sons of new england in the west revisit her as men who make pilgrimage to some holy shrine, and her hills and valleys are still instinct with noble traditions. in her glories and her history we claim a common heritage, and we never wander so far away from her that with each recurring anniversary of this day, our hearts do not turn to her with renewed love and devotion for our beloved new england; yet-- "not by eastern windows only, when daylight comes, comes in the light; in front the sun climbs slow, how slowly, but westward, look, the land is bright!" [hearty applause.] lord wolseley (garnet joseph wolseley) the army in the transvaal [speech of field-marshal viscount wolseley, commander-in-chief of the british army, at a dinner given by the authors' club, london, november , . dr. conan doyle presided.] mr. chairman and gentlemen:--i think that all people who know anything about the army should rejoice extremely that our first experiment in mobilization has been as successful as it has been. [cheers.] your chairman has mentioned the name of one, a most intimate friend of mine, the present military secretary. [lord lansdowne.] i think the nation is very much indebted to him not only for the manner in which this mobilization has been carried out, but still more so for having laid the foundation on which our mobilization system is based, and for making those preparations which led to its complete success. [cheers.] there are many other names i might mention, others who have also devoted themselves for many years past in a very quiet manner, and with all the ability which now, i am glad to say, so largely permeates the army, to making these preparations and to try to bring this curious army of ours up to the level of the modern armies of the world. [cheers.] although i say it myself, i think i may claim for myself and for those who have worked with me a certain meed of praise, for we have worked under extreme difficulties. not only under the ordinary difficulties in dealing with a very complicated arrangement, but we have had to work in the face of the most dire opposition on the part of a great number of people who ought to have been the first to help us. ["hear! hear!"] the chairman has referred to the opposition of the press; but that has been nothing to the opposition we have met with in our own profession--the profession of ten, fifteen, or twenty years ago, when great reforms were begun in the army by the ablest war secretary who has ever been in office--i mean lord cardwell. his name is now almost forgotten by the present generation, and also the names of many other distinguished officers in their day, whose names were associated with many of the brightest moments of english victory and english conquest, and who set their faces honestly against alteration, and firmly believed that the young men of those days were a set of madmen and a set of radicals who were anxious to overturn not only the british army, but the whole british constitution with it. [laughter.] this prejudice spread into high places, until at last we were looked upon as a party of faddists who ought to be banished to the farthest part of our dominions. [renewed laughter.] but i am glad to say that the tree we planted then took root, and there gradually grew up around us a body of young officers, men highly instructed in their profession, who supported us, carried us through, and enabled us to arrive at the perfection which, i think, we have now attained. ["hear! hear!"] there has been abroad in the army for a great many years an earnest desire on the part of a large section, certainly, to make themselves worthy of the army and worthy of the nation by whom they were paid, and for whose good they existed. that feeling has become more intensified every year, and at the present moment, if you examine the army list, you will find that almost all the staff officers recently gone out to south africa have been educated at the staff college, established to teach the higher science of our profession and to educate a body of men who will be able to conduct the military affairs of the country when it comes to their turn to do so. those men are now arriving at the top of the tree, thank god! while many of those magnificent old soldiers under whom i was brought up have disappeared from the face of the earth, and others who are to be seen at the clubs have come round--they have been converted in their last moments [laughter]; they have the frankness to tell you they made a mistake. they recognize that they were wrong and that we were right. [cheers.] i quite endorse what the chairman says about the success of the mobilization, and i will slightly glance at the state of affairs as they at present exist in south africa. i have the advantage of having spent some time in south africa, and of having been--not only general commanding, but governor and high commissioner, with high-sounding titles given me by her majesty. i know, consequently, not only a little of south africa, but a good deal of boer character. during my stay as governor of the transvaal, i had many opportunities of knowing people whom you have recently seen mentioned as the principal leaders in this war against us. there are many traits in their character for which i have the greatest possible admiration. they are a very strongly conservative people--i do not mean in a political sense at all, but they were, i found, anxious to preserve and conserve all that was best in the institutions handed down to them from their forefathers. but of all the ignorant people in that world that i have ever been brought into contact with, i will back the boers of south africa as the most ignorant. at the same time they are an honest people. when the last president of the transvaal handed over the government to us--and i may say, within parentheses, that the last thing an englishman would do under the circumstances would be to look in the till--there was only _s._ _d._ to the credit of the republic. [laughter.] within a few weeks or days of the hoisting of the british flag in the transvaal a bill for £ _s._ _d._ came in against the boer government, and was dishonored. [renewed laughter.] the boers at that time--perhaps we did not manage them properly--certainly set their face against us, and things have gone on from bad to worse, until the aspiration now moving them is that they should rule not only the transvaal, but that they should rule the whole of south africa. that is the point which i think english people must keep before them. there's no question about ruling the transvaal or the orange free state--the one great question that has to be fought out between the dutch in south africa and the english race is, which is to be the predominant power--whether it is to be the boer republic or the english monarchy. [cheers.] well, if i at all understand and know the people of this nation, i can see but one end to it, and it will be the end that we hope for and have looked for. [cheers.] but i would warn every man who takes an interest in this subject not to imagine that war can be carried on like a game of chess or some other game in which the most powerful intellect wins from the first. war is a game of ups and downs, and you may rest assured that it is impossible to read in history of any campaign that it has been a march of triumph from beginning to end. therefore, if at the present moment we are suffering from disappointments, believe me, those disappointments are in many ways useful to us. we have found that the enemy who declared war against us--for they are the aggressors--are much more powerful and numerous than we anticipated. but at the same time, believe me, that anything that may have taken place lately to dishearten the english people has had a good effect--it has brought us as a nation closer together. the english-speaking people of the world have put their foot down, and intend to carry this thing through, no matter what may be the consequence. [cheers.] i have the greatest possible confidence in british soldiers. i have lived in their midst many years of my life, and i am quite certain of this, that wherever their officers lead they will follow. if you look over the list of our casualties lately, you will find that the british officer has led them well. certainly he has not spared himself; he has not been in the background. [cheers.] he has suffered unfortunately, and expects to suffer, and ought to suffer; and i hope most sincerely and truly, whatever may be in store for us, whatever battles there may be in this war, that when we read the list of casualties there will be a very large proportion of officers sufferers as well as men. it would be most unworthy of our army and of our nation if our officers did not lead, and if they lead they must suffer as well as those who follow. i am extremely obliged to you for the compliment that has been paid to me. it has been a very great pleasure for me to come here. i had no idea i was to listen to such an admirable speech from your chairman. i thank you sincerely for having listened to me, and hope you will make every allowance for any defect in a speech which certainly had not been prepared. [loud cheers.] wu ting-fang china and the united states [speech of wu ting-fang, chinese minister to the united states, at the annual dinner of the new york southern society, new york city, february , . william m. polk, the president of the society, occupied the chair. minister wu responded to the sentiment, "to our newest and nearest neighbor on our western border, the most ancient of empires, which until now has always been in the far east, and to her distinguished diplomatic representative--_persona grata_ to our government and to this society."] mr. chairman and gentlemen:--it is never too late to learn, and since i have been here i have learned that my ancient country, which has always been known as an eastern country, has now turned to be a western country. i do not regret to hear this, because western countries have always been looked on as very powerful nations. [applause.] in that sense i would not be sorry to see my own country assume the position that your western countries have always taken. i do not know whether you would wish to have your great nation become an eastern country in the sense in which eastern countries are popularly known. when the invitation to dine with you on this occasion was conveyed to me i gladly accepted it because the occasion occurred on the anniversary of the birth of george washington, who is widely and popularly known as the father of your country. long before i came to the united states as the representative of my country, even when i was a boy, i had heard of george washington, and from what i could learn about him i formed a profound respect for his name and memory. at this banquet you appropriately recall to mind the noble character of your washington, his great deeds, and his unselfish devotion to his country. it is interesting to know that time changes not only the opinions of individuals and parties, but also the traditional policy of a nation. i understood when i was a boy that the policy of george washington was to confine his attention and his ambition to the country in which he governed. that policy has been followed by all of his successors up to very recently. [laughter and applause.] but the recent momentous events have necessitated a new departure. you have been driven to a position that you never dreamed of before. you have entered the path of expansion, or, as some call it, imperialism. if i understand your chairman correctly, imperialism practically means the power and wisdom to govern. this is not the first time that i have heard such a definition of imperialism. i once heard an eminent american divine say that imperialism meant civilization--in an american sense. [laughter.] he also added the word liberty, and with your permission i would like to make a still further addition: that is, fairness, and just treatment of all classes of persons without distinction of race or color. [cheers.] well, you have the philippines ceded to you, and you are hesitating whether to keep them or not. i see in that very fact of your hesitation an indication of your noble character. suppose a precious gift entailing obligations is tendered to a man; he would accept it without any thought or hesitation if he were wholly lacking in principle; but you hesitate because of your high moral character, and your sense of responsibility. i express no opinion as to whether or not you should keep the philippines. that is for you to decide. i am confident that when this question has been thoroughly threshed out, you will come to the right decision. i will say this: china must have a neighbor; and it is my humble opinion that it is better to have a good neighbor than an indifferent one. should your country decide to keep the philippines, what would be the consequences? a large trade has been carried on for centuries between those islands and china. your trade would be greatly increased and to your benefit. aside from this the american trade in china has been increasing largely in the last few years. i have often been asked whether we chinamen are friendly to america. to show you how friendly we are, i will tell you that we call your nation a "flowery flag" and that we call your people "handsome." such phrases clearly show that we are favorably disposed toward you. if we did not like you, we would not have given you such nice names. the officials of china, as well as the people, like americans, and our relations, officially and commercially, are cordial. there is, however, one disturbing element--one unsatisfactory feature--i refer to your chinese immigration law. your people do not know and do not understand my people. you have judged all of my people from the chinese in california. your chinese exclusion law has now been in operation for fifteen or sixteen years, but it cannot be said to have been satisfactory even to yourselves. those laws were intended to keep the chinese cheap labor out of your country, but they have also kept out the better class of my countrymen whom i am satisfied the laws did not intend to exclude. i desire to throw no blame on any of your officials for their zeal in enforcing the laws. they simply do their duty. but i want to point out to you that those laws do not bring about the results intended by your legislators. besides, their existence gives the impression in our country that your people do not like our people. i personally know that is not so, but i would like to see this disturbing element removed by a modification of the laws. once remove that disturbing element and our people would welcome your americans to china with open arms. as to the character of our people i can refer you only to those who have been in china. i will refer you to the opinion of a man who for a great many years was in china at the head of the hong-kong and shanghai bank. after twenty-five years' service, he resigned, and on the eve of his departure he was given a banquet by foreigners, not by chinese, mind; and in the course of his speech he went out of his way to speak of his relations with chinese merchants. as i remember, the substance of his speech was that during all those years in china, he had had dealings with chinese merchants aggregating hundreds of millions of dollars, and he said that, large as were those dealings, he had never lost a cent through any chinese merchant. that testimony was given unsolicited by a man long resident in china, and shows indisputably the character of our merchants. now that you have become our neighbor, and if you want to deal with china, here is the class of people you have to deal with; and if you see your way clear to modify the only obstacle that now stands in the way of respectable chinese coming here, and doing away with the false impression in the minds of our people, i have no doubt that such a step would redound to the benefit of both parties. if you look at the returns furnished by your consuls or by our customs returns, you will find that your trade in china has increased to a remarkable degree. china is constructing a railway from north to south, and she is practically an open door for your trade purposes. there is a great field for you there; and with all our people favorably disposed toward you, i am sure you will receive further benefits through the means of still further increased trade. [loud applause.] walter wyman sons of the revolution [speech of surgeon-general walter wyman at the banquet given in washington, d. c., february , , by the society of the sons of the revolution in the district of columbia.] ladies and gentlemen:--in behalf of the society of the sons of the revolution in the district of columbia it becomes my pleasant duty to bid you welcome on this occasion, the anniversary of the birthday of george washington, the father of his country. the society of the sons of the revolution was founded in , in new york, its purpose, as expressed by the constitution, being "to perpetuate the memory of the men, who, in the military, naval, and civic service of the colonies and of the continental congress, by their acts and counsel achieved the independence of the country." the new york society, to be historically correct, was instituted february , , but was reorganized in , when the general society was formed. state societies were subsequently formed in alabama, california, colorado, connecticut, district of columbia, florida, georgia, illinois, indiana, iowa, kentucky, maryland, massachusetts, michigan, minnesota, missouri, montana, new hampshire, new jersey, north carolina, north dakota, ohio, pennsylvania, rhode island, south carolina, tennessee, texas, virginia, state of washington, and west virginia, there being, therefore, thirty-one state societies, with a total membership of , . the district of columbia society was formed in , and now numbers over two hundred and fifty members. the object of these societies is not, as some may imagine, to indulge a pride of ancestry, or to establish exclusive organizations with a membership dependent upon the deeds of forefathers for its own distinction, but rather to encourage and stimulate a desire for knowledge of the problems which were presented to, and the circumstances which confronted our revolutionary forefathers; to study their courage and wisdom in council and their valor in war, which resulted in the establishment of a republic, the most potent in the history of the world. the illumination of the past is useless unless its rays are made to penetrate into the present, bestowing guidance and confidence. the records of our forefathers, therefore, are brought forth and published to the world, chiefly to stimulate ourselves to like courage and devotion should occasion arise. the patriotism displayed by both the north and the south during the war of the rebellion, and the patriotism displayed during the recent spanish-american war, are evidences that true american spirit is as strong to-day as it was in the days which gave birth to our republic. the associations now in existence, having their origin in the war of the rebellion and the spanish-american war, are similar in their aim and objects to the society of the sons of the revolution. this society seeks to preserve the records of the founders of the republic, to cause these records to be published and preserved in permanent form--not only those which are to be found in the archives of the nation and of the states, but fragmentary facts of vast interest, in the hands of private individuals, which would otherwise become lost or forgotten. it erects monuments to commemorate the lives of distinguished men, and mural tablets to signalize important events; it establishes prize essays for competition among school children on subjects relating to the american revolution, and seeks to inspire respect and affection for the flag of the union. the numerous celebrations and excursions to points of historical interest, of the district of columbia society, within the past ten years, must still be fresh in the minds of many among this audience. each fourth of july, each washington's birthday, as well as on other occasions within the past ten years, has this society indulged in patriotic celebration. the celebration of to-day is of peculiar significance. questions, second only in importance to those which confronted washington, are before us. the nation is entering upon a career of influence and beneficence which even washington never dreamed of. questions of government, involving the rights of men, the responsibilities of the strong in their relations to the weak, the promulgation of freedom without license, are problems facing the american congress and the people to-day. the force of events has extended the responsibility of these united states to cuba, porto rico, hawaii, the philippines, guam, and samoa. during the events of the past two years every thinking man and woman must have been impressed by the gravity of the problems with which our present chief executive has been forced to grapple: problems that have demanded of him many of the great qualities which distinguished our first president. these problems involved a steady adherence to what is right, a lofty patriotism sinking the individual in the consideration of the public good. firmness before the enemy, buoyancy and strength before friends, and humility before the creator who disposes of all things. these are elements of character which not only distinguished george washington, but which i am only echoing public sentiment in saying likewise have distinguished our present chief executive, and inspired an affection for and a confidence in the name of william mckinley. it is peculiarly befitting at this time, therefore, to study those characteristics of great men which enable them to meet great emergencies and at the same time preserve their own simplicity and nobility of character untainted by selfishness. of the living we may not speak too freely, but every act and sentiment of him "who by his unwearied exertions in the cabinet and in the field achieved for us the glorious revolution," is ours for contemplation and comment. both time and place are singularly appropriate. in this city bearing his name, facing the noble shaft erected to his memory, within the territory which he most frequented, and almost in sight of his stately home on the potomac, it is befitting that we here celebrate his natal day. [prolonged applause.] footnotes: [ ] robert g. ingersoll. [ ] jay gould. [ ] translation.--will you kindly allow me to make my speech in french? if i address you in a tongue that i do not speak, and that no one here understands, i must lay the entire blame on that unfortunate example of mr. coudert. what i desire to say is-- [ ] translation.--when the heart is full it overflows, and this evening my heart is full of france, but-- [ ] henry w. grady. [ ] glaucopis. [ ] allusion to john t. hoffman, who occupied the post of recorder previous to his election as mayor. [ ] mrs. ripley. [ ] charles cotesworth beaman. [ ] horace porter. [ ] harriet beecher stowe, died july , . [ ] abraham lincoln. [ ] professor woodrow wilson was, at the suggestion of the retiring president (francis landey patton) of princeton university, unanimously elected to fill his place as president, june , . toasts and forms of public address for those who wish to say the right thing in the right way by william pittenger contents introduction after-dinner speeches--ancient and modern value of a good story and how to introduce it purpose of after-dinner speaking some a b c directions for making speeches, toasts, and responses holiday speeches fourth of july memorial day washington's birthday christmas thanksgiving presentation addresses addresses of welcome wedding and other anniversaries toasts sentiments suggested by a toast miscellaneous toasts humorous toasts miscellaneous addresses centennial or semi-centennial dedication of a monument or unveiling a statue birthday celebration reception responses to toasts at a dinner responses to toasts to the navy responses to toasts to general jackson responses to toasts to the workingman nominating a candidate accepting a nomination speech in a political canvass speech after a political victory speech after a political defeat a chairman's or president's speech for any occasion illustrative and humorous anecdotes index of toasts index of anecdotes introduction the author of this manual has at various intervals prepared several treatises relating to the art of speech. their wide circulation is an indication of the demand for works upon this subject. they were intended to embrace the principles which govern speech-making in the forum, in the pulpit, or at the bar. while these do not differ essentially from the principles applicable to occasions where the object is only entertainment, yet there are certain well-defined differences which it is the purpose of this little volume to point out. we hope thus to render the same service to a person who is called upon to offer or respond to a toast in a convivial assembly, as the author's previous volumes rendered to those preparing to speak upon subjects of a serious and practical nature. that help is needed, and may be afforded, no one will deny. a novice called upon to participate in the exercises of a public banquet, an anniversary, or other entertainment, unless he has an experienced friend to give him a few hints or advice, is apt to be dismayed. he does not even know how to make a start in the work of preparation, and his sense of inability and fear of blundering go far to confuse and paralyze whatever native faculty he may have. a book like this comes to him at such a time as reinforcements to a sorely pressed army in the very crisis of a battle. as he reads, some ideas which seem practical, flash upon him. he learns what others before him have done. if he is to offer a toast, he examines the list furnished in this volume, finding one perhaps that pleases him, or one is suggested which is better adapted to his purpose than any in the book, and he wonders at the stupidity of the author in omitting it. soon he becomes quite interested in this suggested toast, and compares it with those in the list to find out wherein it differs. thus gradually and unconsciously he has prepared himself for the part he is to perform. or if invited to respond to a toast, he passes through a similar experience. he may find the outline of a speech on that very topic; he either uses it as it is printed or makes an effort to improve it by abridgment or enlargement. next he looks through the treasury of anecdotes, selects one, or calls to mind one he has read elsewhere which he considers better. he then studies both of them in their bearings on the subject upon which he is to speak, and longs for the hour to arrive, when he will surprise and delight his friends by his performance. he rises to speak conscious that he knows a great deal, not only about the toast assigned to him, but about other toasts as well--feels that he has something to say which, at least, will fill in the time, and save him from confusion and discredit. he even hopes to win applause by means of the stories and happy turns with which his speech is interspersed. he has thus satisfactorily taken the first step toward becoming a ready and entertaining after-dinner speaker. the sense of knowing how to do what is expected of him has a wonderfully quieting effect upon his nerves; and thus the study of this book will greatly add to the confidence of a speaker, and the effectiveness of his delivery. whatever graces of manner he possesses will become available, instead of being subverted by an overmastering fear. it is not easy to mention all the uses of such a manual. one who has been accustomed to speaking, but fears he is getting into a rut, can turn to this text-book and find something which is _not_ so distressingly his own, that his friends expect him to parade it before them on all occasions. he may glance over the outline of a speech altogether new and strange to him, and endeavor to adapt it to his own use; or he may weave together fragments of several speeches, or take the framework of one and construct upon it a speech which will enable him to make a new departure. a writer sometimes, after years of practice, finds it difficult to begin the composition of some simple reception or commemorative address; but the reading of a meagre outline, not one word or idea of which may be directly used, serves to break the spell of intellectual sloth or inertia, and starts him upon his work briskly and hopefully. the field covered by the present volume is not entirely unoccupied. one of the earliest publications in this line is an anonymous english work, very dignified and conservative. the speeches it furnishes are painstaking, but a trifle heavy, and savor so much of english modes of expression, as well as thought and customs, as to be poorly adapted to this country. two works have appeared in this country, also, one being intended apparently for wine parties only; the other, while containing a number of gem-like little speeches, fails to give the aid which is sought by the ordinary tyro, and is calculated rather to discourage him; giving him the impression that it is more difficult to become an acceptable after-dinner speaker than he had ever supposed. while a few of the best things in the latter volume are availed of, a different method is pursued in the present work. outlines of speeches are preferred to those which are fully elaborated; and the few plain rules, by which a thing so informal and easy as an after-dinner speech may be produced, are so illustrated as to make their application almost a matter of course. good-humor and brevity, an outline and a story--what more is needed, unless it be that serene self-confidence which enables a speaker to say even foolish and absurd things, with the assurance that all goes down at a public dinner? what if you are not the most brilliant, humorous, and stirring speaker of the evening? aim to fill your place without discredit; observe closely those who make a great success; the next time you may have a better outline or more telling story, and become, before you know it, the leader of the evening. it is not intended to give rules or directions for the order either of drinking or feasting. that field is fully occupied. but the custom of making addresses at the close of a feast has, been so thoroughly established, and so frequent are these occasions, that a gentleman is not fully equipped for a place in society, if he cannot gracefully offer or respond to a toast, or preside at a gathering where toasts or other forms of after-dinner speaking are expected. it is the aim of this manual to help the beginner in this field. after-dinner speeches--ancient and modern an idea of the real meaning of after-dinner speaking may be obtained from the feudal feasts of earlier times. the old lord or baron of the middle ages partook of his principal meal in the great hall of his castle, surrounded by guests, each being assigned his place in formal order and with no small degree of ceremony. this hall was the main feature of the castle. there all the family and guests met on frequent festal occasions, and after the feasting and the hour of ceremony and more refined entertainment was over, retired to rest in comparatively small and humble apartments adjoining, though sometimes they would simply wrap their cloaks about them, and lie down to sleep on the rushes that littered the floor of the great hall. after the "rage of hunger was appeased"--which then, as in our day, and back even as far as the time of the ancient greeks, was the first business in order--came the social hour, which meant much to the dwellers in those dull, comfortless old barracks--for the great castles of that day were little better than barracks. the chief gave the signal for talk, music, or story, previous to which, any inquiries or conversation, other than the briefest question and answer about the food or other necessary things, would have been considered inappropriate and disrespectful. there probably was present some guest, who came under circumstances that awakened the strongest curiosity or who had a claim upon his entertainer. such a guest was placed at the board in a position corresponding to his rank. after resting and partaking of the repast, it was pertinent to hear what account he could give of himself, and courtesy permitted the host to levy an intellectual tax upon him, as a contribution to the joy of the hour. seated at the head of the table the chief, or, in his absence, a representative, made the opening speech--the address of welcome, to use the term familiar to ourselves. this might be very brief or at considerable length; it might suggest inquiries of any of the company or merely pledge an attentive and courteous hearing to whatever the guest might utter; it might refer to the past glory of the castle and its lord, or vaunt its present greatness and active occupation. but whatever form it might take it was sure to consist--as addresses of welcome in all ages have done--of two words, by dexterously using which, any man can make a good speech of this character. these two words are "we" and "you;" and all else not connected with these is irrelevant and useless. they do not constitute two parts of the same speech but ordinarily play back and forth, like a game of battledore. who "we" are; what "we" have done; how "we" saw "you;" what "we" have heard of "you;" how great and good "you" are thought to be; the joy at "your" coming; what "we" now want to learn of "you;" what "we" wish "you" to do; how "we" desire a longer stay or regret the need of an early departure--all is a variation of the one theme--"we" and "you." the old baron probably said all of this and much more in a lordly way, occupying a longer or shorter time, without ever dreaming that he was making a speech. it was his ordinary after-dinner talk to those whom chance or fortune brought within his walls. or, if he prided himself upon being a man of few words, scorning these as fit only for women and minstrels, he would simply remind the guest that he was now at liberty to give such an account of himself, and to prefer such requests as seemed agreeable to him. the guest was then expected to respond, though this by no means was the rule. the host might wish first to call out more of his own intellectual treasures. this he would do by having other occupants of the castle speak further words of welcome, or would call upon a minstrel to sing a song or relate some deed of chivalry. when the guest at last rises to speak, it is still the two pronouns with slightly changed emphasis that play a conspicuous part. the "we" may become "i;" but this is no essential change. where "i" or "we" have been; what "i" have done, suffered, or enjoyed; how and why "i" came here; how glad "i" am to be here; what "i" have known and heard of "you;" how "we" may help each other; what great enterprises "we" can enter upon; how thankful for the good cheer and good words "we" hear. in the baronial hall, which foreshadowed the family fireside of later days, the drinking was free and copious whilst the other portions of the entertainment were of a general character and quite protracted. mirth, song, the rude jest, anecdotes of the chase or of a battle, or a rehearsal of the experiences of every-day life, were all in place. sometimes, the guests, overpowered by their libations, are said to have fallen under the table and to have slumbered there till surprised by the pale morning light. there was little need of ceremony in such feasts, and there is little need of formality or constraint in the far different festal occasions of the present time. when no guest, either by chance or invitation came to the castle, less variety could be given to the after-dinner entertainment, and many expedients were required to pass the long hours that sometimes hung heavily on their hands. then the use of "toasts" became an important feature. the drinking also was expected to arouse interest, but if it went on in silence and gloom or amid the buzz of trivial conversation in different parts of the hall the unity of the hour was marred and the evening was voted dull--the lord himself then having no more honor than his meanest vassal. but the toast--no matter how it originated--remedied all this. a compliment and a proverb, a speech and a response, however rude, fixed the attention of every one at the table, and enabled the lord to retain the same leadership at the feast that he had won in the chase or in battle. he might himself propose a toast of his own choice or give another permission to propose it. he might then designate some humorous or entertaining clansman to respond; he might either stimulate or repress the zeal of the guests, and give unity to each part of the entertainment and to the whole feast. for these reasons the toast rose into popularity, and is now often used--possibly it might be said generally used if our own country alone be considered--even when no drinking at all is indulged in. let us now take a look at an after-dinner hour of the present day; one of the very latest and most approved pattern. the contrast will not be without interest and value. the fare at the dinner is always inviting. the company is large. good speakers are secured in advance. each is given an appropriate toast, either to propose or respond to. suppose it is a new england society celebrating forefathers' day in new york. the chairman (who is usually the president of the society) rises, and by touching a bell, rapping on the table, or in some other suitable manner, attracts all eyes to himself. he then asks the meeting to come to order, or if he prefers the form, to give attention. then he utters a few graceful commonplaces, and calls upon a guest to offer the leading toast--not always the chief or most interesting one. when one is reached in which there is a lively interest, some distinguished person such as chauncey m. depew, the prince of after-dinner speakers, comes to the front. we give an outline of one of his addresses on forefathers' day, delivered december d, , in response to the toast, "the half moon and the mayflower." in reading this address the "we" and "you" cannot fail to be noted. mr. depew said he did not know why he should be called upon to celebrate his conquerors. the yankees had overcome the dutch, and the two races are mingled. the speaker then introduced three fine stories--one at the expense of the dutch who are slow in reaching their ends. a tenor singer at the church of a celebrated preacher said to mr. depew, "you must come again, the fact is the doctor and myself were not at our best last sunday morning." the second related to the inquisitiveness of a person who expressed himself thus to the guide upon the estate of the duke of westminster: "what, you can't tell how much the house cost or what the farm yields an acre, or what the old man's income is, or how much he is worth? don't you britishers know anything?" the third story, near the close, set off yankee complacency. a new england girl mistook the first mile-stone from boston for a tombstone, and reading its inscription " m. from boston," said "i'm from boston; how simple; how sufficient." the serious part of the discourse was a rapid statement of the principles represented by the dutch pioneer ship "half moon" and the pilgrim "mayflower;" the elements of each contributed to national character and progress. (for speech in full see _depew's speeches_, vol. i.) other toasts and responses followed; eloquence and humor mingled until the small hours of the night. probably not one of that pleased and brilliant assemblage for a moment thought that they were doing at this anniversary what their old, barbaric ancestors did nightly, while resting after a border foray or viking sea raid. the value of a good story and how to introduce it. no matter how inexperienced a speaker may be or how stammering his utterance, if he can tell a good story, the average dinner party will pronounce him a success, and he will be able to resume his seat with a feeling of satisfaction. the efforts often made to bring in an entertaining story or a lively anecdote are sometimes quite amusing, but if they come in naturally the effect will unquestionably be happy. almost any story, by using a little skill, can be adapted to nearly every occasion that may arise. we may mention a few among which a speaker can scarcely fail to find something to serve his purpose. it is necessary always to be thoroughly familiar with the story and to understand its exact point. no matter how deliberately or with what difficulty you approach that part of your speech where the fun is to be introduced--yet, when that point _is_ reached there must be no hesitation. it is well to memorize carefully the very words which express the pun, or the flash of wit or humor which is the climax of the story. the story itself may be found in such a manual as this, or in some volume of wit and humor. there is no disadvantage in using wit gathered from any source, if it has not been so often used as to be completely worn out. when a good story is found anywhere and fully memorized and all its bearings and fine points thoroughly understood, there are two ways of getting it before an audience. the direct way is to say frankly that you have read a story and will tell it. this will answer very nicely when called upon for a speech. few festive audiences are unwilling to accept a story for a speech, and a proposal to compromise on such terms is very likely in itself to bring applause. but the story in this case should be longer than if it is given as part of a speech. if, however, it should prove a failure, your performance will make a worse impression than when a poor story is introduced into a speech, although the story may only feebly illustrate any portion of it. for these as well as other reasons most persons will prefer to make an address, even if it be very brief, and will endeavor to make the story fit into it. all stories that suggest diffidence, modesty, backwardness, or unwillingness to undertake great things, can be introduced to show how reluctant the speaker is to attempt a speech, and if these characteristics are only slightly referred to in the story it may still be used effectively and will leave a favorable impression. if a topic, a toast, or a sentiment is given for a response, any of them may suggest a story; and after a good story has been told--one that has real point--it will be better to stop without making any attempt at application or explanation. a great help is often found in the utterances of previous speakers. if these have done well, they may be complimented, and the compliment so contrived as to lead directly up to the story that is lying in wait; or something being said with which you heartily agree--however slight a portion of the address it may be--this harmony of views can be used in the same manner. on the other hand, if you disagree with any of the speakers, the mere reference to it will excite a lively interest. if this difference is used, not as the basis of a serious argument, but only to drag in a story illustrating the disagreement, the story will nevertheless appear to be very appropriate. if you happen to be the first speaker, you are by no means without resources. you can then imagine what other speakers are going to say, and if you can slip in a humorous or good-natured hit at the expense of some of the prominent speakers, it will be, highly relished. if you describe what they are likely to say it will be enjoyed, while if you should happen to mention the very opposite this will be set down as your intention. you may even describe the different speakers, and be reminded of things that will bring in the prepared story very appropriately. the writer once knew of a very dull speaker, who scored a great success in a popular meeting, by describing the eloquent speaker who was to follow. he began by telling how he was accustomed when a boy to take a skiff and follow in the wake of a steamer, to be rocked in its waves, but once getting before the huge vessel his boat was swept away, and he was nearly drowned. this unfortunately was his situation now, and he was in danger of being swept aside by the coming flood of eloquence. but he asked who is this coming man? it was the first time he had heard of him--then followed the story he had been trying to work in--a story wherein the eloquent man was described as "one who could give seventeen good reasons for anything under heaven." the story was a great success. in dumb show, the speaker he referred to begged for mercy. this only delighted the audience still more, and when the dull speaker finished it was admitted that, for once, he had escaped being stupid or commonplace. he had also forced upon the next speaker the necessity of removing the unpleasant effects of the jokes made at his expense, a task that required all his cleverness. the manner of introduction by the chairman, his name or general position, the appearance of any one of the guests, the lateness or earliness of the hour, events of the day that attract interest, the nature of the entertainment or assemblage--all of these will offer good hooks by which to draw in the story. but let the story be good and thoroughly mastered. of course the work of adaptation will be much easier if you have several stories in reserve. a story must not be repeated so often that it becomes known as belonging to you, for then a preceding speaker might get a laugh on you by telling it as yours, leaving you bankrupt. jones and smith once rode several miles in a carriage, together, to a town where both were to make addresses. jones was quite an orator; smith had a very retentive memory. jones asked smith about his speech, but smith professed not to have fully decided upon his topic, and in turn asked jones the same question. jones gave a full outline of his speech, smith getting him to elaborate it by judicious inquiries as to how he would apply one point and illustrate another. the ride thus passed pleasantly for both parties. smith was called upon to speak first, and gave with telling effect what he had gathered from jones, to the delight of everybody, but poor jones, who listened in utter consternation, and had not strength enough left even to reclaim his stolen property. if your speech is to be a story it is especially advisable to have a reserve on hand, for stories are easily copied and apt to be long remembered. care also must be taken that the story is not one with which persons generally are familiar. a gentleman was in the habit of telling a story which has already been quoted, the point of which lies in the phrase "i'm from boston." some of his more intimate companions, in self-defense, would exclaim when he proposed a story, "is it a mile from boston?" the definition of the toast itself or of any of the words in the sentiment which is the speaker's topic may be made the occasion for drawing in the illustrative story. the manner of ending a good story is also worthy of careful study. when an audience is applauding a palpable "hit," it does not seem an appropriate time to stop and take one's seat; but it often is the best course. to do this appears so abrupt that the novice is apt to make a further effort to finish up the subject till he has finished up his audience as well. an attempt to fully discuss a topic, under such circumstances, is not successful once in a hundred times. the best course is to follow an apt story by some proverb, a popular reference, or a witty turn, and then to close. but no abruptness will be disliked by your hearers half so much, as the utterance of a string of commonplaces, after you have once secured their attention. the richness of the dessert should come at the close, not at the beginning, of the oratorical feast. the purpose of after-dinner speaking briefly stated, it is to bring into one focus the thought of an assembly. while the good things of the table may be satisfactory, and conversation free and spontaneous, there is yet need of some expedient for making all thought flow in one channel, and of blending the whole company into a true unity. there is one way, and only one, of doing this--the same that is used to produce unity of action and thought in any assembly, for whatever purpose convened. when the destinies of empires are at stake, when great questions that arise among men are to be solved, the art of speech must be called into play. so after a good dinner has been enjoyed, the same potent agency finds a field, narrower, indeed, but scarcely less operative. and this object--of causing a whole assembly to think the same thoughts and turn their attention to a common topic--is often well attained even when the speeches do not aspire to great excellence or pretension to eloquence. a commonplace illustration will make our meaning clear. suppose a great reception, where many rooms are filled with invited guests. there is conversation, but only by groups of two or three persons; refreshments are served; larger groups begin to gather around prominent persons, but there is the same diversity of sentiment and purpose that is to be found in a chance crowd in a public park. the guests are not in one place, with one accord. but now, on some pretext, the power of public speech is evoked; perhaps a toast is offered and responded to, or a more formal address of welcome or congratulation, or anything else suitable to the occasion. the subject and the manner of introduction are not material, so that the living, speaking man is brought face to face with his fellows; at once, instead of confusion and disorder, all is order and harmony. the speaker may hesitate in the delivery of his message, but his very embarrassment will in some instances contribute to harmonize the thought of the assembly even more powerfully than a more pretentious address. but a good and appropriate speech will indelibly fix the thought, and be far more satisfactory. where no particular kind of address is indicated by the nature of the assemblage, stories and humor will generally be highly appreciated. a good story has some of the perennial interest that surrounds a romance, and if it is at the same time humorous, an appeal is made to another sentiment, universal in the human breast. if people thrill with interest in unison, or laugh or cry together for a time, or merely give attention to the same thoughts, there will arise a sense of fellowship and sympathy which is not only enjoyable, but is the very purpose for which people are invited to assemblies. more ordinary after-dinner speeches succeed by the aid of humorous stories than by all other means combined. in a very ingenious book of ready-made speeches the turning point of nearly every one depends upon a pun or other trick of speech. while this is carrying the idea a little too far, still it fairly indicates the importance placed upon sallies of wit or humor as a factor in speech-making. the fellowship that comes from laughing at the same jokes and approving the same sentiments may not be the most intimate or the most enduring, but it is often the only kind possible, and should be prized accordingly. the chief use of toasts is to call out such speeches, and thus lead the thought of the assembly along pleasant and appropriate channels--all prearranged, yet apparently spontaneous. a long speech is selfish and unpardonable. it wearies the guests, destroys variety, and crowds others out of the places to which they have been assigned and are entitled. when the speaking is over, the company will have been led to contemplate the same themes, and will have rejoiced, sympathized, and laughed in unison. some a b c directions for making speeches, toasts, and responses . do not be afraid or ashamed to use the best helps you can get. divest yourself of the idea that all you need is to wait till a toast is proposed and your name called, and then to open your mouth and let the eloquence flow forth. the greatest genius in the world _might_ succeed in that way, but would not be likely to venture it. use a book and study your subject well. . generally, it is not well to memorize word for word either what you have written or obtained from a book, unless it is a pun or a story where the effect depends upon verbal accuracy. but be sure to memorize toasts, sentiments, and titles absolutely. to know the substance of your speech well, with one or two strong points in it, is better than to have a flowery oration weighing down your memory. . if you are a novice (and these directions are given to no others), do not aim to make a great speech, but to say a few things modestly and quietly. a short and unassuming speech by a beginner is sure of applause. eloquence, if you have it in you, will come later through practice and familiarity with your subject. . if you can't remember or find a good story, invent one! perhaps you have scruples as to the latter. but a story is not a lie; if so, what would become of the noble tribe of novel-writers! mark twain gives a very humorous account of the way in which he killed his conscience. probably many speakers who retail good things might make confession in the same direction. but why is it not as reputable to invent one's own story as to tell the story some one else has invented? does the second telling improve its morality? rather give heed to the quality of the story. this, and not its origin, is the really important matter to consider. . success in after-dinner speaking is difficult or easy to attain according to the way you go about it. if you think you must startle, rouse, and electrify your hearers, or, worse still, must instruct them in something _you_ think important, but about which they care nothing, your efforts are likely to be attended by a hard and bitter experience. but if, when a prospective speech-occasion looms up, you will reflect upon the sentiment you wish to propose, or will get a friend to do a little planning and suggest the easiest toast or topic, and then attempt to say just a little, you will probably come off with flying colors. . when you rise, do not be in a hurry. a little hesitation has a better effect than too much promptness and fluency, and a little stammering or hesitation, it may be added, will have no bad effect. in beginning, your manner can without disadvantage be altogether lost sight of, and if you have something to say the substance of which is good, and has been carefully prearranged, you will be able to give utterance to it in some form; grammatical mistakes or mispronunciation, where there is no affectation, as well as an occasional repetition, will rarely be noticed. . above all, remember it may be assumed that your hearers are your friends, and are ready to receive kindly what you have to say. this will have a wonderfully steadying effect on your nerves. and if your speech consists only of two or three sentences slowly and deliberately uttered, they will at least applaud its brevity, and give you credit for having filled your place on the programme respectably. it has been often said that americans are greatly ahead of the english in general speech-making, but in pleasant after-dinner talking and addresses they are much inferior. probably this was once true, but if so, it is true no longer. the reason of any former deficiency was simply want of practice, without which no speech-making can be easy and effective. but the importance of this kind of oratory is now recognized, and, with proper efforts to cultivate and master it, americans are taking the same high rank as in other forms of intellectual effort. lowell and depew are acknowledged as peers of any "toast-responder" or "after-dinner orator" the world has ever seen. one of the chief elements of their charm consists in the good stories they relate. whoever has a natural faculty, be it ever so slight, as a storyteller, will, if he gathers up and appropriates the good things that he meets with, soon realize that he is making rapid progress in this delightful field, and that he gains much more than mere pleasure by his acquisitions. the best entertainments are not those which merely make a display of wealth and luxury. quiet, good taste, and social attractions are far better. the english wit, foote, describes a banquet of the former character. "as to splendor, as far as it went, i admit it: there was a very fine sideboard of plate; and if a man could have swallowed a silversmith's shop, there was enough to satisfy him; but as to all the rest, the mutton was white, the veal was red, the fish was kept too long, the venison not kept long enough; to sum up all, everything was cold except the ice, and everything sour except the vinegar." excellence in the quality of the viands is not to be disregarded in the choicest company. a celebrated scholar and wit was selecting some of the choicest delicacies on the table, when a rich friend said to him, "what! do philosophers love dainties?" "why not?" replied the scholar; _"do you think all the good things of this world were made only for blockheads?"_ holiday speeches fourth of july at a fourth of july banquet, or celebration, toast may be offered to "the flag," to "the day," to "independence," to "our revolutionary fathers," to "the nation," to any great man of the past, to "liberty," to "free speech," to "national greatness," to "peace," to "defensive war," to any of the states, to "washington" or "lafayette," to "our old ally, france," to any of the "patriotic virtues," to "the army and the navy," to the "memory of any of the battles by land or sea." appropriate sentiments for any of these may easily be devised or may be found in the miscellaneous list in this volume. "the constitution and the laws" or something similar should not be omitted. some items that would be appropriate in responding to these toasts. their order and character will depend upon the special topic. our present prosperity--the greatness and resources of our country as compared with those of the revolutionary epoch--the slow growth of the colonies--the rapid growth of the states and the addition of new states continually--what was gained by independence--did we do more than simply prevent tyranny--the advantages an independent country possesses over a colony, such as canada--the perils of independence and the responsibility of power--the romantic early history of the country--the wars that preceded the revolutionary conflict--the character of the struggle--the slenderness of our resources compared with the mighty power of britain--our ally, france--what that nation gained and lost by joining in our quarrel--the memories of washington and lafayette--the principles at stake in the revolution--the narrow view our fathers took of the issue at first, and the manner in which they were led first to independence and then to nationality--some phases of the struggle--its critical points--trenton and valley forge--saratoga and yorktown--our responsibilities and duties--the questions of that day enumerated and compared with the burning questions of the present day (which we do not enumerate here, but which the speaker may describe or even argue if the nature of his audience, or time at his disposal permits)--the future greatness of the nation--the probability of the acquisition of new territory. laughable incidents either from history or illustrations from any source, must not be forgotten, for if the speech be more than a few minutes long they are absolutely indispensable. outline of a speech in response to the toast "the day we celebrate" the fourth of july has been a great day ever since . before that year the fourth of this month came and went like other days. but then a great event happened: an event which made a great difference to the entire world; the boundaries of many countries would be very different to-day if the important event of that day had not transpired. it was a terrible blow to the foes of humanity and even to many weak-kneed friends. the exhortation of one of the signers of the declaration on that day, "we must all hang together," with the grim but very reasonable rejoinder, "if we do not, we will assuredly hang separately." the bloodshed and suffering which followed and which seem to be the only price at which human liberty and advancement can be procured. we had to deal with our old friends the english very much as the peace-loving quaker did with the pirate who boarded his ship; taking him by the collar broad-brim dropped him over the ship's side into the water, saying, "friend, thee has no business on this ship." we have shown that we own and can navigate the ship of state ourselves, and now we are willing to welcome here not only john bull but all nations of the world when they have any friendly business with us. the gunpowder that has been consumed. first, during the revolutionary war and the second war with england; and then the powder that has been exploded by small and large boys in the hundred and odd fourths that have followed. outline of a spread-eagle speech in a foreign land we are so far from home that we can't hear the eagle scream or see the lightning in his eye. only from the almanac do we know that this is the day of all days on which he disports himself. he was a small bird when born, more than a hundred years ago, but has grown lively till his wings reach from ocean to ocean, and it only requires a little faith to see him stretch himself clear over the western hemisphere and the adjacent islands. other birds despised him on the first great fourth, but these birds of prey, vultures, condors and such like, with crows, as well as the smaller republican eagles born since, are humble enough to him now. the british lion himself having been so often scratched and clawed by this fowl, has learned to shake his mane and wag his tail rather amiably in our eagle's presence, even if he has to give an occasional growl to keep his hand in. we are proud of this bird, though we are far from home, and to-day send our heartiest good wishes across the sea to the land we love the best. outline of a response to the toast, "our country" the field here is very wide. all the history of the country is appropriate, but can only be glanced at, though a good speech might be made by dwelling at length on some romantic incident in its history. the size and richness of the country from the green pine forests of maine to the golden orange groves of california; or the prophecy of the manifest greatness of coming destiny. here the old but laughable story can be brought in easily about the raw irishman who saw a pumpkin for the first time, and was told that it was a mare's egg, and generously given one. he had the misfortune, however, to drop it out of his cart, when it rolled down-hill, struck a stump, burst and frightened a rabbit, which bounded away followed by pat, shouting: "shtop my colt; sure and if he is so big and can run so fast now, when just born, what a rousing horse he will be when grown up!" but our country has more than merely a vast area. she has made advances in science, art, literature, and culture of all kinds, and is destined to play a chief part in the drama of the world's progress. * * * * * memorial day the celebration of this day has become general and has assumed a special and beautiful character. it might have been feared that angry passions engendered by civil strife would predominate, but the very reverse of this is true. kindness and charity, tender memories of the sacrifices of patriotism, the duty of caring for the living and of avoiding all that might lead again to the sad necessity of war, are the sentiments nearly always inculcated. the following are a few of the toasts that may be given at celebrations, or banquets, or at the exercises that form a part of the annual decorating of soldiers' graves: the martyred dead--the regiments locally represented--the army and navy--any dead soldier especially prominent--the union forever--the whole country--victory always for the right--the surviving soldiers and sailors--unbroken peace--the commander-in-chief, and other officers locally honored--any special battle whose field is near at hand--the flag with all its stars undimmed. sketch of a speech in response to the toast, "our honored dead" time in its rapid flight tests many things. thirty years ago the southern confederacy, like a dark cloud full of storm and thunderings, covered the southern heavens. statesmen planned, preachers prayed, women wept, and armies as brave as ever formed in line fought, for its establishment. blood flowed freely, and the roar of battle filled the whole land. many wise men thought it would continue for ages, but lo! it has disappeared. nothing remains to its adherents but a memory--mournful, pathetic, and bitter. how different with the old flag that we love. it had been tested before, but this was its supreme trial. it had been victorious in several wars. it had sheltered new and expanding states, it had fostered higher forms of civilization, and represented peoples and interests that were complex and varied; but in our civil war it was assailed as never before. the test was crucial, but nobly was it borne. men died in ranks as the forest goes down before the cyclone. what sharp agony in death, and what long-continued suffering and bereavement this implies. but the result was decisive--a strengthening of the power and grandeur of the nation that sometimes seems to be only too great and unquestioned. we have no wish by any word of ours to revive bitter feeling or stir up strife. this hallowed day has been from the first a peacemaker. men, standing with uncovered heads in the presence of the dead, do not care to utter words of reproach for the irrevocable past. we, wearing the blue, can say to the scarred veteran wearers of the gray: "you fought well for the lost cause. but the case was fairly tried in the awful court of war. it took four years for the jury to agree, but the verdict has been given--a verdict against your cause--and there is no higher court and no appeal. there is no resurrection for the dead confederacy; but we can offer you something better--an equal part in the life and destiny of the most glorious nation time has yet produced." and on their side the gray can reply, in the words of colonel grady, the eloquent orator of the south, in his speech at atlanta: "we can now see that in this conflict loss was gain, and defeat real and substantial victory; that everything we hoped for and fought for, in the new government we sought to establish, is given to us in greater measure in the old government our fathers founded." we do not meet on these memorial days to weep for the dead, as we did while wounds were yet fresh. time has healed the scars of war, and we can calmly contemplate the great lesson of patriotic devotion, and rejoice that the nation to which we belong produced men noble enough to die for that which they valued so much. neither do i care to say anything of human slavery, the institution that died and was buried with the confederacy. i had enough to say about it while it was living. let the dead past bury its dead. but we are here to foster patriotism, in view of the most tremendous sacrifice ever willingly made by a people on the altar of nationality. that the sacrifices of the civil war deserve this rank will appear from the fact that they were made--in the main--by volunteers. we were not fighting directly to defend our altars and our fires; we were not driven to arms to repel an invading foe; we were not hurried to the field by king or noble; but in the first flush of manhood we offered ourselves to preserve unimpaired the unity, the purity, the glory of our nation. so far as i have turned over the leaves of the volume of time, i have found nothing in all the past like this. therefore, standing before the highest manifestation of earthly patriotism, viewing it crowned in all the glory of self-sacrifice, by a faithfulness which was literally in the case of hundreds of thousands "unto death," we ask: "what is there that justifies a nation in exacting or accepting (when freely offered) such tribute of the life-blood of its people?" the two things of inestimable value which our government furnishes and which we ought to preserve even with life itself, if the sacrifice is needed, are liberty and law, or rather liberty _in_ law. the old world gave law, without which human society cannot exist. but it was accompanied with terrible suffering--as when "order reigned in warsaw." such law came from masters, and made the mass of the people slaves. we have an equal perfection of law, order, subordination, but it rises side by side with liberty the people govern themselves--not in one form of government alone but in affairs national, state, county, down to the smallest school district and a thousand voluntary societies. in each the methods by which the people's will may be made supreme in designated affairs are clearly defined, so that the whole of united human effort is brought under the dominion of law, even such things as general education, and yet each affair is in the hands of the people directly concerned. for thousands of years the principles of our complex and wonderful system of co-ordinated government have been growing up till they have reached their fullest perfection on our soil, and we breathe their beneficence as we breathe the air of heaven. men are willing to die by the tens of thousands that this liberty under law may not perish from the world. ... comrades and citizens:--we move forward to new issues and new responsibilities. grave dangers are now upon us. god grant that they may not need to be met and settled in the rude shock of war. the time for wisdom, for clear-sighted patriotism is--_now_. labor and capital, the foundations of law and order; the complex civilization of a nation which now talks by lightning, and is hurled by steam over plains and mountains, and which, doubtless, will soon fly through the air--all these are to be settled by the men now on the stage of action. we cannot do better than to tell you, to settle them in the spirit of the men whose great sacrifices we to-day commemorate. outline of a speech by chauncey m. depew, on a decoration [memorial] day. this is one of the most interesting of national celebrations, appealing not to pride, but to tender personal memories. but we must not give ourselves up wholly to sadness or mourning. the story of issues and results must be told. why did our heroes die? on account of the cancer of slavery and the resulting doctrine of state rights. nationality and liberty, the opposite view. the former was the party of action, and, therefore, though in a minority, it was bolder and more determined. but the shell of materialism dropped from the north, and it was aroused with electric energy when sumter was fired on; there was no passion, only such fervid resolve to preserve our nation as the world never before saw. the struggle over, there were no state trials, no prisons nor scaffolds, and the republic, though bleeding at every pore, said to the conquered enemy, "come and share fully with us all the blessings of our preserved institutions," and thus won a second victory greater than the first. the wonderful intelligence of the volunteer--story of napoleon's soldier--"dead on the field of honor." the grand army of the elect--the heroes of history, some of whom are enumerated--the actual value to a nation of such heroism. to-day all that belongs to the strife is forgiven, but its lessons are too noble and precious ever to be forgotten. we can all, north and south, read with enthusiasm the story of each varied and romantic campaign. the confederate women first began decorating the graves of their dead with flowers, and did not pass by the union graves near their late foes. this touched the heart of the nation as nothing else could have done, and enmity melted away, and the observance of the day has become universal. the two great national heroes--washington, with his wise, foresighted "farewell address;" lincoln, with his gentle spirit, his martyr death, and his tender words, "with malice towards none, with charity for all." washington the founder, lincoln the preserver. * * * * * washington's birthday appropriate toasts to washington--to the great men of revolutionary times--to the great man who could not do what many modern politicians can do--_tell a lie_--to the childless father of eighty millions of people--to the american model statesman--to the greatest of good men and the best of great men. thoughts for a speech in response to the toast "washington: great as a soldier, greater as a statesman, greatest as a pure patriot" indian, french, and english enemies. he had to make the armies with which he conquered. he was always a safe commander, but full of enterprise also--his character made the union of the states and the constitution possible. his character the best inheritance of the american people. other men as great, possibly in some instances greater in a single field--his greatness shown in the wide union of the noblest kinds of greatness, all in harmony. humorous response by benjamin f. butler to the toast, "our forefathers" "while venerating their lofty patriotism, may we emulate them in their republican simplicity of manners." he declared that a great deal had been said at one time and another about the democratic simplicity of our forefathers. suppose that the gentlemen of the present day should go back to some of the customs of the forefathers. suppose a man should go to a ball nowadays in the costume in which thomas jefferson, "that great apostle of democratic simplicity," once appeared in philadelphia. what a sensation he would create with his modest (?) costume of velvet and lace, with knee-breeches, silk stockings, silver shoe-buckles, and powdered wig. "even the great father of his country had a little style about him," said the speaker. "it was a known fact that he never went to congress when he was president unless he went in a coach and six, with a little cupid on the box bearing a wreath of flowers. the coach must be yellow and the horses white, and then the president's secretary usually followed in a coach drawn by four horses. when washington ascended the steps to enter the doors, he always stopped for a moment and turned slowly around to allow an admiring people to see the father of their country. oh! our forefathers were saturated with modesty and simplicity. the people of the present day have retrograded greatly from the simplicity of their revolutionary ancestors. i can remember when it was impossible, years before the war, to hold a night session of congress. it was impossible because the members of congress attended dinners, and lingered over their wine. they attended dinners very like the one we have just enjoyed, and yet there is not a man in this company who is unfitted to attend to any public or private duties that might demand his attention. yes, it is true that we have departed from the old customs, but we have advanced and not retrograded. the world has changed, but it has changed for the better. it is growing better every day, and don't let anybody forget it." * * * * * christmas appropriate toasts the day of good-will--to the cold weather without and the warm hearts within--to the christmas tree, which grows in a night and is plucked in the morning by the gladdest of fingers--to the day in which religion gives sweetness to social life--christmas gifts; may they bless the giver not less than the receiver--to the oldest of our festivals, which grows mellower and sweeter with the passage of the centuries--to st. nicholas [or santa claus], the only saint protestants worship--to a merry day that leaves no heart-ache--to a good christmas, may sleighing, gifts, and feasting crowd out all gambling and drunkenness. speech-thoughts the good cheer enjoyed on this merriest day of the year. how the little people look forward to it. it comes to the older ones as a joy, and yet tender and sad with the memories of other christmases. the religious and the secular elements of the day. the countries where it is most observed. the long contest between the two days, thanksgiving and christmas. the compromise that massachusetts and virginia, new england and the south, have unanimously agreed upon; namely, to keep both days. selected outline op an effective little christmas speech the speaker assumes that the observance of the day is becoming obsolete, and that there are persons who wish it to die out. the assumption, though rather strained, affords the opportunity to demolish this man of straw. "all other kings may go, but no one can spare king christmas, or st. nicholas, his prime minister. school-rooms and nurseries would rebel. and plum pudding is too strongly entrenched in church and state to be dislodged. washington irving, with his _sketch book_, would protest. best argument of all is the worth of the christmas entertainments. here's to the festival of festivals, and long may its honors be done by such hosts as entertain us to-day." thanksgiving coming at the beginning of the farmer's rest, when the harvest is all gathered, this is a very joyous festival, and more than any other abounds in family reunions. any toast therefore is appropriate which tells of the harvest, of fertility, of the closing year, of the family pride and traditions, of pleasure to young and old. at dinner, turkey and mince or pumpkin pie will of course be served, and these national favorites must not be forgotten by the toastmaker. this day, too, has an official and governmental flavor given to it by the state and national proclamations which fix the date and invite its observance. usually, these enumerate the blessings enjoyed by the whole country during the year, and suggest topics peculiarly fitting for toasts. it is perhaps not too much to say that thanksgiving is distinctly _the_ american festival, and should be honored accordingly. toasts to the inventor of pumpkin pie--to peace with all nations--to the rulers of our country--to the farmer--to full stomachs and merry hearts--to their excellencies, the president and the governor; may we obey all their commands as willingly as when they tell us to feast--abounding plenty; may we always remember the source from which our benefits come--our two national fowls, the american eagle and the thanksgiving turkey; may the one give us peace for all our states and the other a piece for all our plates--the turkey and the eagle; we love to have the one soar high, but wish the other to roost low--the great american birds; may we have them where we love them best, the turkeys on our tables and the eagles in our pockets. thoughts for a thanksgiving speech the manner in which the day was first instituted. the sore struggles and the small beginnings of that day compared with the greatness and abounding prosperity of the present. the warfare between christmas and thanksgiving, the one being thought the badge of popery and prelacy. the battle of the pies, pumpkin and mince, terminating in a treaty of peace and alliance; and now we can enjoy the nightmare by feasting on both combined! the national blessings of the year; the poorest have more now than kings and emperors had five hundred years ago. exemption from wars. internal peace. willingness and habit of settling every domestic dispute by the ballot, and not the bullet. the increasing tendency to arbitrate between nations, thus avoiding the horrors of war. the beneficence of our government and the ease with which its operations rest upon our shoulders. the wonderful progress of science and invention, and the manner in which these have added to the comfort of all the people. selected outline foe a thanksgiving speech why we ought to be grateful to the old puritans, with all their faults. their unsuccessful warfare on plum pudding, which, like truth, "crushed to earth," rose again. their discovery and enshrining of turkey. on this day the nation gathers as a family at the thanksgiving board, and from all parts of the world the wanderers come home to the family feast. the duty of happiness, joined to gratitude, is emphasized this day. the closing toast, "the federal eagle and the festal turkey; may we always have peace under the wings of the one, and be able to obtain a piece from the breast of the other." presentation addresses giving a present is a kind and graceful act, and should be accompanied by a simple, short, and unaffected speech. "take this" would have the merit of brevity, but would fail in conveying any information as to _who_ gave, why they gave _to the recipient_, and why _that_ present was selected rather than another, and why _the speaker_ was chosen to make the presentation. all of these items form a part of nearly every presentation address, whilst some of them belong to all. the novice will find much help in preparing his proposed speech by selecting a few items that are generally appropriate; afterward he can include anything which his own genius or wishes may suggest. he may say that an abler speaker might have been selected for the pleasant duty, but not one who could enter into it more heartily or with more good wishes. he can refer to any circumstance which, if told briefly, will show why he has been selected, notwithstanding his reluctance or sense of unworthiness; or why he is pleased that the selection has fallen upon him. such reference is usually effective. then the nature of the gift may be described. here is an easy field for a little pleasantry. if a watch, it can be said, "your friends are growing a little suspicious of you, and, after due deliberation, they have determined to a place _a watch_ upon you." if a cane is the article in hand, then the painful duty of administering punishment for offenses by _caning_ is in order. a ring will afford an opportunity for many verbal plays. the ring of friends about the recipient, the true ring of a bell, or of an uncracked vase, a political ring--any of these can be made to lead up to the little hoop of gold. the fineness of the material, its sterling and unvarying value, the inscription on it, any specialty in its form--all these will be found rich in suggestion. silverware of any kind may also be considered as to the form of the article, the use to which it is to be put, and the purity of the metal. hardly any article can be thought of which will not allow some pleasant puns or _bon mots_. if a book is given, we bring the person "to book," and the book to him. job wished that his enemy might write a book; we, more charitable, wish our friend to read a book, and now offer him a good one for the purpose. the author or the title will, if closely examined, yield some matter for play on words. the army presents of sword or banner, while usually more serious, do not forbid the same kind of badinage. but this should form only a small portion of the speech, and consist merely of two or three well-studied sentences, to be uttered slowly, so that their double meaning may have time to sink in, and appear also as if they were just thought of. a good anecdote should be introduced at this point. it must be short, tinged with humor, and, if it succeeds in arousing the attention of the hearers, it will be of great value. if it is very appropriate or highly illustrative, these qualities will compensate for humor. indeed, a felicitous anecdote will make the whole speech a success, if the speech is not continued too long afterward. better suffer the extreme penalty of reading every anecdote in this volume, and of searching for hours in other fields, than fail to get the right one; but if unsuccessful invent one for the occasion! the good qualities of the recipient must not be overlooked, especially those in recognition of which the present is given. if anything in the nature of the present itself can be made symbolic of these assumed good or great qualities, it will be a happy circumstance. and while flattery should not be excessive or too palpable, it is seldom indeed that a large dose of "pleasant things" will not be well received by all parties on such an occasion. the expression of kindly feeling and good wishes always affords a favorable opportunity for closing. perhaps, however, a more striking conclusion can be made by taking advantage of the very moment when the present is handed over to the recipient, accompanying this act with a hearty wish for its long retention and its happy use in the manner its nature indicates. wishing a ring to be worn as a memento of friendship, a watch to mark the passage of happy hours, a cane not to be needed for support, but only as a treasured ornament, a sword to be worn with honor and only to be unsheathed at the call of duty or of patriotism, etc. the reception of a gift is more easy than the presentation, but is at the same time more embarrassing. the reception is easier, because the essential part of the response is to say "thank you," which are very easy words to utter if the givers are real friends and the present is an appropriate one. it is more embarrassing because it is always harder to receive a favor gratefully than to give one. if the gift is a surprise, there is no harm in saying so, though if it is not a surprise, it is not advisable to tell an untruth about it. the recipient may say he is embarrassed, and his embarrassment--whether real or feigned--will create sympathy for him. besides, he can ask for indulgence with more grace than the preceding speaker, as he is supposed to be taken by surprise. he may be so overcome with emotion as to break down altogether, and yet he will be loudly applauded. a still stronger reason for this disparity is that the speaker representing the givers has been selected, probably out of a large company, to make his speech, and is thus expected to do it well; but the receiver occupies _his_ position for a reason that has no connection whatever with his speech-making powers. if he succeeds in expressing his gratitude and goodwill to those who have been so generous he will have served the essential purpose of his speech; but if, in addition, he can gather up the points made in the presentation speech, assenting to its general principles, accepting the humorous charges for which he is to be watched, caned, stoned (when a diamond or other stone is given), or put to the sword, and gently deprecates the serious flattery offered, he will be regarded as doing exceedingly well. one phrase he will not be likely to omit, unless "he loses his head" altogether--"when i look upon this, i will always remember the feelings of this hour, the kind words uttered, the appreciation shown." this word "appreciation." with the reiteration of thanks, will make a very fitting conclusion. addresses of welcome in our country the number of voluntary associations that visit similar associations, or meet at special times and places is very large. often such associations are furnished with free board and lodging by the people of the place where the assemblage occurs. facilities for assemblage and enjoyment are offered and other privileges tendered that are highly appreciated. religious bodies, church and philanthropic societies, military and fire companies, athletic and social clubs, various orders and educational societies, political bodies, these form only a small proportion of the endless number of organizations convening and gathering at different centres, gatherings which serve to keep all parts of our country in close touch. it is needless to furnish model speeches for each of these, for the same general line of remark is adapted to all. the changes of illustration demanded by the character of the association to be welcomed, and for which responses are to be made, will be readily understood, and a little study of the name and character of the place of meeting will make the necessary local allusions quite easy. the welcome and response for a fire company, or a baseball club, will not differ much from that for a christian endeavor society. a few general hints and a little investigation by the novice will put him on the right track in either case. address of welcome a clear statement about those who extend the welcome and of those who are to be welcomed is appropriate. this may be expanded advantageously by giving a few of the characteristics of each, greater latitude being allowed in complimenting those who are welcomed than those who entertain. it is bad taste to spend more time in telling our guests how good and great we are than in expressing the exalted opinion we have of them for their noble work, their great fame, or their high purpose; or in declaring the pleasure we feel and the honor we have in entertaining them. the warmth of the welcome extended should be expressed in the fullest manner, and as this is the central purpose of the whole address, it will bear _one repetition_. a good illustrative story, brief but pointed, may be worked in somewhere, perhaps in connection with a modest depreciation of our own fitness or ability adequately to express the strong feelings of those we represent, though if one can be found having a connection with the visitors themselves, it will be still better. what we wish our visitors to do while with us may also be appropriately referred to. if there are places of interest for them to visit, work for them to do, or special entertainments provided,--here is additional matter for remark. all these items may be run through in a few minutes, and then the address should close. the most bungling and formal welcome, if short, will be enjoyed more and be more applauded than the most graceful and eloquent one unduly prolonged. should however, in spite of this warning, more "filling in" be desired of an appropriate character, it may be found almost without limit in setting forth the claim of the cause which both the visitors and the entertainers represent--athletic sports, religion, benevolence, education, or what not. address in response this may be still more brief than the address of welcome. to say that the reception is hearty, that it gives pleasure and is gratefully received and appreciated, is all that is essential. an invitation to return the visit should not be forgotten, if circumstances are such that it can be appropriately made. then the speaker has an opportunity to review any portion of the preceding speech and express his indorsement of any of the assertions made. he should not dissent from them, unless this dissent can be made the means of a little adroit flattery by placing a higher estimate upon the entertainers and their services than their own speaker has done, or by modestly disclaiming some of the praise that has been given. the novice must avoid being carried too far by this fascinating review, both as to the quantity and the quality of the disagreement. a closing sentence may be, "allow me once more, most heartily, to thank you for this generous welcome to--your homes--your headquarters--to the hospitalities of your city," as the case may be. wedding and other anniversaries another wide field for the oratory of entertainment is to be found in the various celebrations that mark the passage of specific or notable portions of time--centennial, semi-centennial, and quadrennial; likewise weddings, annual, tin, paper, crystal, silver, and golden. the speeches for these differ widely in character. they may take the form of congratulatory addresses, of toasts and responses, or more formal addresses. all dedications come in the same category. generally the shorter intervals call for light and humorous speeches, while the longer ones demand something more grave and thoughtful. the following speech and response for a wooden (fifth) wedding anniversary is taken from a volume of ready made speeches. it is a fine example of that wit and play upon words which is never more suitable or more highly appreciated than on such an occasion. speech for a wooden wedding if it is a good maxim not to halloo till you are out of the woods, our kind host and hostess must be very quiet this evening, for it seems to me that they are in the thick of it. if their friends had been about to burn them alive instead of to wish them joy on their fifth wedding-day, they could scarcely have brought a greater quantity of combustible material to the sacrifice. what shall we say to them on this ligneous occasion? of course, we must congratulate them on their willingness to renew their matrimonial vows after five years of double-blessedness. in this age of divorce it is something worthy of note, that a pair who have been one and inseparable for even so short a period as the twentieth part of a century, should stand up proudly before the world and propose to strengthen the original compact with a new one. they look as happy and contented as if they had never heard of chicago, or seen those tempting little advertisements in the newspapers that propose to separate man and wife with immediate dispatch for a reasonable consideration. instead of going to court to cut the nuptial bond in twain, it appears that they have been _courting_ for five years with the view of being remarried this evening. vaccination, it is said, wears out in seven years, but matrimony, we see, in this instance, at least, takes a stronger hold of the parties inoculated as time rolls on; and although in this case they are willing to go through the operation again, it is not for the sake of making assurance doubly sure, but in order to enjoy marriage as a luxury. with this happy specimen of a wooden wedding before them our young unmarried friends will see that they can go into the _joinery_ business with but little risk of getting into the wrong box. in fact, it is because connubial bliss beats every other species of felicity all hollow that we have met this evening to requite it with hollow-ware. in the name of all their friends i affectionately congratulate the doubly-married pair on their past happiness and future prospects, and hope they may live to celebrate their fiftieth wedding day and receive a _golden_ reward. bridegroom in reply "for self and partner"--as men associated in business sometimes conclude their letters--i offer to you and all our friends who have obliged us with their presence, the thanks of the firm which renews its articles of partnership this evening. we welcome you heartily to our home, well knowing that your kind wishes are not like--your useful and elegant tokens of remembrance--_hollow-ware_. when birnam wood came to dunsinane, macbeth was conquered, and it seems to me that you have come almost as well provided with timber as macduff and malcolm were. your articles, however, although of wood, are not of the burn 'em kind, and i am not such a dunce inane as to decline accepting them. indeed, my wife, who, notwithstanding her matrimonial vows, has a _single eye_--to housekeeping--would not permit me to refuse them were i so inclined. she knows their value better than i do, and with the assistance of her kitchen cabinet will, i have no doubt, employ them usefully. the speech closes with thanks and good wishes in return. toasts a toast may be given either with or without sentiment attached, and in either case a response equally fitting; but in the former the subject is narrowed and defined by the nature of the sentiment. yet the speaker need not hold himself closely to the sentiment, which is often made rather a point of departure even by the ablest speakers. indeed, the latitude accorded to after-dinner speeches is very great, and a sentiment which gives unity and direction to the speech made in response to it is, on that account, of great value. to illustrate these points we will take the toast "our flag." a speech in response would be practically unlimited in scope of treatment. anything patriotic, historical or sentimental, which brings in some reference to the banner, would be appropriate. but let this sentiment be added: "may the justness and benevolence which it represents ever charm the heart, as its beauty charms the eye," and the outline of a speech is already indicated. has our nation always been just and kind? where and how have these qualities been most strikingly manifested? why have we seemed sometimes to come short of them, and how should such injustice or harsh dealing be remedied, with as much rhetorical admixture of the waving folds and the glittering stars as the speaker sees fit to employ. from these considerations may be deduced the rule that when the proposer of a toast wishes to leave the respondent the freedom of the whole subject he will give the toast alone, or accompanied by a motto of the most non-committal character. but if he wishes to draw him out in a particular direction he will put the real theme in the sentiment that follows the toast. sentiments suggested by a toast years ago a speaker provoked a controversy (maliciously and with no good excuse) which scarcely came short of blows, by proposing as a toast the name of a general of high rank, but who was unfortunate in arms. he was a candidate for office. added to the toast was the sentiment, "may his political equal his military victories." this was in bad taste, indeed, but it shows the use that can be made of the sentiment, when added to a toast, in fixing attention in a certain direction. the number of sentiments suggested by the common and standard toasts is unlimited. take the toast "home," as an example. home: the golden setting in which the brightest jewel is "mother." home: a world of strife shut out, and a world of love shut in. home: the blossoms of which heaven is the fruit. home: the only spot on earth where the fault and failings of fallen humanity are hidden under a mantle of charity. home: an abode wherein the inmate, the superior being called man, can pay back at night, with fifty per cent. interest, every annoyance that he has met with in business during the day. home: the place where the great are sometimes small, and the small often great. home: the father's kingdom; the child's paradise; the mother's world. home: the jewel casket containing the most precious of all jewels--domestic happiness. home: the place where you are treated best and grumble most. home: it is the central telegraph office of human love, into which run innumerable wires of affection, many of which, though extending thousands of miles, are never disconnected from the one great terminus. home: the centre of our affections, around which our hearts' best wishes twine. home: a little sheltered hollow scooped out of the windy hill of the world. home: a place where our stomachs get three good meals daily and our hearts a thousand. miscellaneous toasts these might be multiplied indefinitely, but a sufficient number are given to serve as hints to the person who is able to make his own toasts, yet seeks a little aid to lift him out of the common rut. marriage: the happy estate which resembles a pair of shears; so joined that they cannot be separated; often moving in opposite directions, yet always punishing any one who comes between them. marriage: the gate through which the happy lover leaves his enchanted ground and returns from paradise to earth. woman: the fairest work of the great author; the edition is large, and no man should be without a copy. woman: she needs no eulogy; she speaks for herself. woman: the bitter half of man. (a sour bachelor's toast.) wedlock: may the single all be married and all the married be happy. love to one, friendship to many, and good-will to all. the lady we love and the friend we trust. may we have the unspeakable good fortune to win a true heart, and the merit to keep it. friendship: may its bark never founder on the rocks of deception. friendship: may its lamp ever be supplied by the oil of truth and fidelity. unselfish friendship: may we ever be able to serve a friend, and noble enough to conceal it. firm friendship: may differences of opinion only cement it. may we have more and more friends and need them less and less. may our friend in sorrow never be a sorrowing friend. active friendship: may the hinges of friendship never grow rusty. to our friends: whether absent on land or sea. our friends: may the present have no burdens for them and futurity no terrors. our friends: may we always have them and always know their value. friends: may we be richer in their love than in wealth, and yet money be plenty. a friend: may we never want one to cheer us, or a home to welcome him. good judgment: may opinions never float in the sea of ignorance. careful kindness: may we never crack a joke or break a reputation. enduring prudence: may the pleasures of youth never bring us pain in old age. deliverance in trouble: may the sunshine of hope dispel the clouds of calamity. successful suit: may we court and win all the daughters of fortune except the eldest--miss fortune. here's a health to detail, retail, and curtail--indeed, all the tails but tell-tales. the coming millennium: when great men are honest and honest men are great. our merchant: may he have good trade, well paid. may the devil cut the toes of all our foes, that we may know them by their limping. may we live to learn well and learn to live well. a placid life: may we never murmur without cause, and never have cause to murmur. may we never lose our bait when we fish for compliments. a better distribution of money: may avarice lose his purse and benevolence find it. may care be a stranger and serenity a familiar friend to every honest heart. may fortune recover her eyesight and be able to distribute her gifts more wisely and equally. may bad example never attract youthful minds. may poverty never come to us without rich compensations and hope of a speedy departure. our flag: the beautiful banner that represents the precious _mettle_ of america. american eagle, the: the liberty bird that permits no liberties. american eagle, the: may she build her nest in every rock peak of this continent. american valor: may no war require it, but may it be always ready for every foe. american people, the: may they live in peace and grow strong in the practice of every virtue. our native land: may it ever be worthy of our heartiest love, and continue to draw it forth without stint. (a spread-eagle toast.) the boundaries of our country: east, by the rising sun; north, by the north pole; west, by all creation; and south, by the day of judgment. our lakes and rivers: navigable waters that unite all the states and render the very thought of their separation absurd. our sons and daughters: may they be honest as brave and modest as fair. america and the world: may our nation ever enjoy the blessings of the widest liberty, and be ever ready to promote the liberties of mankind. discontented citizens: may they speedily leave their country for their country's good. america: "our hearts, our hopes are all with thee, our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, our faith, triumphant o'er our fears, are all with thee, are all with thee." the patriot: "breathes there a man with soul so dead, who never to himself hath said, this is my own, my native land; whose heart hath ne'er within him burned, as home his footsteps he hath turned from wandering on a foreign strand?" our country: whether bounded by canada or mexico, or however otherwise bounded and described; be the measurement more or less, still our country; to be cherished in our hearts and defended by our lives. our country: in our intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right; and if not, may we ever be true patriots enough to get her into the right at any cost. our country: may we render due reverence and love to the common mother of us all. the ship of state: "nail to the mast her holy flag; set every threadbare sail; and give her to the god of storms, the lightning and the gale." columbia: my country, with all thy faults, i love thee still. webster's motto: liberty and union, now and forever, one and inseparable. true patriotism: may every american be a good citizen in peace, a valiant soldier in war. our country: may our love of country be without bounds and without a shadow of fear. our statesmen: may they care less for party and for personal ambition than for the nation's welfare. failure to treason: may he who would destroy his country for a mess of pottage never get the pottage! the penalty of treason: may he who would uproot the tree of liberty be the first one crushed by its fall. the nation: may it know no north, no south, no east, no west, but only one broad, beautiful, glorious land. america: dear country, our thoughts are more constant to thee, than the steel to the star and the stream to the sea. our revolutionary fathers: may their sons never disgrace their parentage. our town: the best in the land; let him that don't like it leave it. the tree of liberty: may every american citizen help cultivate it and eat freely of its fruit. the emigrant: may the man that doesn't love his native country speedily hie him to one that he can love. the american eagle: it is not healthful to try to deposit salt on his venerable tail. california: the land of golden rocks and golden fruits. ohio: the second mother of presidents. vermont: a state of rocks, but producing men, women, maple sugar, and horses. "the first are strong, the last are fleet, the second and third are exceedingly sweet, and all are uncommonly hard to beat." texas: the biggest of states, and one of the very best. new york: unrivalled if numbers in city and state be the test. our navy: may it always be as anxious to preserve peace as to uphold the honor of the flag in war. our army: may it ever be very small in peace, but grow to mighty dimensions and mightier achievement in war. our country: may the form of liberty never be used to subvert the principles of true freedom. our voters: may they always have a standard to try their rulers by, and be quick to punish or reward justly. fortune: a divinity to fools, a helper to wise men. the present: anticipation may be very agreeable but participation is more practical. the present opportunity: we may lay in a stock of pleasures for use in memory, but they must be kept carefully to prevent mouldering. philosophy: it may conquer past or present pain but toothache, while it lasts, laughs at philosophy. our noble selves: why not toast ourselves and praise ourselves since we have the best means of knowing all the good in ourselves? charity: a link from the chain of gold that angels forge. our harvests: may the sunshine of plenty dispel the clouds of care. virtue: may we have the wit to discover what is true and the fortitude to practice what is good. our firesides: our heads may not be sharpened at colleges, but our hearts are graduates of the hearths. the true medium: give us good form, but not formality. the excesses of youth: they are heavy drafts upon old age, payable with compound interest about thirty years from date. the best of good feeling: may we never feel want nor want feeling. our incomes: may we have a head to earn and hearts to spend. forbearance: may we have keen wit, but never make a sword of our tongues to wound the reputation of others. wit: a cheap and nasty commodity when uttered at the expense of modesty and courtesy. cheerfulness and fortitude: may we never give way to melancholy, but always be merry at the right places. generosity: may we all be as charitable and indulgent as the khan of tartary, who, when he has dined on milk and horseflesh, makes proclamation that all the kings and emperors of earth have now his gracious permission to dine. economy: the daughter of prudence, the sister of temperance, and the parent of independence. fidelity and forgiveness: may our injuries be written in sand and our gratitude for benefits in rock. a good memory: may it always be used as a storehouse and never as a lumber-room. a health to our dearest: may their purses always be heavy and their hearts always be light. the noblest qualities: charity without ostentation and religion without bigotry. discernment of character: may flattery never be permitted to sit in the parlor while plain and kindly dealing is kicked out into the woodshed. false friends: may we never have friends who, like shadows, keep close to us in the sunshine only to desert us in a cloudy day or in the night. a competence: may we never want bread to make a toast or a good cook to prepare it. the man we love: he who thinks most good and speaks least ill of his neighbors. human nature as the best study: he who is learned in books alone may know how some things ought to be, but he who reads men learns how things are. metaphysics the noblest of the sciences: "when a mon wha' kens naething aboot ony subject, takes a subject that nae mon kens onything aboot and explains it to anither mon still more ignorant--that's metaphysics." the deeds of men: the best interpreters of their motives. love and affection: the necessary basis for a happy life. charity: a mantle of heavenly weaving used to cover the faults of our neighbors. charitable allowances: may our eyes be no keener when we look upon the faults of others than when we survey our own. cheerful courage: "may this be our maxim whene'er we are twirled, a fig for the cares of this whirl-a-gig world." a golden maxim: to err is human, to forgive divine. prudence in speech: the imprudent man reflects upon what he has said, the wise man upon what he is going to say. thought and speech: it is much safer to always think what we say than always to say what we think. everybody: may no one now feel that he has been omitted. fame: the great undertaker who pays little attention to the living but makes no end of parade over the dead. the chatterbox: may he give us a few brilliant flashes of silence. discretion in speech: may we always remember the manner, the place, and the time. a happy future: may the best day we have seen be worse than the worst that is to come. humorous toasts. to a fat friend: may your shadow never grow less. may every hair of your head be as a shining candle to light you to glory. long life to our friends: may the chicken never be hatched that will scratch on their graves. confusion to the early bird: may it and the worm both be picked up. the nimble penny: may it soon grow into a dime and then swell into a dollar. to a sovereign: not the kind that sits on a throne, but the one that lies in our pocket. our land: may we live happy in it and never be sent out of it for our country's good. three great commanders: may we always be under the orders of general peace, general plenty, and general prosperity. the three best doctors: may doctor quiet, doctor diet, and doctor good conscience ever keep us well. the health of that wise and good man who kept a dog and yet did his own barking! here's to the health of ----: the old bird that was not caught with chaff. the health of those we love the beet; our noble selves. miscellaneous addresses every year new occasions arise that point to a new order of celebrations. until recently there were no centennial celebrations. once inaugurated these suggested semi-centennial and quarter-century ones, and as the country advanced in years there came the bi-centennial and ter-centennial. and the attention of the civilized globe was called to our fourth-centennial by the unrivalled and wonderful display at the world's exhibition in chicago. in this chapter are given outlines of a miscellaneous character, some original and some selected. outline of chauncey m. depew's address at the centennial of capture of andrÃ� this is a good model for the semi-centennial or centennial of any noted event. being in the open air the speaker referred to the grand scenery, almost the same as one hundred years before. effect on the nation's heart of such revolutionary commemorations. small events influence the currents of history. thermopylæ and its ; _the three plain farmers who preserved american liberty_. the orator then sketched compactly but vividly the critical situation of , and tells at length the story of arnold's treason, its frustration by the capture of andré and his pathetic fate. this "one romance of the revolution" is a thrilling tale, and all adornment is given to it. the account of the struggle to save andré's life gives the interest of controversy, as does the defense of washington's course. the anecdote and the illustrative parallel are both supplied by the case of captain nathan hale, executed by the english as an american spy. the address closes with a fitting tribute to andré's three captors, whose modest monument marked the spot, and a very effective quotation of william of orange's heroic oath at his coronation, "i will maintain." outline of speech by governor foraker at the dedication of ohio's monument to the andrews raiders, at chattanooga why this monument and this dedication. the story of the raid, the suffering of the raiders, and heroism of those who died. the controversial part covered two points--the military value of the raid, and the manner in which the raiders had been treated by the enemy while prisoners. the illustrative setting was the historic background of chattanooga and the contrasts of war and peace. outline of address by chauncey m. depew at dinner on the th birthday of john jay not on the programme--pleasantry with mr. choate (president) about his railroad fees. mr. choate wants it made the rule for all ex-presidents of the club to have a dinner on their th birthday. this will help them to live at least that long, as gladstone and bismarck, when they had an object, have lived on in spite of the doctors! depew, a native of the same county as three generations of jays. services of the revolutionary jay. _the anecdote_.--general sherman yesterday told a beautiful young girl--generals always interested in beautiful young girls--that he would be willing to throw away all he was doing or had done to start at her time of life again. but the nation could not permit that, nor could it in the case of john jay--closing words of tribute and esteem to the guest of the evening. outline of address by chauncey m. depew at the reception to henry m. stanley by the lotus club the speaker jests about his own locks whitened by the cares of railroading, and the raven hair of the reporters--where do they get their dye? stanley's lecture fee, $ .--lotus club gets one for only the price of a dinner! stanley a great artist in his descriptions as well as a great traveler. americans a nation of travelers.--this makes railroads prosperous! what some reporters have done. the motive makes heroism.--livingstone the missionary--his rescue by stanley. the civilized africa of the future with stanley for its columbus. speeches at a dinner given to the religious press toast.--"the religious press and literature." first, what are sound views of literature; second, what is a religious paper? the speaker used two illustrations bound in one. a great book is the nilometer which measures intellectual life as the original nilometer measured the life and fertility of the land of egypt. a description of the rise of the nile and of the _divine comedy_ of dante, as such a measurer of the life of the middle ages, made up the speech. toast.--"religious press and questions of the day." eternity begins _here_. the paper must show on which side of any question the right lies. it should go even further than this. it should cover a wider range of topics and aim to secure the attention of the general public to the questions it discusses and so entitle it to circulate more widely. toast.--"should religious papers make money?" if i may make the paying papers, anybody may make the others. money losing--soon comes, _hic jacet_. money making proves usefulness and renders the issue of a paper possible. letter from the oldest editor of new york in which he says the editor is under life sentence to hard labor. toast.--"the religious paper and scholarship." he laments that he has no letter from an editor to read (like the last speaker), and tells a story of a methodist, on request, praying for rain; and when a terrible storm came, the man who asked, was heard to murmur: "how these methodists do exaggerate." this was to show the excellence of the dinner. two other stories were used by the speaker, about the length and discursiveness of his talk. the people need and will read deep, accurate, and scholarly productions. there ought to be a general paper for such. something has been done in that direction by two religious papers. the speaker treated his topic by giving a semi-humorous review of the preceding speeches. he showed how denominational traits affected each item in the work of the paper. he did not make just the kind of a paper _he_ liked best, for some people were of the same taste as artemus ward, who always ordered _hash_ at a restaurant, because he then knew what he was getting! the speaker also referred ironically to the mistaken idea that church papers could not pay, and gave striking instances to the contrary. he concluded that denominational papers may be as successful in their line as those purely undenominational and independent. response to the toast, "the navy: our country's best wall of defense" . the disasters which different ports of our country have experienced from invading forces during three great wars. no foe now on this continent which we need fear--our enemies, if any, will come by sea. . the defense by fortified harbors cannot be relied on, for when one place is defended another may be attacked, and the coast-line is so great that an unguarded spot may be found. but our glorious navy will seek the foe at any and every point. . past glory of the navy. paul jones in the revolutionary war singeing john bull's beard at his own fireside. . the ships of iron that kept the confederate states engirdled and forbade outside meddling with domestic troubles. . the navy, by showing the world that we are impregnable, should be the best promoter of a solid peace. response to the toast, "general jackson: a diamond in the rough, but a diamond" . the hero of new orleans, though rough, was a strong and great man. stories about him always popular. his indorsing state papers "o.k." when he approved them, and saying that these letters meant "_oll korrect_." the victor and the spoils. . his connection with great questions, such as the currency and nullification. popularity with his own party. . proved to be a great commander by the manner in which he used his very slender resources at the battle of new orleans--the backwoods riflemen and the breastworks of cotton. response to the toast, "the working man: may he love his work and have plenty of it, with good wages promptly paid" . for a healthy man a reasonable amount of work is no misfortune, but a blessing. idleness is a curse, and leads to all kinds of evil. (see story in anecdote no. at end of this volume--of the tramp who earned seventy-five cents and quit work because he feared that he could not bear the curse of riches! not many of us have this kind of fear.) . toil with pen and brain as real, and may be as exhausting as with the hand and foot. . but to defraud a workman of one cent of his earnings is a peculiarly atrocious crime. how this may be done indirectly. all persons who believe in this toast should deal justly and fairly, and try to hold others to the same rule. . the true workman wants work and fair play; not patronage and flattery, but sympathy and friendship. a nominating speech the great conventions that nominate candidates for the presidency of the united states furnish examples on the largest scale of the nominating speech. but officers of societies of almost any character may be nominated in addresses that are very similar. the following outline of a speech of general character may be easily modified to suit any case in which such help is desired. _mr. chairman_: it gives me great pleasure to place before you, the name of a candidate who is so well qualified and so fully deserving of this honor, and of every other, that may be conferred upon him, as ----. in giving him your votes, you can make no mistake. [here state previous offices held, or trusts filled, or other evidences of fitness for the post in view.] in addition, i am happy to state that he represents [here name locality, section, class, or opinion, being careful to adduce only those which will be pleasing to the persons whose votes are sought.] on his behalf, i can promise faithful service, and the prompt discharge of every duty. others may have as much zeal for the cause: some may have as long a training for the duties of this office; a few may possibly have as legitimate a claim upon any honors or rewards in your gift, but where else can you find such a combination of claims? the illustrative anecdote will naturally be of the candidate himself, of his popularity, availability, or other good quality, or of some person or element strongly supporting him. speech accepting a nomination . an honor of which any man must be deeply sensible as well as proud. the importance or high character of the body making the nomination. . the degree of surprise felt that the candidate should be preferred to so many worthy competitors. w by the honor is especially prized, and the reasons, if any; why the candidate would have preferred a different selection. . the motives which make him willing to bear the burdens entailed by this nomination. . the hope of being able to support his competitors for other offices, or other terms of this office. . with all his sense of unworthiness, the candidate dares not set up his judgment against that of the honorable body which has named him, for the office of ----, and he therefore bows to their decision and gratefully accepts the [unexpected?] honor conferred upon him. should the people--not for his sake, but for the sake of the cause represented--have the intelligence and good judgment [of which there is not a shadow of doubt?] to indorse the nomination, he will exert all the power he possesses, to faithfully fill the position their choice has bestowed upon him. speech in a political canvass no form of speech is so easy as a political address in a hot campaign. the people know enough of the general argument in advance, to appreciate a strong statement of it, or the addition of new items. they already have much of that interest in the theme that other classes of speakers must first seek to arouse. the tyro makes his feeble beginnings in the sparsely settled portions of the country, but the polished orator is welcomed by large audiences at the centres of population, and wins money, fame, and possibly a high office. americans have many opportunities of hearing good speeches of this character, and not only become competent judges, but learn to emulate such examples. . a bright story, a personal incident, a local "hit," or, best of all, a quick, shrewd caricature of some feature of the opposing party, will gain attention and half win the battle. a speaker was once called upon to make an address after a political opponent had taken his seat. this man at one time strongly indorsed a measure to which his own party was bitterly opposed. the measure was defeated notwithstanding his opposition, and he was obliged to sanction his party's action. the audience being familiar with this, the speaker referred to it by saying: "oh! _he_ approves, does he! imagine a kicked, cuffed, pounded, and dragged across a road, bracing himself at every step, but forced over at last and tied to a post; then imagine _that mule_ straightening himself up and saying, 'thank heaven, we crossed that road, didn't we?' it was difficult to move the mule, he was obstinate, but it made no difference. my opponent was obstinate too, but what did it avail!" . the criticism of our opponents' platform or principles. their fallacies, mistakes, and misrepresentations. . their history. how they have carried out all their bad and dangerous doctrines, but have slurred over and allowed to drop out of sight their promises of good. . the contrast. plain statement [and there is nothing more effective in a speech than a plain, dear, and condensed statement] of the opposing issues. . the man. [the personal element in a canvas nearly always overshadows political doctrine, except when a new party or new measure is rising into prominence.] our men brilliant, able, safe. our opponents the opposite. [public character only should be criticized. gossip, scandal, slander are abominable, and seldom well received by any audience. poison, the assassin's dagger, and the spreading of infamous stories do not belong to honorable warfare.] speech after a political victory. selected . we are masters of the field. completeness of victory [told in military language]. . sympathy for the defeated. we will treat their leaders with good samaritan generosity, but we invite the rank and file to enlist with us, unless they prefer to go home and pray for better luck next time. . only by joining us can they get a nibble at the spoils. probably they will, for many of them are men of seven principles--five loaves and two fishes. the "cohesive power of public plunder." . we must not be careless after victory, but reorganize, be vigilant, keep our powder dry. the "outs" are hungry, and an enemy will fight terribly for rations. "brag is a good dog, but holdfast is a better." . now let us all rejoice over the defeat of a party many of whose members we respect personally, but which, as a whole, we regard as an immense nuisance. speech after a political defeat. selected my political brethren: you seem to be in the dumps! don't like the figures; wish they were a cunningly devised fable. how did it happen? big vote and intolerable cheating cooked our goose. but we are india-rubber and steel springs, and no amount of hard usage can take the fight out of us. let our opponents laugh! we are not savage--would not hurt a hair of their heads personally, but politically will skin them alive next time. but we prefer to convert them, and hope they will hear our speakers as often as possible before the next election. a chairman's or president's speech at a public meeting some one interested in the object for which it has convened calls the assembly to order. after securing attention he proposes the name of some person as chairman or president. when the nomination is seconded he takes the vote and announces the election. it will then be in order for the person chosen to take a position facing the assembly and to make a brief speech. "ladies and gentlemen: i have no wish to disparage your judgment, although i think it might have been exercised to better advantage by electing some of the able persons i see before me. but i thank you for this honor, which i appreciate the more highly and accept the more readily because of say deep interest in the question of ----, which is now before us. first, however, please nominate a secretary." when, however, the president or chairman elected is himself a prime mover in the business for which the meeting is called, it will be perfectly proper for him to extend his speech, upon accepting the chair, by stating clearly but briefly the object of the meeting; or, if he prefers, he may ask some one in whose powers of plausible and persuasive statement he has confidence to do this in his place. formal argument is not advisable in the opening speech; but the best argument consists in giving a compact statement and ample information. in this way the cause may be half won by the chairman's speech or the speech of his proxy. a general outline foe all occasions _the introduction_. the speaker's modesty or inability, the lateness of the hour, the merit of preceding speeches, the literary treats that are to follow, the character of the dinner, personal allusion to the president or to the audience--_but not all of these in one address_. _the discussion_. here refer to the toast or theme--be sure to put in a humorous anecdote. make it as appropriate as possible, but don't fail to bring it in. get up a short controversy: set up a man of straw if you can find nobody else, and then make an onslaught upon him; but _be sure he has no friends in the audience_! _conclusion_. a graceful compliment to some one, a reference to an expected speaker, or a word indicating the part of your subject of which you will not treat, or give a _very_ quick summary of what you have already said. illustrative and humorous anecdotes with a number of the following anecdotes a few suggestions are given as to the manner in which they may be used. the habit of thinking how a good story may be brought into an address should be formed, after which these hints will be superfluous. at the outset they may help to form the habit. . independence of a monopoly [a good illustration of complete independence. it can be used as a humorous description of a monopoly or as a compliment to a man who has complete control of his own affairs.] an inquisitive passenger on a railroad recently had the following dialogue: "do you use the block system on this road?" inquired the passenger. "no, sir," replied the conductor, "we have no use for it." "do you use the electric or pneumatic signals?" "no, sir." "have you a double track?" "no." "well, of course, you have a train dispatcher, and run all trains by telegraph?" "no." "i see you have no brakeman. how do you flag the rear of your train if you are stopped from any cause between stations?"' "we don't flag." "indeed! what a way to run a railroad! a man takes his life in his hand when he rides on it. this is criminally reckless!" "see here, mister! if you don't like this railroad you can get off and walk. i am president of this road and its sole owner. i am also board of directors, treasurer, secretary, general manager, superintendent, paymaster, trackmaster, general passenger agent, general freight agent, master mechanic, ticket agent, conductor, brakeman, and boss. this is the great western railroad of kentucky, six miles long, with termini at harrodsburg and harrodsburg junction. this is the only train on the road of any kind, and ahead of us is the only engine. we never have collisions. the engineer does his own firing, and runs the repair shop and round-house all by himself. he and i run this railway. it keeps us pretty busy, but we've always got time to stop and eject a sassy passenger. so you want to behave yourself and go through with us, or you will have your baggage set off here by the haystack!" . explanation [to ridicule extravagant explanations that do not explain--or unreasonable pretensions to antiquity.] an old scotch lady, who had no relish for modern church music, was expressing her dislike to the singing of an anthem in her own church one day, when a neighbor said: "why, that is a very old anthem! david sang that anthem to saul." to this the old lady replied: "weel, weel! i noo for the first time understan' why saul threw his javelin at david when the lad sang for him." . riding a hobby [to illustrate hobby-riding--very appropriate where many toasts and speeches run in one line.] a boy in buffalo, n. y., who was asked to write out what he considered an ideal holiday dinner _ménu_, evolved the following: furst corse. mince pie. second corse. pumpkin pie and turkey. third corse. lemon pie, turkey, and cranberries fourth corse. custard pie, apple pie, chocolate cake and plum pudding. dessert. pie. . hobson's choice [suitable caricature for any one who tries to make merit of doing what he cannot help.] "if my employer does not retract what he said to me this morning i shall leave his store." "why, what did he say?" "he told me to look for another place." . when to be silent [a silent guest might tell this to show that he had found a way to be of greatest service at a banquet.] mrs. penfield--"my husband has found a way by which he says i am of the greatest help to him in his literary work." mrs. hillaire--"how nice that must be for you, my dear! but how are you able to do it?" mrs. penfield--"as soon as i see him at his desk i go into another room and keep perfectly quiet until he has finished." . paying for your whistle [would be a good answer to one who gave a compliment, and tried in that way to shove off a speech or other duty upon the one complimented.] mcswatters--"it's very funny." mrs. mcswatters--"what is?" mcswatters--"why, when the doctor treats me i always have to pay for it." . goose-chase [would come in well after several had declined to speak, the goose being the one who finally consents and tells the story.] a lady had been looking for a friend for a long time without success. finally, she came upon her in an unexpected way. "well," she exclaimed, "i've been on a perfect wild-goose chase all day long, but, thank goodness, i've found you at last." . the perplexed sage [to show that the chairman may safely confide in his own power to manage such poor material as the person who tells the story assumes himself to be.] "and now what is it?" asked the sage, as the young man timidly approached. "pray, tell me," asked the youth, "does a woman marry a man because of her confidence in the man, or because of her confidence in her ability to manage him?" for once the sage had to take the question under advisement. . quick thought [the following illustrates the advantages of a happy retort, the importance of a felicitous phrase, or of quick thought and ready speech. it might be said that the preceding speaker was as ready as:] when napoleon (then a student at brienne) was asked how he would supply himself with provisions in a closely-invested town, he answered, without a moment's hesitation, "from the enemy," which so pleased the examiners that they passed him without further questions. . [the russian general suvaroff is said to have promoted one of his sergeants for giving substantially the same answer.] the emperor paul, of russia, was so provoked by the awkwardness of an officer on review that he ordered him to resign at once and retire to his estate. "but he has no estate," the commander ventured. "then give him one!" thundered the despot, whose word was law, and the man gained more by his blunders than he could have done by years of the most skillful service. . [the anger of an actor took the same turn as that of the czar.] colley cibber once missed his "cue," and the confusion that followed spoiled the best passage of betterton, who was manager as well as actor. he rushed behind the scenes in a towering passion, and exclaimed, "forfeit, master colley; you shall be fined for such stupidity!" "it can't be done," said a fellow-actor, "for he gets no salary." "put him down for ten shillings a week and fine him five!" cried the furious manager. . insignificant things [the need of accuracy, or how insignificant things sometimes change the meaning, is shown by the following.] a merchant of london wrote his east india factor to send him or apes; but he forgot to write the "r" in "or," and the factor wrote that he had sent , and would send the remainder of the as soon as they could be gathered in. . a very well-known writer had a similar experience. he was selling copies of his first literary venture, and telegraphed to the publisher to send him "three hundred books at once." he answered. "shall i send them on an emigrant train, or must they go first-class? had to scour the city over to get them. you must be going into the hotel business on a great scale to need so many cooks." i was bewildered; but all was explained when a copy of the dispatch showed that the telegraph clerk had mistaken the small "b" for a capital "c." . making an excuse; or, johnny peep [a guest pleading to be excused from a speech or a song might say that he wanted to be accounted as "johnny peep" in the following story which allan cunningham tells of robert burns.] strolling one day in cumberland the poet lost his friends, and thinking to find them at a certain tavern he popped his head in at the door. seeing no one there but three strangers, he apologized, and was about to retire, when one of the strangers called out, "come in, johnny peep." this invitation the convivial poet readily accepted, and spent a very pleasant time with his newly-found companions. as the conversation began to flag, it was proposed that each should write a verse, and place it, together with two-and-six pence, under the candlestick, the best poet to take the half-crowns, while the unsuccessful rhymers were to settle the bill among them. according to cunningham, burns obtained the stakes by writing: "here am i, johnny peep; i saw three sheep, and these three sheep saw me. half-a-crown apiece will pay for their fleece, and so johnny peep goes free." . stern logic [probably this boy would have seen the necessity of avoiding such rich banquets as this.] "say, ma, do they play base-ball in heaven?" "why, no, my dear; of course not. why do you ask?" "huh! well, you don't catch me being good and dying young then; that's all." . mistaken brevity ["brevity is the soul of wit;" and calculation and economy are very commendable; but they may be carried to extremes. this may be used when the last speaker has closed a little abruptly.] this is the message the telegraph messenger handed a young man from his betrothed "come down as soon as you can; i am dying. kate." eight hours later he arrived at the summer hotel, to be met on the piazza by kate herself. "why, what did you mean by sending me such a message?" he asked. "oh!" she gurgled, "i wanted to say that i was dying to see you, but my ten words ran out, and i had to stop." . charity begins at home breslau, a celebrated juggler, being at canterbury with his troupe, met with such bad success that they were almost starved. he repaired to the church wardens, and promised to give a night's takings to the poor if the parish would pay for hiring a room, etc. the charitable bait took, the benefit proved a bumper, and the next morning the church wardens waited upon the wizard to touch the receipts. "i have already disposed of dem," said breslau; "de profits were for de poor. i have kept my promise, and given de money to my own people, who are de poorest in dis parish!" "sir!" exclaimed the church wardens, "this is a trick." "i know it," replied the conjurer; "i live by my tricks." . charity; or, a good word for every one--even the devil. [it is well to feel charitably and kindly at all times, but especially at a dinner party.] a friend said to a scotchman who was celebrated for possessing these amiable qualities, "i believe you would actually find something to admire in satan himself." the canny scot replied, "ah! weel, weel, we must a' admit, that auld nick has great energy and perseverance." [if the chairman has been very persistent in calling out reluctant speakers, the foregoing would be a good story to turn the laugh upon him.] . ingenious reason [the scotchman referred to in the last anecdote was as ingenious in finding a reason as the boy mentioned in the following:] "can you suggest any reason why i should print your poem?" said the overbearing editor. the dismal youth looked thoughtful, and then replied: "you know i always inclose a stamp for the return of rejected manuscript?" "yes." "well, if you print it you can keep the stamp." . ambiguity of words [the equivocal use of words in our language.] recently a west-bound train on the fitchburg (mass.) railroad had just left the town of athol when the conductor noticed among the new passengers a young man of intelligent appearance. he asked for the young man's fare, and the latter handed him a ticket to miller's falls and with it a cent. for a moment the conductor suspected a joke, but a look at the passenger's face convinced him to the contrary. "what is this cent for?" the conductor asked. "why, i see," answered the young fellow, "that the ticket isn't good unless it is stamped, and as i don't happen to have a stamp with me i give you the cent instead. you can put it on, can't you?" the good-natured conductor handed back the coin with a smile, remarking that it was a small matter, and he would see that it was all right. . useless regret [persons who pretend to regret something without making a real effort to better it are hit off by this anecdote.] a father called his son rather late in the morning, and finding him still abed, indignantly demanded: "are you not _ashamed_ to be caught asleep this time of day?" "yes, rather," returned the ingenious youth, "but i'd ruther _be ashamed_ than git up." . no happiness in wealth [the great advantage of being fully adapted to one's situation and contented with it.] there are people who cannot hold their heads under the influence of sudden riches. they immediately begin to degenerate. they have become so used to humble circumstances that wealth is a curse. here is a case: a tramp, for some mysterious reason, had accepted an offer to work about the place, for which he was to receive his meals, sundry old clothes, and cents a day in cash. for the first two or three days he did very well, and he was paid cents on account. he did not spend the money, but he began to grow listless and sad, and at the end of the week he interviewed his employer. "you've been very kind to me, sir," he said, "and i want to thank you for what you have done." "that's all right," was the reply. "i'm glad to be able to help you." "i know that, sir, and i appreciate it, but i shall have to give it all up, sir." "what's that for? don't i pay you enough?" "oh! yes, sir; that isn't it. i have cents left, sir, but i find that money doesn't bring happiness, sir, and i guess i'll resign and go back to the old ways, sir. wealth is a curse to some people, sir, and i fancy i belong to that class. good-bye, sir." and he shambled off down the path and struck the highway. . short but pointed [splendid for a speaker called up rather late in the evening--even if he should make a short speech afterward.] being nobody in particular, a mr. bailey was placed last on the list of the speakers. the chairman introduced several speakers whose names were not on the list, and the audience were tired out when he said, "mr. bailey will now give you his address." "my address," said mr. bailey, rising, "is no. loughboro park, brixton road, and i wish you all good night." . reasoning in a circle [this is very common, as in the case of the heroine of this story.] the director of a chicago bank tells how his wife overdrew her account at the bank one day last month. "i spoke to her about it one evening," said he, "and told her she ought to adjust it at once. a day or two afterward i asked her if she had done what i suggested. 'oh! yes,' she answered. 'i attended to that matter the very next morning after you spoke about it. i sent the bank my check for the amount i had overdrawn.'" . extreme economy [economy is a great virtue, but it should not be extreme.] an old lady of massachusetts was famed in her native township for health and thrift. to an acquaintance who was once congratulating her upon the former she said: "we be pretty well for old folks, josiah and me. josiah hasn't had an ailin' time for fifty years, 'cept last winter. and i ain't never suffered but one day in my life, and that was when i took some of the medicine josiah had left over, so's how it shouldn't be wasted." . sensible to the last [how we commend those who take our standards and help us.] a story is told of a late dublin doctor, famous for his skill and also his great love of money. he had a constant and profitable patient in an old shopkeeper in dame street. this old lady was terribly rheumatic and unable to leave her sofa. during the doctor's visit she kept a £ note in her hand, which duly went into dr. c.'s pocket. one morning he found her lying dead on the sofa. sighing deeply, the doctor approached, and taking her hand in his, he saw the fingers closed on his fee. "poor thing," he said as he pocketed it, "sensible to the last." . fishing for a compliment [fishing for compliments is sometimes dangerous.] a well-known congressman, who was a farmer before he went into politics, was doing his district not long ago, and in his rambles he saw a man in a stumpy patch of ground trying to get a plow through it. he went over to him, and after a brief salutation he asked the privilege of making a turn or two with the plow. the native shook his head doubtfully as he looked at his visitor's store clothes and general air of gentleman of elegant leisure, but he let him take the plow. the congressman sailed away with it in fine style, and plowed four or five furrows before the owner of the field could recover his surprise. then he pulled up and handed the handles over to the original holder. "by gravy, mister," said the farmer, admiringly, "air you in the aggercultural business?" "no," laughed the statesman. "y'ain't selling plows?" "no." "then what in thunder air you?" "i'm the member of congress from this district." "air you the man i voted for and that i've been reading about in the papers doin' legislatin' and sich in washington?" "yes." "well, by hokey, mister," said the farmer, as he looked with admiration over the recently-plowed furrows, "ef i'd a had any idea that i was votin' fer a waste of sich good farmin' material i'd voted fer the other candidate as shore as shootin'." . beyond expression [when called on for a speech one may answer the chairman in the words of this lady:] she was in her room when some people came to call. her husband received the company, and after awhile said to his daughter, who was playing about the room: "go up-stairs and tell your mamma that mr. and mrs. blank have come to call." the child went, and after a while returned and began to play again. "did you tell your mamma that mr. and mrs. blank are here?" asked the father. "oh! yes." "and what did she say?" the little girl looked up, and after a moment's hesitation, exclaimed: "she said--well, she said, 'o dear!'" . the toast of the evening [the comment upon this incident by the editor is not less amusing than the speech.] it is not always a pleasant thing to be called upon suddenly to address a public meeting of any sort, as is amusingly illustrated by the following speech at the opening of a free hospital by one who was certainly not born an orator: "gentlemen--ahem--i--i--i rise to say--that is, i wish to propose a toast, which i think you'll all say--ahem--i think, at least, that this toast is, as you'll say, the toast of the occasion. gentlemen, i belong to a good many of these things, and i say, gentlemen, that this hospital requires no patronage--at least, what i mean is, you don't want any recommendation. you've only got to be ill--got to be ill." "now, gentlemen, i find by the report" (turning over the leaves in a fidgety way) "that from the year seventeen--no eighteen--no, ah, yes, i'm right--eighteen hundred and fifty--no, it's a ' '--thirty-six--eighteen hundred and thirty-six, no less than one hundred and ninety-three millions--no! ah!" (to a committeeman at his side) "eh? oh, yes, thank you--yes--one hundred and ninety-three thousand--two millions--no" (after a close scrutiny at the report) "two hundred and thirty-one--one hundred and ninety-three thousand, two hundred and thirty-one! gentlemen, i beg to propose--success to this admirable institution!" to what the large and variously stated figures referred no one in the audience ever felt positive, but all agreed, as he had said they would, that this was the toast of the evening. . bee line [he knew how to escape from more than one kind of fire.] a soldier on guard in south carolina during the war was questioned as to his knowledge of his duties. "you know your duty here, do you, sentinel?" "yes, sir." "well, now, suppose they should open on you with shells and musketry, what would you do?" "form a line, sir." "what! one man form a line?" "yes, sir; form a bee-line for camp, sir." . ventriloquism ["take the good the gods provide."] at raglan castle, said mr. ganthony, the ventriloquist, i gave an entertainment in the open air, and throwing my voice up into the ivy-covered ruins, said: "what are you doing there?" to my amazement a boy answered: "i climbed up 'ere this mornin' just to see the folk and 'ear the music; i won't do no harm." i replied: "very well, stay there, and don't let any one see you, do you hear?" the reply came: "yes, muster, i 'ear." this got me thunders of applause. i made up my mind to risk it, so i bowed, and the boy never showed himself. . a slight mistake [orders should be strictly obeyed.] a celebrated german physician, according to a london paper, was once called upon to treat an aristocratic lady, the sole cause of whose complaint was high living and lack of exercise. but it would never have done to tell her so. so his medical advice was: "arise at five o clock, take a walk in the park for one hour, then drink a cup of tea, then walk another hour, and take a cup of chocolate. take breakfast at eight." her condition improved visibly, until one fine morning the carriage of the baroness was seen to approach the physician's residence at lightning speed. the patient dashed up to the doctor's house, and on his appearing on the scene she gasped out: "o doctor! i took the chocolate first!" "then drive home as fast as you can," directed the astute disciple of Ã�sculapius, rapidly writing a prescription, "and take this emetic. the tea must be underneath." the grateful patient complied. she is still improving. . presence of mind [a fine story to illustrate the value (money value) of presence of mind.] a witty person whom bismarck was commissioned by the emperor to decorate with the iron cross of the first class, discomfited the chancellor's attempt to chaff him. "i am authorized," said bismarck, "to offer you one hundred thalers instead of the cross." "how much is the cross worth?" asked the soldier. "three thalers." "very well, then, your highness, i'll take the cross and ninety-seven thalers." bismarck was so surprised and pleased by the ready shrewdness of the reply that he gave the man both the cross and the money. . joke on a dude [a good story for one who has some power of personation, for the dudes get little sympathy.] a crowded car ran down the other evening. within was a full-blown, eye-glassed, drab-gaitered dude, apparently satisfied that he was jammed in among an admiring community. on the rear platform a cheery young mechanic was twitting the conductor and occasionally making a remark to a fresh passenger. everybody took it in good part as a case of inoffensive high spirits, all but the dude, who evinced a strong disgust. when the young man called out to an old gentleman, "sit out here, guvinor, on the back piazza," or to another, "don't crowd there; stay where the breezes blow," the dude looked daggers, and at last, grabbing the conductor's elbow and indicating the young man by a nod of the head, evidently entered a protest. every one saw it. so did the young man, and he gathered his wits together like a streak to finish that dude. he did it all with an imperturbable good humor and seriousness which would carry conviction to the most doubting. "well, i never!" he began, poking his head inside the doorway with an air of comic surprise. "jes' to see you a-sitting there, dressed up like that. catch on to them gaiters, will you? ain't you got the nerve to go up and down broadway fixed up like that, and your poor father and mother workin' hard at home? ain't you 'shamed o' yourself, and your father a honest, hard-workin' driver, and your mother a decent, respectable washwoman? y' ain't no good, or you wouldn't have gev up your place, and i think i'll go look after it myself and put a decent man in it." he stepped off the car as if bent on doing this at once, and the dude, unable to resist the ridicule of the situation or defend the attack, hastily stepped off after him. . newspaper reporter [equally good for a missionary meeting or a gathering of newspaper men.] a young journalist was requested to write something about the zenana mission. he assured the readers of the paper that among the many scenes of missionary labor, none had of late attracted more attention than the zenana mission, and assuredly none was more deserving of this attention. comparatively few years had passed since zenana had been opened up to british trade, but already, owing to the devotion of a handful of men and women, the nature of the inhabitants had been almost entirely changed. the zenanese, from being a savage people, had become, in a wonderfully short space of time, practically civilized; and recent travelers to zenana had returned with the most glowing accounts of the continued progress of the good work in that country. he then branched off into the "laborer-worthy-of-his-hire" side of this great work, and the question was aptly asked if the devoted laborers in that remote vineyard were not deserving of support. were civilization and christianity to be snatched from the zenanese just when both were within their grasp? so on for nearly half a column the writer meandered in the most orthodox style, just as he had done scores of times before when advocating certain missions. some one who found him the next day running his finger down the letter z, in the index to the "handy atlas," with a puzzled look upon his face, knew he had had a letter from the editor. . how a woman proposed [a variation of the old and always pleasing theme.] they were dining off fowl in a restaurant. "you see," he explained, as he showed her the wishbone, "you take hold here. then we must both make a wish and pull, and when it breaks the one who has the bigger part of it will have his or her wish granted." "but i don't know what to wish for," she protested. "oh! you can think of something," he said. "no, i can't," she replied; "i can't think of anything i want very much." "well, i'll wish for you," he exclaimed. "will you, really?" she asked. "yes." "well, then, there's no use fooling with the old wishbone," she interrupted, with a glad smile, "you can have me." . lucky answer [certainly thompson would be a lawyer, ready for any emergency.] in times past there was in a certain law school an aged and eccentric professor. "general information" was the old gentleman's hobby. he held it as incontrovertible that if a young lawyer possessed a large fund of miscellaneous knowledge, combined with an equal amount of common sense, he would be successful in life. so every year the professor put on his examination papers a question very far removed from the subject of criminal law. one year it was, "how many kinds of trees are there in the college yard?" the next, "what is the make-up of the present english cabinet?" finally the professor thought he had invented the best question of his life. it was, "name twelve animals that inhabit the polar regions." the professor chuckled as he wrote this down. he was sure he would "pluck" half the students on that question and it was beyond a doubt that that opprobrious young loafer thompson would fail. but when the professor read the examination papers, thompson, who had not answered another question, was the only man who had solved the polar problem. this was thompson's answer: "six seals and six polar bears." thompson got his degree with distinction. . double education a young doctor, wishing to make a good impression upon a german farmer, mentioned the fact that he had received a double education, as it were. he had studied homoeopathy, and was also a graduate of a "regular" medical school. "oh! dot vas noding," said the farmer, "i had vonce a calf vot sucked two cows, and he made nothing but a common schteer after all." . remnants [this and the preceding have a little spice of ill-nature, and while enjoyable must be applied carefully.] wife--"such a dream as i had last night, dear!" husband--"may i hear about it?" "well, yes; i dreamed i was in a great establishment where they sold husbands. they were beauties; some in glass cases and marked at fearful prices, and others were sold at less figures. girls were paying out fortunes, and getting the handsomest men i ever saw. it was wonderful." "did you see any like me there, dear?" "yes; just as i was leaving i saw a whole lot like you lying on the remnant counter." . indirect and direct [the following instances show that it is necessary to heed indirect as well as direct meanings.] mr. callon, m. p. for louth, ireland, a stanch opponent of the sunday closing and permissive bill and personally a great benefactor to the revenue, replying to the irish attorney-general, said: "the facts relied on by the learned gentleman are very strange. now, mr. speaker, _i swallow a good deal_. ['hear, hear,' 'quite true,' 'begorra, you can,' and roars of laughter.] i repeat, _i can swallow a great deal_ ['hear, hear,' and fresh volleys of laughter], but i can't swallow that." a few nights before, in a debate which had to do with the jews, baron de worms had just remarked, "_we owe much to the jews_," when there came a feeling groan from a well-known member in his back corner, "_we do_." . an unmarried man's wife at a dinner at delmonico's, after the bottle had made its tenth round, one of the company proposed this toast: "to the man whose wife was never vixenish to him!" a wag of an old bachelor jumped up and said: "gentlemen, as i am the only _unmarried_ man at this table, i suppose that that toast was intended for me." . a dilemma "i am no good unless i strike," said the match. "and you lose your head every time you do strike," said the box. . courageous girl [the following is a good instance of an elaborate story and a sharp retort.] it is not always safe to presume upon the timidity or ignorance of folks. the most demure may be the most courageous. a gentleman who attempted to play a practical joke in order to test the courage of a servant, was nonplused in a very unexpected way. here is his story: i am very particular about fastening the doors and windows of my house. i do not intend to leave them open at night as an invitation to burglars to enter. you see, i was robbed once in that way last year, and i never mean to be again; so when i go to bed i like to be sure that every door and window is securely fastened. last winter my wife engaged a big, strong country girl, and the new-comer was very careless about the doors at night. on two or three occasions i came down-stairs to find a window up or the back door unlocked. i cautioned her, but it did her no good. i therefore determined to frighten her. i got some false whiskers, and one night about eleven o'clock i crept down the back-stairs to the kitchen, where she was. she had turned down the gas, and was in her chair by the fire fast asleep, as i could tell by her breathing, but the moment i struck a match she awoke. i expected a great yelling and screaming, but nothing of the sort took place. she bounced out of her seat with a "you villain!" on her lips, seized a chair by the back, and before i had made a move she hit me over the head, forcing me to my knees. i tried to get up, tried to explain who i was, but in vain. before i could get out of the room she struck me again, and it was only after i had tumbled up the back-stairs that she gave the alarm. then she came up to my room, rapped at the door, and coolly announced: "mr. ----, please get up. i've killed a burglar." . moral suasion "what are your usual modes of punishment?" was among the questions submitted to a teacher in rural district in ohio. her answer was, "i try moral suasion first, and if that does not work i use capital punishment." as it was a neighborhood where moral suasion had not been a success, and the children were scarce the committee took no risks. . cute boy the teacher in geography was putting the class through a few simple tests: "on which side of the earth is the north pole?" he inquired. "on the north side," came the unanimous answer. "on which side is the south pole?" "on the south side?" "now, on which side are the most people?" this was a poser, and nobody answered. finally, a very young scholar held up his hand. "i know," he said, hesitatingly, as if the excess of his knowledge was too much for him. "good for you," said the teacher, encouragingly; "tell the class on which side the most people are." "on the outside," piped the youngster, and whatever answer the teacher had in her mind was lost in the shuffle. . perplexed bob--"hello! i'm awfully glad to see you!" dick--"i guess there must be some mistake. i don't owe you anything, and i am not in a condition to place you in a position to owe me anything!" . ben franklin's oysters benjamin franklin was not unlike other boys in his love for sophomoric phrases. it is related that one day he told his father that he had swallowed some acephalus molluscus, which so alarmed him that he shrieked for help. the mother came in with warm water, and forced half a gallon down benjamin's throat with the garden pump, then held him upside down, the father saying, "if we don't get those things out of bennie he'll be poisoned sure." when benjamin was allowed to get his breath he explained that the articles referred to were oysters. his father was so indignant that he whipped him for an hour for frightening the family. franklin never afterward used a word with two syllables when a monosyllable would do. . family affairs "newlywed seems to find particular delight in parading his little family affairs before the eyes of his acquaintances," "does he? what are they? scandals?" "nop, twins." . a burglar's experience a new york paper prints this extract from the reminiscences of a retired burglar: "i think about the most curious man i ever met," said the retired burglar, "i met in a house in eastern connecticut, and i shouldn't know him, either, if i should meet him again unless i should hear him speak. it was so dark where i met him that i never saw him at all. i had looked around the house down-stairs, and actually hadn't seen a thing worth carrying off. it was the poorest house i ever was in, and it wasn't a bad-looking house on the outside, either. i got up-stairs and groped around a little, and finally turned into a room that was darker than egypt. i had not gone more than three steps in this room when i heard a man say: "'hello, there.' "'hello,' says i. "'who are you?' says the man; 'burglar?' "and i said yes; i did do something in that line occasionally. "'miserable business to be in, ain't it?' said the man. his voice came from a bed over in the corner of the room, and i knew he hadn't even sat up. "and i said, 'well, i dunno. i got to support my family some way.' "'well, you've just wasted a night here,' says the man. 'did you see anything down-stairs worth stealing?' "and i said no, i hadn't. "'well, there's less up-stairs,' says the man; and then i heard him turn over and settle down to go to sleep again. i'd like to have gone over there and kicked him, but i didn't. it was getting late, and i thought, all things considered, that i might just as well let him have his sleep out." . hitting a lawyer "have you had a job to-day, tim?" inquired a well-known legal gentleman of the equally well-known, jolly, florid-faced old drayman, who, rain or shine, summer or winter, is rarely absent from his post. "bedad, i did, sor." "how many?" "only two, sor." "how much did you get for both?" "sivinty cints, sor." "seventy cents! how in the world do you expect to live and keep a horse on seventy cents a day?" "some days i have half a dozen jobs, sor. but bizness has been dull to-day, sor. on'y the hauling of a thrunk for a gintilman for forty cints an' a load av furniture for thirty cints; an' there was the pots an' the kittles, an' there's no telling phat; a big load, sor." "do you carry big loads of household goods for thirty cents?" "she was a poor widdy, sor, an' had no more to give me. i took all she had, sor; an' bedad, sor, a lyyer could have done no better nor that, sor." . cutting short a prayer many a spiritual history is condensed into a miniature in the following: two fishermen--jamie and sandy--belated and befogged on a rough water, were in some trepidation lest they should never get ashore again. at last jamie said: "sandy, i'm steering, and i think you'd better put up a bit of a prayer." sandy said: "i don't know how." jamie said: "if you don't i'll just chuck ye overboard." sandy began: "o lord, i never asked onything of ye for fifteen year, and if ye'll only get us safe back i'll never trouble ye again." "whist, sandy," said jamie, "_the boat's touched shore; don't be beholden to onybody_." . unremitting kindness jerrold was asked if he considered a man kind who remitted no funds to his family when away. "oh! yes. _unremitting kindness_," said he. . amusing blunder one of the passengers on board the ill-fated "metis" at the time of the disaster was an exceedingly nervous man, who, while floating in the water, imagined how his friends would acquaint his wife of his fate. saved at last, he rushed to the telegraph office and sent this message: "dear p----, i am saved. _break it gently to my wife._" . compliment to a lady [how nicely this might fit into a ladies' party.] sidney smith, the cultivated writer and divine, who, when describing his country residence, declared that he lived twelve miles from a lemon, was told by a beautiful girl that a certain pea in his garden would never come to perfection. "permit me then," said he, taking her by the hand, "_to lead perfection to the pea_." . too slim [the great evil of mixing religion and politics are well set forth in the following incident:] "gabe," said the governor to an old colored man, "i understand that you have been ousted from your position of sunday-school superintendent." "yes, sah, da figured aroun' till da got me out. ii was all a piece of political work, though; and i doan see why de law of de lan' doan prevent de sunday-schools an' churches from takin' up political matters!" "how did politics get you out?" "yer see, some time ago, when i was a candidate for justice ob de peace, i gin' a barbecue ter some ob my frien's. de udder day da brung up de fack an' ousted me." "i don't see why the fact that you gave a barbecue to your friends should have caused any trouble." "neider does myse'f, boss; but yer see da said dat i stole de hogs what i barbecued. de proof wa'nt good, an' i think dat da done wrong in ackin' upon sech slim testimony. da said dat i cotch de hogs in a corn fid'. i know dat wan't true, 'case it was a wheat fid' whar i cotch 'em." . a fast-day toast on one of the fast-days--a cold, bleak one, too--father foley, a popular and genial priest, on his way from a distant visitation, dropped in to see widow o'brien, who was as jolly as himself, and equally as fond of the creature comforts, and, what is better, well able to provide them. as it was about dinner-time, his reverence thought he would stay and have a "morsel" with the old dame; but what was his horror to see served up in good style a pair of splendid roast ducks! "oh! musha, mistress o'brien, what have ye there?" he exclaimed, in well-feigned surprise. "ducks, yer riverence." "ducks! roast ducks! and this a fast-day of the holy church!" "wisha! i never thought of that; but why can't we eat a bit of duck, yer riverence?" "why? because the council of trint won't lave us--that's why." "well, well, now, but i'm sorry fur that, fur i can only give ye a bite of bread and cheese and a glass of something hot. would that be any harrum, sir?" "harrum! by no manes, woman. sure we must live any way, and bread and cheese is not forbid!" "nayther whiskey punch?" "nayther that." "well, thin, yer riverence, would it be any harrum fur me to give a toast?" "by no manes, mrs. o'brien. toast away as much as ye like, bedad!" "well, thin, _here's to the council of trint, fur if it keeps us from atin', it doesn't keep us from drinkin'_!" . the sun standing still james russell lowell, when concluding an after-dinner speech in england, made a happy hit by introducing the story of a methodist preacher at a camp-meeting, of whom he had heard when he was young. he was preaching on joshua ordering the sun to stand still: "my hearers," he said, "there are three motions of the sun; the first is the straightforward or direct motion of the sun, the second is the retrograde or backward motion of the sun, and the third is the motion mentioned in our text--'the sun stood still.' now, gentlemen, i do not know whether you see the application of that story to after-dinner oratory. i hope you do. the after-dinner orator at first begins and goes straight forward--that is the straightforward motion of the sun; next he goes back and begins to repeat himself a little, and that is the retrograde or backward motion of the sun; and at last he has the good sense to bring himself to an end, and that is the motion mentioned in our text of the sun standing still." . neutralizing poison col. john h. george, a new hampshire barrister, tells a good story on himself. meeting an old farmer recently whom he had known in his youth, the old fellow congratulated the colonel on his youthful appearance. "how is it you've managed to keep so fresh and good-looking all these years?" quoth he. "well," said george, "i'll tell you. i've always drank new rum and voted the democratic ticket." "oh! yes," said the old man, "_i see how it is; one pizen neutralizes the other!_" . general butler and the spoons while general butler was delivering a speech in boston during an exciting political campaign, one of his hearers cried out: "how about the spoons, ben?" benjamin's good eye twinkled merrily as he looked bashfully at the audience, and said: "now, don't mention that, please. _i was a republican when i stole those spoons._" . making most of one's capital [one should always make the most of his capital, as this orator did.] "fellow-citizens, my competitor has told you of the services he rendered in the late war. i will follow his example, and i shall tell you of mine. he basely insinuates that i was deaf to the voice of honor in that crisis. the truth is, i acted a humble part in that memorable contest. when the tocsin of war summoned the chivalry of the country to rally to the defense of the nation, i, fellow-citizens, animated by that patriotic spirit that glows in every american's bosom, hired a substitute for that war, and the bones of that man, fellow-citizens, now lie bleaching in the valley of the shenandoah!" . meeting half-way [but the following man could get even more out of an unpromising situation.] "now, i want to know," said a man whose veracity had been questioned by an angry acquaintance, "just why you call me a liar. be frank, sir; for frankness is a golden-trimmed virtue. just as a friend, now, tell me why you called me a liar." "called you a liar because you are a liar," the acquaintance replied. "that's what i call frankness. why, sir, if this rule were adopted over half of the difficulties would be settled without trouble, and in our case there would have been trouble but for our willingness to meet each other half-way." . unfortunate mistake judge ----, who is now a very able judge of the supreme court of one of the great states of this union, when he first "came to the bar," was a very blundering speaker. on one occasion, when he was trying a case of replevin, involving the right of property to a lot of hogs, he addressed the jury as follows: "gentlemen of the jury, there were just twenty-four hogs in that drove--just twenty-four, gentlemen--_exactly twice as many as there are in that jury-box_!" the effect can be imagined. . taken at his word a pretentious person said to the leading man of a country village, "how would a lecture by me on mount vesuvius suit the inhabitants of your village?" "very well, sir; very well, indeed," he answered; "a lecture by you on mount vesuvius would suit them a great deal better than a lecture by you in this village." . bragging veterans in warning veterans against exaggerating, a gentleman at a washington banquet related the following anecdote of a revolutionary veteran, who, having outlived nearly all his comrades, and being in no danger of contradiction, rehearsed his experience thuswise: "in that fearful day at monmouth, although entitled to a horse, i fought on foot. with each blow i severed an englishman's head from his body, until a huge pile of heads lay around me, great pools of blood on either side, and my shoes were so full of the same dreadful fluid that my feet slipped beneath me. just then i felt a touch upon my shoulder, and, looking up, who should i behold but the great and good washington himself! never shall i forget the majesty and dignity of his presence, as, pressing his hand upon me, he said, 'my young friend, restrain yourself, and for heaven's sake do not make a slaughter-house of yourself.'" . exchanging minds heinrich heine, the german poet, apologizing for feeling dull after a visit from a professor said: "i am afraid you find me very stupid. the fact is, dr. ---- called upon me this morning, and _we exchanged our minds_." . buying a lawyer [the willingness to pay full value for an article is a trait of character always appreciated.] lawyer b---- called at the office of counselor f----, who has had considerable practice in bankruptcy, and said: "see here, f----, i want to know what the practice is in such and such a case in bankruptcy." f----, straightening himself up and looking as wise as possible, replied: "well, mr. b----, i generally get paid for telling what i know." b---- put his hand into his pocket, drew forth half a dollar, handed it to f----, and said: "here, tell me _all_ you know, and _give me the change_." . would not save it in the old town of w----, in the pine-tree state, lived one of those unfortunate lords of creation who had, in not a very long life, put on mourning for three departed wives. but time assuages heart-wounds, as well as those of the flesh. in due time a fourth was inaugurated mistress of his heart and house. he was a very prudent man, and suffered nothing to be wasted. when the new mistress was putting things in order, while cleaning up the attic she came across a long piece of board, and was about launching it out of the window, when little sadie interposed, and said: "oh! don't, mamma! _that is the board papa lays out his wives on, and he wants to save it!_" nevertheless, _out it went_. . widow outwitted in a western village a charming, well-preserved widow had been courted and won by a physician. she had children. the wedding-day was approaching, and it was time the children should know they were to have a new father. calling one of them to her, she said: "georgie, i am going to do something before long that i would like to talk about with you." "well, ma, what is it!" "i am intending to marry dr. jones in a few days, and--" "bully for you, ma! _does dr. jones know it?_" ma caught her breath, but failed to articulate a response. . too kind [where can we find a more touching manifestation of mutual benevolence than the following.] in new jersey reside two gentlemen, near neighbors and bosom friends, one a clergyman, dr. b----, the other a "gentleman of means" named wilson. both were passionately fond of music, and the latter devoted many of his leisure hours to the study of the violin. one fine afternoon our clerical friend was in his study, deeply engaged in writing, when there came along one of those good-for-nothing little italian players, who planted himself under his study window, and, much to his annoyance, commenced scraping away on a squeaky fiddle. after trying in vain for about fifteen minutes to collect his scattered thoughts, the doctor descended to the piazza in front of the house, and said to the boy: "look here, sonny, you go over and play awhile for mr. wilson. here is ten cents. he lives in that big white house over yonder. he plays the violin, and likes music better than i do." "well," said the boy, taking the "stamp," "_i would, but he just gave me ten cents to come over and play for you!_" . not fooled twice san francisco boasts of a saloon called the bank exchange, where the finest wines and liquors are dispensed at twenty-five cents a glass, with lunches thrown in free. a plain-looking person went in one morning and called for a brandy cocktail, and wanted it _strong_. mr. parker, as is usual with him, was very considerate, and mixed the drink in his best style, setting it down for his customer. after the cocktail had disappeared the man leaned over the bar and said that he had no change about him then, but would have soon, when he would pay for the drink. parker politely remarked that he should have mentioned the fact before he got the drink; when his customer remarked: "i tried that on yesterday morning with one of your men, but he would not let me have the whiskey, so you could not play that dodge on me again!" this was too good for parker, and he told the customer he was welcome to his drink, and was entitled to his hat in the bargain, if he wanted it. . biting sarcasm standing on the steps at the entrance to one of the grand hotels at saratoga, a young gentleman, in whom the "dude" species was strongly developed, had been listening with eager attention to the bright things which fell from the lips of the well-known wit and orator, emory a. storrs. at last our exquisite exclaimed: "er--mr. storrs,--i--er--wish, oh! how i--er--_wish_! that i had your--er--cheek." mr. storrs instantly annihilated him with: "it is a most fortunate dispensation of providence that you have not. for, _with my cheek and your brains_, you would be kicked down these steps in no time!" . incorrigible neighbor a lady in california had a troublesome neighbor, whose cattle overrun her ranch, causing much damage. the lady bore the annoyance patiently, hoping that some compunction would be felt for the damage inflicted. at last she caught a calf which was making havoc in her garden, and sent it home with a child, saying, "tell mrs. a. that the calf has eaten nearly everything in the garden, and i have scarcely a cabbage left." the feelings of the injured lady may be imagined when she received this reply: "the cabbage nearly all eaten! well, i must get over and borrow some before it is all gone!" . disgusted officer some years since a party of indians drove off all the live-stock at fort lancaster. a few days afterward captain ---- was passing through the post, and stopped a couple of days for rest. while there an enthusiastic officer took him out to show him the trail of the bad indians, how they came, which way they went, etc. after following the trail for some distance the captain turned to his guide and exclaimed: "look here; if you want to find any indians, you can find them; _i haven't lost any_, and am going back to camp." . irate prisoner a man arrested for stealing chickens was brought to trial. the case was given to the jury, who brought him in guilty, and the judge sentenced him to three months' imprisonment. the jailer was a jovial man, fond of a _smile_, and feeling particularly good on that particular day, considered himself insulted when the prisoner looking around his cell told him it was dirty, and not fit for a hog to be put in. one word brought on another, till finally the jailer told the prisoner if he did not behave himself he would put him out. to which the prisoner replied: "i will give you to understand, sir, i have as good a right here as you have!" . truthful prisoner the eccentric old king of prussia, father of frederick the great, while visiting the potsdam prison, was much interested in the professions of innocence the prisoners made. some blamed their conviction on the prejudice of judges; others, upon the perjury of witnesses or the tricks of bad companions. at length he accosted a sturdy, closely-fettered prisoner with the remark, "i suppose you are innocent, too." "no, your majesty," was the unexpected response. "i am guilty, and richly deserve all i get." "here, you turnkey," thundered the monarch, "come and turn out this rascal, quick, before he corrupts this fine lot of innocent and abused people that you have about you." . ruling passion there are persons now living in bennington who remember old billy b----, of whom it might be said he furnished an example of the "ruling passion strong in death." when very ill, and friends were expecting an early demise, his nephew and a man hired for the occasion had butchered a steer which had been fattened; and when the job was completed the nephew entered the sick-room, where a few friends were assembled, when, to the astonishment of all, the old man opened his eyes, and turning his head slightly, said, in a full voice, drawing out the words: "what have you been doing?" "killing the steer," was the reply. "what did you do with the hide?" "left it in the barn; going to sell it by-and-by." "let the boys drag it around the yard a couple of times; it will make it weigh heavier." and the good old man was gathered unto his fathers. . bad speculation [this is told of bears, rattlesnakes, etc., as well as indians.] at a recent festive occasion a gentleman who was making a few remarks was repeatedly interrupted by another one of the company. he bore it patiently at first, but finally said that it reminded him of a story he had heard. he said that a man, whom business had called away a short distance from his home in the city, thought he would pay his way back again by purchasing a number of hogs and driving them home. he did so, but when he and the hogs arrived at their destination the market for the latter had fallen considerably in price, and the hogs had also lost weight on the journey. it was remarked to him that he had made rather a bad speculation. "yes--well, yes," he answered reflectively. "yes--but then, you see, _i had their company all the way_!" . satisfied with his situation [the following may not be strictly true, but it well illustrates that there is always a lower depth in misfortune, and--that western roads are often somewhat muddy.] some years ago, when riding along one of the almost impassable roads in the far west, i observed a dark-looking object lying in the middle of the road, and my natural curiosity impelled me to dismount and examine it. it proved to be a hat, somewhat muddy and dilapidated, but emphatically a hat. on lifting it up, to my surprise i found that it covered a head--a human head--which protruded sufficiently out of the mud to be recognizable as such. i ventured to address the evidently wide-awake head, and remarked that it seemed to be in a pretty bad sort of a fix. "wa'al, yes!" the lips replied; "you're about right thar, stranger; _but then i ain't anyway near as bad off as the horse that's under me_!" . a good word for the devil a conference preacher one day went into the house of a wesleyan reformer, and saw the portraits of three expelled ministers suspended from the walls. "what!" said he, "have you got them hanging there?" "oh! yes," was the answer; "they are there." "ah! well; but one is wanted to complete the set." "pray, who is that?" "why, the devil, to be sure." "ah!" said the reformer, "but he is not yet expelled from the conference." . marrying a widow in cadiz, ohio, a preacher was summoned to the hotel to make an expectant couple one. in the course of the preliminary inquiries the groom was asked if he had been married before, and admitted that he had been--three times. "and is this lady a widow," was also asked, but he responded promptly and emphatically, "no, sir; _i never marry widows_." . a good sale several years ago there resided in saratoga county a lawyer of considerable ability and reputation, but of no great culture, who had an unusually fine taste in paintings and engravings--the only evidence of refinement he ever exhibited. a clergyman of the village in which he lived, knowing his fondness for such things, introduced to him an agent of a publishing house in the city who was issuing a pictorial bible in numbers. the specimen of the style of work exhibited to the lawyer was a very beautiful one, and he readily put down his name for a copy. but in the progress of the publication the character of the engravings rapidly deteriorated, much to the disgust of the enlightened lawyer. the picture of joseph, very indifferently done, provoked him beyond endurance, and seizing several of the numbers he sallied forth to reproach the parson for leading him into such a bad bargain. "look at these wretched scratches," said he, turning the pages over, "and see how i have been imposed upon! here is a portrait of joseph, whom his brethren sold to the egyptians for twenty pieces of silver; and let me tell you, parson, _if joseph looked like that it was a mighty good sale_!" . triumphs of medicine a priest was called upon by a superstitious parishioner, who asked him to do something for her sick cow. he disclaimed knowing anything about such matters, but could not put her off. she insisted that if he would only say some words over the cow, the animal would surely recover. worn out with importunity, he seized his book in desperation, walked around the four-legged patient several times, repeating in a sonorous voice the latin words, which mean, "if you die, you die; and if you live, you live," and rushed off disgusted. but the woman was delighted, and sooth to say the cow quickly recovered. but in time the good man himself was taken sick, and grew rapidly worse. his throat was terribly swollen, and all medical aid was exhausted. the word passed around the parish that the priest must die. when bridget heard the peril of her favorite pastor she was inspired by a mighty resolve. she hurried to the sick-room, entered against the protest of the friends who were weeping around, and with out a word to any one with her strong hands dragged his reverence's bed to the middle of the floor, and with the exact copy of his very gestures and voice marched around the bed, repeating the sonorous and well-remembered latin phrase, "if you die, you die; and if you live, you live." the priest fell into a fit of uncontrollable laughter, and in his struggle for breath and self-control the gathering in his throat broke and his life was saved! mighty are the triumphs of medicine! . tit for tat an old fellow in a neighboring town, who is original in all things, especially in excessive egotism, and who took part in the late war, was one day talking to a crowd of admiring listeners, and boasting of his many bloody exploits, when he was interrupted by the question: "i say, old joe, how many of the enemy did you kill during the war?" "how many did i kill sir? _how many_ enemies did i kill? well, i don't know just 'zactly _how_ many; but i know this much--i killed as many o' them _as they did o' me_!" . sleeping on top during a homeward trip of the "henry chauncey," from aspinwall, the steerage passengers were so numerous as to make them uncomfortable. as for sleeping accommodation, it was aptly described by a californian, who approached the captain, and said: "i should like to have a sleeping-berth, if you please." "why, where have you been sleeping these last two nights since we left?" "wa'al, i've been sleeping a-top of a sick man; _but he's better now, and won't stand it no longer_!" . sambo and the lawyer in a macon (ga.) court the other day a lawyer was cross-examining a negro witness, and was getting along fairly well until he asked the witness what his occupation was. "i'se a carpenter, sah." "what kind of a carpenter?" "they calls me a jackleg carpenter, sah." "what is a jackleg carpenter?" "he is a carpenter who is not a first-class carpenter, sah." "well, explain fully what you understand a jackleg carpenter to be," insisted the lawyer. "boss, i declare i dunno how ter splain any mo' 'cept to say hit am jes' the same difference 'twixt you an' a fust-class lawyer." . sixty-cent nap on board a train in the west an eccentric preacher wanted a sleeping-berth, but had only sixty cents, while the lowest price was a dollar. naturally he did not get on very fast with the porter; but after wearing out the patience of that functionary in vain efforts to stretch the sixty cents, the conductor was sent for. all proposals to borrow, to pledge an old waterbury watch, and other financial expedients failed; but the circle was squared when the preacher said, "i'll lie down, and _when i have slept sixty cents worth, you send that bed-shaker to rout me out_." the procession started for the sleeper amid the hilarity of the passengers, but the tradition is that he slept the whole night through and far into the morning. . preferred to walk a great traveler once found himself on the shore of the sea of galilee. he was at once beset by boatmen, who wanted to take him out to sail on the waters where christ had walked. he yielded to their importunities, and returned to the shore in about an hour. but his devout meditations were greatly disturbed when he was told that the charge was $ . with energy he declared that it was robbery, that it was not worth so much to sail all over their little lake, and demanded, "what makes you charge so dreadfully?" "why," said the innocent boatman, "because dese ese de lake were de saviour walked on de water." "walked! walked! did he? well, if the boatmen of that day charged as you fellows do, i should think he _would_ walk." . horace greeley's joke on one occasion a person, who wished to have a little fun at the expense of his constituency, said in a group where horace greeley was standing: "mr. greeley and i, gentlemen, are old friends. we have drunk a good deal of brandy and water together." "yes," said mr. greeley, "that is true enough. you drank the brandy, and i drank the water." . doctors and deadheads fifty years ago the principal avenue of detroit had a toll-gate close to the entrance of the elmwood cemetery road. as this cemetery had been laid out some time previous to the construction of the plank road, it was arranged that all funeral processions should be allowed to pass along the latter toll-free. one day as a well-known physician stopped to pay his toll, he observed to the gate-keeper: "considering the benevolent character of our profession, i think you ought to let physicians pass free of charge." "no, no, doctor," replied the man; "we can't afford that. you send too many 'deadheads' through here as it is." the story traveled, and the two words became associated. . booming a town they tell a story of a man who came into omaha one day, and wanted to trade his farm for some city lots. "all right," replied the real-estate agent, "get into my buggy, and i'll drive you out to see some of the finest residence sites in the world--water, sewers, paved streets, cement sidewalks, electric light, shade trees, and all that sort of thing," and away they drove four or five miles into the country. the real-estate agent expatiated upon the beauty of the surroundings, the value of the improvements made and projected, the convenience of the location, the ease and speed with which people who lived there could reach town, and the certainty of an active demand for such lots in the immediate future. then, when he was breathless, he turned to his companion, and asked: "where's your farm?" "we passed it coming out here," was the reply. "it's about two miles nearer town." . athletic nurse young wife--"why, dear, you were the stroke oar at college, weren't you?" young husband--"yes, love." "and a prominent member of the gymnastic class?" "i was leader." "and quite a hand at all athletic exercises?" "quite a hand? my gracious! i was champion walker, the best runner, the head man at lifting heavy weights, and as for carrying--why, i could shoulder a barrel of flour and--" "well, love, just please carry the baby for a couple of hours, i'm tired." . too premature [anything rather premature may be illustrated by the following:] a spring bird that had taken time by the forelock flew across the lawn near this city one day last week. his probable fate is best described in this pathetic verse, author unknown: "the first bird of spring essayed for to sing; but ere he had uttered a note he fell from the limb, a dead bird was him, the music had friz in his throat." . a bewildered irishman the poet shelley tells an amusing story of the influence that language "hard to be understood" exercises on the vulgar mind. walking near covent garden, london, he accidentally jostled against an irish navvy, who, being in a quarrelsome mood, seemed inclined to attack the poet. a crowd of ragged sympathizers began to gather, when shelley, calmly facing them, deliberately pronounced: "i have put my hand into the hamper, i have looked on the sacred barley, i have eaten out of the drum. i have drunk and am well pleased. i have said, 'knox ompax,' and it is finished." the effect was magical, the astonished irishman fell back; his friends began to question him. "what barley?" "where's the hamper?" "what have you been drinking?" and shelley walked away unmolested. . obeying orders when general sickles, after the second battle of bull run, assumed command of a division of the army of the potomac, he gave an elaborate farewell dinner to the officers of his old excelsior brigade. "now, boys, we will have a family gathering," he said to them, as they assembled in his quarters. pointing to the table, he continued: "treat it as you would the enemy." as the feast ended, an irish officer was discovered by sickles in the act of stowing away three bottles of champagne in his saddle-bags. "what are you doing, sir," gasped the astonished general. "obeying orders, sir," replied the captain, in a firm voice: "you told us to treat the dinner as we would the enemy, and you know, general, what we can't kill we capture." . a speech from the rear platform an irish street-car conductor called out shrilly to the passengers standing in the aisle: "will thim in front plaze to move up, so that thim behind can take the places of thim in front, an' lave room for thim who are nayther in front nor behind?" . a way out of it "what's the matter with you," asked a gentleman of a friend whom he met. "you looked puzzled and worried." "i am," said the friend. "maybe you can help me out" "well, what is it?" "i am subject at intervals," said the friend, "to the wildest craving for beefsteak and onions. it has all the characteristics of a confirmed drunkard's craving for rum. this desire came upon me a few minutes ago, and i determined to gratify it. then suddenly i remembered that i had promised to call this evening on some ladies, and i must keep that promise. yet my stomach is shouting for beefsteak and onions, and i am wavering between duty and appetite." "can't you wait until after the call?" asked the gentleman, solicitously. "never," said the friend, earnestly. "can't you postpone the call?" "impossible," declared the friend. "well," said the gentleman, "i'll tell you what to do: go to john chamberlin's café; order your beefsteak and onions, and eat them. when you get your bill it will be so big that it will _quite take your breath away_." . the extent of science "and now," said the learned lecturer on geology who had addressed a small but deeply attentive audience at the village hall, "i have tried to make these problems, abstruse as they may appear, and involving in their solution the best thoughts, the closest analysis, and the most profound investigations of our noblest scientific men for many years; i have tried, i say, to make them seem comparatively simple and easily understood, in the light of modern knowledge. before i close this lecture i shall be glad to answer any questions that may occur to you as to points that appear to need clearing up or that may have been overlooked." there was a silence of a few moments, and then an anxious-looking man in the rear of the hall rose up. "i would take it as a favor," he said, "if you could tell me whether science has produced as yet any reliable and certain cure for warts." . what's in a name? one of the managers of a home for destitute colored children tells a funny story about the institution. she went out there to see how things were getting along, and found a youngster as black as the inside of a coal mine tied to a bed-post, with his hands behind him. "what is that boy tied up there for?" she demanded of the attendant. "for lying, ma'am. he is the worstist, lyingest nigger i ever seen." "what's his name? "george washington, ma'am," was the paralyzing reply. . still room for research "what is this new substance i hear so much about?" asked the eminent scientist's wife. "what new substance, my dear?" "the element in the air that has just been detected." "oh! that, my dear," he answered, beaming over his spectacles with the good nature of superior wisdom, "is known as argon!" "oh!" "yes; its discovery is one of the most remarkable triumphs of the age. it has revolutionized some of the old theories, or at least it will revolutionize them before it gets through." "what is it?" "it's--er--a--did you say, what is it?" "i said that." "well--ahem--you see, we haven't as yet discovered much about it except its name." . he was "'piscopal" an episcopal clergyman passing his vacation in indiana met an old farmer who declared that he was a "'piscopal." "to what parish do you belong?" asked the clergyman. "don't know nawthin' 'bout enny parish," was the answer. "well, then," continued the clergyman, "what diocese do you belong to?" "they ain't nawthin' like that 'round here," said the farmer. "who confirmed you, then?" was the next question. "nobody," answered the farmer. "then how are you an episcopalian?" asked the clergyman. "well," was the reply, "you see it's this way: last winter i went down to arkansas visitin', and while i was there i went to church, and it was called 'piscopal, and i he'rd them say 'that they left undone the things what they'd oughter done and they had done some things what they oughten done,' and i says to myself, says i: 'that's my fix exac'ly, and ever since i considered myself a 'piscopalian." the clergyman shook the old fellow's hand, and laughingly said: "now i understand, my friend, why the membership of our church is so large." . johnny's excuse a little girl brought a note to her school-teacher one morning, which read as follows. "dear teacher, please excuse johnny for not coming to school today. he is dead." johnny was excused. charles franks, and the dp team memories of canada and scotland _speeches and verses_ by the right hon. the marquis of lorne k.t., g.c.m.g., &c. dedicated with respect and affection to the members of the royal society of canada contents _verses on canadian subjects._ canada, quebec prologue--government house, march canadian national hymn canadian river rhymes the canadian robin milicete legend of the river st. john the guide of the mohawks the strong hunter the origin of the indian corn the isles of huron the mystic isle of the "land of the north wind" westward ho! the song of the six sisters the prairie roses cree fairies the "qu'appelle" valley the blackfeet san gabriel, on the pacific coast niagara on chief mountain cuba on the new province "alberta" _verses chiefly from highland stories._ gaelic legends colhorn loch bÚy the hard strait of the feinne tobermory bay, loch uisk, isle of mull the lady's rock the pool of the iron shirt inverawe an islesman's farewell preface to diarmid's story grinie's flight with diarmid the death of the boar king arthur and the captive maiden seann oran gailic dunolly's daughter the armada gun cavalry charge--kÖniggrÄtz the irish emigrant, the irish emigrant, song sonnet on the death of lord f. douglas sadowa on a foreign war-ship's salute to the queen's standard _speeches and addresses._ farewell address at inveraray embarking at liverpool reply to the liverpool chamber of commerce to the municipality of londonderry at montreal--to the st. andrews society at montreal--reply to the citizens' address at ottawa--reply to the citizens' address at ottawa--distribution of school prizes at kingston--on receiving the degree of doctor of laws of queen's college at kingston--to the university of queen's college at kingston--to the cadets of the royal military college at montreal--review on the queen's birthday, at montreal--opening of an art institute at quebec--reply to address of the city corporation at quebec--laval university at toronto--toronto club dinner at st. john, n.b. at st. john, n.b.--reply to address of the city corporation at fredericton--reply to address of the city corporation in kings' county, n.b.--reply to address of the municipality at toronto--reply to address of the city corporation at berlin, ontario--reply to address of the german residents at ottawa--exhibition of at ottawa--exhibition of the royal canadian academy of art at quebec--festival of st. jean baptiste at hamilton--opening of provincial fair at montreal--opening of provincial fair at montreal--laying the foundation stone of the redpath museum of the mcgill college at chambly--unveiling the statue of colonel de salaberry at st. thomas--gathering of highlanders at winnipeg--impressions of a tour in the northwest at winnipeg--society of st. jean baptiste of manitoba at winnipeg--reply to address of the archbishop of st. boniface--manitoba at winnipeg--reply to address of the board of management of manitoba college at fort shaw, montana--farewell to the northwest mounted police at ottawa--inception of the royal society of canada at san francisco, cal--reply to address of the british residents at victoria, b.c.--speech at a public dinner at ottawa--meeting of the national rifle association at ottawa--second meeting of the royal society of canada at toronto--reply to addresses of the royal academy and of the ontario society of artists at ottawa--farewell address of the parliament of canada reply extract from the speech from the throne _appendix._ at toronto--exhibition of arts and manufactures at toronto--reply to address at the queen's park at ottawa--reply to address of the city corporation at montreal--reply to address of the city corporation at quebec--reply, oct. th , to address of the city corporation verses on canadian subjects. _canada_, . "are hearts here strong enough to found a glorious people's sway?" ask of our rivers as they bound from hill to plain, or ocean-sound, if they are strong to-day? if weakness in their floods be found, then may ye answer "nay!" "is union yours? may foeman's might your love ne'er break or chain?" go see if o'er our land the flight of spring be stayed by blast or blight; if fall bring never grain; if summer suns deny their light, then may our hope be vain! "yet far too cramped the narrow space your country's rule can own?" ah! travel all its bounds and trace each alp unto its fertile base, our realm of forests lone, our world of prairie, like the face of ocean, hardly known! "yet for the arts to find a shrine, too rough, i ween, and rude?" yea, if you find no flower divine with prairie grass or hardy pine. no lilies with the wood, or on the water-meadows' line no purple iris' flood! "you deem a nation here shall stand, united, great, and free?" yes, see how liberty's own hand with ours the continent hath spanned, strong-arched, from sea to sea: our canada's her chosen land, her roof and crown to be! _quebec._ o fortress city, bathed by streams majestic as thy memories great, where mountains, floods, and forests mate the grandeur of the glorious dreams, born of the hero hearts who died in founding here an empire's pride; prosperity attend thy fate, and happiness in thee abide, pair canada's strong tower and gate! may envy, that against thy might dashed hostile hosts to surge and break, bring commerce, emulous to make thy people share her fruitful fight, in filling argosies with store of grain and timber, and each ore, and all a continent can shake into thy lap, till more and more thy praise in distant worlds awake. who hath not known delight whose feet have paced thy streets or terrace way; from rampart sod or bastion grey hath marked thy sea-like river greet. the bright and peopled banks which shine in front of the far mountain's line; thy glittering roofs below, the play of currents where the ships entwine their spars, or laden pass away? as we who joyously once rode past guarded gates to trumpet sound, along the devious ways that wound o'er drawbridges, through moats, and showed the vast st. lawrence flowing, belt the orleans isle, and sea-ward melt; then by old walls with cannon crowned, down stair-like streets, to where we felt the salt winds blown o'er meadow ground. where flows the charles past wharf and dock. and learning from laval looks down, and quiet convents grace the town. there swift to meet the battle shock montcalm rushed on; and eddying back, red slaughter marked the bridge's track: see now the shores with lumber brown, and girt with happy lands which lack no loveliness of summer's crown. quaint hamlet-alleys, border-filled with purple lilacs, poplars tall, where flits the yellow bird, and fall the deep eave shadows. there when tilled the peasant's field or garden bed, he rests content if o'er his head from silver spires the church-bells call to gorgeous shrines, and prayers that gild the simple hopes and lives of all. winter is mocked by garbs of green, worn by the copses flaked with snow,-- white spikes and balls of bloom, that blow in hedgerows deep; and cattle seen in meadows spangled thick with gold, and globes where lovers' fates are told around the red-doored houses low; while rising o'er them, fold on fold, the distant hills in azure glow. oft in the woods we long delayed, when hours were minutes all too brief, for nature knew no sound of grief; but overhead the breezes played, and in the dank grass at our knee, shone pearls of our green forest sea, the star-white flowers of triple leaf which love around the brooks to be, within the birch and maple shade. at times we passed some fairy mere embosomed in the leafy screen, and streaked with tints of heaven's sheen, where'er the water's surface clear bore not the hues of verdant light from myriad boughs on mountain height, or near the shadowed banks were seen the sparkles that in circlets bright told where the fishes' feast had been. and when afar the forests flushed in falling swathes of fire, there soared dark clouds where muttering thunder roared, and mounting vapours lurid rushed, while a metallic lustre flew upon the vivid verdure's hue, before the blasts and rain forth poured, and slow o'er mighty landscapes drew the grandest pageant of the lord: the threatening march of flashing cloud, with tumults of embattled air, blest conflicts for the good they bear! a century has god allowed none other, since the days he gave unequal fortune to the brave. comrades in death! you live to share an equal honour, for your grave bade enmity take love as heir! we watched, when gone day's quivering haze, the loops of plunging foam that beat the rocks at montmorenci's feet stab the deep gloom with moonlit rays; or from the fortress saw the streams sweep swiftly o'er the pillared beams; white shone the roofs, and anchored fleet, and grassy slopes where nod in dreams pale hosts of sleeping marguerite. or when the dazzling frost king mailed would clasp the wilful waterfall, fast leaping to her snowy hall she fled; and where her rainbows hailed her freedom, painting all her home, we climbed her spray-built palace dome, shot down the radiant glassy wall until we reached the snowdrift foam, as shoots to waves some meteor ball. then homeward, hearing song or tale, with chime of harness bells we sped above the frozen river bed. the city, through a misty veil, gleamed from her cape, where sunset fire touched louvre and cathedral spire, bathed ice and snow a rosy red, so beautiful that men's desire for may-time's rival wonders fled: what glories hath this gracious land, fit home for many a hardy race; where liberty has broadest base, and labour honours every hand! throughout her triply thousand miles the sun upon each season smiles, and every man has scope and space, and kindliness, from strand to strand, alone is born to right of place! such were our memories. may they yet be shared by others, sent to be signs of the union of the free and kindred peoples god hath set o'er famous isles, and fertile zones of continents! or if new thrones and mighty states arise, may he whose potent hand yon river owns smooth their great future's shrouded sea! _prologue._ government house, _march_ . a moment's pause before we play our parts, to speak the thought that reigns within your hearts.-- now from the future's hours, and unknown days, affection turns, and with the past delays; for countless voices in our mighty land speak the fond praises of a vanished hand; and shall, to mightier ages yet, proclaim the happy memories linked with dufferin's name. missed here is he, to whom each class and creed, among our people lately bade "god speed;" missed, when each winter sees the skater wheel in ringing circle on the flashing steel; missed in the spring, the summer and the fall, in many a hut, as in the council hall; where'er his wanderings on duty's hest evoked his glowing speech, his genial jest. we mourn his absence, though we joy that now old england's honours cluster round his brow, and that he left us but to serve again our queen and empire on the neva's plain! amidst the honoured roll of those whose fate it was to crown our fair canadian state, and bind in one bright diadem alone, each glorious province, each resplendent stone, his name shall last, and his example give to all her sons a lesson how to live: how every task, if met with heart as bold, proves the hard rock is seamed with precious gold, and labour, when with mirth and love allied, finds friends far stronger than in force and pride, and sympathy and kindness can be made the potent weapons by which men are swayed. he proved a nation's trust can well be won by loyal work and constant duty done; the wit that winged the wisdom of his word set forth our glories, till all europe heard how wide the room our western world can spare for all who nobly toil and bravely dare. and while the statesman we revere, we know in him the friend is gone, to whom we owe so much of gaiety, so much which made life's duller round to seem in joy repaid. these little festivals by him made bright, with grateful thoughts of him renewed to-night, remind no less of her who deigned to grace this mimic world, and fill therein her place with the sweet dignity and gracious mien the race of hamilton has often seen; but never shown upon the wider stage where the great "cast" is writ on history's page, more purely, nobly, than by her, whose voice here moved to tears, or made the heart rejoice, and who in act and word, at home, or far, shone with calm beauty like the northern star! green as the shamrock of their native isle their memory lives, and babes unborn shall smile and share in happiness the pride that blends our country's name with her beloved friends! _a national hymn._ government house, _march_ . from our dominion never take thy protecting hand, united, lord, for ever keep thou our fathers' land! from where atlantic terrors our hardy seamen train, to where the salt sea mirrors the vast pacific chain. aye one with her whose thunder keeps world-watch with the hours, guard freedom's home and wonder, "this canada of ours." fair days of fortune send her, be thou her shield and sun! our land, our flag's defender, unite our hearts as one! one flag, one land, upon her may every blessing rest i for loyal faith and honour her children's deeds attest aye one with her, &c. no stranger's foot, insulting, shall tread our country's soil; while stand her sons exulting for her to live and toil. she hath the victor's guerdon, her's are the conquering hours, no foeman's yoke shall burden "this canada of ours." aye one with her, &c. our sires, when times were sorest, asked none but aid divine, and cleared the tangled forest, and wrought the buried mine. they tracked the floods and fountains, and won, with master-hand, far more than gold in mountains, the glorious prairie-land. aye one with her, &c, o giver of earth's treasure, make thou our nation strong; pour forth thine hot displeasure on all who work our wrong! to our remotest border let plenty still increase, let liberty and order, bid ancient feuds to cease. aye one with her, &c. may canada's fair daughters keep house for hearts as bold as theirs who o'er the waters came hither first of old. the pioneers of nations! they showed the world the way; tis ours to keep their stations, and lead the van to-day. aye one with her, &c. inheritors of glory, o countrymen! we swear to guard the flag whose story shall onward victory bear. where'er through earth's far regions its triple crosses fly, for god, for home, our legions shall win, or fighting die! aye one with her, &c. _river rhymes_ . we have poled our staunch canoe many a boiling torrent through; paddling where the eddies drew, athwart the roaring flood we flew. _chorus--_ dip your paddles! make them leap, where the clear cold waters sweep. dip your paddles! steady keep, where breaks the rapid down the steep. . where the wind, like censer, flings smoke-spray wider as it swings, hark! the aisle of rainbow rings to falls that hymn the king of kings. . lifting there our vessel tight, climbed we bank and rocky height, bore her through thick woods, where light fell dappling those green haunts of night. . o'er the rush of billows hurled, where they tossed and leaped and curled, past each wave-worn boulder whirled, how fast we sailed, no sail unfurled! . laughs from parted lips and teeth hailed the quiet reach beneath, damascened in ferny sheath, and girt with pine and maple wreath. . oh, the lovely river there made all nature yet more fair; wooded hills and azure air kissed, quivering, in the stream they share. . plunged the salmon, waging feud 'gainst the jewelled insect-brood; from aerial solitude an eagle's shadow crossed the wood. . flapped the heron, and the grey halcyon talked from cedar's spray, drummed the partridge far away;-- ah! could we choose to live as they! _legend of the canadian robin_ is it man alone who merits immortality or death? each created thing inherits equal air and common breath. souls pass onward: some are ranging happy hunting-grounds, and some are as joyous, though in changing form be altered, language dumb. beauteous all, if fur or feather, strength or gift of song be theirs; he who planted all together equally their fate prepares. like to time, that dies not, living through the change the seasons bring, so men, dying, are but giving life to some fleet foot or wing. bird and beast the savage cherished, but the robins loved he best; o'er the grave where he has perished they shall thrive and build their nest. hunted by the white invader, vanish ancient races all; yet no ruthless foe or trader silences the songster's call. for the white man too rejoices, welcoming spring's herald bird, when the ice breaks, and the voices from the rushing streams are heard. where the indian's head-dress fluttered, pale the settler would recoil, and his deepest curse was uttered on the red son of the soil. later knew he not, when often gladness with the robin came, how a spirit-change could soften hate to dear affection's flame: knew not, as he heard, delighted, mellow notes in woodlands die, how his heart had leaped, affrighted at that voice in battle-cry. for a youthful savage, keeping long his cruel fast, had prayed, all his soul in yearning steeping, not for glory, chase, or maid; but to sing in joy, and wander, following the summer hours, drinking where the streams meander, feasting with the leaves and flowers. once his people saw him painting red his sides and red his breast, said: "his soul for fight is fainting, war-paint suits the hero best;" went, when passed the night, loud calling, found him not, but where he lay saw a robin, whose enthralling carol seemed to them to say; "i have left you! i am going far from fast and winter pain; when the laughing water's flowing hither i will come again!" thus his ebon locks still wearing, with the war-paint on his breast, still he comes, our summer sharing, and the lands he once possessed. finding in the white man's regions foemen none, but friends whose heart loves the robins' happy legions, mourns when, silent, they depart. _were these the first discoverers of america?_ milicete legend of the ouangondÉ, or river st. john. though the ebbing ocean listens to ugondé's throbbing roar, calm the conquering flood-tide glistens where the river raved before. [ ] [ ] the bay of fundy tide rises to such a height that it flows up the st. john river channel to some distance, silencing the roar of the calls, which pour over a great ledge of rock left by the ebbing sea. taken very literally from a tale in the "amaranth magazine," . so the sea-brought strangers, stronger than their indian foes of old, conquered, till were heard no longer war-songs through the forests rolled. yet the land's wild stream, begotten where its red sons fought and died, with traditions unforgotten strives to stem oblivion's tide; tells the mighty, who, like ocean, whelm the native stream, how they first in far dim days' commotion, wrestling, fought for empire's sway. hear the sad cascade, ere ever sinks in rising tides its moan, true may be the tale, though never by the victor ocean known. now the chant rings softly, finding freedom as the sea retires; loudly now, through spray-tears blinding throb and thunder silver lyres; silenced when the strong sea-water to its great' heart, limitless, rising, takes the valley's daughter, soothes the song of her distress. ugondÉ's tale. for a while the salt brine leaves me o'er my terraced rocks to fall, and my broad swift-gliding waters olden memories recall. ere the tallest pines were seedlings with my life-stream these were blent; as a father's words, like arrows straight to children's hearts are sent, so my currents speeding downwards, ever passing, sing the same story of the days remembered, when the stranger people came. men of mighty limbs and voices, bearing shining shields and knives, painted gleamed their hair like evening, when the sun in ocean dives. blue their eyes and tall their stature, huge as indian shadows seen when the sun through mists of morning casts them o'er a clear lake's sheen. from before the great pale-faces fled the tribes to woods and caves, watching thence their fearful councils, where they talked beside the waves. for they loved the shores, and fashioned houses from its stones, and there fished and rested, danced at night-time by their fire and torches' glare. sang loud songs before the pine-logs as they crackled in the flame, raised and drank from bone-cups, shouting fiercely some strange spirit's name. turning to the morning's pathway, cried they thus to gods, and none dared to fight the bearded giants, children of the fire and sun. from their bodies fell our flint-darts, yet their arrows flew, like rays flashing from the rocks where polished by the ice in winter days. then the indians prayed the spirits haunting river, bank, and hill, to let hatred, like marsh vapour, rise among their foes and kill. and they seemed to heed, for anger often maddened all the band, fighting for some stones that glittered yellow on ugondé's sand. seeing axe and spear-head crimson, hope illumined doubt and dread, and our land's despairing children called upon the mighty dead. all the northern night-air shaking, rose the ancients' bright array, burning lines of battle breaking darkness into lurid day. but the stranger hearts were hardened, fearless slept they; then at last our great spirit heard, and answered from his home in heaven vast. for his waving locks were tempests, and the thunder-cloud his frown; where he trod the earthquake followed, and the forests bowed them down. as his whirlwind struck the mountains, rent and lifted, swayed the ground; winged knives of crooked lightning gleamed from skies and gulfs profound. floods, from wonted channels driven, roared at falling hillside's shock; what was land became the torrent, what was lake became the rock. now the river and the ocean, whispering, say: "our floods alone see white skeletons slow-moving near the olden walls of stone." moving slow in stream and sea-tide, there the stranger warriors sleep, and their shades still cry in anguish where the foaming waters leap. _the guide of the mohawks_. for strife against the ocean tribe the mohawks' war array comes floating down, where broad st. john reflects the dawning day. a camp is seen, and victims fall, and none are left to flee; a maid alone is spared, compelled a traitress guide to be. the swift canoes together keep, and o'er their gliding prows the silent girl points down the stream, nor halt nor rest allows. "speak! are we near your fires? how dark night o'er these waters lies!" still pointing down the rushing stream, the maiden naught replies. the banks fly past, the water seethes; the mohawks shout, "to shore! where is the girl?" her cry ascends from out the river's roar. the foaming rapids rise and flash a moment o'er her head, and smiling as she sinks, she knows her foemen's course is sped; a moment hears she shriek on shriek from hearts that death appals, as, seized by whirling gulfs, the crews are drawn into the falls! _the strong hunter._ there's a warrior hunting o'er prairie and hill, who in sunshine or starlight is eager to kill, who ne'er sleeps by his fire on the wild river's shore, where the green cedars shake to the white rapids' roar. ever tireless and noiseless, he knows not repose, be the land filled with summer, or lifeless with snows; but his strength gives him few he can count as his friends, man and beast fly before him wherever he wends, for he chases alike every form that has breath, and his darts must strike all,--for that hunter is death!! lo! a skeleton armed, and his scalp-lock yet streams; from this vision of fear of the iroquois' dreams! _mon-daw-min_; or, the origin of the indian-corn. cherry bloom and green buds bursting fleck the azure skies; in the spring wood, hungering, thirsting, faint an indian lies. to behold his guardian spirit fasts the dusky youth; prays that thus he may inherit warrior strength and truth. weak he grows, the war-path gory seems a far delight; now he scans the flowers, whose glory is not won by fight. "hunger kills me; see my arrow bloodless lies: i ask, if life's doom be grave-pit narrow, deathless make its task. "for man's welfare guide my being, so i shall not die like the flow'rets, fading, fleeing, when the snow is nigh. "medicine from the plants we borrow, salves from many a leaf; may they not kill hunger's sorrow, give with food relief?" suddenly a spirit shining from the sky came down, green his mantle, floating, twining, gold his feather crown. "i have heard thy thought unspoken; famous thou shall be; though no scalp shall be the token, men shall speak of thee. "bravely borne, men's heaviest burden ever lighter lies; wrestling with me, win the guerdon; gain thy wish, arise!" now he rises, and, prevailing, hears the angel say: "strong in weakness, never failing, strive yet one more day. "now again i come, and find thee yet with courage high, so that, though my arms can bind thee, victor thou, not i. "hark! to-morrow, conquering, slay me, blest shall be thy toil: after wrestling, strip me, lay me sleeping in the soil. "visit oft the place; above me root out weeds and grass; fast no more; obeying, love me; watch what comes to pass." waiting through the long day dreary, still he hungers on; once more wrestling, weak and weary, still the fight is won. stripped of robes and golden feather, buried lies the guest: summer's wonder-working weather warms his place of rest. ever his commands fulfilling, mourns his victor friend, fearing, with a heart unwilling, to have known the end. no! upon the dark mould fallow shine bright blades of green; rising, spreading, plumes of yellow o'er their sheaves are seen. higher than a mortal's stature soars the corn in pride; seeing it, he knows that nature there stands deified. "'tis my friend," he cries, "the guerdon fast and prayer have won; want is past, and hunger's burden soon shall torture none." _the isles of huron_ bright are the countless isles which crest with waving woods wide huron's breast,-- her countless isles, that love too well the crystal waters whence they rise, far from her azure depths to swell, or wanton with the wooing skies; nor, jealous, soar to keep the day from laughing in each rippling bay, but floating on the flood they love, soft whispering, kiss her breast, and seek no passions of the air above, no fires that burn the thunder-peak. algoma o'er ontario throws fair forest heights and mountain snows; strong erie shakes the orchard plain at great niagara's defiles, and river-gods o'er lawrence reign, but love is king in huron's isles. _the mystic isle of the "land of the north wind."_ (keewatin.) a land untamed, whose myriad isles are set in branching lakes that vein illimitable silent woods, voiceful in fall, when their defiles, rich with the birch's golden rain, see winging past the wildfowl broods. blue channels seem its dented rocks, so steeply smoothed, but crusted o'er with rounded mosses, green and grey, that oft a southern coral mocks upon this northern fir-clad shore, 'neath tufted copse on cape and bay. here sunshine from serener skies than europe's ocean-islands know ripens the berry for the bear, and pierces where the beaver plies his water-forestry, or slow the moose seeks out a breezy lair. the blaze scarce spangles bush or ferns, but lights the white pine's velvet fringe and its dark norway sister's boughs; at eve between their shadows burns the lake, where shafts of crimson tinge the savage war-flotilla's prows. far circling round, these seem to shun an isle more fair than all beside, as if some lurking foe were there, although upon its heights the sun shines glorious, and its forest pride is fanned by summer's joyous air. for 'mid these isles is one of fear, and none may ever breathe its name. there the great spirit loves to be; its haunted groves and waters clear are homes of thunder and of flame; all pass it silently and flee, save they who potent magic learn, who lonely in that dreaded fane resist nine days the awful powers: and, fasting, each through pain may earn the knowledge daring mortals gain, if life survive those secret hours! _westward ho!_ away to the west! westward ho! westward ho! where over the prairies the summer winds blow! why known to so few were its rivers and plains, where rustle so tall in their ripeness the grains? the bison and red-men alone cared to roam o'er realms that to millions must soon give a home; the vast fertile levels old time loved to reap the haymaker's song hath awakened from sleep. away to the west! westward ho! westward ho! why waited we fearing to plant and to sow? not ours was the waiting! by god was ordained the hour when the ocean's grey steeds were up-reined, and green marshes rose, and the bittern's abode became the lone land where the wild hunter strode, and soils with grass harvests grew rich, and the clime for us was prepared in the fulness of time! away to the west! westward ho! westward ho! for us 'twas prepared long ago, long ago! there came from the old world at last o'er the sea, the bravest and best to this land of the free; and, leal to their flag, won the fruits of the earth by might that has given new nations a birth, but found in our north-land a bride to be known more worthy than all of the love of the throne. away to the west! westward ho! westward ho! god's hand is our guide; 'tis his will that we go! to lands yet more happy than europe's, for here we mould the young nation for freedom to rear. full strongly we build, and have nought to pull down, for, true to ourselves, we are true to the crown; the will of the people its honour shows forth, as pole-star, whose radiance points steadfastly north. away to the west! westward ho! westward ho! where rooted in freedom shall liberty grow! right good is the loam that for five score of days its rolling lands show, or its plains' scented ways: nor used is the pick, if the earth has concealed the waters it keeps for the house and the field; the spade finds enough, until burst on the sight our rocky sierras' sweet rivers of light. away to the west! westward ho! westward ho! from mountains and lakes there the great rivers flow! if told of brazil or great mexico's gold, of cotton states' warmth and of canada's cold, go say how we prize, like the ore of the mine, the snows sapphire-shadowed in winter's sunshine; --our gayest of seasons! which guards the good soil for races who won it through faith and through toil. away to the west! westward ho! westward ho! bright sparkles its winter, and light is its snow! there gaily, in measureless meadows, all day the sun and the breeze with the grass are at play, in billows that never can break as they pass, but toss the gold foam of the flower-laden grass, the bright yellow disks of the asters upcast on waves that in blossoms flow silently past. away to the west! westward-ho! westward ho! where over the prairies the summer winds blow. the west for you, boys! where our god has made room for field and for city, for plough and for loom. the west for you, girls! for our canada deems love's home better luck than a gold-seeker's dreams. away! and your children shall bless you, for they shall rule o'er a land fairer far than cathay. away to the west! westward ho! westward ho! thou god of their fathers, thy blessing bestow! _the song of the six sisters._ [manitoba, assiniboia, saskatchewan, athabasca, alberta, and british columbia.] at a feast in the east of our central plains, girt with the sheaths of the wheaten grains, manitoba lay where the sunflowers blow, and sang to the chime of the red river's flow: "i am child of the spirit whom all men own, my prairie no longer is green and lone, for the hosts of the settler have ringed me round, and his bride am i with the harvest crowned." on her steed at speed o'er her burning grass we saw assiniboia pass: "the bison and antelope still are mine, and the indian wars on my boundary-line; where his knife is dyed i love to ride by the cactus blooms or the marshes wide, while the quivering columns of thunder fire give light to the darkened land's desire." "to the north look ye forth," cried the voice of one, who dwells where the great twin rivers run;-- "or farther yet," athabaska cried, "where mightier waters the hills divide: 'peace' is their name, and the musk ox there still feeds alone on the meadows fair." "nay, stay," said the first; "the white man's word hath called me the kindest to horse and herd." from on high where the sky and the snow-born rill each morn and eve to the rose-tints thrill, sang the fairy sprite of the fountain land: "a daughter of her, whose sceptred hand with the flag of the woven crosses three hath rule o'er the ocean, hath christened me, and my waves their homage repeat again, and that standard greet in the loyal main." and their lays in her praise then sang the four: "alberta has all we can boast and more: the scented breath of the plains is hers, the odours sweet of the sage and firs; there the coal breaks forth on her rolling sod, and the winters flee at the winds of god. columbia, come! for we want but thee; now tell of thyself and thy silent sea!" "clad with the silver snow, a pine guarded the grot of a golden mine, and dark was the shade which the mist-wreaths cast though brightly they shone on the mountain vast. stars and sun o'er that cavern swept, where on the glittering sand i slept; but none could behold me, or know where was stored more treasure than monarch e'er won with the sword. floods in fathomless torrents fall through the awful rifts of the alpine wall, where i passed in the night over forest and glen, o'er the ships on the sea and the cities of men-- swifter than morn! his shafts of love behind me caught the peaks above, but touched not my wings: i had gone e'er he came where the vine-maple fringed the deep forest with flame. strewn o'er the sombre walls of green in saffron or in crimson sheen, how lovely those gardens of autumn, where rolled in smoke and in fire the red lava of old! soon i reached my sea-girt home sheltered from the breakers' foam. seek not for mine isle, for a thousand and more lie asleep in the calm near the mountainous shore. oft i roam in moon ray clear with the puma and the deer; from the boughs of madrôna that droop o'er a bay i watch the fish dart from the beams of the day. mine are tranquil gulfs, nor give sign to lovers where i live; but the sea-rock betrays where my netting is hung, when the meshes of light o'er its mosses are flung!" she ceased, and then in chorus strong the blended voices floated long:-- "no sirens we, of shore or wave, to sing of love and tempt the brave: we fled their path, and freedom found where blue horizons stretched around, and lilies in the grasses made a double sunshine on each blade. no wooers we, but, wooed by them, we yield our maiden diadem, and welcome now, no longer mute, tried hearts so true and resolute!" _the prairie roses._ the noon-sun prayed a prairie rose to blanch for him her blossom's hue, but to the plain all love she owes; beneath that mother's grass she grew. and sheltered by her verdant blades, their tints of green she made her own; but still the sun sought out her shades and said, "be my white bride alone!" then, sorrowing for his grievous pain, her sister loved the amorous god, and blushed, ashamed, as o'er the plain his parting beams illumed the sod. so one sweet rose yet wears the green, and one in sunset's crimson glows; still one untouched by love is seen, and one in conscious beauty blows. _cree fairies_. "did earth ever see on thy prairie's line tribes older than thine, old chief of the cree?" "before us we know of none who lived here; our shafts bade them go. "but others have share of lake and of land, a swift-footed band no arrow can scare. "their coming has been when flowers are gay; on islet and bay their footprints are seen. "there dance little feet light grasses they break; beneath the blue lake must be their retreat. "we listen, and none hears ever a sound; but where, lily-crowned, floats the isle in the sun, "three children we see like sunbeams at play. and, voiceless as they, dogs bounding in glee. "of old they were there! ever young, who are these whom death cannot seize? what spirits of air?" _the "qu'appelle" valley._ morning, lighting all the prairies, once of old came, bright as now, to the twin cliffs, sloping wooded from the vast plain's even brow: when the sunken valley's levels with the winding willowed stream, cried, "depart, night's mists and shadows; open-flowered, we love to dream!" then in his canoe a stranger passing onward heard a cry; thought it called his name and answered, but the voice would not reply; waited listening, while the glory rose to search each steep ravine, till the shadowed terraced ridges like the level vale were green. strange as when on space the voices of the stars' hosannahs fell, to this wilderness of beauty seemed his call "qu'appelle? qu'appelle?" for a day he tarried, hearkening, wondering, as he went his way, whose the voice that gladly called him with the merry tones of day? was it god, who gave dumb nature voice and words to shout to one who, a pioneer, came, sunlike, down the pathways of the sun? harbinger of thronging thousands, bringing plain, and vale, and wood, things the best and last created, human hearts and brotherhood! long the doubt and eager question yet that valley's name shall tell, for its farmers' laughing children gravely call it "the qu'appelle!" _the blackfeet_ i. where the snow-world of the mountains fronts the sea-like world of sward, and encamped along the prairies tower the white peaks heavenward; where they stand by dawn rose-coloured or dim-silvered by the stars, and behind their shadowed portals evening draws her lurid bars, lies a country whose sweet grasses richly clothe the rolling plain; all its swelling upland pastures speak of plenty's happy reign; there the bison herds in autumn roamed wide sunlit solitudes, seamed with many an azure river bright in burnished poplar woods. ii. night-dews pearled the painted hide-tents, "moyas" named, that on the mead sheltered dark-eyed women wearing braided hair and woven bead. never man had seen their lodges, never warrior crossed the slopes where they rode, and where they hunted imu bulls and antelopes. masterless, how swift their riding! while the wild steeds onward flew, from round breasts and arms unburdened freedom's winds their tresses blew. only when the purple shadows slowly veiled the darkening plain would they sorrow that the sun-god dearer loved his alp's domain. iii. southward, nearer to the gorges whence the sudden warm winds blow, shaking all the pine's huge branches, melting all the fallen snow, dwelt the séksika, the blackfeet; they whose ancestor, endued, with the dark salve's magic fleetness, first on foot the deer pursued. gallantly the braves bore torture while their sun-dance fasts were held, while the drums beat, and the virgins saw the pains by manhood quelled. as each writhing form triumphant called on the great spirit's might, on his son, whose voice in thunder summons airy hosts to fight. iv. "star-child," praised as bearing all things, praised as brave who never feared, young, but famed above his elders, chief to man and maid endeared, went with comrades, quiver-harnessed, o'er the hills, and face to face, where the bright leaves trembled round them, found the fearless huntress race was it peace or was it warfare? starting back, their bows they drew, but a mystic power compelled them, and no word, no arrow flew. nearer to each other drawing, strength and beauty beckoned "peace," each the other envious eyeing, jealous lest their hunt should cease! v. "they are strong; could not they aid us?" thought the maiden band amazed; "conquered, these could well obey us!" dreamed the warriors as they gazed. falsely answered cunning "star-child," smiling as they slowly met, while the women's frequent questions were to laughter's music set, "who is chief among you, tell us?" "he is far! is she your queen with the shells and deer-teeth broidered, decked with sheen of gold between?" "yea; she slays the bear, the grizzly: light her empire on us lies; with the love she rules her courser guides and guards us 'laughing eyes'!" vi. vaunted then the men their "star-child:" "peerless soldier, keen-eyed king! from the girl he weds shall heroes worthy war-god's lineage spring. know ye not how old enchantment saw his storm-born sire appear, armed, upon a peak dark-lifted o'er the snows and glaciers drear? his the darts divine, whose breaking thrice hath some disaster sent, shafts that killed and then returning, kept his armoury unspent." "give us of these arrows. bring him!" cried the maidens. "nay," they said; "come with us and share our hunting ere the autumn leaves are shed." vii. answered they: "in painted lodges berries we have dried and meat; come again! e'er comes the winter, let us hear your horses' feet." and they sprang into their saddles, swept, white-splashing, through a stream red and saffron hued, the pageant crossed the blue translucent gleam. then unwilling, as they vanished, "star-child" slow to camp returned; told the council of the blackfeet all the marvels he had learned; dressed him in his chief's apparel, rode to where, within the glen, lay the trail that led him onward to the town, unknown of men. viii. from each moya thronged the dwellers: "hath the chief the arrows sent?" "i am chief; behold me; trust me. lead me to your ruler's tent." "he hath not the shafts enchanted; thus unarmed came never chief!" bent a thousand bows around him: "back or die, impostor, thief!" angry, yet afraid to anger, lest he lose those "laughing-eyes," he, obeying, vowed to conquer; scorning to make vain replies, went; and weary seemed the journey! all along the yellow plain red as rose-leaves in the grasses flushed his dusky cheeks with pain. ix. grave, in silent circles seated 'neath their moya's smoke-tanned cone, round the fire his chieftains heard him, holding each a pipe's red stone. pausing long, they gave their counsel, different from their wont; for here all the young men spoke for kindness, all the old men were severe. but the braves rode forth at morning, half the magic darts they bore; pledge so precious of their friendship none had thought to give before! to the huntress nation welcome, waking song in every tent, where the hours were passed in feasting and the days to love were lent! x. thus the maidens were the victors, for to them the warriors came: "laughing-eyes" but loved the "star-child" when his shafts her own became. ah! but where is man or woman who may boast of triumph long? nought abides, and mighty nations cannot ever more be strong. so each huntress found a master, yielding to her heart's new birth, and no more along the prairie beat her steed the sounding earth. yearly yet the blackfeet women meet and dance and sing the day when through love they won, and, winning, freedom passed with love away! _san gabriel, on the pacific coast._ grey-cowled monk, whose faith so earnest guides these indians' childlike hearts, as their hands to toil thou turnest, teaching them the builder's arts, speak thy thought! as now they gather round the white walls on the plain, rearing them for god the father, and the glory of new spain. "thou, st. gabriel, knowest only why thy holy bells i raise, to no turret proud and lonely, there to sound the hours of praise;-- why i keep them close beside me, framed within the church's walls, here where heathen lands shall hide me until death to judgment calls." then st gabriel in high heaven told the saints this mortal's lot, as the angelus at even rose to day that dieth not; and from out the nightly wonder of the darkened world would float, mingling with the near sea's thunder, yonder belfry's golden note. "two there were, whose loves were blighted by the spanish pride abhorred, and their vows and wealth they plighted to the missions of the lord. for his church these bells she gave him, when within their glowing mould, she had cast what were her treasures, --all her ornaments of gold. "so do these, that to his seeming were but good as touched by her, ring to seek for love redeeming all who sorrow, all who err. yes, though human love be ever heard upon the throbbing air, this shall make his life's endeavour stronger through a woman's prayer. "god is not a lord requiring sacrifice of memories dear, and their love in life untiring to his life hath brought then near. thus his wish to have beside him that which seems her voice, is good: lovingly the lord hath tried him, and his heart hath understood." _niagara_ a ceaseless, awful, falling sea, whose sound shakes earth and air, and whose resistless stroke shoots high the volleying foam like cannon smoke! how dread and beautiful the floods, when, crowned by moonbeams on their rushing ridge, they bound into the darkness and the veiling spray; or, jewel-hued and rainbow-dyed, when day lights the pale torture of the gulf profound! so poured the avenging streams upon the world when swung the ark upon the deluge wave, and, o'er each precipice in grandeur hurled, the endless torrents gave mankind a grave. god's voice is mighty, on the water loud, here, as of old, in thunder, glory, cloud! _on chief mountain_ a great rock on the american north-west frontier. among white peaks a rock, hewn altar-wise, marks the long frontier of our mighty lands. apart its dark tremendous sculpture stands, too steep for snow, and square against the skies. in other shape its buttressed masses rise when seen from north or south; but eastward set, god carved it where two sovereignties are met, an altar to his peace, before men's eyes. of old there indian mystics, fasting, prayed; and from its base to distant shores the streams take sands of gold, to be at last inlaid where ocean's floor in shadowed splendour gleams. so in our nations' sundered lives be blent love's golden memories from one proud descent! _cuba_ spake one upon the vessel's prow, before the sinking sun had kissed the glittering seas: "'twas here columbus with his genoese steered his frail barks toward the unknown store, with hope unfaltering, though all hope seemed o'er; calm 'mid the mutineers the prophet mind saw the new world to which their eyes were blind, heard on its continents the breakers' roar, told of the golden promise of the main, while cursed his crew, and called a madman's dream the land his ashes only hold for spain! it rose on dim horizon with the gleam of morn, proclaiming to the kneeling throng all treasures theirs, because one heart was strong." _on the new province "alberta."_ [this province was called after the princess, one of whose christian names is alberta.] in token of the love which thou hast shown for this wide land of freedom, i have named a province vast, and for its beauty famed, by thy dear name to be hereafter known. alberta shall it be! her fountains thrown from alps unto three oceans, to all men shall vaunt her loveliness e'en now; and when, each little hamlet to a city grown, and numberless as blades of prairie grass, or the thick leaves in distant forest bower, great peoples hear the giant currents pass, still shall the waters, bringing wealth and power, speak the loved name,--the land of silver springs-- worthy the daughter of our english kings. verses chiefly from highland stories. _gaelic legends_ oft the savage tale in telling less of love than wrath and hate, hath within its fierceness dwelling some pure note compassionate. mark, if rude their nature, stronger, manlier are the minds that keep thought on rightful vengeance longer than on those who can but weep. better sing the horrid battle than its cause of crime and wrong; sing great life-deeds! the death-rattle is too common for a song. lays where man in fight rejoices sang our sires, from sire to son; heard and loved the hero voices, "dare, and more than life is won!" _colhorn._ lo, a castle, tall, lake-mirrored, ringed around by mountain forms, roofless, ruined, still defying summer's rains and winter's storms. every shattered lifeless window, every stone in every wall, keep and gable, broken stairway, woman's faithful love recall. colin, called "the swarthy," famous in the annals of lochow, when a child, was gently fostered near where orchy's waters flow. the black knight, his sire, could value vassal's love and hardy fare; to a gudewife gave him, saying, "train him with the sons you bear." strong he grew, and brave, till armies praised in him a man of men. came a peace--then love;--a lady ruled with him the orchy's glen. but afar from over ocean rose a cry for christian aid: blessed of pope, 'neath holy banners sailed he for the great crusade. leaving with his weeping lady half their marriage ring, whereon written stood his name, and taking half where hers, engraven, shone. "if no tidings reach thee, darling, blame my death." but she through tears answered: "i'll believe thee living though i hear not seven years." lonely lived the lady, lonely: riches grew, and brought her all save the loving words whose echo seemed to linger in his hall. voiceless passed the years; and rumour falsely slew him, whose steel mail flashed o'er white walls, azure sea girt, watched, and feared by moslem sail. rhodes' fair island saw his valour; 'mid her gardens he had bled; glowing as her sun, his love-words homeward to his lady sped. ah, they reached her not, to banish days of care, and nights of woe; their warm sunshine never parted clouds that darkened o'er lochow, weary is her lot whose favour for her wealth is held a prize; oft she finds no truthful homage, sees no love in pleading eyes. man gains strength from gold, but woman worse than dross her wealth may call; avarice is her haunting suitor, giving naught and seeking all. messages from the crusader fell into a baron's hands; who, with subtle treason working, coveted dark colin's lands: spread the base and cruel rumours, preyed upon the aching heart, asked her year by year in marriage, falsely played the lover's part. and the heartless seasons vanished, other twain were nearly sped; then at last his suit seemed answered, silently she bent her head. gaily, loudly, laughing o'er her, named the baron hour and day. but she said: "no, for this wedding first i'll build a castle gay. "when its halls are built, we'll tarry where our guests can praise our cheer; when the feast-smoke from its chimneys rises, then the day is near." so the building rose, and slowly walls and stairway, keep and tower stone by stone completed, sadly heralded the wedding hour. shall it come, and never mercy shown of god avert the doom? shall the longing for the absent turn to feasting o'er his tomb? yes. the castle's new possessor soon shall follow thronging guests: as the lake reflects the turrets men shall second his behests. mournful, where they laughed so gladly, a poor beggar, haggard, grey, trod with pain the stony roadside, often halting by the way. he too reached the castle's portal, stood within its archway grim, loitering in the path of others; who would step aside for him? pushed a henchman rudely, saying, "get you hence," but still he stood: then they gave him bread and water, "loiter not, you have your food." twice came others, in his wallet thrusting bread and meat, and said: "now away, why stand you troubling, here you cannot make your bed." "drink from her own hands imploring, tell your lady here i wait!" wondering went she where the beggar shadowed stood within the gate. now she pours the crystal water, quickly he the cup returns; oh! what golden circlet broken sees she there that gleams and burns? eagerly she grasped the token, turning to the light away; came again, and crying "colin!" on the beggar's breast she lay. spoke he sadly: "hast thou truly still the heart i loved? i know-- they have told me--that thou takest to thy love my deadly foe. "the gudewife, my foster mother, unto whom i made me known when i reached the orchy, told me how the rumour base had grown: "i was dead, or cared not for thee who received no word of mine; 'twas thy lover's doing, woman, hungering for my wealth and thine! "'take,' the gudewife said, 'a beggar's old attire; and see the mist where the wedding smoke is ordered by the lips which thou hast kissed.' "thou hast put our ring together can it be as one again?" then she raised her face, and proudly spoke unto her serving-men: "see you where the baron's people come with him along the road? go and tell them quickly, 'colin rules again his own abode.'" fled the traitor, pulses beating, not with love, but craven fear; and the beggar found the treasure that to noble hearts is dear. found the love no time had altered, honoured lived, and honoured died; and in rhodes and in glenorchy honoured shall his name abide. _loch bÚy_ part i. dark, with shrouds of mist surrounded. rise the mountains from the shore, where the galleys of the islesmen stand updrawn, their voyage o'er. horns this morn are hoarsely sounding from loch búy's ancient wall, while for chase the guests and vassals gather in the court and hall. hounds, whose voices could give warning from far moors of stags at bay, quiver in each iron muscle, howl, impatient of delay. henchmen, waiting for the signal, at their chiefs imperious word start, to drive from hill and corrie to the pass the watchful herd. closed were paths as with a netting, vain high courage, speed, or scent; every mesh, a man in ambush ready with a crossbow bent. "eachan, guard that glade and copsewood, at your peril let none by!" cries the chief, while in the heather silently the huntsmen lie. shouting by the green morasses where the fairies dance at night, yelling 'mid the oak and birches come the beaters into sight. and before them, rushing wildly speeds the driven herd of deer, whose wide antlers toss like branches in the winter of the year. useless was the vassal's effort to arrest the living flow; and it passed by eachan's passage spite of hound, and shout, and blow. "worse than woman! useless caitiff! why allowed you them to pass? back, no answer! hark, men, hither! take his staff and bind him fast" hearing was with them obeying, and the hunter's strong limbs lie bound with thongs from tawny oxen, 'neath the chieftain's cruel eye. "more than twoscore stags have passed him, mark the number on his flesh with red stripes of this good ashwood, mend me thus this broken mesh!" ah, loch búy! faint and sullen beats the heart, once leal and free, that had yielded life exulting if it bled for thine and thee. deem'st thou that no honour liveth save in haughty breasts like thine? think'st thou men, like dogs in spirit, at such blows but wince and whine? often in the dangerous tempest, when the winds before the blast surging charged like crested horsemen over helm, and plank, and mast, he, and all his kin before him, well have kept the clansman's faith, serving thee in every danger, shielding thee from harm and skaith. 'mid the glens and hills, in combats where the blades of swordsmen meet, has he fought with thee the campbells, mingling glory with defeat. but as waters round eorsa darken deep, then blanch in foam, when the winds ben more has harboured burst in thunder from their home, so the brow fear never clouded blackens now 'neath anger's pall, and the lips, to speak disdaining, whiten at revenge's call! part ii. late, when many years had passed him, and the chiefs old age begun, seemed his youth again to blossom with the birth of his fair son. late, when all his days had hardened into flint his nature wild, seemed it softer grown and kinder for the sake of that one child. and again a hunting morning saw loch búy and his men, with his boy, his guests, and kinsmen, hidden o'er a coppiced glen. deep within its oaken thickets ran its waters to the sea: on the hill the chief lay careless, while the child watched eagerly. 'neath them, on the shining ocean, island beyond island lay, where the peaks of jura's bosom rose o'er holy oronsay. where the greener fields of islay pointed to the far kintyre, fruitful lands of after-ages, wasted then with sword and fire. for the spell that once had gathered all the chiefs beneath the sway of the ancient royal sceptre of the isles had passed away. once from rathlin to the southward, westward, to the low tiree, northward, past the alps of coolin, somerled ruled land and sea. colonsay, lismore, and scarba, bute and cumrae, mull and skye, arran, jura, lew's and islay shouted then one battle-cry. but those isles that, still united, fought at harlaw, scotland's might, broken by their fierce contentions singly waged disastrous fight. and the teaching of forgiveness, grey iona's creed, became not a sign for men to reverence, but a burning brand of shame. still among the names that ruin had not numbered in her train, lived the great clan, proud as ever of the race of strong maclaine. and his boy, like her he wedded, though of nature like the dove, showed the eagle-spirit flashing through her heritage of love. heir of all the vassals' homage rendered to the grisly sire, he had grown his people's treasure, fostered as their heart's desire. surely safety guards his footsteps; enmity he hath not sown: yet who stealthily glides near him, whose the arm around him thrown? it is eachan, who has wolf-like seized upon a helpless prey! fearlessly and fast he bears him where a cliff o'erhangs the bay. there, while sea-birds scream around them, holding by his throat the boy, eachan turns, and to the father shouts in scorn and mocking joy: "take the punishment thou gavest, give before all there a pledge for my freedom, or thy darling dying, falls from yonder ledge. "take the strokes in even number as thou gavest, blow for blow, then dishonoured, on thine honour swear to let me freely go." silent in his powerless anger stood the chief, with all his folk; and before them all the ransom was exacted stroke for stroke. then again the voice of vengeance pealed from eachan's lips in hate: "childless and dishonoured villain, expiation comes too late. "my revenge is not completed!" and they saw in dumb despair how he hurled his victim downward headlong through the empty air. then they heard a yell of laughter as they turned away the eye; and they gazed again where nothing met their sight but cliff and sky; for the murderer dared to follow where the youthful spirit fled, to the throne of the avenger, to the judge of quick and dead. _the hard strait of the feinne_ now of the hard strait of the feinne this legend's verse shall tell: when fionn's men had fought and won, and all with them was well, and victory on erin's shores had given spoil which they alone could win whose swords of old were mightiest in the fray: for in those days the bravest hand, and not the craftiest brain, got gold, and skill in gallant fight was found the surest gain. great fionn's wont it was to give, when foes had bled and broke, a feast to nobles and to chiefs and all the humble folk: upon the plain they sat, and ate the meat which smoking came from layers of stone, well laid on pits half filled with charcoal flame, where 'neath the covering roof of turf that kept the heat aglow. the boar was quickly roasted whole, with many a stag and roe. and while the feast, with laugh and jest, gave careless time to most, two watchers bold kept guard the while, and gazed o'er sea and coast-- two watchers good, and keenly eyed, sent out by fionn to mark if danger rode upon the sea, with norway's pirate bark. full well they watched, although behind they heard the shouted song, and knew the wine was bathing red the fair beards of the strong, while chanted verse, and music's notes, arose upon the air, and the briny breeze itself half seemed a savoury steam to bear; nor left their post, when from the clouds the hailstones leaped to ground, and plaids were wrapt o'er shoulders broad, and o'er deep chests were wound. but fionn's plaid untouched lay yet upon the earth outspread, and white it grew as lichened rock, or prophet's hoary head. "oh would it were all ruddy gold, there lying thickly strewn; what joy were ours to share alike, and bear away each stone." and laughingly each filled his hands, forgetful of the twain, their comrades good, on guard who stood to watch the moor and main. but when their lonely vigil o'er, they, roin and aildé, came, and found how little friendship counts, when played the spoiler's game, sore angered that no hand for them had set apart a prize, they murmured. "with such men of greed all faith and kindness dies! when thus they deal with us in peace, how shall we fare when blood runs from the wounds to blind the eyes to aught but selfish good?" they swore that they forgotten thus were better far away, and sailed to lochlin's distant shore, and served in her array. their fame was great in norway's realm, and love for aildé came to melt the heart of norway's queen, a sudden quenchless flame. she fled with aildé from the king, and soon on scotland's coast she trod, a messenger of ill, a danger to the host great eragon, far lochlin's king, was not the man to know the blood mount hot at insult's stroke without an answering blow, his dragon keels were rolled to waves that shouted welcome loud to glittering helm and painted shield beneath each spar and shroud oh! strong was eragon in war, in battle victor oft, from many a rank, from many a mast his banner streamed aloft; with forty ships he set to sea, and scores of glancing oars streaked white his wake on fiord and loch along the echoing shores. the shetland islands saw them pass, where on the tides, their sails shone like a flight of mighty swans, fast borne on wintry gales: hoarse as the raven's note their oath rang over all the seas, false fionn's host should bend and break before the northern breeze. and southward, onward still they steered, and up loch leven bore, as you may know, for one great ship was lost upon the shore: the sunken rock on which she drove and inlet where she lay were called the galley's crag and port, and bear the name to-day. they left her, taking all her crew, and landing near glencoe, on level ground their tents were set, thick planted row on row. to fionn of the feinne that day, king eragon sent word, to yield him homage or abide the hard doom of the sword; but grievous then was fionn's strait, for thrice a thousand men, his best and bravest, far away were hunting hill and glen. the wives, the old and feeble folk alone were left, and these he gathered, asking how to blind the strangers of the seas? then gave they counsel: "we are weak. by thee must peace be sought, e'en though with massy store of gold the boon to-day be bought; and if all this do not avail," they said, "o fionn, thou shouldst yield thy daughter as the price, our ransom on her brow!" their messenger then offered these before the set of sun; when flamed the wrath from norway's king: "i ask not what i've won, your master stands before you now, my vengeance is my own; for aildé's deed the feinne as slaves in norway shall atone." back went the messenger in haste, and sadly fionn knew the threat was uttered by the strong, against the old and few. but homeward from the forest soon he saw each hero's hound come swiftly back, in front of all he saw his oscar bound; and when the foremost hunters came, he told their noble band how fight was sought with them this day upon the northern strand. then looked they for some ground whose strength would quickly hide and save their little force, till gathering might gave fortune to the brave. they dug four trenches deep, where firs above the birches flung red gnarled limbs that glowed at eve the dark green plumes among; there hidden silently they watched, while rugged, scarred, and high, just at their rear a peak appeared to move against the sty. steep were its rocky ledges, strewn with jagged stones that lay so loose one hand might send a mass on its resistless way, while from the neighbouring hills the mount was sundered by a glen, where lightly crossed the grey cloud mists, but never mortal men. such was the chosen fort the feinne into the trenches went; for succour through all alban's realm their messengers were sent; to the green slopes of deep glencoe the warriors summoned came, alas, too few to brave in fight the men of norway's name. they held long counsel, and the chief sent forth that hostage fair his daughter, with a chosen band, his words of peace to bear; and fergus, his young son, to speak on his behalf, that they might change to love the king's black thought, and all his wrath allay-- for fergus' speech, like ivy wreath, o'er heart of rock could wind till tender thoughts, like nestling birds, would come and shelter find. wealth to awake the northmen's greed should weight his tempting word for quaichs of gold and precious belts, and magic stones which stirred the torpid blood of all disease to vigorous life once more, and fivescore mares of iron grey, and hunting hawks threescore, were gifts to promise, with good herds, and cows with calves at side. they placed the maid upon a horse, and bade her boldly ride; with fergus marching at her rein, his comrades close at hand, they came to where the fleet and camp thick covered sea and land. and halting there, young fergus spake across a space of ground unto the king, who foremost stood with mailed men around; he offered all the tribute rich, and that fair lady proud. but when he ceased a silence fell, and then the answer loud in eragon's deep voice rang forth: "let fionn bring me all, all that he hath on earth, and here let him before me fall, him and his wife before me here upon the shore, that i may see them on their knees to me swear troth and fealty, while as they homage make i shall above them rear my blade to spare, or slay them at my feet, if so their debt be paid." then called in scorn the lady's voice, "no, eragon, your might hath not across the broad salt seas brought such a host to fight as e'er shall cause my father's knees to bend to you in prayer, nor shall you ever call me bride, or spoil of erin wear." she quickly turned her horse and went, but fergus stood and waved the signal banner for the chief, and for awhile he braved the onset of the foe, and fought until the evening fell. then gave the council their advice to fionn. "it were well that aildé should himself defy the king, and man to man with sevenscore 'gainst sevenscore contend before the van." and thus they fought, and aildé fell, and eragon defied an equal band to equal fight, for great had grown his pride. then paused and pondered fionn long, and doubted whom to ask to lead in such a venture great, and dare so grave a task. but goll, the son of morna, named at fionn's call, went forth and matched with equal force, back drove the boasters of the north. and yet again a band as strong was overcome and made to own our heroes' swords were best, when man to man arrayed; but eragon in fury cried his men should conquer yet. for eight days more aye sevenscore 'gainst sevenscore were set, and when the blood had flowed in streams, to utter madness urged against the trenches of the feinne their baffled army surged. then sparkled swords like gleams of light upon the ocean's spray when tossed aloft to wind and sun where battling currents play. in that fierce fray did eragon the son of morna greet, and, striking fast their mighty blades ascend and flashing meet; then sank the stranger king in death, and goll sore wounded fell, against the northmen went the day; and of their slain they tell that from glen fewich to the shore they lay, and of the host so few escaped that galleys twain alone left scotland's coast. nay, even they ne'er reached a port, so that in norway none could tell how eragon revenged the deed by aildé done. but sorrow came upon the feinne for all their strongest, dead; and fionn found that from that time his fortune waned and fled, for ne'er again in equal strength the feinne in arms were seen since the dark days of aildé's love, and norway's evil queen. _note._--this story was taken down by j. dewar in prose from oral recitation in gaelic in . translated by h. mclean, of islay. it is rendered here nearly literally. _tobermory bay._ . in the vapour and haze on the ocean, where the skies and the waters meet, there's a form that drifts, phantom-like, onward as it follows the grey clouds' feet. o'er the sea come the winds and the billows, and they howl to the rocks, and they cry, they will bring them a wreck on the morrow, ere the joy of the tempest die. the shade looming dark in the distance is naught but a galleon proud; and the spray has long battered her turrets, and loosened each yard and each shroud; but not on the surf-beaten islands, nor yet upon morven's land, does she drive, for her rudder, unshattered, is firm in the steersman's hand. no mist wreath, no cloud, was the shadow that moved on the height of the seas; like a castle how steep are her bulwarks, her spars like a forest of trees! she is safe from the gales for a season, in the shelter and calm of the sound; a harbour named after the virgin, the "well of our lady" she found. she may rest in that haven, hill-girdled, near the shade of the woods on the shore, where the hush of the forest is deepened by the waterfall's song evermore. how grandly her masts rise to heaven, how glitters the blest mary's form, high placed o'er the stern, and upholding the prince of our peace through the storm! now waters their orisons murmur as they fold her bright robes to their breast, where they mirror the galleried windows, and the flag and the face of the blest. again with that sign and the banner of the gold and the crimson of spain, shall this ship front the foes of the virgin, and the english be chased from the main. yes, again on the heretic saxon her cannon shall thunder in scorn, till in triumph through insolent england shall the faith and king philip be borne. but the rows of dark mouths that have spoken defiance with sulphurous breath, glisten black, stretching forth in the silence, and in vain ask the presence of death. yes, repose and surcease of all hazard, a truce to all war for a time! the cliffs and the pines only echo the laugh of a sunnier clime. and gaily the dark-visaged seamen quaff, cursing the mists and the rain; gravely drinking from goblets of silver sits their chief, don fereija of spain. [ ] [ ] this galleon was said to have been "the florida," commanded by don fereija. a search at madrid among the archives shows that the only vessel named the "_florida_" in the armada, was a small ship which came safely back to santander roads after the destruction of the fleet. no commander had the name assigned to the captain of the vessel sunk at tobermory. the identity of this galleon remains, therefore, a mystery. but the souls of the men to whose nostrils had risen the smoke of the fight, soon tired of the shore and of slumber, soon yearned for the red battle light. and courtesy fled from the weary, from idleness arrogance grew; and all they received as a favour they haughtily claimed as their due. then answered the islesmen in anger, "the food you demand as your own, by our people's free favour long given shall be bought by your gold now alone." "now, down with the savage's envoy, set sail and away on our track! carthagena's sweet girls shall deride him, and jeer the red locks on his back." below, in the dark narrow spaces, the islesman gropes, down in the hold; unnoticed, and one among many; what harm can his hatred unfold? swarm the men to the rigging, and swiftly shine clouds of white canvas, and clank the links of the anchor's great cable, creaks, trampled on deck, every plank: swings round the huge bowsprit, and slowly with motion majestic and free, the galleon, vast, gilded, and mighty, passes on, passes forth, to the sea. her colours still paint all the ripples, repeated her banners all seem, her sails, and her gold, and her cannon float on like a gorgeous dream. came a flash, and a roar, and a smoke-cloud rushed up, and spread far o'er the sky; sank a wreck, black, and rugged, and blasted, while the sound on the winds swept by. and the mountains sent back the dull thunder as though to all time they would tell the vengeance that pealed to the heavens from the harbour of "mary's well." _loch uisk, isle of mull._ yon vale among the mountains, so sheltered from the sea, that lake which lies so lonely, shall tell their tale to thee. here stood a stately convent where now the waters sleep, here floated sweeter music than comes from yonder deep. above the holy building the summer cloud would rest, and listen where to heaven rose hymns to god addressed; for the hills took up the chanting, and from their emerald wall the sounds they loved, would, lingering, in fainter accents fall. hard by, beside a streamlet fast flowing from a well, a nun, in long past ages, had built her sainted cell: to her in dreams 'twas given as sacred task and charge, to keep unchanged for ever the bright spring's mossy marge. "peace shall with joys attendant for ever here abide, while reverently and faithfully you guard its taintless tide." and when she knew her spirit was summoned to its rest, to all around her gathered she gave that high behest; and many followed after to seek the life she chose, till, like a flower, in glory the cloistered convent rose. through scotland's times of bloodshed, of foray, feud, and raid, their home became the haven where storm and strife were stayed. men blessed each dark-robed sister, and thought an angel trod, where walked in love and meekness a lowly maid of god! right happy were they, lighting with love those days of doom; for heart need ne'er be darkened by any garment's gloom. yes, often life thereafter was here with gladness crowned, for, sad as seemed their vesture the peace of god was found his holiness in beauty made every trial seem a rock that lies all harmless deep hidden in a stream. while life was pure there never was wish in thought to gain the world, where far behind them the black nuns left their pain; and time but flew too quickly o'er that friend-circle small, where each one loved her neighbour, and god was loved of all. still from its beauteous chalice, that well's unceasing store poured forth, through whispering channels, the crystal load it bore. hope seemed to bring the fountain to seek the light of day; faith made it bright; obedience smoothed, hallowing, its way. full many a gorgeous summer woke heather into bloom, and oft cold stars in winter looked on a sister's tomb; before the joy had withered that virtue once had nursed; before their lord and master grew love for things accursed. lo! then the stream neglected forsook its wonted way: in stagnant pools, dark-tainted, its wandering waters lay. there choked by moorland ridges, black with the growth of peat, beneath the quaking surface the fetid floods would meet; till rising, spreading ever above the chalice green of that fair well, they covered the place where it had been. then, near the careless convent, within the hill's deep shade, the fate which works in silence a lake had slowly made. as evil knows not halting when passions strongly flow, so daily deeper, deeper would those dark waters grow; till on an awful midnight, when red the windows flamed and song and jest and revel the vesper hour had shamed, and wanton sin dishonoured the time christ's birth had crowned, they burst their banks in darkness, and with their raging sound the rocks of all the valley rung for a few hours' space; then the wide loch at morning reflected heaven's face. few voices now are heard there, around the wild deer feed; and winds sigh loud in autumn through copse, and rush, and reed. men say that when in darkness they pass the water's verge, each hears, mid sounds of revel the "miserere's" dirge; that faintly, strangely, ever upon the loch's dark breast, beneath, above, around it shine lights that never rest. of all such ghastly phantoms, bred of the night and fear, by hope of our salvation none meets the noontide clear! the blue sky's tender beauties upon the strong floods shine, as god's eternal mercy dwells with his might divine! pure as their mystic fountain they sleep and flow unstained, although the hue of sorrow hath in their depths remained. the swallow, swiftly passing flies low to kiss the wave when rippling gently over some pure saint's holy grave: the hunter's eyes discover beneath those waters still the walls of that proud convent, where god hath worked his will. _the lady's rock_ a brother's eye had seen the grief that duart's lady bore; his boat with sail half-raised flies down the sound by green lismore. ahaladah, ahaladah! why speeds your boat so fast? no scene of joy shall light your track adown the spray-strewn blast. the very trees upon the isle rock to and fro, and wail; the very birds cry sad and shrill, storm driven, where you sail; o when for yon dim mainland shore you launched your keel to start you knew not of the load 'twill bear, the heavier load your heart. see what is that, which yonder gleams, where skarts alone make home; is that but one oft-breaking sea, some frequent fount of foam? the morn is dark and indistinct, is all through drift and cloud; around the rock white waters toss, as flaps in wind a shroud. it cannot be a leaping jet, nor form of rock or wave there stands some being saved by god in mercy from the grave! "down with the sail, out oars! the boat can reach the leeward side: mother of heaven! look you, men, where breaks that roaring tide." "a living woman, do i dream or stands my sister there, where only at the middle ebb the shelving ledge is bare?" o white as surf that sweeps her knee, she falls, but not to die; ahaladah is at her side, he bears her up on high. away from duart now he steers; why curses he its lord; why flee to inveraray's strength, as though he feared his sword? proud triumph's notes were often heard where aray's waters sing, and mourners there have often wept the slain for faith and king. but never would that lady's lips there speak her grievous woe, though in her chamber in the night her frequent tears would flow. she dreamt of wrong where love was sought, of crafty cruel eyes, of one steep stair, of grasping hands that stifled piteous cries; of wind which tore the hissing waves, and howled o'er mountains bare; where swollen burns in feathery clouds were dashed into the air. of one wet rock, of horror wild, when she was left alone, till madness seemed to whelm her thought and, with a shuddering moan, again she heard the surges rush, and, where she shrinking turned, the seaweed there, like woman's hair, the murderous billows spurned. again the night and wind were joined to mock her hope of aid, till shrieking, she awoke, where once she slept a happy maid. but none would she accuse, and dumb rebuked the vengeance call, till one dark eve at supper-time within the old dim hall, she heard some whisper, and she saw her brother leave his place, go forth, and entering, beckon out a band, with stern set face. again he came, and o'er her bent, and whispered "sister dear, let fall your veil about your head, nor tremble when you hear that duart comes in mourner's guise! lo, there he takes his seat. chief, tell us why your mien is sad, when friends and kinsmen meet?" "my woes are great, my wife lies dead, but yester week these hands closed her sweet eyes, and now i bring her body to your lands." then was the arras drawn aside and girt with wake lights drear, beneath the archway's carven vault, was borne a white-crossed bier. and duart rose; his shifting eye moved like a marsh-fire pale, but circling back, still restless scanned the lady of the veil. then through the silence broke a voice, "know you that lady, chief? she too, a guest with us, like you, well knows the pangs of grief. "you come from far, bring wine." to each the ruddy goblet passed. the lady raised her hand, and back the heavy veil she cast. strong duart reeled as from a stroke; he stared as at the dead: how could her glance o'er that dark face such deathly palor spread? "your play is out, ah cursed fiend!" ahaladah cried loud; "your death shall be no phantom false, no empty mask your shroud: if hospitality's high law here shields your life awhile, by all the saints you yet shall feel the vengeance of argyll." * * * * * in edinburgh duart's lord strides down the shadowed town; the white moon glints on roofs o'erhead, and on st giles's crown. another step is on the street, the watchmen hear no cry; but drenched in blood lies duart, where ahaladah passed by. _the pool of the iron shirt._ colin, chief of diarmid's kin, strode alone to ederlinn. night, and heath, and deep morass hear the chain-mailed warrior pass. ambushed lay the treacherous foe, ear to earth, and dart on bow. vain their arrows' ringing hail fell on pointed helm and mail. as he backward leaped, there flew moonlight down the sword he drew. in his front the lonely man saw approach the hostile van: near him on the moor a tarn; on a knoll a wattled barn. refuge bad, yet near its door sank the hot pursuit's uproar. for, unsheathed his battle brand, there they saw great colin stand. dauntless cried he: "here within rest i, then to ederlinn!" yelled the circling hounds in ire, set the woven wall on fire. sword in hand he stood, the light gleaming on his limbs of might, like a cloud-built column high, red, in sunset's flaming sky. all too hot for mortal frame glowed his armour, wrapped in flame. hidden by the wreaths of smoke, hewing through the wall, he broke, felling seven, onward sped plunging through the lake's reed-bed. hiss the waters where he springs, hatred's yell again forth rings. but he throws his mail away, dives, and darkness hides his way. smiling hears their lessening din; onward strides to ederlinn. ages since have passed, yet still tales recount his dauntless will. "pool of the iron shirt," thy name keeps, in erse, the hero's fame. look you, race of ancient gael, never let such memories fail! set them far o'er gems and gold, for your sons to have and hold. steadfast will its goal shall win. fairer e'en than ederlinn! _inverawe._ does death cleanse the stains of the spirit when sundered at last from the clay, or keep we thereafter till judgment, desires that on earth had their way? bereft of the strength which was given to use for our good or our bane, shall yearnings vain, impotent, endless, be ours with their burden of pain? though flesh does not clothe them, what anguish must be known in the world of the dead, if the future lies open before them, and fate has no secret unread. and yet, oh how rarely our vision may know the lost presence is nigh; how seldom its purpose be gathered, be it comfort, or warning to die! with mute or half breathed supplication permitted to utter their prayer, demanding earth's justice, but ever poor phantoms of mist and of air; if in aught our belief may be certain where founded on witness of man, they come; and no tomb e'er imprisoned the shade when corruption began. they come: and oh swiftly they follow the track of the murderer vile; he is haunted for ever; his refuge a hell on far ocean or isle! though he fly as once fled from barcaldine young donald's assassin, to claim guest-right, where all mercy a treason to kinship and justice became. "inverawe, inverawe, give me shelter, i have shed a man's blood in a fray; oh swear that you will not betray me, by your dirk, by the dear light of day!" and the prayer in his kindness he answered, but aghast heard the voices that cried; "your cousin lies slain! can a stranger have passed by the steep river side?" then bound by his oath he deceived them; but night brought a dream full of fear, his cousin's pale image stood o'er him, came a voice he had loved to his ear: "inverawe, inverawe, give no shelter to the man by whom blood has been shed:" and he went to his guest, saying, "leave me, i obey the dear voice of the dead." "by your oath, by the light of god's heaven your word has been passed for your guest" "then sleep in the cave in the mountain, if donald allow you to rest!" again shone the vision more awful, ere the hours of the darkness had fled; "inverawe, inverawe, give no shelter to the man by whom blood has been shed." but empty the cave was at morning, when searched for the murderer's trace, and the ghost came again in the darkness, the gore on its breast and its face. "inverawe, inverawe," again whispered the shade of the echoless feet, "my blood has been shed, i await thee, at ticonderoga we meet." and often in wonder repeated that warning to many was known, the strangely named place for the trysting men said was in dreamland alone; "why cherish a dismal illusion? war summons gay hearts to the strife: all share in the prizes of glory, the chances of death or of life." in camp, on the march, in the battle, his thought would repeat evermore, "at the place fore-ordained in the vision i shall pass to the dark river's shore." and often awaiting the summons, he asked for the wild indian name, when curled o'er american hamlets the smoke from the guns' sudden flame. the forest one evening was silent as though in the calm of a trance yet within it two armies were resting, the soldiers of britain and france. our highlanders slumbered, march-wearied, their sentries at watch in the wood: behind their long lines of entrenchment the french in their bivouacs stood. "inverawe, take your sleep ere the morning, when our praise or our death shall be sung," a comrade cried; "soon for carillon a chime that is new shall be rung!" but the air of that night of midsummer seemed chilly, and sleep fled away; and he wandered to where, near carillon, the charge would be sounded at day. to the north a pale ray of aurora shot white o'er the black forest spars, a lake through the pines softly gleaming lay calm in the radiance of stars. it seemed a sweet heaven, whose brightness life's dark prison-bars could not hide: as he gazed, lo, he thought that a figure advanced from that silvery tide. distinct as a luminous shadow, it moved in the starlight alone, till it came to him close, and he shuddered, for the face that he saw was his own! the cloak of the dread apparition his own, but bedabbled in blood! inverawe stretched his hand, but the spectre had vanished like mist in the wood. to the fires of his comrades returning, "ah! friends, you deceived me," he said; "why conceal from my ears that carillon has the name that was named by the dead? 'tis ticonderoga, the fortress we march on the morrow to storm, where death and the phantom stand watching the hour when our column shall form." the morn brought the hell of the onset, when bayonet and highlanders' blade sank crushed where the trenches were flashing in the roll of the long fusillade. repulsed! o how sadly at night-fall the remnant was gathered and told! in silence they thought of the wounded, and mourned the brave hearts that were cold. ere thundered again the dim battle saluting the deathless in god, a truce found that leader all gory, yet gasping his breath on the sod. they bore him to camp, where around him they pressed as he beckoned in pain: his voice seemed a breath in the forest, "i die--i have seen him again." _an islesman's farewell._ ah! must we part, my darling? o let the days be few, until your dear returning to one who loves but you! where'er your ship be sailing, think on your own love true; the back of the wave to you, darling, the back of the wave to you! the witch, who oft at midnight above ben caillach flew, told me she dreamed no danger athwart your vessel drew; for you she said the breezes aye strong and fairly blew; the back of the wave to you, darling, the back of the wave to you! ah! waiting here, and trembling when dark the water's hue, i'll long for the dear pleasure that in your glance i knew; and pray to him who never can lose you from his view. the back of the wave to you, darling, the back of the wave to you. _preface to diarmid's story_ best beloved of ancient stories are our diarmid's woes to me. like a mist, by breezes broken, so this tale of olden glories floats in fragments, as a token of the song of ireland's sea. through long centuries repeated lived the legend told in erse, but a change comes swift or slowly fades the language, and defeated flies the faith, once counted holy, old-world ways, and oral verse. not from men of note or learning may we gather now these tales, heard beneath the cotter's rafter, or where smithy sparks are burning, or at sea, when hushed the laughter of the breeze on hull and sails. then with ossian's rhythmic measure comes upon the fancy's sight, one with golden locks; resplendent, great and strong with eyes of azure, and, again in the ascendant, magic reasserts her might. nought can wound him, sword or arrow, only powerless are the spells where on the footsole implanted there is hid a birth-mark narrow, but this hero's brow enchanted every woman's love compels. woe to him, that she whose glances won the king on denmark's shore, evil, beautiful, imperious, born where wheel the grisly dances through the glen of ghosts mysterious, love's first passion for him bore. for she saw his forehead bending o'er the snarling dogs at strife at the wedding-feast of greeting; and at dusk unto him wending, "come," she said, "let this our meeting pledge my soul to thee for life." "if, o queen, we go together, not with friends, nor yet alone must thou be, nor sheltered ever, housed, nor braving wind and weather; if on horse or foot, then never can thy love to me be known!" flight were shield and fence far surer gainst a wily woman's ways than the wit of man; for seated ere the dawn, his fair allurer at his open door repeated all his words, with longing gaze. "go with me, o diarmid; see me not on horse, or foot; with friends, nor alone; not night or morning reigns: o come; thou wilt not flee me? never lived a warrior scorning every joy that loving lends!" then at last by her caresses into flight and guilt beguiled, diarmid loathed his life, abiding in the caves' or woods' recesses, like a thief or coward hiding, to his fate unreconciled. thus the mightiest magician warped the true and loyal heart, and he fled with her, forsaking. friends and kinsfolk, while contrition gnawed into his life's days, making sad his journey, hard his part. he, a fugitive, whose valiance made the feinne fair erin's boast! where the red cascade descended, lovely grinie's evil dalliance held him thrall as though were ended noble warring with the host. he a slave! whose oaths had ever bade him "champion the oppressed," pledged him to "confound the clever, aid the losing man's endeavour, be the first in fight, and never heedless of the king's behest" once upon a rock, tree-shrouded, hungry they had climbed to eat where the scarlet berries clustered: suddenly below them crowded dogs and huntsmen, 'til were mustered all the feinne beneath their feet. fionn, then, their grim commander, dreaming not his wife was near, had a giant chess-board graven on the sod, and played; and under the green leaves which gave him haven diarmid watched the game in fear. oscar lost, with fionn playing, until diarmid, from on high dropped the scarlet seeds to guide him, thus his presence there betraying: and the friends of fionn eyed him, shouting, "thou shalt surely die!" but all diarmid's comrades for him fought, each venturing his life: and amid the dread commotion fled the twain, until before him to the peaceful sands of ocean ran a woodland stream of strife. dwelling on its banks he made him there the wooden bowls that none fashioned with the dirk so deftly. but the chattering stream betrayed him: from the secret forest swiftly flashed white shavings in the sun. then the king cried, "grinie's lover near us hath his lurking place! sound the hunting horns around him! see if from the thickets' cover by the ancient vows that bound him he shall come to join the chase!" * * * * * how the queen bore his upbraiding; how his death in hunting came, tell the verses here translated: lights are they, in transit fading, scattered sparks, oblivion fated, memories from a mighty flame! _grinie's flight with diarmid._ (from the gaelic) the hern at early morning cries, where at sleve-gail the meadow lies. say, dúin's son, whom i love well, canst thou thereof the reason tell? o! gormla's daughter, thou whose sire was named from tireless steeds of fire; thou evil-working one! thy feet tread treacherous ways of ice and sleet. grinie! of lovelier hue than spring to flower, or bloom on bough can bring, more fleeting far your love that flies like the cold clouds of dawning skies. because of thine ill-chosen part my fortune's firm set rivets start. yes, thine the deed, brought low to pain, my grievous woe thine only gain. from palaces of kings beguiled, for ever outcast and exiled: like night-owl mourning, as she strays, her joy through dark and distant ways. like timid hind or hunted deer, through secret glens i tread in fear. shunning the loving friends who hold the house of hosts so loved of old. their forms shone glorious as the lights on the deep snows of frosted heights. all these i left--mine own--whose love was generous as the sun above. but they are now hate-filled as though hate's sea would never ebb ward flow. yes, since beguiled by you i fled, misfortune follows where i tread. lost now my white sailed fleet's array, through you my band is lost for aye. gone all my wealth, my gems, my gold, all for the tale of love you told! to me my friends are lost, to me no more my country mine shall be. lost are my men whom none e'er found weak behind shield on battle ground. lost is their kindness evermore the love for me the feinne once bore. lost to mine honour mine own right, lost music's joy and lost delight; erin and all i there have known, for your ill-omened love alone. return i dare not,--may not,--never know their great friendship, gone for ever. more than the beast of sharpest beard my deed in hate by fionn is feared. yes, fairest grinie, thou hast done ill to thyself in love thus won. thou, winning hatred, wentst with me, and kingly joys were spurned by thee. grinie. o diarmid! o diarmid! of face far more fair than the new-fallen snow, or the hill flowret rare, the sound of thy voice was more dear to my breast than all the bright satin the fianti possessed. more beloved to me is the hue of thine eyes, those eyes like the morning's bright dew of the skies, ay, dearer to me than all strength or all gold the great hall of the king of the feinne shall e'er hold. love's mark is more sweet on thy beautiful brow than honey that drops where the green grasses bow; ah, when i beheld it above me, how pale seemed the glory and power of the monarch of fail. my heart seemed to fall as i looked at thy face, adoring thy might ever blended with grace, and wert thou not mine, to be gained to my side, not one day in this world would my spirit abide. oh! white-handed hero, so handsome, so strong, although it is i who have wrought all thy wrong, yet stay, stay again with me, wife would i be, vowing never on earth to be faithless to thee. diarmid. why love a woman mild in speech, and yet a traitoress to each? grinie. 'twas misery sundered my life from the king's, i left thee awhile, for love, torturing, stings; never more will i leave thee-my tender love round thee like fresh boughs for thy life, would have sheltered and crowned thee. diarmid. fulfil then thy word, though so faithless, how fair! thy love, oh my grinie, no giant shall share. _note._--from gaelic verse, printed by j. f. campbell, esq., in "leabhar na feinne." _the death of the boar_ [taken from "leabhar na feinne," and a prose version written down from oral recitation by j. dewar.] ossian. this vale of peace, this glen close by, where deer and elk would often cry, of old saw the fleet-footed fianti bound in the strath of the west as they followed the hound. list if you wish to hear a lay of gentle folks long passed away, of him who was prince; of gulban's blue hill, and sorrow-cursed diarmid's sad legend of ill. audience. loved ossian, sweetest voiced, what day but sees us listeners to thy lay? such strains from no birds of the shoreland can float, though dawn give each leaf in the woodland a note. ossian. my own good king was hunting gone, they whom no deerlike terror won, his feinne, through the secret glens followed, and we descended the slopes that lead down to the sea. then saw our own great king, whose word the feinne, the brave, obeying heard, a nine folded shaving of wood brightly curled, shining white, as to seaward the swift waters swirled. he grasped it, scanning it, the coil hid five feet and a span of soil; then loudly he cried, "ah, diarmid is here, no swordsman of cormac, but diarmid is near!" in truth, my own good king then swore to break his fast and drink no more, until were unearthed the vile face of his foe, if the caves of all erin should refuge bestow. our hounds we sent, and shouting went where o'er the vales the branches bent; the wild-cat we chased from the glens, that the cheer and cries of our hunting might fall on his ear. he who was never weak in fight heard the loud voices strike the height; to grinie he cried, "though the hounds do not bay, i wait not their voice, to the hunt i'll away." grinie. o diarmid! wait until they cry, that hunting shout is but a lie, where grieves for his wife cùall's son, there for thee thou know'st thy peril for ever must be. diarmid ere hounds can open on the scent, to every chase my steps are bent, and shame were it now for the king's evil will to lose a good hunt as it sweeps o'er the hill. ossian. then down came diarmid to the vale, to the famed sons of innisfail, and glad was the king, for his foe in his sight came aidless and powerless to baffle his might. where o'er his red straths gulban soars, were haunts well loved by savage boars, and fine were the knolls on the blue mountain's face, where oft for king fionn resounded the chase. there grinie's love brought her to shame, 'twas there the king, with cheeks of flame, commanded the hunt, and 'twas there diarmid stood to watch for the boar if he broke from the wood. deceit a grievous evil wrought! the monster's ear our tumult caught; he moved in the glen, as from east and from west, the shouting grew louder as nearer we pressed. envenomed, old, rage-filled, his jaw foamed as his eyes the heroes saw, and faster he went, his strong bristles and mane erect, sharp as darts, strong as wood of the plain; _high reeds that fringed a marsh he found,-- turned on the dogs all baying round, and killed in a moment the bravest, and glared as though to the combat their master he dared._ fionn. a huge old boar hastes yonder, mark of wounding full and bloodstains dark, now follow yourself, noble diarmid, there goes a monster of evil and terrible woes. ossian. as quick his way the warrior took, no trembling hand the javelin shook, and hurrying fast as he closed with the boar he rushed as in floodtide the wave to the shore. shot gleaming from white hand the spear, straight through the flank its path to shear, but, splintering there, left the head buried deep; the shaft fell in three as it whirred o'er the steep. the sword, the olden, he unsheathed that victory in each battle breathed, then died the great beast on its blade's dripping length; unweakened, unharmed rose the youth in his strength. but gloom the monarch's heart oppressed, for from the hillside to the west, he saw how fair diarmid, unhurt by the tooth, a conqueror stood in the beauty of youth. _he saw the feinne's loud wandering band, deep-ringed around the carcass stand, and heard as they praised the good courage and might that vanquished so soon the grim beast in the fight._ [the verses in italics are from the prose version received from j. dewar] _but diarmid went apart, lest he to praise of self should listener be; that praise was to conan's vile envy a sting, whose eye looked for gain to the hands of the king._ _a dart in deadly poison dipped among the rough black hair he slipped, and none could have seen where the bristles o'erlaid the point firmly set of the venomous blade._ then silent long, the king at last spake, all his thought to hatred cast, "o diarmid, now measure the boar, snout to heel, what length on the ground may the dark hide conceal?" what man among the feinne e'er saw the youth from friend or foe withdraw? he measured the back barefooted, and passed unharmed down the rugged spine, rigid and vast. fionn. "o youth, whose weapons wound so sore, i pray thee prove this yet once more, whate'er thou desirest i'll give thee, but see, from foot to the snout what the measurement be?" ossian. again his sandals he unlaced, and 'gainst the hair he slowly paced, _and bare was the foot where alone mortal harm could strike his limbs guarded by magic and charm._ _there at one spot, lifers crimson well was fenced by no enchanted spell. ah! if on that death-spot but one vein were rent, how staunchless the flow of lifts fountain unpent!_ and fear was on him: as he stepped, a keen pang through his senses swept, for, pierced by the venomous bristle, his sight saw gloom shroud the mountain, and darkness the light. full soon the poison through his veins ran like a fire with fever's pains, then sank the bright locks of the warrior brave, whose face bore in anguish the hue of the grave. his blood ran fast, as down a hill from some high spring a slender rill; ah, piteous it was on the brae to behold how the guileless youth lay in his torture untold. the cheek which shared the berry's hue which flushes red the hillside's dew, now blanched, was as cold as a cloud when it lies blue-shadowed at noon in the vault of the skies. diarmid. a drink, one drink, o fionn, give, one cup to let me drink and live! my blood flows so fast, give me drink from the spring. oft kind were thy words, the good words of a king! fionn. no! not one cup your lips shall drain, to quench your thirst, to cool your pain! what good is your life to me? what has it won, that the deed of one hour has not more than undone? diarmid. not mine the wish to cause you care, in east or west, not here or there! but grinie's the evil, when, captive, i found her love but a shadow, her word but a sound! a drink, one drink, o fionn, give, one cup to let me drink and live! my blood flows so fast, give me drink from the spring, oft kind were thy words, the good words of a king. fionn. no cup of mine your lips shall drain to quench your thirst, to cool your pain, what good is your life, can its fair deeds o'erpower the guilt of one act, and the curse of one hour? diarmid. if you could think of sween's dread day-- no! vain that memory passed away!-- when fell the eight hundred and three, and my sword in the narrow pass drank of their blood as it poured! when prisoned in the rowan hold, of gratitude your words once told, when the white teeth were wounding your limbs, and your breath came quick, for the fray brought you near unto death. and yet again your friend was i in tara when the strife waxed high, not vainly you sought in that hour for a friend, i fought for thee, king, making enmity bend; and innse's sons, the three, the brave, from lands far hidden by the wave: i killed them for thee, who oppressest me sore; hard died they, o ruthless one, washed in their gore! remember connell! see again carbúi front thee with his men, to the host of the feinne see how threatening their gaze: ah, gulban, i burn, as i look on thy braes. if known to oigé's women fair how snared and trapped i here despair, their mourning would rise, and their men would lament the friend whose sad eyes on ben gulban are bent. i, diarmid of newry named, of connaught, of béura famed-- foster son to that angus of broá whose stride revealed the best man on the far mountain side:-- "the eagle of the red cascade"-- "the blue-eyed hawk whom no man stayed"-- they called me--"the strongest of all who could throw the stone, or the spear, at our game or our foe." _then knew he, as his strength grew less that death would end his sore distress; the feinne stood around, and they pitied the man so weak, once the strongest who fought in their van._ _they searched for water, and they found a spring, clear-eyed, in mossy ground, but cup had they none, and their hands, as they went, let fall every drop ere o'er diarmid they bent._ _in bitterness of soul he thought, "they mock me, now that i am naught, your kind hands all leak! of your deed men shall tell, the 'spring of holed palms' shall they name yonder well._ "_yet would i ask you, now i die, to lay me where the stream flows by the water of lunnan, for there in my grave i'll hear, though i see not, its cold shining wave._ "_there place a pillar stone, and bear my grinie some day to me there, and well to the traveller the words shall be known, 'tis diarmid who lies 'neath yon pillar of stone._ "oh woe is me! a foul swine's prey, the victor lord of battle's day! i faint, done to death, let me turn, let me lie with my face to ben gulban, to see it, and die."-- ossian. in tears, and mourning sore, then to his grave we bore that brave and hardy one; on a green knoll alone, beneath a mighty stone that sees the western sun. when grinie coming there, at last of all aware, beheld his narrow bed; as though her life took flight, bereft of sense and sight, she fell, above the dead! then from her swoon awoke, her voice in cries outbroke, and in this song of woe, wherein his praise was heard in every mournful word, above the river's flow. grinie. two in a fastness of rock were concealed, oft we lay there for a year unrevealed, though hidden from fionn by the stream as it leapt, where it wet not the head of my love as he slept. in the hunt's contest the keenest to share, hard was that bed for thy thick golden hair! never thought he of fear as he sprang to the cry, when the chase was afoot, and he joined it, to die! hour of my torture, ochone, how the pain, sore, and sharp, as at first, smites again and again, sightless dear eyes, voiceless lips, and the breath sweet as honey, now lost in the chambers of death! sister's son of a king, a monarch high-placed, victor and friend, once with courtesy graced! ah what a generous heart to have nursed vengeance so causeless, a plot so accursed! diarmid, o love, the best sword of them all, victory flew to the field at thy call; strongest arm in the games, thou wast ever the best, whether called to the fight, or to aid the distressed. bluer your eye than the blaeberry kissed on the high mountain's shoulder by sun and by mist; gentler your eyelids' soft motion, than where the upland grass waves to the breezes of air. whiter your teeth than the blossoming spray danced in the winds 'mid the brightness of day; never harp was so sweet, never bird-song above, as the voice that is hushed on the lips of my love. like to the sun-nurtured sparkles of air were the fair yellow waves of the locks of thy hair, pure as foam the soft skin of the one of our race, who was mighty in mind as majestic in grace. sad is my heart, to no joy-shout replying, restless, lamenting in grief never-dying; oh, the mavis calls sweetly in drear deserts lone, but in vain i must yearn for the notes i have known. now shall my soul find its calm nevermore in the depths--the blue depths--of your eyes as of yore, overborne by a perilous flood i shall know surcease of no sorrow, no lightening of woe! dark is your dwelling-place under the mould, narrow your frozen bed, songless and cold; never morn shalt thou see, till the day of god's doom, when awakened, o hero, thou'lt rise from the tomb. dead in the earth, and there hidden away, who shall not yearn for thee, fairer than day? be my blessing now thine, be it thine evermore, let it rest on the beauty 'twas mine to adore. ossian. each bard prepared his harp for singing that calm and lofty hero's praise; deep sorrow through the long notes ringing, how wild their dirge, how sad their gaze! the bards. mayest thou be blessed, o thou our fairest beloved, once to fortune dear, if still for ireland's feinne thou carest, see how they wail thine absence here. o strength, like flood on foemen pouring, or swoop of eagle from the sky, or as the rush through ocean roaring when myriads from leviathan fly! béura's lord! thy fair locks, waving hath ceased, pressed down beneath the soil: thou'rt seen no more the billows braving, no more thou'lt know the hunter's toil. when blows are rained thy blade no longer shall strike where clear thy war cry rose, o man, whose love than man's seemed stronger, whose voice no more high tara knows. for thee our eyes are red with weeping, no beauty like to thine have we; our solace gone, our best are keeping the death watch, bravest soul, with thee. ossian. yes, fallen all, to leave me living, a leafless tree decayed and grey, old oaks and young, their green life giving; the strong must fall, the weak must stay! yet though to-day so frail, what glory around my youth once shone of old! changed world! this poor man, weak and hoary, was great in war and rich in gold. _king arthur and the captive maiden._ (translated from the gaelic. [ ]) [ ] taken down in gaelic by dewar. king arthur on a journey went, his men and he on hunting bent. came to the hill for victories known; he, and sir balva, armed alone. the king of britain dreamed at night of fairest maid 'neath heaven's light. her face's beauteous hues so clear more than all gold to him were dear. yet all unknown where dwelt the maid, his doubt and awe the search delayed. for better were a battle stern than, blindly wandering, still to yearn. then spoke sir balva, kindly, meek, "it is my wish this maid to seek. let me now take my squire and hound, and search until the maid be found." then seven weeks, with toil and pain, we travelled wearily the main. no harbour gave our ship a home, no land kept off the drifting foam. but high above the rough sea wave, we saw a smooth-walled castle brave. its gables shone with glass. we laughed, "ah many a drink-horn there is quaffed." then sailing to its base there fell a chain that lashed the ocean swell. i seized it, fearless, hand o'er hand i climbed upon the frowning land, and seated on a golden chair, i found a maiden wondrous fair, holding a mirror on her knee, her vesture beautiful to see. i blest her, whose sad voice replied, "grief here thy blessing doth betide. o comer from the sea, thou'lt feel the heart of stone, the blade of steel" though merciless he be, yet know, his sword can deal my heart no blow. his love or hatred i despise if gained the favour of thine eyes. "the giant's star-white sword alone," said she, "can wring from him a groan. o hide thee in some place secure, or, gallant knight, thy death is sure." sir balva heard the giant roar, "what wave-thrown stranger climbed our shore?" her voice replied, "now come, nor wait, my soul, for thee my love is great. put thou thy head upon my knee, i'll sweetly play the harp to thee." he rested, and a laugh displayed the white teeth of the blue-eyed maid. the wild harp-music sweetly rung, and sweeter still her tuneful tongue. and on his eyes, by sea winds fanned, sleep laid full soon his tranquil hand. then took they off his star-white sword and slew the castle's giant lord. thus how the captive maid was found, oft heard they of the table round. _seann oran gailic_. [note: the gaelic spelt as by dewar.] do reir beulaithris ann an linn righ artair bhi ann an duneidean, bha triath urramach eirinneach a chuir tigh dìdean air a chraig ris an abairte aill-séid-chuan, agus ghoid e na braighde rìomhfhinne uasal, agus thug e i do'n dun a thog e air aill-séid-chuan, s bha e ga gleidh an sin na braighde. bha righ artair latha anns a bheinn a sealg, luidh e a' leigeadh a sgìtheas dheth, chaidil e agus bhruadair e air an rìmhfhinne a bha ann am braighdeanas, agus ghabh e toil a cuir saor, ach cha robh fios aige c'aite an robh i. ghabh sir bhalbha os laimh dol g'a h iarraidh na'm faigheadh e long o'n righ. thug an righ long dh'a, agus sheol sir bhalbha gus gun d'fhuair e air thuileamus i, agus thug e dh'ionnsaidh righ airteir i, agus b'ann do'n chùis chaidh an t óran a leasas a dheanamh. turus a chaidh righ arstair s a shluagh gu tullach na'm buadh, a shealg; gun duine mar-ris an righ ach sir bhalbha, fo a lion arm. gun duine, &c. chunnaic righ bhreatun s e na shuain an aon bhean a b'aillidh snuadh fo'n ghrein 's b fhearr leis ro na bh'aige a dh'or an òg-bhean bhi aige fein. 's b fhearr leis, &c. ach b'fhearr leis tuiteam ann an sin le comhrag fir, mar bha e fein. no dol a dh'iarraidh na mnà s gun fhios aige cia an t'aite fo n ghréin. no dol a dh'iarraidh, &c. thubairt sir bhalbha suairce cuin. 's e mo rùn dol a dh'iarraidh na mnà, theid mi fein mo ghille s mo chu nar triuir 'g a sireadh gun dàil theid mi fein, &c seachd seachdainnean le stri bha sinn sgìth a sinbhal cuain gun chala gun talamh gun fhonn gun ionad amis an gabhadh an long tàmh. gun chala gun, &c. chuannacas an iomall a chuain ghairbh caisteal mór mìn-gheal ghuirm, uinneagan gloine air a stuagh s bu lìon-mhor ann cuaich coirn. uninneagan gloine, &c. air dhuinn bhi seoladh stigh ri bhun, chaidh slabhraidh a chuir a nuas; s roimh an t slabhraidh cha do ghabh-ar crith ach chaidhearurra na m'ruith suas. s roimh an t slabhraidh, &c. cuanna'cas an ighean eididh òg air cathair òir na suidhe a steach sgàthan gloine air a glùn, s bheannaich-eam do a gnuis gheal. sgàthan gloine, &c. fhir a thainig oìrun o'n chuan s truagh brìgh do bheannachadh ann. * * * * * ged thigeadh am fear mor na m dhàil gun iochd gun bhàigh le a chlaidheamh cruaidh, air do ghuidh-se a bhean bhlath. s coingeis leam a ghradh seach fhuath. air do ghuidh-se, &c. arm cha deargadh air an thear, ach a chlaidheamh run-geal fein. agus is fhearr dhuit dol fo-chleith do aite air leith tearruinnt' o'n eug. agus is fhearr, &c. chaidh sir bhalbha fa-chleith agus a steach thainig am fear mor tha boladh an fhar-bhalaich a steach oirrinn iar teachd o thuinn na traigh. tha boladh an, &c. anamain, a sheircein, s a rùin is mor an gaol a thug mi dhuit, cuir thusa do cheann air mo ghlùin, agus seinnidh mi ciùin duit a chruit. cuir thusa do, &c. chuir e a cheann air uchd an ighinn ùir, bu ghuirme sùil, s bu ghile deud, s ge bu bhinn a sheinneadh i a chruit, bu bhinneadh an guth bha teachd o a beul. s ge bu bhinn, &c. air dhuinn bhi cuairteachadh na'n cuan chaidil e suain, na thruim sheamh fann, s thug iad an claidheamh a chrios s ghearr iad gun fhios d'dheth an ceann, s thug iad an, &c. ghoid iad a bhraighdeach s gu leir s bha a bhean fein fo chumha thruim siod agaibh aithris mo sgeul s mar a leugh iad am bòrd-cruinn. siod agaibh, &c. latha do righ arstair s a shluagh bhi air tullach na'm buadh, a shealg. gun duine mar-ris an righ ach bhalbha, fo lion arm. _dunolly's daughter._ oh, dear to old dunolly's heart his darling daughter seemed, yet when she fled, how pitiless his bitter curse was deemed. to death he doomed her lover true, and swore his lowly blood should stain the land, whose soil would blush at wanton womanhood. but leaves were thick, and woods were green, where summer saw their love, and none could tell dunolly where was nesting his wild dove. two years had sped, and all unchanged dunolly's mood remained; when tired with hunting, late at eve a forest hut he gained. a cheerful scene! for hung on trees on either side the door a stag and roe, and salmon there lay strewn the hut before. there pausing silently he heard light laughter, o well known; and, looking through the wattled wall stood motionless as stone. he saw a happy woman lie her true man's form beside; and laugh as on the bed they tossed a smiling child in pride. no word dunolly spoke, but went, an altered man, and said; "go bring them home, for rich are they, love shows them nobly wed." _the armada gun_ [ ] [ ] this cannon was recovered in from the wreck of a vessel of the spanish armada sunk in tobermory bay, and is at inveraray. an ancient cannon, finely cast. of bronze, all smooth and green with age, a by-gone actor on the stage, yet fit to take, as in the past a role in war, and be the last dread argument of kings! the daisies grew around, and brought the homage of young spring to praise this stately relic of old days, when france with spain for mastery fought; and philip over england sought to spread the papal wings. initialed with king francis' name, with gallic lilies sculptured o'er, above the vent the metal bore a salamander crowned, in flame; the massive breech could even claim a sheath of lotos bloom. this goodly weapon, forged where seine by fontainebleau and paris flows, and many a painted palace shows these emblems of the valois' reign, for centuries unseen has lain within the sea's dark tomb. how came it there? a spanish keel one of the great armada gay, was blasted in our lady's bay; one of the fleet the floods conceal, though o'er the waves was wont to peal the thunder of their pride. but how came france's lilies there beneath the flag of red and gold? and o'er the ancient gun we told the story which the legends bear, how in defeat it bore its share and stemmed the victory's tide. we thought the winds of hollow sound spoke from its mouth in solemn tone, of great events its life had known, that thronged, as with the nearly drowned, to recollection, ere it found beneath the sea a grave. "'in flame i live, i quench its glow;' this motto at the foundry fire was given me by his desire, the king, whose crest and lilies show how love and valour could bestow their favour on the brave. "my form was fashioned in each part by him who wrought in gems and gold, whose glory, trumpet-tongued, is told in fearful wars, in peaceful art, cellini of the ardent heart, and benvenuto named! "the silver-voiced and laughing crowd of ladies praised his fair design and asked if on the german rhine, or english coasts of fog and cloud, would soon be heard my challenge loud for rights our country claimed? "to conquer fair milan i threw my shot against the swiss array on marignano's dreadful day: on sledges hardy soldiers drew my weight through snows, where eagles knew alone the alpine way. "and warring for the emperor's crown, i saw around me fall and die the noblest of our chivalry: when peerless bayard's high renown quenched not his blood, that streaming down fell on me where i lay. "pavia felt my iron hail, when traitor bourbon won the fight, yet glad was i no foreign knight alone had made our siege to fail, when wrote our king the dismal tale, 'save honour all is lost!' "the impious victor hurled my fire against the walls of holy rome, but there the devil took him home! for at the storm my artist sire, cellini, felled him, for the ire of god his path had crossed. "to nobler masters still a slave, i felt the fame of doria mine; saw venice o'er her channels shine; pursued the moslem on the wave, and shattered them, when victory gave her palm to malta's isle. "when naples sent her ships to swell the swarming armaments that bore 'gainst england from each southern shore in fleets whose numbers none could tell; i saw how drake upon us fell, how fortune ceased to smile. "for tempests gathered o'er our track, the little english hornets stung, my heavy shot against them flung passed o'er their barks, so swift to tack, and every ball they gave us back upon our galleons told. "soon drifting o'er the northern main grey shores unknown were quickly past; our consorts on the rocks were cast, it was our fate alone to gain the peaceful haven where maclaine set fire unto our hold. i sank: a hundred years past by, and diving bells with searchers keen for treasure in the wreck were seen. they took the gold, but let me lie to sleep another century, then raised and brought me here. * * * * * "valois is dead, and bourbon's line no longer fills my country's throne. but death dear france shall never own! once more of late her joy was mine, once more for her my flames could shine, my thunder echo clear. "for when the tide of battle rolled against the far crimean shore, and france and britain downward bore the russian in his chosen hold, my last salute of victory told for france, as oft of yore!" _cavalry charge--kÖniggrÄtz_ we stood, as the helmeted horsemen formed up in the light of the sun; we knelt, stretching bayonets towards them as they charged, ere the battle was won. i marked their young leader apparelled as daintily as for parade, a cigarette smoking, advancing he laughed, as he pointed his blade. he played with his yellow moustaches, and looked on our ranks, with a scorn such as mantles 'gainst mist and night-vapour on the brow of the son of the morn. he led a bright host where the glitter of armour illumined the vale; as a flood rises slowly, so, coming, they rode with the sun on their mail. thus he steadied his men, and none wavered. as the steeds settled down to their stride, and we heard the first rush of the squadrons, like the gathering roar of the tide. their order was perfect and splendid, and his voice, that at first held them in, had rung down their ranks for the onset, as though it were fate they should win. i felt i half liked him as onward the lines of his cuirassiers came, like breakers wind-driven from seaward, dark tossed in a whirlwind of flame. i hated the shot that must enter that steel-girt and confident breast, and quench that brave spirit for ever, that light on the cataract's crest but i gave forth the word, and our volley rang clear o'er the thunder of feet that rolled not to us, for destruction rejoiced their proud splendour to greet. and the leader who laughed at our columns, at the ranks that bid gaiety die, on his red bed of honour at even lay smiling his scorn at the sky. _the irish emigrant._ . look not for me at eventide, i cannot come when work is done; i go to wander far and wide, for 'tis not here that gold is won. perchance where'er i go, these hands may find me what i need to live; whate'er they win, if house, or lands, i'd yield for what they cannot give. for who can turn away his face from home and kin and be at rest? what country e'er can take the place that ireland fills within my breast? more kindly smile the distant skies, they say, beyond yon angry sea; i know not what they mean, mine eyes have never seen these frown on me. to me these hills beside the wave with every year have dearer grown; is it so great a thing to crave to call my native land, mine own? but why these useless plaints renew? farewell! that word, it seems a knell! if still i'm dear, kind hearts, to you, 'tis all i ask, farewell, farewell! _the irish emigrant._ . "they sow in tears who reap in joy," was truly said of old: we wandered far, but round us still stretched god almighty's fold. 'twas he who led us forth; our grief discerned his chastening hand, and saw not, though before our eyes shone bright his promised land. o bless him for the love that made the parting greeting sore, but for the bold heart that he gave we bless our god yet more! he gave us hope, he gave us strength; for us his prairies smile, the new world's untouched soils for us spread boundless, mile on mile. the richest heritage on earth for us his mercy saved; for ages nature's harvests here unknown, ungathered, waved. ours now the grain which decks the plains, ours all their wondrous yield; our children, and our kin possess their own, in house and field. what wonder then if many laugh, and wonder joy was dumb! to friends in older lands with less our happy hearts say "come." _song._ osborne, . here rose and magnolia our dearest enshrine, the prayer of the south wind is thine and is mine, for child and for mother here sweetly twice isled, brave seamen are praying for mother and child. where state must surround them beneath the great keep, and green oaks of windsor shade river and steep, for child and queen-mother the choristers aisled, with armed men are chanting for mother and child. away where the heather blooms far o'er the pine, the highlander's blessing is mine and is thine, for child and for mother beloved and mild; what heart does not bless them, dear mother and child. _sonnet._ lord f. douglas killed on the matterhorn, switzerland, . not home to land and kindred wast thou brought, nor laid 'mid trampled dead of battle won,-- nor after long life filled with duty done was thine such death as thou thyself had'st sought! no, sadder far, with horror overwrought that end that gave to thee thy cruel grave deep in blue chasms of some glacier cave, when cervins perils thou, the first, had'st fought and conquered, douglas! for in thee uprose in boyhood e'en a nature noble, free,-- so gently brave with courtesy, that those old douglas knights, the "flowers of chivalry," had joyed to see that in our times again a link of gold had graced their ancient chain! _sadowa_ july . wet, cheerless was our bivouac last eve, but still we spoke of fighting and of winning, to-morrow, when day broke: that day the thundering echoes of cannon in our front had louder grown until around had raged the battle's brunt at last the carnage ended, and our regiment's retreat was marked by many wounded, who shrieked beneath our feet! but here in closer order rides past a lancer troop-- they had but late been charging like falcons when they swoop. how few there are remaining! now the river's bank is gained; the trumpeter's white charger with blood on neck is stained. his snowy flanks are heaving; he shudders on the brink, then, gently urged, he halts again, and stoops his head to drink. he cannot ford the river, for lost are strength and speed: the trumpeter, dismounted, now swims beside his steed. together they have struggled; he will not let him die, and soon he stands beside him though the balls are rushing by. he takes him by the bridle;--would lead him to the town,-- too late,--for life is ebbing,--the gallant steed is down! ah! long i saw that horseman kneel by his charger's head, and when at last he left him, i knew the horse was dead. how fiercely as he passes that comrade on the plain, remounted on the morrow, shall sound the "charge" again! _on a foreign war ship's salute to the queen's standard at osborne._ with their deep voice, monotonous and slow, the cannon's thunders roll along the sea; but 'tis in reverence, and to work no woe those sounds here reach the shore and onward flee past the oak woods that climb the grassy lea, to strike thy terraces, and palace fair with stately salutation offered thee who of these potent realms the crown dost wear. so to the fabric of our future fame, set in the green oak of our empire's might: shall history's voice, with measured praise, proclaim thy life-long love of justice and of right, and the good era that thy reign hath been. to hail thee, reverently, victoria, queen. speeches and addresses. _some of the speeches, and a few of the answers to addresses, delivered during lord lorne's term of office in the dominion, are printed in the following pages._ on taking leave of his constituents in , in a speech delivered at inveraray, lord lorne said:-- judge of the wishes of our colonies, not from your own point of view only, but from that of their interests also, and from that of the well-being of the whole empire, whose glory and power is at once the best result and the surest guarantee of the freedom which is yours, and which the colonies inherit from you. many of you know well, because many of your relations are settled there, the great british colonies of north america. the dominion now stretches from ocean to ocean across that vast continent, embracing lands of every nature--some valuable for corn, some for pasture, for timber or for other treasures which will in future centuries make the country one of the richest on the earth--for coal and other minerals. as your former member is about to join the number of your friends who are already there, you will allow him to say a good word for those provinces of the dominion, the threshold of which civilisation has already passed, and whose fair vacant chambers tempt the settler from the old world to enter further and to occupy. some years ago, at a public meeting in glasgow, i took the opportunity to describe the temptations offered by the canadian government to men employed in agriculture here to settle in manitoba, and since that day, as before it, hundreds of happy homesteads have risen, and the energies of the dominion have been directed towards the completion of that railway which will make manitoba as accessible as is inveraray. now, let me again invite attention to this great province and the vast territories beyond. in argyleshire we have too few men, and we want more to settle with us, but canada is a formidable competitor even to this fair country; and in other places, in the towns of this land, there are plenty of men who would do well, if they can hold the plough, to follow the gallant example of their countrymen who have added glory to britain by forming another great british nation. instead of leading an unhealthy city life, it were well that many of our townsmen should take to the life-giving work of a settler in the agricultural regions of western canada, where they are likely to live longer and to be happier than is the lot of the great majority of mankind. on embarking at liverpool in for canada, lord lorne spoke as follows in reply to an address presented by the mayor of that city:-- we shall not forget the attention we have received, nor the great demonstration made by the people of liverpool, of the interest entertained by them in the good of canada, and of the love borne by the whole country for her children across the atlantic. you who dwell at this great port, and see so many leave their native land for distant climes, will not misunderstand me when i say that we do not lightly leave you. the heart is often sad at leaving home when the ship is about to start and the anchor is being weighed, however cheery the voices of those who raise it, and hearty the farewell greetings of friends on shore. it is, however, the duty of those who go, to look forward and not back, and it is pleasant to think that across the water we shall find ourselves among our own countrymen and in our own country, among the same institutions as those we know here and under the same flag. we shall find the same laws and the same determination to uphold and abide by them, the same love of liberty as we have here, and the same ability to guard it in honour and order, the same loyalty to the throne for the same cause, because it is the creation of freemen, the bond of strength, and the symbol of the unity and dignity of the british people where in the british north american provinces we do not find men of our own stock, we are fortunate in finding those who descend from the noble french race--that race whose gallantry we have for ages learnt to respect and to admire--the friendship of whose sons to the empire and their co-operation in the public life of canada, which is adorned by their presence, are justly held to be essential nowhere is loyalty more true and more firmly rooted than among the french canadians, enjoying, as all do, the freedom of equal laws and the justice of constitutional rule. in conclusion, i will only say that nothing has struck me more than the enthusiasm manifested towards canada among all classes of the community in england and scotland wherever i have of late had an opportunity of hearing any expression of the public mind. crowds at any public gathering have always given cheers for canada. the great gathering of to-day is a renewed symptom of the same favourable augury, for a good augury i hold it to be, that men in the old country are ready to call "hurrah for canada!" on the other side of the ocean they are as ready to call "hurrah for the old country!" and these cries are no mere words of the lips, but come from the heart of great peoples. so long as the feelings which prompt these sayings endure--and endure, i believe they will--we may look forward with confidence to the future, and know that those bonds of affection which have been knit by god through the means of kinship and justice will not be sundered by disaster or weakened by time. (great cheering.) in reply to an address from the liverpool chamber of commerce, which was read by mr. w. b. forwood, president of the chamber, the marquis said:-- you may well believe how highly i value the sentiments which have prompted you to come forward today with the address to which we have all just listened with interest, for liverpool represents not only much of the trade of england, but much of the commerce of the world. it is perhaps the port more intimately connected than any in europe with the american continent. it is between your quays and those of new york, that a steam service is conducted with the certainty and regularity which tells of the ablest seamanship, and it is by your river that the fine canadian vessels of the allan line come, the magnificent representatives of the prospering mercantile marine of the dominion, and proud may that country be of such a fleet. your address shows how highly you value the friendship of the canadian people, in what regard you hold their esteem, and with what interest and sympathy you watch the progress they are making. it seems to me but a short while ago since i last visited canada; but in twelve years there is a great change to be seen. twelve years ago the british north american provinces were only isolated colonies, bound together by no federal union, and lacking in the strength and deprived of the advantages of unity. now the decrees of the central parliament at ottawa are passed by the representatives of peoples whose mandates are obeyed through all that broad zone of productive land which crosses the mighty continent, and the name of our sovereign is hailed with, the same affection as before, but by no mere collection of colonies, for we see a great federal people. it is for their welfare that you, on behalf of the merchants of liverpool, express your just and confident hope; and the feelings of sympathy you have shown will, i know, find a response on the other side of the atlantic. i consider it of the highest value that such a true expression of the affection entertained by the great commercial centres of england should be heard and known. the sentiments which make the hearts of the natives of these isles beat fast with the just pride of nationality, when they see in far distant countries the flag of st. george, st. andrew, and st. patrick, is felt to the full by your colonists, who uphold the flag as speaking to them of the great days of old of which they, with us, are the heirs. this common loyalty to the queen and pride in her ensign is a sure guarantee for the continued greatness of our country. you, gentlemen, have at heart the interests of commerce, and, as merchants, the peace and prosperity of the world. there is no better hope for this than in the unity between these kingdoms and the great dependencies of the crown. you know well how real that unity is, and you will, i believe, join me in the confident expectation that the eyes of men may long see, beneath our western sky, the bright apparition of peace speeding the beneficent navies of commerce as they bear to all lands the fruits gathered from the great harvest which is earned by industry and wisdom. on passing londonderry the representatives of the municipality came on board "the sarmatian," and in reply to the "god speed" of the visitors, the marquis of lorne said:-- it is most cheering to receive from you the expression of your sympathy with our mission. we shall feel, after seeing and hearing you, that we leave the irish shore bearing with us a precious message of goodwill given on the part of its people to their fellow-subjects in canada. the dominion of canada owes much to ireland. who does not recall with gratitude to the country that gave him birth, the rule of the late governor-general of canada, the earl of dufferin? canada will never forget him, or fail to remember that it was an irish noble whose career has given her so bright a page in her history. and from the governors-general, on through a long list of rulers whose presence was a benefit to the dominion, we know also that canada is indebted to ireland for many a hardy agriculturist and many a clever artisan. it would be difficult to speak of any part of our empire which is not in a similar case, and which does not point with pride to the services of irishmen, for on what field of honour has the genius of the irish race not contributed to our power? on what path of victory has not an irish hand carried forward among the foremost the banner of our union? it is under that ensign alone, of all in the world, that an irishman stands beneath the cross of the royal saint of ireland, and each patriotic effort made by a son of erin adds another leaf to the wreath of renown which, for so many centuries, has made the piety and gallantry of the race a household word among the nations. in parting from you we shall not forget your kind words, and our visit to the neighbourhood of your city will always be a pleasant recollection. we thank you again, and ask you to convey to your fellow-townsmen the expression of our regret that circumstances have prevented us from receiving your address within their walls. arriving at montreal, the princess and lord lorne attended the "st. andrew's ball," and replying to colonel stevenson, who tendered the welcome of the committee, lord lorne said:-- colonel stevenson and gentlemen, the members of the st. andrew's society,--to me, i need hardly say, it is a great pleasure to find myself to-night among so many of my countrymen who hail from scotland, and in saying this i am certain i shall have with me the sympathy of all canadians of whatever race--english, french, or irish. for all these nationalities wish you well. as for the english, it is impossible for them to feel anything but good-will, for they have as a people been so grateful for the last two centuries to scotsmen for giving them a king, that they have ever since been only too happy to see scotsmen getting their way everywhere. the french population shares in the goodwill felt towards you, for they remember that in the old days it was a scotch regiment, the king's bodyguard, which was the most popular corps at paris, and that the french troops who guarded edinburgh were there as the allies of scotland. it is impossible for irishmen to feel anything but the most cordial feeling of love for you, for what is scotland but an irish colony? but it is a colony of which ireland, as a mother country, may well be proud. gentlemen, as one bearing the name of one of the first of those old irish colonists and civilisers of scotland, i feel i have a right to be proud of the position taken by scotsmen in canada. we have had the good fortune since leaving england to be constantly under the guidance or tutelage of scotsmen. the owner of the great line of steamships, in one of whose vessels we came here, is a distinguished scotsman, well known to all in this hall. i am happy to say that the captain of our steamer was a scotsman, the chief engineer was a scotsman, and, best of all, the stewardess was a scotswoman. well, as soon as we landed we were met by a scotch commander-in-chief and by a scotch prime minister, who had succeeded a prime minister who is also a scotsman. what wonder is it that canada thrives when the only change in her future is that she falls from the hands of one scotsman into that of another? our countrymen are fond of metaphysical discussion, and are apt to seek for subtle reasons for the cause of things. here it is unnecessary for them to do more in inquiring the reasons of the prosperity of the country, than to look around them and to note the number of their countrymen, and the existence of such societies with such chiefs as the st. andrew's society of montreal but it is time to put an end to such light discourse, and to proceed to the graver terpsichorean duties of the evening. at montreal, where a most cordial and memorable welcome was given, the following reply to the mayor's address was made:-- to his worship the mayor, and to the citizens of montreal:--mr. mayor and gentlemen,--in the name of our queen i ask you to accept our thanks for your loyal and eloquent address. i need hardly say with what pleasure the princess and i have listened to the courteous expressions with which we are now greeted--and for your most hearty and cordial welcome. we consider ourselves fortunate that so soon after our arrival in the dominion, we have an opportunity of passing this great city; and while halting for a short time within its walls, on our journey to ottawa, to make the acquaintance, at all events, of some among the community which represents so large and important a centre of population and industry. your beautiful city sits, like a queen enthroned, by the great river whose water glides past in homage, bringing to her feet with the summer breezes the wealth of the world. it is the city of this continent perhaps the best known to the dwellers of the old country; and not only is it famous for the energy, activity, and prosperity of its citizens, but it is here that the gigantic undertaking of the victoria bridge has been successfully carried out; and the traveller in crossing the mighty stream feels, as he is borne high above it through the vast cavern, that such a viaduct is a worthy approach to your great emporium of commerce. its iron girders and massive frame are worthy of the gigantic natural features around, and it stands, spanning the flowing sea, as firm and as strong as the sentiment of loyalty for her whose name it bears--a love which unites in more enduring bonds ip than any forged with the products of the quarry or the mine, the people of this empire. it seems but a short time ago since the prince of wales struck the last rivet in yonder structure; and yet what wonderful strides have been made in the progress of this country since that day! every year strikes a new rivet, and clenches with mighty hand that enduring work--that mighty fabric-- the prosperity of the dominion. long may your progress in the beautiful arts and industries continue, and far be the day on which you may point to any marks but those which tell of the well-earned results of indomitable energy and determined perseverance. the people of this country may be well assured that the earl of dufferin has carried home with him ample proofs of the profound love canada bears to the mother country, and these assurances have been conveyed by him personally to her majesty. we wish, in answering your address, to acknowledge the extreme loyalty exhibited by the french-canadian populations, as well as the populations of the maritime provinces, through whose country we have, during the last two days, travelled, and to thank them once again as we had the opportunity this morning, for the kindness shown toward us personally. this scene, the magnificent reception of your great city, we shall ever remember with pride and gratitude. on arriving at ottawa, his excellency spoke as follows in reply to the greeting of the citizens of the capital of the dominion:-- it is with the greatest satisfaction that i accept your loyal address, and hear in it those expressions of devotion to her majesty the queen, which indicate the feelings which rise so truly in the hearts of every man, woman, and child in canada, and which not only prove the natural impulses of all who enjoy the birthright of british citizens, but demonstrate the convictions of a people who, by the knowledge they have acquired of the political institutions of the world, cling with a tenacity and firmness never to be shaken, to the constitution which their fathers moulded, and under which they experience now the blessings of freedom and the tranquillity of order, beneath the sceptre of a gracious ruler, whose throne is revered as the symbol of constitutional authority, and whose person is honoured as the representative of benignity and virtue. the attachment which binds the provinces of british north america to the british flag has never been more strikingly shown than during the past year; and we know that the readiness displayed to share the dangers and to partake of the triumphs of the mother country is no fleeting incident, but a sure sign that the people of this empire are determined to show that they value, as a common heritage, the strength of union, and that the honour of the sovereign will be upheld with equal loyalty by her subjects in every part of the globe. we have now traversed, in coming here, some parts of the important provinces of the dominion. in all places we have visited--and i regret it was not in our power, at this season of the year, to visit more--we have met with the same kindness and the same hearty cordiality. i can assure you we are deeply sensible of all that is conveyed in such a reception; and it has been, and will be, a pleasant duty to convey to the sovereign a just description of the manner in which you have received her representative and her daughter. it is with a peculiar feeling of pride in the grandeur of this dominion that i accept, on the part of the queen, the welcome given to us at ottawa, the capital of the greatest of the colonies of the crown. it is here that we shall take up our abode among you, and the cordiality of your words makes me feel that which i have known since we landed: that it is to no foreign country that we come, but that we have only crossed the sea to find ourselves among our own people, and to be greeted by friends on coming to a home. in entering the house which you have assigned to the governor-general, i shall personally regret the absence of the distinguished nobleman whom i have the honour to call my friend, and whose departure must have raised among you the sad feelings inseparable from the parting with one whose career here was one long triumph in the affection of the people. a thousand memories throughout the length and breadth of the land speak of lord dufferin. it needs with you no titular memorials, such as the names of streets and bridges, to commemorate the name of him who not only adorned all he touched, but, by his eloquence and his wisdom, proved of what incalculable advantage to the state it was to have in the representative of the sovereign, one in whose nature judiciousness and impartiality, kindness, grace, and excellence were so blended that his advice was a boon equally to be desired by all, his approbation a prize to be coveted, and the words that came from his silver tongue, which always charmed and never hurt, treasures to be cherished. i am confident that the land he served so well knew how to value his presence, and that you will always look upon his departure with a regret proportionate to the pleasure ottawa experienced from his sojourn among you. i am confident that we shall find with you a generous and kindly desire to judge well of our effort to fulfil your expectations, and air though you speak of the recent growth of your city, and contrast it with places which have become famous in the world, i need not remind you that there is a special interest and significance in casting in our lot with those whose fortune it is not to inherit history but to make it. i accept your expression of confidence, and promise that i shall do my best to deserve it. the following is a report of the speech delivered by his excellency the governor-general, after distributing the prizes at the school entertainment in the opera house, on friday last, december , . his excellency said:-- ladies and gentlemen, and my young friends, the pupils of the public schools,--let me express to you the pleasure i feel in being with you to-night, in being able to wish you all a merry christmas and a happy new year, and in having an opportunity of giving to the successful candidates for honours the prizes which they have so well won in the competitions which have taken place. i congratulate them upon their laurels, and i wish, after handing to them the proof of their success, to say to them how fortunate i consider them to be, in that their lot has been cast in a land where education is so much prized, and where, both in the public schools and in the separate schools, it is so well known how to give effect to the value set by all the community upon the thorough and universal training of the youth of the country. i have heard men who have come from england and from scotland say, on learning of the manner in which schools are sown broadcast in ontario, and on understanding the system of education adopted here, and the nature of the tuition given, "i wish that i in my time had had only the tenth part of the schooling which is given to the boys and girls in canada." let me tell you what lately brought home to my mind, in the most striking way, the consideration and care the canadians bestow upon their schools. at the great paris exhibition this year, where the things in which each nation took an especial pride were paraded before the eyes of the world, the space allotted to canada was largely occupied with the books, the atlases, and the furniture of all kinds used here in the schools, while no other country seemed to have thought of exhibiting anything of the kind. it was remarked how wise it was of this young country to show these things, for it told the world that she does not only invite to her fair and untilled lands the self-reliant and honest among the crowded populations of europe, but it told how well the sons of the emigrant, as well as of the resident, were cared for, and educated in the provinces of the dominion. i am afraid that with many of the books shown at paris, our young friends are much better acquainted than many of us, their elders, can now pretend to be; and i am sure that many of the clever young canadians whom you see before you, could give us, whose learning has become rusty, many a bit of knowledge which might still stand us in good stead. the exhibition at paris from your schools filled up what some said was a blank, namely, the absence of any of the fruits of your wonderful harvests, and of any machinery from canada. it was said, i remember, that the fruit could not be carried, but perhaps it was owing to a wish not to wound the susceptibilities of the old world that none of the beautiful products of your orchards were there, and because you did not wish that any of your modest-looking but unapproachable _pommes grises,_ or blushing and splendid pippin apples, should appear in the character of apples of discord. it may have been owing to the same wish not to excite unduly and unnecessarily the envy of others, that no machinery was exhibited from canada, and that while other nations were making the great building resound and vibrate to the whirr of wheels driven by steam; you did not, even by so much as a picture, remind the parisians of your wealth in water power as well as in steam, and there was nothing to show the citizen of london or of paris, who supposes the thames or the seine to be the greatest streams on earth, why he should be ashamed of himself if he could but look upon the ottawa or the st. lawrence. but the school display made up for any blank, and under the shadow of the magnificent canadian lumber trophy which adorned the palace, reaching to the roof, and which demonstrated the wealth of your forests, were the implements you use for the cultivation of your greatest treasure--the ready brains and quick intelligence of your youth. i am glad to meet some of those to-night for whom all that preparation is made; and first, i would say to those who have not this year been among the prize winners, that i shall hope to see some of their names in the opposite category another year. "better luck next time" is a good saying, but "never say die" is perhaps a better. try again, and yet again, and you will succeed. many a man begins, and has begun in all times of the world, at the first rung of the ladder, who finds himself, if he will only give his own gifts their due, at the top at the end i do not know that i need recommend to you that most delightful book of history, "the tales of a grandfather," written by sir walter scott. he describes, as few can, the despair of the scottish king, who lay, tired to death, and pondering whether he should or should not try again the apparently hopeless task to deliver his country from her strong and terrible enemies; and how a spider, spinning her web in the rafters over his head, was seen by him to fail again and again, and yet again, until eight times she had endeavoured to fix a thread, and eight times she had found the space too great to span; and how he said within himself "if she try again and fail, i too shall deem my task hopeless;" but the ninth time the attempt was made and did not fail, and i need not pursue the story further, or tell you how scotsmen look back, through more than five centuries, on the resolve then taken by bruce with feelings of gratitude and pride which can never fade and die. but there are other cases of men who had become famous for their ability to do that which at first seemed impossible. let me mention one (to come down to our own times) because his name is widely known and honoured as one of the greatest financiers of our day. i allude to mr. gladstone, who, as you know, was the last prime minister in great britain and was acknowledged by both parties in the state to be one of the best finance ministers who ever presided over the national exchequer. when mr. gladstone was a young man, and was about to go to the university (as several of you are about now to leave school for college), he told his father that there was one branch of learning in which he must not expect his son to distinguish himself, and that was in mathematics, as he had no turn for figures. he went to the university, and he came out as what is called a "double first," that is, he proved himself to have become as superior to others in mathematics as in the classical studies, and took first honours in both. i; need not tell you here, in this free and happy country, that it is quite unnecessary for any one to have any artificial advantage in getting to the head of a profession. industry will find a way, here perhaps more easily than in the old country, though there it is open to all to rise to the highest places. i will only cite one other instance of remarkable success, because it is within my knowledge. it is the case of a man who was one of the greatest shipbuilders on the clyde, and who built, among many other vessels, the splendid war-ship, the _black prince,_ which was lately at halifax, under command of one of the queen's sons, the duke of edinburgh. the builder of that vessel died lately, one of the wealthiest and most successful of glasgow's great shipbuilders, and had furnished more fine vessels to the mercantile and war marine of great britain than perhaps any one in his time, for he lived to a good old age. his fortune was made by his own strong hand, good head and honest heart. his name was robert napier, and i cannot wish you a better career than his, or that you should seek your fortune with greater uprightness and courage. i heartily wish continued success to you who have received prizes this evening. allow me to hint to you that you must not relax your exertions. if i may use the metaphor, you have learned to swim, but many a stroke is necessary before you can hope to reach your goal determine what your goal shall be, and strike out straight for it. you have a variety of pursuits in this country. determine to be of use to the land which has given you birth. determine to be a credit to it. remember that you are canadians, and remember what this means. it means that you belong to a people who are loyal to their queen, whom they reverence as one of the most perfect of women, and as their sovereign; and who see in her the just ruler under whose impartial sway the various races, creeds, and nationalities of this great empire are bound together in happiness and unity. but to be loyal means even more than this. it means that you are true to your duties to your fellow-countrymen, and that you will work with and for all, for the common weal in brotherhood and tolerance. it means, finally, that you will be true to your self-respect, that you will do nothing unworthy of the love of your god, who made you in his image, and set you in this fair land i believe that you will each and all of you be loyal and true canadians, that you will devote your energies throughout your lives for the good of your native province, and for the welfare of this wide dominion, and i feel in speaking to you that i address those whose children will assuredly be the fathers of a mighty nation. during a visit to kingston in , the degree of doctor of laws of queen's college was conferred upon the governor-general, and an address was presented by the trustees. his excellency, in acknowledging the honour conferred, said:-- mr. chancellor, principal grant and gentlemen,--believe me i am deeply sensible of the honour you have conferred upon me by conferring on me the degree of doctor of laws at this time and in this place. i say at this time, because it is a time in which we have been sent here to represent her majesty; and at this place, because here i see represented every section, creed, and class of the great community of canada. i accept the honour, if you will allow me to do so, not because i myself am worthy of it, for i feel deeply my own unworthiness, but as a recognition of the position which has been conferred upon me by the grace of the sovereign. (cheers.) i am glad that it has taken place here, because it has just been pointed out to me we are in front of that building in which formerly met the parliament of canada, and which, good building as it is, when compared with the great and handsome parliament buildings now at ottawa, gives a just impression of the progress and advancement made in a short while in this great country. the only personal claim i have to represent her majesty in this country, is that i have had some experience in that great law-making assembly in great britain, her house of commons. but here i occupy a position unknown in the constitution of foreign countries, as a political doctor, because whatever prescriptions i give must be such that they can hardly be visible to or appreciated by the public. (laughter.) they must be written in invisible ink--(laughter)--and i can only give a prescription at all when i meet with other physicians in consultation; and any remedy given must be given, not by myself, although it may be administered by any others of those whom i meet in consultation. (great laughter.) this is a peculiar position, and one which is totally incomprehensible to many foreign doctors. (loud laughter.) but i am glad to see by your presence and by the kindness of your reception to-day, and by the manner in which you are working out your political destinies, that you know the value and importance of such a position. (applause.) i thank you for the kindliness of your reception, and i assure mr. chancellor and principal, that i shall always look back with pride and pleasure to the day on which i received this academical distinction at the hands of the authorities of queen's college. (loud cheering.) in acknowledging the address he said:-- to the trustees of the university of queen's college:--gentlemen,--i am much rejoiced at learning from you of the large number of students at present attending the queen's college, and hail this as a proof that the high tone of the instruction here imparted, and the excellence of all matters connected with the organisation and management of this seat of learning, have challenged the attention and won the entire confidence and approbation of the people of this part of the province. i don't know whether a general holiday is the best occasion on which to enter an abode of learning. but you will agree with me that it is not only learning which makes a man wise, but that his heart and his affections have also something to do in the promotion of wisdom. to-day your preparation for the future, in the matter of labour in gathering knowledge, is laid aside in order that you may let the heart speak and show gratitude for the blessings you now enjoy, and that your fathers have bequeathed to you in the liberty enjoyed under our gracious queen, the best interpreter of the best constitution ever perfected by any nation. (cheers.) we thank you in her name for the welcome accorded to us, and we identify ourselves with you in the satisfaction you must experience in the ceremonial of to-day, for in the achievement of the task of raising so large a sum of money, the inhabitants of kingston show that they wish their children to follow the loyal, prudent footsteps of those who are proud of the name of this city, and are resolved that the next generation shall receive their instruction from no foreign hands, but at home. (cheers.) just as kingston in former days knew how to defend herself and keep her own, so will you on the field of learning ensure that no ground gained by the genius, the labour and the science of former days be lost, but that, strong in the conquests of the past, your students may be free to undertake fresh work, and that each man for himself may advance on new paths of progress. (loud cheers.) ladies and gentlemen,--now that the first stone of the new college has been laid, let me congratulate you who have met here on this auspicious day. my observations will not take much time, and shall be brief, because, with the best voice i can command, i fear it is perfectly impossible for me to make my utterances reach over so large an area and be audible to so great an audience as that i have the honour of seeing before me to-day. indeed, if it were probable that some of those young men who are here as students would, in after life, have the honour of addressing so great a multitude of their fellow-countrymen, i should certainly advise the authorities of the college to erect a chair for teaching the art of elocution--(applause)--so that the volume of the voice might be increased to reach much further than i am afraid is possible for me to-day. but let me join with you in wishing continued success to the queen's college university at kingston--(applause)--to associate myself with you in the hope that this new building will long stand as a monument to the generosity of the townspeople of this generation--(applause)--and to the talent of the architect who has designed so handsome and imposing a structure. (cheers.) i shall not inflict upon you many observations upon the subject of education, for i know no ears to which such observations would sound more trite than those of the people of ontario, who have shown by the ample and magnificent provision which they have made for education in this province, how all-important they consider it is, that this growing population, extending as it is so rapidly, and being recruited from almost all quarters of the world, should receive a thorough and well-grounded training, and be well instructed in all learning and knowledge. (applause.) i trust that this college may be a home of happy memories to all who shall receive their education here and who will go forth to spread its renown far and wide. (loud cheers.) this place is already comparatively old, and i must consider this town of kingston, which has already made its mark in the history of this country, as fortunate in possessing a university--for certainly by the possession of such an institution, one of those wants is supplied which is rather too apt to be visible in a new and enterprising country. (applause.) where many are rather apt to suppose that sufficient is done by a school education for the practical and rougher life, which is the lot of many here, i am sure that all present value the higher training to be alone obtained in a university. (applause.) it would be superfluous to dwell upon the value of the completion and of the elaboration of education imparted by such an institution, for large as canada is, the world is even larger--(applause)--and by such a higher training avenues are opened throughout every profession in england and her great dependencies, for there is no office in this vast empire which is not open to canadian talent. (loud applause.) it is on this ground that i believe we can confidently appeal to the generosity of the wealthy, that generosity which is the mainspring of every institution in a free country. (cheers.) it was in that it was said by those who founded the college, that "a deep and wide foundation had been laid, a foundation capable of extension," and i rejoice that now in the lifetime of the generation which has succeeded to that in which those words were spoken, there is so fair a promise of the completion of the work, and that those aspirations will be realised. (applause) and now let me mention one other bond of union between the students of this college and myself, and another cause of sympathy, for with your honoured and learned principal i have this bond of fellowship, that we were both friends-- and i may almost say pupils--of a great preacher and a very beloved man, not the least of whose merits in your eyes will be that it was owing to his persuasion that your late principal undertook the charge of this college. (loud cheers.) and i believe it was also owing to his initiative that your present principal undertook a charge in canada, an action which ultimately led up to his present position where he is honoured and revered by you all. i allude to the late rev. norman macleod. (loud cheers.) and, gentlemen, i have one other cause for feeling a fellowship with you, and that is, that i had the advantage for sometime of being a student at a scottish university, and in very much i trace points of resemblance between the system of your university and that which obtained at home, and especially in this that, although founded by a scotchman, this institution of queen's college is one absolutely free and open to every denomination. (applause.) indeed this institution is in its features so much like the great universities at home, the great university of edinburgh, for example, to whose proportions i hope you will in course of time attain, that i almost expect to see some gentleman make a proposal which will fill the only serious want i detect in your organisation, and that is, that there is no provision here for a celtic chair for the teaching of the gaelic language. i am sure that in this opinion all our irish friends will join, for what is a highlander but an irishman? (laughter and applause.) what is he but a banished irishman?--(renewed laughter)--speaking a language which i am sure would be pronounced by the ancient four masters to be a mutilated form of the old irish language. (great laughter and cheers.) and now that i have mentioned scottish students, i am sure you will not think that i am making any invidious comparison when i allude to the noble example i have seen set by them in the determination and energy with which i have known them prosecute their studies. (hear, hear.) i have known at st. andrew's men go up to the university so little able to afford the necessary money for their stay there, that they have apprenticed themselves to resident tradesmen in the town, and have risen at i do not know what hour of night or morning, and have gone through the whole of the manual labour necessary for their temporary profession--(loud applause)--and after this exhausting labour have attended throughout the day at their classes in the university and have managed there to take a high place with their fellow-students. (loud applause.) i am sure you will not think i mention this because i imagine that anybody is not capable of the same effort, for although wealth is much more evenly divided here than it is in scotland, i believe you are here animated by the same spirit. (cheers.) i remember mentioning the example of the scottish students to a famous and learned professor of cambridge, the late professor whewell, of trinity, and he thought that an invidious comparison was intended, for he sharply replied to me, "well, there is nothing to prevent you working here." (great laughter.) this is not the way in which you will take my little story. i am sure there is not only nothing to prevent you working here, but that there is everything to make you do so, and i am confident the students here will take advantage of their opportunities, and do their best to make the name of a canadian an honoured designation throughout the world. (loud and long-continued applause.) at the royal military college, kingston, the governor-general attended the distribution of prizes, and, at the close, his excellency rose and delivered the following speech:-- gentlemen cadets of the royal military college,--on the princess's behalf i must first express her pleasure in giving you the prizes awarded for mental worth and also for physical exercises--(applause)-- and i cannot say how much satisfaction i have had today in seeing the manoeuvres so well executed during the very pretty little field day you have gone through, and in thoroughly examining into every part of this institution, and seeing myself the place which, i believe, will hereafter be as famous in canadian history as the training place of the officers in whom canada puts her trust as is woolwich in england, or the academy at west point, among our neighbours. (applause.) in being here i confess i think your lines are cast in pleasant places, and it is well that it should be so, for to judge from my own experience when going through a course of training at woolwich, it may be possible that in future years you will re-visit this scene of your early labours. it is often the case that after some years' service, students of the military art find that owing to the constant progress made in military science, they have fallen a little behind, have perhaps become a little rusty, and have to go back for a time to drill. this may be the case here as well as in other armies, and if ever i have the pleasure in future years again of visiting kingston, i may find some of the young and soldier-like body whom i have now the pleasure of addressing, again going through "repository" work as stout captains or as weighty majors--(laughter)--here again for a while to polish off any little rust that may have accumulated in their minds. it is certainly a matter of surprise to find what wonders have been accomplished by this school in a short time, and how under the able, energetic, and genial leadership of col. hewitt, and of the instructors, to whom you owe an uncommon debt of gratitude, for their work has been very hard, and like the british infantry, they are excellent, but they are too few--(applause)--a school of arms has arisen which will bear comparison with some of the oldest of similar institutions in other countries. the good which has been done in this school is evident to all who visit it, and this is recognised by those who have not had that advantage, but who, hearing of your progress, and reposing, with good reason, confidence in the able board of officers who guide your studies, have afforded their support to an experiment which may be already pronounced a great success. it is not only one province that is represented amongst you, but the dominion at large, and we may look forward to having many from the gallant province of quebec--(applause)--whose famous military annals will, i am confident, should necessity arise, be reproduced in the actions of her sons. (applause.) the life that you have led in this place and the spirit of comradeship here engendered will be a bond of union for our canadian dominion--(applause)--and many of you when you leave this will feel for your alma mater that sentiment of affection which napoleon felt for st. cyr. may this kingston military academy be a fruitful mother of armed science--(applause)--and a source of confidence and pride to her country. you will go hence after your studies are completed as men well skilled in many of those acquirements which may be looked upon as wont to lead to success in civil life; but above all, you will be officers to whom can be entrusted with confidence the leadership of our canadian militia. (applause.) it will be your duty to command those who are called out for service first of all for the defence of your own homes; but i doubt not that you will always remember that in belonging to the canadian militia you belong to an auxiliary force of the imperial army, whose services are constantly illustrating anew, in distant and various climes, and against every kind of foe, the qualities of the british valour and the virtues which have made britain what she is. (applause.) it may never be your fate to have any share in war's convulsions, and you may have no opportunity of doing what the zulus would call, "washing your spears." do not on that account think that your time has been misspent, or regret the preparation which is the best means of preventing any disaster falling upon your country. the training you have here received will certainly not only pay well in giving you those habits of mind and knowledge which will be of advantage to you whatever line in life you pursue, but will help you to become good citizens, and will make you worthy representatives of that home army which is so essential for the defence of the land. it is the proud fortune of those who follow that profession, of which it has been finely said that "it is their trade to die," to know that by their life they not only foster those feelings of manliness and hardihood without which life is not worth having, but that it is also under their protecting arm that every profession pursues its even way, and arts and commerce flourish, and wealth increases in security. (loud. applause.) on the th may , after an interesting review at montreal of a militia force, comprising one regiment of american militia from new york state, a dinner was given at the windsor hotel, and, in reply to the toast of his health, the governor-general rose and said:-- gentlemen and officers of the canadian militia,--allow me to thank you from the depth of my heart for the extreme kindness of your reception, but you must allow me to ascribe that reception to my official position, for i am fully conscious that i have been too short a time among you to be able to do more than to claim your kindness and consideration. with the princess it is different, and i believe i can claim for her personally a warmer feeling. (tremendous applause.) i cannot tell you enough on her behalf of her feelings as to the manner in which she has been received by every section of the canadian people. i am often asked how she likes this country, and i can only reply to the numerous inquirers by repeating what i have said to those who have asked personally, that although she likes this country very much, she likes the people a great deal better. (great cheering.) i must not forget to thank sir edward selby smyth for the extreme cordiality with which he was so good as to propose this toast, and i can assure him that it is not only here amongst canadian officers, but anywhere else, i should have been proud to hear from him the words he has used. (cheers.) he has, i am sure, earned the gratitude of every militia regiment in canada during the time that he has been here, and he speaks, i am sure, as your representative, with the full voice of your authority. (renewed cheering.) he has held before your eyes a high standard, he has held that standard up with a most efficient hand, and i believe you thoroughly well know how valuable his services have been, and what an advantage it is to have an officer at the head of the canadian militia who has had experience in active warfare. (loud cheers.) the manner in which the manoeuvres were performed to-day show how much value you have attached to his teaching--what full advantage you have taken of all the opportunities given to you. and while i am speaking on the subject of the review, allow me to congratulate you on having in your midst to-day, and forming so splendid a part of your spectacle, the gallant american regiment, many of whose officers i have the pleasure of seeing in this hall. (great cheering.) i wish to repeat to them to-night what i had the honour of saying to the regiment at large, that i thank them most sincerely for having come this journey to honour our queen's birthday-- (tremendous applause)--and i regard their having undertaken the journey, and having come here, as a proof of the amity of feeling and sentiment for us which is as strong in the breasts of the american people as is their community with us in that freedom in which we recognise our common heritage. (cheering.) i believe i am not wrong in saying that they have paid us an unusual compliment in allowing their band to play our national anthem, while a part of their musicians were arrayed in our national colour. some of the band wore the queen's! colour, and i believe i am not misinterpreting the feelings of the officers here present when i say, that the very many americans, not only those of british race, but many others, wear in one sense the queen's colour at their hearts--(loud cheers and applause)-not only because she is the queen of that old country with which so many of their most glorious memories are for ever identified,--that old country of which they are in their hearts as proud as i can honestly say england is of them,--but also because the americans are a gallant nation, and love a good woman. (great applause.) they have lent us a helping hand to-day, and i believe they will always be ready to do so, should occasion arise on which we may ask them to stand by us. (tremendous cheering.) we have had a very pleasant day together, which has been followed by a restful evening and a pleasant dinner--pleasant to all, i venture to say-but restful only to those whose fate it has not been, when the dessert has been put upon the table, and the wine has been passed round, to be obliged, by making speeches, to "open fire" again. (laughter and applause) if an army could always depend upon having such a good commissariat as our little force has enjoyed to-day, it is my belief that field days would be even more popular than they are--(laughter)-- and i doubt if the finances of any people, no matter how many changes they should make in their tariff, could long stand the expense. (laughter.) but if nations are happier when there is no need for them to squander wealth, and spread sorrow and disaster by the maintenance of large forces kept on foot for purposes of offence; yet it will be generally conceded that no nation should be content without a numerous, an efficient, and well-organised defensive force. this canada and the united states fortunately possess--(applause)--and the motto which was proposed by lord carlisle as that which the volunteer force of england should take, viz., "defence, not defiance," is one which is equally suitable to our kindred peoples. at our review to-day we have had one of the few occasions on which it has been possible of late to bring a fair number of men together for united drill good drill requires constant attention and work, and i believe it has certainly been the opinion of the spectators of the force to-day, that officers and men have made the best use of the opportunities which have been given them. (loud cheering.) our militia force is large in number, and we have had during the last two years the best proof of the spirit with which it is animated. i should be neglecting an important duty were i not to take this opportunity of tendering the warmest thanks of her majesty, and of the imperial authorities at home, to those gallant officers of the canadian militia force who have of late so often offered themselves for service in active warfare--(cheers)--and to assure them that although it was not necessary to take advantage of their offers, that their readiness to serve has been none the less valued, noted, and appreciated, and that the patriotic spirit which binds together all branches of our queen's army in whatever quarter of the globe they may stand, and from whatever race they may spring, is seen with pride and satisfaction. (loud applause.) and, gentlemen, although the bearers of commissions in our militia service have not been able to show their devotion personally to their sovereign and country among the lofty ranges of afghanistan, or on the bush-covered slopes of zululand, yet the news of the distant contests waged in these regions has, we know, been watched here with as close an interest, as intense and hearty a sympathy, as in britain itself--(applause);--and the sorrow at the loss of such gallant officers as northey and weatherley--(tremendous cheering)--has been shared with our comrades in arms in the old country, not only because the same uniform is here worn, but also because the honoured dead are united with our people by ties of the closest relationship. the dividing seas have not sundered the brotherhood which the love of a gracious sovereign, and the passion for freedom, make the lasting blessing of the great english communities-- (great cheering);--and just as our country shows that she can strike from the central power whenever menaced, so will her children's states, wherever situated, respond to any call made upon them, and prove that england's union with the great colonies is none the less strong because it depends on no parchment bonds or ancient legal obligations, but derives its might from the warm attachment, the living pride in our empire, and the freewill offerings of her loving, her grateful, and her gallant sons. (long continued cheering.) the opening of an art institute at montreal in gave occasion to the following reply to an address:-- ladies and gentlemen,--this is the first occasion, i believe, on which a large company, representing much of the influence and wealth of this great city, has met together in order formally to inaugurate the opening of the buildings of an art institute. through the kindness of the president and vice-president, i have already had an opportunity to-day to inspect the works with which this city, through the munificence of mr. gibb, has been endowed. i think montreal can be honestly and warmly congratulated, not only upon the possession of a collection which will go far to make her art gallery one of the most notable of her institutions, but on having succeeded in getting possession of funds enough, at a time by no means propitious, to give a home to this collection in the gallery in which we are assembled and to have erected a building large enough to exhibit to advantage many other pictures besides those belonging to the bequest. it is perhaps too customary that the speeches of one in my position should express an over-sanguine view of the hopes and aspirations of the various communities in the country, and i believe the utterances of a governor-general may often be compared to the works of the great english painter, turner, who, at all events in his late years, painted his pictures so that the whole of the canvas was illuminated and lost in a haze of azure and gold, which, if it could be called truthful to nature, had, at all events, the effect of hiding much of what, if looked at too closely, might have been considered detrimental to the beauty of the scene. (applause.) if i were disposed to accept the criticisms of some artists, i should be inclined to endorse the opinion i have heard expressed, that one of the few wants of this country is a proper appreciation and countenance of art; but the meeting here to-day to inaugurate the reign of art in montreal enables me to disprove such an assertion, and to gild over with a golden hue more true than that of many of turner's pictures this supposed spot upon the beauty of our canadian atmosphere. certainly in toronto, here and elsewhere, gentlemen have already employed their brush to good effect. we may look forward to the time when the influence of such associations as yours may be expected to spread until we have here, what they formerly had in italy, such a love of art that, as was the case with the great painter correggio, our canadian artists may be allowed to wander over the land scot free of expense, because the hotel keepers will only be too happy to allow them to pay their bills by the painting of some small portrait, or of some sign for "mine host." (laughter and applause.) why should we not be able to point to a canadian school of painting, for in the appreciation of many branches of art, and in proficiency in science, canada may favourably compare with any country. only the other day mrs. scott-siddons told me that she found her canadian audiences more enthusiastic and intelligent than any she had met. our dominion may claim that the voices of her daughters are as clear as her own serene skies; and who can deny that in music, nature has been most ably assisted by art, when from one of the noble educational establishments in the neighbourhood of this city, mademoiselle albani was sent forth to charm the critical audiences of europe and america? canada may hold her head high in the kindred fields of science; for who is it who has been making the shares of every gas company in every city fall before the mere rumours of his genius but a native canadian, mr. edison, the inventor of the electric light? in another branch of art her science must also be conceded. in photography it cannot be denied that our people challenge the most able competition. (applause.) i have heard it stated that one of the many causes of the gross ignorance which prevails abroad with reference to our beautiful climate, is owing to the persistence with which our photographers love to represent chiefly our winter scenes. but this has been so much the case, and these photographs excite so much admiration, that i hear that in the old country the practice has been imitated, so that if there may have been harm at first the very beauty of these productions has prevented its continuance, because they are no longer distinctively canadian, and the ladies in the far more trying climates of europe are also represented in furs by their photographers, so that this fashion is no longer a distinguishing characteristic of our photography; in proof of this i may mention that in a popular song which has obtained much vogue in london, the principal performer sings:-- "i've been photographed like this, i've been photographed like that, i've been photographed in falling snow, in a long furry hat." no doubt these winter photographs do give some of our friends in the old country the belief that it is the normal habit of young canadian ladies to stand tranquilly in the deep snow, enjoying a temperature of ° below zero--(laughter);--and it would certainly give a more correct idea of our weather were our canadian ladies and gentlemen to be represented, not only in bright sunshine, but also amongst our beautiful forest glades in summer, wearing large panama hats, and protected by mosquito veils; but i suppose there are obstacles in the way, and that even photographers, like other mortals, find it difficult properly to catch the mosquitos. (renewed laughter.) i think we can show we have good promise, not only of having an excellent local exhibition, but that we may in course of time look forward to the day when there may be a general art union in the country; a royal academy whose exhibitions may be held each year in one of the capitals of our several provinces; an academy which may, like that of the old country, be able to insist that each of its members or associates should, on their election, paint for it a diploma picture; an academy which shaft be strong and wealthy enough to offer, as a prize to the most successful students of the year, money sufficient to enable them to pass some time in those european capitals where the masterpieces of ancient art can be seen and studied. even now, in the principal centres of population, you have shown that it is perfectly possible to have a beautiful and instructive exhibition; for besides the pictures bequeathed to any city, it may always be attainable that an exhibition of pictures be had on loan, and that there be shown besides the productions in both oil and water-colour of the artists of the year. it may be said that in a country whose population is as yet incommensurate with its extent, people are too busy to toy with art; but, without alluding to the influence of art on the mind, which has been so ably expressed in your address, in regard to its elevating and refining power, it would surely be a folly to ignore the value of beauty and design in manufactures; and in other countries blessed with fewer resources than ours, and in times which, comparatively, certainly were barbarous, the works of artists have not only gained for them a livelihood, but have pleased and occupied some of the busiest men of the time, the artists finding in such men the encouragement and support that is necessary. long ago in ireland the beautiful arts of illumination and painting were carried on with such signal success that celtic decoration, as shown in the beautiful knotted and foliated patterns that still grace so many of the tombstones and crosses of ireland and of the west of scotland, passed into england, and, more strangely, even into france. the great monarch, charlemagne, was so enchanted with the designs and miniatures of an irish monk, that he persuaded him to go to work at paris, and for nearly two centuries afterwards the brilliant pages of french bibles, missals, and books of hours showed the influence of the culture, the talent, and the tastes of erin. surely here there should be opportunity and scope enough for the production of the works of the painter's hand. the ancient states of italy, her cities and communities of the middle ages, were those who cherished most their native painters, and the names of many of those who covered the glowing canvases of italy with immortal work are known often from the designation of some obscure township where they were born, and where they found their first generous recognition and support here in this great province, full of the institutions and churches founded and built by the piety of past centuries, as well as by the men now living, there should be far more encouragement than in poorer countries of old for the decoration of our buildings, whether sacred or educational the sacred subjects which moved the souls of the italian, german, flemish, and spanish masters are eternal, and certainly have no lesser influence upon the minds and characters of our people. and if legendary and sacred art be not attempted, what a wealth of subjects is still left you,--if you leave the realm of imagination and go to that of the nature which you see living and moving around you, what a choice is still presented. the features of brave, able, and distinguished men of your own land, of its fair women; and in the scenery of your country, the magnificent wealth of water of its great streams; in the foaming rush of their cascades, overhung by the mighty pines or branching maples, and skirted with the scented cedar copses; in the fertility of your farms, not only here, but throughout ontario also; or in the sterile and savage rock scenery of the saguenay--in such subjects there is ample material, and i doubt not that our artists will in due time benefit this country by making her natural resources and the beauty of her landscapes as well known as are the picturesque districts of europe, and that we shall have a school here worthy of our dearly loved dominion. it now only remains for me to declare this gallery open, and to hope that the labours of the gentlemen who have carried out this excellent design will be rewarded by the appreciation of a grateful public. in june , his first visit was paid to quebec, and the answer to the mayor's greeting is given below:-- au maire et À la corporation de la citÉ de quÉbec:--messieurs,--c'est avec le plus profond sentiment de plaisir que nous nous trouvons au milieu de la population de québec, et que nous entendons, des personnes autorisées à parler de la part de cette ancienne et fameuse cité, les mots de loyauté et l'assurance de dévouement exprimés dans votre adresse, et je vous prie de transmettre aux différentes institutions et sociétés que vous représentez ma reconnaissance de la cordiale et bienveillante réception qui nous a été offerte aujourd'hui. la loyauté est une fleur précieuse qui ne se fane et ne se flétrit pas facilement, s'il lui est seulement donné de croître à l'air frais de la liberté. elle fleurira ici aussi longtemps que le canada existera, et sera chérie, comme aux anciens jours, le furent les lis-d'or, pour lesquels tant de vos ancêtres versèrent si noblement leur sang. comme représentant de la reine, permettez-moi de vous dire que sa majesté est assurée de la loyauté et du dévouement de ses sujets de la province de québec, qu'ils soient issus de pères venant des iles britanniques, ou que l'ancienne france les réclame comme soutenant, dans un nouveau monde, l'honneur, le renom, la bravoure et la fidélité au souverain et au pays, qui distinguèrent leurs ancêtres. j'exprime ces sentiments dans ce beau langage qui, dans tant de pays et durant des siècles, fut regardé comme le type de l'expression concise et nette et le plus habile interprète de l'esprit et de la pensée humaine. le monde entier en l'employant, se rappelle avec vous que c'est la langue qui, dans l'eglise, se répandit avec éloquence des lèvres de saint bernard et de bossuet; et qui, avec saint louis, du guesclin et l'héroïque pucelle d'orléans, résonna sur les champs de bataille. cette place sera toujours identifiée avec la race glorieuse qui produisit ces grandes âmes; et cette cité, placée comme elle l'est, sur un des sites les plus imposants du monde, semble digne de ceux dont le langage est parlé dans tout l'ancien canada, et qui couronnèrent de demeures civilisées le rocher élevé qui est aujourd'hui le gibraltar de notre puissance. bien des changements se sont opérés depuis que la première flotte européenne jeta l'ancre sur les bords du saint-laurent, mais aucun événement ne souilla jamais les glorieuses annales de cette forteresse, de cette place si chère a l'histoire. car ne fut-ce pas d'ici que jaillirent ces influences qui changèrent en riches habitations de nations puissantes, ces vastes déserts inconnus? ne fut-ce pas de québec que les paroles de foi, les impérissables richesses de la science et de la civilisation se répandirent à travers un nouveau continent? c'est d'ici que les grandes rivières furent découvertes, et que les flots, devenant les grandes voies du commerce, furent forcés de partager le travail de l'homme. qu'y a-t-il d'étonnant à ce que vous chérissiez tant ces souvenirs, et que, de l'avis et avec l'assistance de lord dufferin, vous ayez résolu de faire tout ce qui est en votre pouvoir, non seulement pour conserver ce qui rappelle au voyageur vos jours de gloire, mais encore pour embellir le plus possible la précieuse relique qui vous a été léguée en votre charmante cité. les mesures que vous avez prises au sujet de l'embellissement de votre ville, mises au jour tout récemment, créées par votre générosité, et encouragées par l'esprit sympathique de votre dernier gouverneur- général, à qui aucun effort noble et généreux ne fit appel en vain, prouvent que vous ne permettrez jamais que l'intérêt et la beauté qui attirent tant de milliers de visiteurs, chaque année, vers votre cité soient détruits par un utilitairianisme mal entendu; mais que vous tiendrez à conserver en son intégrité le seul grand et antique monument de la grandeur du canada, que ce pays possède. en conclusion, permettez-moi de vous assurer que nous souhaitons sincèrement que vos voeux les plus ardents, quant à ce qui regarde l'accroissement du commerce de votre port, se réalisent, et que les eaux de la grande rivière qui coule au pied de votre promontoire puissent constament être couvertes des vaisseaux, superbes et solidement construits, que vos artisans peuvent produire avec tant d'habileté et en aussi grand nombre. personne ne désire ce résultat plus sincèrement que la princesse, que vous avez si gracieusement acclamée et qui se joint à moi pour vous exprimer mes sincères remerciements; elle qui en venant ici, doit être regardée comme la représentante personnelle de notre reine issue de cette maison royale, qui reçut comme fiancée henriette de france, fille du grand monarque français, dont une des gloires de son règne fut l'honneur qu'il rendit au voyageur illustre, l'intrépide champlain, ce nom à jamais identifté avec tout ce qui nous entoure. at laval university he said:-- monseigneur et messieurs,--la rivalité à laquelle vous faites allusion dans votre éloquente et bien-veillante adresse, et qui, dites vous, existe encore entre les sujets de sa majesté au canada, ne devrait jamais s'éteindre surtout quand cette émulation a pour origine le désir d'obéir aux lois dans leur libre et juste application, et les nobles efforts d'un chacun pour placer chaque province au premier rang dans la représentation de notre pays et faire ainsi progresser le canada dans la voie de l'ordre et de la prospérité. de même que votre magnifique édifice domine votre cité, de même la pensée dominante de votre université est d'être le phare sur lequel se dirige le peuple dans l'espérance que cette émulation tendra à nous diriger vers de hautes et nobles destinées. nous entrons avec le plus profond intérêt dans ces salles où vous avez entrepris cette tâche glorieuse, et nous concourrons de tout coeur dans les souhaits que vous venez d'exprimer, dans le voeu que nous formons pour votre prospérité. nous nous sommes réjouis, en débarquant il y a deux jours, de voir que vos autorités, avec un si grand nombre de population, manifestaient de la manière la plus énergique et avec une noble générosité la confiance qu'ils avaient placé dans le représentant de leur souveraine. soyez persuadé que je comprends toute l'importance de cette confiance. ce n'est pas à moi personnellement que ces témoignages s'adressent, mais au représentant d'un gouvernement assurant une liberté à laquelle on ne songe pas dans d'autre pays, et qui se trouve unie aux anciens usages et à l'autorité modérée sous laquelle le peuple de notre empire a trouvé le bonheur, la puissance et l'union. permettez-moi de vous remercier de votre bien-veillante reception, et de vous dire que je désire avoir ma part de l'approbation que le public accorde à vos travaux, en continuant l'octroi des prix inauguré par lord dufferin, qui savait si bien apprécier la valeur de votre université, et qui, en sa qualité de savant, connaissait tout le prix de l'enseignement qu'on y donne. ici les élèvès placés sous vos soins, reçoivent tous les jours une large part des connaissances que vous avez puisées à des sources précieuses dans diverses contrées du globe; car les voyages sont aussi propres à instruire que les livres eux-mêmes, et parmi vos professeurs il y en a qui ont parcouru beaucoup de pays et vu beaucoup de peuples différents, et qui ont suivi en amérique la pratique des fondateurs du christianisme, en apprenant les langues étrangères, en voyant l'ancien monde, ses habitants, tout en s'initiant à sa littérature immortelle. les fondateurs de cette institution ont pourvu aux moyens de faire suivre des cours complets de médecine, qui jusqu'ici n'avaient été ouverts qu'a un petit nombre de personnes; car dans votre institution la medécine s'enseigne d'après une méthode digne de la nation qui a produit broussais, bichat, corvisart et pinel. les sciences naturelles sont enseignées à des hommes qui, en prenant part au développement et aux découvertes des richesses naturelles de ce vaste continent, continueront l'oeuvre de leurs ancetres, les pionniers du canada. cette partie de la puissance renferme des richesses naturelles encore inconnues et qui n'exigent que l'esprit d'entreprise pour leur exploitation. c'est aussi un pays où l'or, les marbres précieux et les serpentines aideront á augmenter par leur valeur les revenus de la population qui doit neanmoins compter principalement sur la culture du sol et qui dans l'elevage des bestiaux augmentera sa prospérité en approvisionnant les marches de l'europe. je suis très honoré de votre réception, et mon désir le plus sincère est que la divine providence permette que l'université laval soit toujours le flambeau des arts et des sciences pour la noble et génereuse population de québec. at toronto during the same year the governor-general had occasion to speak as follows:-- gentlemen,--in rising to return you my heartfelt thanks for the loyal and cordial manner in which you have received the toast of the health of the queen's representative, i thank my learned and honourable friend on my left for the manner in which he has proposed that toast, and you, gentlemen, for the way in which you have been good enough to receive it. i knew that in a canadian company that toast would be received with all honours, because i believe there is no nation in this world which has more profound love for its sovereign than the canadian people. (loud cheers.) with reference to the prince of wales, to whose visit you have made allusion, i know that he was delighted, as was also the duke of connaught, with the visit they paid to canada, and they have both expressed a confident hope that during my term of office they may revisit canadian soil. (loud cheering.) with regard to ourselves personally, i shall accept with gratitude everything that has fallen to-night from your eloquent lips, sir, with regard to the princess, my wife. (great cheering.) but as for myself, i must demur to the excessive kindness of some of your expressions; and although it may be a bold opinion for a layman to lay down in the presence of so many distinguished in the law, i believe my learned friend has almost for the first time--and i hope for the last--in his life departed from that attitude of strict impartiality which it is his duty, as well as my own, to maintain. (great laughter and cheering.) i have a theory on the subject, of which i will let you into the secret. my honourable friend has confided to me that it was his painful duty to make some very severe observations from the bench to-day. i think that it may be possibly owing to a natural reaction of feeling, that he has found it almost obligatory to make some observations in my favour to-night, almost too kind (loud laughter.) we have been delighted with the reception we have met with in toronto, and i must say that it has been a matter of good fortune, in my opinion, that we have been able to visit this great city at a time when its citizens are occupied with the great show which is being held within a short distance of its limits, and which is a most remarkable exhibition to have been set on foot and carried out by any city. (cheers.) and in a few days we shall not only have had the pleasure of inspecting the exhibits, but of seeing some of the live stock which is now enjoying such favour not only in canada, but also, luckily for europe, over the water. that examination will be for me one of peculiar interest. i look forward to that trade developing a new and--as i trust it will be--a permanent source of revenue to this country. (cheers.) i see you have landseer's pictures of "peace" and "war" upon your walls. i know of no more striking contrast that can be seen between peace and war than at quebec, for instance, where under the frowning guns of that magnificent fortress the air is daily full of the lowing of cattle and bleating of sheep, and vast numbers are to be seen being embarked upon the large and fine vessels of the allan line for transport to europe. (cheers.) we may congratulate canada not only that she has begun that trade, but that she has done so in so energetic a fashion, that though the shippers expected there would be but little traffic so late this year, the trade has been carried on with increasing volume throughout the autumn, and depend upon it, it will bring you good return, not only to the farmers already here, but by bringing more people to canada. these people are the class you want, and i believe that for every few hundred cattle or sheep you send to liverpool, you have every prospect of getting in exchange a stout english farmer. (loud cheers.) gentlemen, i hardly expected that upon this, my first official visit, i should have had the opportunity of expressing my gratitude to the toronto club for entertaining me in so friendly a fashion at so pleasant a banquet. in meeting you here to-night, i feel i am in the presence of a representative assembly of those who lead the intellectual and commercial life of this city, one of the greatest already, and at the same time one of the most promising, not only in the dominion but on the american continent. before you, then, gentlemen, i wish i could find words warm enough to give you an idea of the manner in which we have been touched by the efforts made in our behalf by the citizens of toronto. (loud cheers.) it would not be reasonable to seek any justification of such kind feeling, but, at all events, i can say to you that, if a hearty and earnest interest in every phase of your national life can be taken as any excuse for such welcome, this justification, at all events, exists to the full. (loud and prolonged cheering.) in one sense, also, i am no stranger to your affairs, for i do not feel that in studying canada i have embarked on a sea hitherto unknown to me. it is not only since my arrival here that i have watched with unflagging enthusiasm the current of events which is so surely leading this country to the full enjoyment of a great inheritance, for long before we landed on your shores much of your history and of your present condition was well known to me. a brief visit, paid many years ago, could give me but little real insight into your condition, but every man in england who has had anything to do with public life has, since the confederation of the british north american provinces, considered his political studies as wholly wanting if a pretty thorough knowledge of your resources and position were not included in his survey of the empire. (cheers.) confederation has had this advantage, that your destinies have been presided over by men who had weight and authority at home, and who were able to put before the english people, in attractive form, the resources of this country. especially was this the case during the six and a half years lord dufferin has been in this country; for his speeches, giving in so poetical a form, and with such mastery of diction and such a grasp of comprehension, an account of your material and political condition, were universally read and universally admired. (loud cheers.) perhaps in former days, and before the country had become one, so much attention would not have been given to your affairs, but since confederation we all know in england--every politician in england knows--that he is not to consider this country as a small group of disconnected colonies, but as a great and consolidated people, growing in importance not only year by year, but hour by hour. (great cheering.) you now form a people for whom the colonial office and foreign office alike are desirous to act with the utmost strength of the empire in forwarding your interests; and in speaking through the imperial foreign office, it is impossible that you should not remember that it is not only the voice of two, three, or four or five millions, as the case may be, that you speak, but the voice of a nation of over forty millions. (great cheering.) as i said before, i believe that in former days perhaps the interest was not so lively, although perhaps it would be unjust to say that too strongly, because within the last few months, as well as in past years, we have had striking examples of how willing great britain is to undertake warlike expenditure for colonies by no means as united or as important as canada. (prolonged cheers.) but the feeling with regard to canada as a mere congeries of colonies, and canada as one people and government, may perhaps be compared to the different feelings that a mother may be supposed to have in the pride with which she may regard a nursery full of small infants, and the far different pride with which she looks upon the career and stature of her grown-up and eldest son. (laughter and cheers.) to be sure, as it is with all sons and all mothers, little passing and temporary misconceptions may occasionally occur, and which only show how deep in reality is their mutual love. (laughter.) the mother may sometimes think it sad that her child has forgotten some little teaching learnt on her knee, and that one or two of the son's opinions smack of foreign notions--she may think that some of his doings tend not only to injure her, but himself also and the world at large. (great laughter.) perhaps, sometimes, he thinks on his part that it is a pity old people cannot put themselves in the place of younger natures. (uproarious laughter.) but if such is the tenor of the thought which may sometimes occupy the mother and the child, let no one dream for a moment that their affection has become less deep, or that true loyalty of nature is less felt. (loud cheering.) they are one in heart and mind; they wish to remain so, and shall remain so; and i should like to see the man who would dare to come between them. (tremendous cheering.) in saying this, gentlemen, i express what may be regarded as my first impressions of the feelings which animate you, and i believe that when i leave you, my last impressions will be identical. (loud cheering.) and now, gentlemen, the topics on which a governor-general may speak without offence are somewhat limited--(laughter)--although he is expected to be the advertiser-general of one of the largest countries in the world--(great laughter and applause)--an empire so large that the study of its proportions is, i think, much more like the study of astronomy than the study of geography. (laughter and applause.) it is perhaps best that he should speak on generalities; but in making my first appearance among you i may be expected to record other general impressions. i may perhaps be permitted to mention a subject which is generally understood as giving a good opening for conversation and acquaintance, and likely to lead to no serious difference of opinion, namely, the subject of the weather. (roars of laughter.) i can now speak with some authority upon that momentous topic--(laughter)--because i have now spent a winter, a spring, a summer, and part of an autumn in canada, and i believe that any one who has had a similar experience with me will agree that the seasons and climate enjoyed here are singularly pleasant and salubrious. (cheers.) you have, gentlemen, real seasons--there is a real winter and a real summer. (loud laughter.) you are not troubled with shams in that respect--(laughter)--no shoddy manufactures of that nature are imported over here from europe, where winter is often like a raw summer and summer like a wet winter. how different has been the reality of your winter, for as an old woman once wrote home to her friends in scotland, "all the children here may run about in the snow without wetting their feet" (great laughter and cheers.) we have only to look at that column on which a splendid bunch of peaches is hanging to see a summer trophy which should bring many to our door; but it is only a small sample of a vast crop of a similar nature which you have in western ontario, for as i am informed by my honourable friend on my right, mr. mackenzie, the peaches are often given to the pigs. (great laughter.) the pleasant and bracing seasons of canada can be enjoyed in a country without its equal, for nowhere has the settler a more varied range of choice in the scenery, the locality, the soil which will finally determine him where to found a home. his fortune may be compared to that of a man entering one of those new houses where each may have his own flat--a magnificent abode, where, if he wish not to travel, far, to be easily reached and visited by his friends, he may remain in the rooms of the ground floor--our spacious maritime provinces, where he will find himself very near his fishmonger--(cheers and laughter)--close to the old tradesmen with whom he has dealt in europe, and warmed by a great kitchen well-furnished with a store of pictou coal. (laughter and cheers.) if he prefer other apartments he may ascend to those great and most comfortable rooms, our ancient and populous provinces of quebec and ontario--the first-floor rooms of our canadian mansion, which are so amply provided with the old-fashioned associations which he may love; while, if still more active, he may select accommodation in the vast chambers of the second floor--the wonderful districts of the north-west, which have been so bountifully furnished by beneficent nature, that he will require but little capital to make his abode exactly according to his own taste. (loud cheers.) and if he prefers another and still more airy location--(laughter)--he may go on again and inhabit our recently erected and lofty storey of the rocky mountain district, near which he would again find an ample supply of coal, nearly as good as that which he found "down below." (applause.) he will be none the less fortunate when he makes the acquaintance of the master of this modern mansion, when he finds that everything is ruled in order and prosperity by him, and that his name is the canadian house of commons. (loud applause.) and now, dropping all fanciful metaphors, i must speak in more serious terms for a moment, and express my admiration for that i most able house, the excellence of whose debates would be a credit to any assembly. (cheers.) during its session i have sometimes been reminded of an exclamation of the late baron bunsen, the german diplomatist and author, whose residence in london as prussian ambassador at the court of st. james's has caused him to be affectionately remembered in england. chevalier bunsen, looking on at the proceedings of the house of commons, said that to him it was a marvel how an englishman could ever rest until he had sought to become a member of that assembly, where the ministers of the sovereign, and they who endeavoured to win a share in the government of a powerful people, met face to face as champions of different policies to discuss before the country the principles which should guide a mighty nation. as in england, so here, let no one turn his back on political life as too hard, as bringing too much contention, or as occasioning too much unpleasantness. one of the worst signs of a country's condition is, when they who have leisure, or property, or social influence look upon public life as too dirty for them, and hang back from the honourable rivalry, allowing other hands to have a commanding share in government. (hear, hear.) i am confident that this will not be the case here, and long may it be before a canadian prefers his ease, if he may command it, to that noblest labour to which he can be called by the voice of his fellow-citizens, a share in the government of his country, in her parliament. (cheers.) in striving to be a member of the dominion parliament, or to have a potent voice in the election of such a one, each man, whatever may be his circumstances, must feel that it is a high and proper ambition to do what in him lies to direct the policy of this royal commonwealth, which sees its will expressed by the cabinet--which is but a committee of the parliament elected by the people--carried out loyally and fully by the executive head of the government. (cheers.) to be sure you may say to me, you are speaking in ignorance--the governor-general is not allowed to be present at the debates of parliament. (laughter.) certainly, gentlemen, i am not allowed to be present and never have been. (renewed laughter.) i have never even followed the example of my eminent predecessor, who has left me such a heritage of speeches at the toronto club. (laughter and applause.) i have followed his example in making a speech, but i have not followed his example in another case, for i am informed that he has heard debates of the house concealed by the friendly shadows behind the speaker's chair. (loud cheers and laughter.) i have never placed myself in that position, and of course my knowledge is entirely derived from reports--of course i do not speak of newspaper reports. (roars of laughter.) that is quite impossible-- (renewed laughter)--because i am fully conscious that we should not put our trust in printers--(great laughter)--but i speak of other reports which are more trustworthy, and for which, of course, my responsible ministers are responsible. (laughter.) i shall mention a particular rumour that has reached my ears, which is to the scarcely credible effect that the current of discussion is often not quite so tranquil as might be assumed by outsiders, looking only at the harmonious outline of the buildings in which the members meet (great laughter.) perhaps the reported occasional quickening of the political current, and the hurried words to which it gives rise, occur only because pure panegyric is distasteful, and a wholesome criticism is on the other hand preferred. believing this, i shall only venture to express the opinion, that if any spoken words fly too swiftly it is because one bad habit, and one only, exists among the politicians of canada. it is this--and i am sure you will realise the melancholy significance of the fact to which i am so reluctantly compelled to allude--it is, that canadian politicians do not bring their wives with them to ottawa. (uproarious laughter.) i hope the recently developed doctrines of constitutional duty may still allow a governor-general to take the initiative in making a suggestion, and my suggestion would be that the ladies should favour us with their presence at ottawa, for i am certain that an alteration in this practice would soon put a stop to the reports to which i have drawn your attention, which some people may think may detract from the position of our celebrated, and alas! at ottawa, too often celebate politicians. (roars of laughter.) and now, gentlemen, i have only to thank you repeatedly and most earnestly for your welcome, and the citizens of toronto i would thank, through you, at large for the extreme kindness with which they have been pleased to receive us. but i believe, gentlemen, it is not mere kindness that is shown by such demonstrations as those we have recently seen. if it were that only, it would perhaps lose some of its significance. in the display made we have seen the outpouring of the heart of a people whose loyal passion is strong for the unity which binds a great history to a greater present, and which, under the temperate sceptre of our beloved queen, is leading canada and britain together in freedom to an assured and yet more glorious future. (cheers.) during a visit in to st. john, a city then suffering from the effects of a disastrous fire, he said:-- although there may be temporary pressure, and partial failure in trade, not a year elapses that does not indicate progress made in the material welfare of the country as a whole. the dominion is steadily and surely rising in wealth, in unity of feeling, in all that makes a nation. our territories are enormous, and no one need travel far in any province, but he will find new clearings and fresh settlements; while land in abundance and of great excellence, as compared with much in the old country, can be had almost for the asking. throughout our greater britain, and steadily and surely upon these our eastern coasts, the people increase from decade to decade, notwithstanding the great attractions offered by the prairie lands of the interior. no one can look at the district you inhabit without feeling certain that this increase will continue. impatient, restless, and ignorant of his true interests would that man be, indeed, who, under such circumstances, would not desire to tread in the steps of his fathers, to face, with british pluck and spirit, any difficulties that may arise; and to rejoice that his lot has been cast in that empire which has withstood every danger, whose might has been moulded by centuries, and whose flag has never waved over any people whose character has not been ennobled by the free institutions it represents. in reply to an address of the city corporation, he said:-- to the mayor, aldermen and commonalty, st. john, new brunswick:-mr. mayor and gentlemen,--the dignified and truthful words in which you recall the trials through which many of your ancestors passed in this country, now the happy home of their descendants, remind me how strong to-day among you is the feeling of the duty of patriotism--a duty, the fulfilment of which i rejoice to think is accompanied by no burden, but brings with it the enjoyment of much political advantage. we have found with pleasure that sufficient time has been at our disposal during this, the first year after our arrival in the dominion, when there have been necessarily duties which have demanded attention at the capital and journeys to be undertaken in other parts--to allow us to return to those maritime provinces where we were first welcomed by a loyal people, and to visit st. john, which must be regarded as the commercial capital of even a wider district than is contained in new brunswick itself. accept our thanks for meeting us here, on behalf of your city, and for the genial reception tendered to us. i should indeed have considered our first survey of our dominion most incomplete had we been unable to stay awhile among you. much we have been unable to see; many places in which we should wish to spend some days, and where we might observe mining and other industries successfully followed, we must hope to visit another year. in st. john we arrive at once at one of the centres of life and activity on these our eastern coasts. we observe with the greatest satisfaction the evidences of the energy you bring to the aid of our common country, and the important place you fill in promoting the welfare of our federation. the british people and foreign countries alike look upon the dominion as our empire's eldest son, in whose life and character the nature which has made the mother country stronger, the older it has grown, is seen and recognised by all. you are entering on a glorious manhood, which will, in future ages, stand forth in the beauty of strength and pride of freedom, to be known in history as asserting a place among the mighty of the earth. the district is the scene of events wherein widely different actors have played their parts, and interesting, indeed, is the development of the story of which your harbour and town have been the theatre. two centuries ago the adventurer only knew this place--his company stealing along the coast in small and battered craft, seeking a settlement, obliged to guard against the savages of the forest, yet full of visions of a great future for his new home, and endeavouring, almost in vain, to interest europe in his schemes. but the years peopled the shores with sturdy colonists, who pushed their way, although held down by difficulties of transport, by distance from other settlements, by wars of race and by mutual jealousies. now we see a land whose natural loveliness and fertility is turned to the best account, connected with all the life of europe and america by countless channels of communication, and using the arts of modern civilisation to make the utmost of its political and geographical position. in expressing to you our gratitude for the welcome you now give us, accept our best wishes for your welfare, and let us utter a fervent hope that the energy here exhibited, which no depression in trade can master, and which even the ruin of fire has only been able, temporarily, to affect, may receive full reward in the future prosperity of your loyal and flourishing city. during his excellency's visit to fredericton, the capital of the province of new brunswick, he replied as follows to an address:-- to the mayor and city council of the city of fredericton:--mr. mayor and gentlemen,--this is not the first time, as you remind me, that the queen's children have visited your people, and have received at their hands the proofs of an affection for our sovereign which animates all her majesty's subjects. the queen has now reigned for a longer period than has been vouchsafed to most of our monarchs, over a prosperous and united nation, whose strength has, during her life, been greatly increased by development and consolidation of this her great dominion. her majesty possesses here the love of a people more numerous than was the english nation when it achieved the glories which the trumpet of fame, moved by shakespeare's breath, made a household word among all nations. in canada, i am able to receive with pride testimonials of respect, reverence, and love for her rule, from men whose government represents a force, if population and material resources be taken into account, far greater than that possessed of old by england, even in those days which ring with the deeds of her heroes, and have been called the "spacious times of great elizabeth." and while we must look upon this country as rapidly becoming one of the moving influences of the world, we cannot forget what an advantageous variety of position and power, within the sphere of the dominion, is possessed by the various provinces. here, in the province of which this city is the capital, you have the great ocean and highways so near you that your brave and hardy maritime population can furnish your mercantile marine with many of the best sailors in america. in the territory, comprised within your limits, you occupy a central position through which much of the land traffic of this part of the american continent is likely to be conducted, and your climate gives to all who cultivate your soil abundance of agricultural resources in corn and pasture land. it may not be unappropriate now, when you give us your kindly and hospitable welcome to the capital of your province, to ask you to receive with our thanks the expression of our hope that the members selected as the representatives of the province, and who assemble here, may be granted wisdom by the most high to further the welfare and promote the best interests of a true and loyal people. during this visit to new brunswick, he said, in reply to the warden and members of the municipality of kings county:-- gentlemen,--the duties connected with the high office with which i am honoured cannot indeed be considered to impose any heavy burdens, when their performance leads me to visit populations so kindly in their sympathies as are those of this province, where we meet men always glad to testify their affection for the institutions under which they live by their reception of the representatives of the queen. perhaps in no other country in the world is it possible for the representative of any sovereign to travel for thousands of miles, and to be everywhere greeted with the same assurances of contentment with political condition and affection for the throne. i thank you, especially on the princess's behalf, for the words you have spoken in reference to her. she will always associate herself gladly in anything tending to the welfare of the people of this dominion. in so doing she will fulfil the wish of her father the prince consort, whose desire it was that his children should identify themselves with the interests of our colonial empire. i hear with gladness the assurance you give of the firm and unswerving loyalty of the people of the county of kings, and i desire to tender to them my sincere thanks. the first visit to toronto took place in . a loyal and kindly address having been read, his excellency replied:-- mr. mayor and gentlemen,--i remember well that the first time i saw toronto was when, a good many years ago, the city was pointed out to me, where far off, over the waters its houses were visible from a spot not distant from niagara. this first gave me an idea of the size and importance of your town. men who were then with me told me that thirty or forty years before there would not only have been nothing visible at that distance, but only a very small settlement when viewed much nearer. but just as the city can be seen from afar, so is its position now so important that you cannot think of ontario, wide as are its limits, or indeed of canada itself, without seeing in the mind toronto, the capital of our most populous province. here are combined things rarely found closely united, namely, great commercial prosperity with great literary activity. if you are proving that you can lead the way in commerce, it is as great a distinction that you can, by the ability of your literary men, do much towards guiding and influencing the thoughts of your fellow-citizens of the dominion. i thank you for your loyal words in our queen's name. they express the feeling i expected to find among you, but i must speak my grateful acknowledgments for the cordial manner in which you have given utterance to them. adhesion to our empire and love for its sovereign i knew i should find; but the character of this great reception, the magnificence of your preparations to welcome the representatives of the sovereign, form a demonstration for which i confess i was not prepared. it has been our fortune to be kindly received by great communities, both in the old world and in the new; but i never returned my thanks with a more heartfelt gratitude than i do now to you, the citizens of toronto, for the manner, at once so splendid and so sympathetic, in which you have been pleased to receive us. in december last, delegates from many of the towns of ontario came to ottawa to give us their greeting. accompanying the addresses presented to us was an offering which, while it showed a feeling of personal regard, might well, i believe, serve as an emblem of the patriotism of ontario. it was a wreath of that plant which in the old country loads the air with perfume wherever moss and mountain are most green with moisture. reared among morasses, it grows only where around its roots the soil is firm; and where it springs, the foot may safely tread and securely stand. it was therefore, in olden days, taken as my clan's badge to signify a firm faith and steady trust, and with this signification i looked upon the wreath of marsh myrtle given to us on the part of so many communities in ontario last december, as a fit emblem and just expression of that steady, firm, and faithful support which our queen will ever find wherever a citizen of ontario lives to assert his rights and freedom in upholding the honour, the dignity, and the power of our united empire. to an address in german, presented in at berlin, ontario, the governor-general answered:-- meine herren und damen!--die prinzessin und ich finden es eine unserer angenehmsten pflichten, ihnen einen besuch hier zu machen, um uns von der fruchtbarkeit, welche ihre kolonie charakterisirt, zu überzeugen. wir freuen uns um so mehr, da ihre zuschrift uns in der lieben deutschen sprache ein willkommen sagt, und die versicherung deutscher treue aus deutschem munde kommt. wir wissen, daß sie als zeichen der gesinnung ihrer deutschen bevölkerung in kanada den spruch, der seit jahrhunderten dem sächsischen hause angehört:--"treu und fest," als ihr motto nehmen könnten. obgleich sie uns in so treuer weise empfangen, und der königin ihre ehrerbietung beweisen, bleiben sie dennoch gute deutsche, und sind darauf stolz, daß sie ihre kinder und kindeskinder in der kräftigen muttersprache erziehen können. die liebe für das alte, deutsche vaterland sollte nie aussterben; es verhindert jedoch nicht, daß sie auch die englische sprache benützen, die doch so sehr mit der deutschen verwandt ist. die schönen worte, die der poet arndt geschrieben hat, find ihnen wohl alle bekannt und wir können sie hier, wo sie ein anderes land zu ihrem land gemacht haben, wohl gebrauchen: "was ist des deutschen vaterland? ist's preußenland? ist's schwabenland? ist's wo am rhein die rebe blüht? ist's wo am belt die möve zieht? doch nein! nein! nein! sein vaterland muß größer sein!" kann man nicht hier diesen worten eine weitere deutung geben?--können sie nicht als mitbürger und gründer einer neuen nation dieselbe mit allem edlen, was von dem alten lande kommt, lenken und stärken? es ist uns eine wahre freude, von allen seiten zu hören, wie man die deutschen ansiedler achtet und schätzt und sie als einen wichtigen zusatz zu unseren kräften betrachtet. ihre wissenschaft, ihre liebe für die gute erziehung der jugend, sowohl in höheren studien, als in den studien, durch welche die gewerblichen fortbildungsschulen in deutschland sich einen so ruhmhaften namen gemacht haben; ihre sparsamkeit und ihr fleiß, sind canada viele tausend quadratmeilen landes werth.--die häuslichen tugenden ihrer frauen und töchter sind ein schönes beispiel für alle. ich hoffe, daß die zahl deutscher einwanderer sich mehren wird und werde in meinen erwartungen dadurch bestärkt, daß es bei ihnen daheim gewiß viele giebt, die überzeugt sind, daß das vaterland nicht geschwächt wird, wenn deutsche töchter jenseits des atlantischen meeres gute männer finden. es wird uns sehr angenehm sein, der deutschen kaiserlichen familie sagen zu können, wie sie in canada glücklich leben, und als männer, die dem lande glück bringen, angesehen werden. in , it was resolved that an agricultural and industrial exhibition, supported by a federal grant, should each year be held at some city of the dominion. the first of these central and national meetings took place at ottawa. it was largely attended, and opened by the governor-general with these remarks:-- mr. president and gentlemen,--i thank you for the address which you have read to me, expressing that deep loyalty to the queen which, not merely from hearsay, but from observation of the sentiments which animate the people of canada, whether in the cities or in the country, i know to be real and universal. the princess joins with me in asking you to accept our gratitude for your recognition of the interest we feel in the great efforts at present made, in various parts of canada, to display to the best advantage the industrial achievements of our artisans. some of the handiwork of our two largest provinces can be seen in this building, while others are not unrepresented; and we have evidence of the skill which graces the strength of a new brother--the young giant of the west. [ ] everywhere proof is given that the canadian can hold his own in the rivalry that brings art to bear on the great natural products around us, and this is not surprising when we know that he comes from the races which in europe have been the most renowned for the taste, the ingenuity, and the solidity of their workmanship. where so many regions have but recently been peopled, there is, it need hardly be said, much to be done, and it is most satisfactory to see how each city and town is bending itself to the task to prove that there is no laggard in the patriotic competition. i have gladly attended several of these shows, and it is a feature peculiar to this country that the industrial exhibition so generally accompanies the agricultural show. whether this shall always be the case as in the gathering inaugurated to-day, it will be of course for you to determine by experience of success in your venture in thus combining them. this is, perhaps, the first meeting to which more than a local character has been given. it will be a matter for your consideration, and for all in canada interested in your endeavours, whether a novel practice be established here in moving to each province in succession the central exhibition, without injury to the local fairs, which will, in any case, be held. if you decide to move the agricultural show from province to province in successive years, no new practice would thereby be espoused, for such has been the custom of the national societies of england, scotland, and ireland. in the old countries the spaces to be traversed are much smaller, but the need of comparison between the various exhibits is also much less. the local shows are held there in almost every county, but the advantage derived from the annual moving of the national societies has been well expressed in the words of a former and justly beloved viceroy of ireland, who said that the experience the national society had earned for itself had, by its annual movement, been carried through every part of the land, through each province in turn; and this had tended to ruse together the knowledge of the best specialties of each, whether in tillage or in pasture, in cereals or in green crops, or in the breeding and fattening of cattle. with us in canada, if a similar practice were followed, we might perhaps add that comparison would benefit the proper employment of the best agricultural machinery, for the manufacture of which our canadian artisans have won high commendation at the greatest international contests. if you discuss these questions, i am sure you will do so, not with the view of benefiting one city or province only, but in the spirit which sees in all common efforts a means of uniting our canadian people, and an instrument to make a national feeling create a national prosperity. we may congratulate our countrymen that in the live stock of all kinds shown to-day, we have a representation of those vast resources which yield so much in excess of our own requirements that we can relieve the wants of older lands; and how great is the difference between the bygone traffic from the new world to enrich europe and what we now witness! in other days the southern seas were covered with the towering galleons of spain, bringing the ingots of gold and silver, wrought in the mines of america through the cruel labour of thousands of enslaved indians. this was the wealth which poured into the treasuries of a nation whose riches reared the colossal palaces of the escorial, and the wondrous minster of seville. the creation of such prosperity meant a short-lived reign of luxury and cruelty--the lifting up of an old country for a time--the abasement of a new land. how different the happy and more lasting wealth with which we are able to endow europe from canada, when the parent land and the dominion alike reap equal fruits from a bounteous harvest. our treasure fleets are now laden with golden grain, and flocks and herds; with riches wrung from no servitude, but derived from the free and noble toil of a liberty-loving, independent, and self-reliant people. it is to the men who have cleared the tangled forests, or have tilled the prairie lands, that we owe such great shows of agricultural wealth as those we have lately seen, and which prove how rich and inexhaustible are the veins of ore from which we can give enough and to spare. may the endeavour of such a society as this, assisted as it has been chiefly by individual efforts, but countenanced by the dominion government, be to extend for the general good of our country, the experience it earns and whatever success is secured by the co-operation of the citizens. [ ] manitoba. [during the delivery of the address the gates had been opened and the people allowed to come in so as to hear his excellency's reply, and at its close they gave hearty cheering.] the first exhibition of the royal canadian academy of art took place at ottawa in . the experiment of collecting together the work of artists resident in the country, was a success from the commencement, and the annual meetings since held have fully warranted the formation of a national society for the promotion of art. the governor-general gave the opening address as follows:-- ladies and gentlemen,--it is now my duty to declare this first exhibition of the canadian academy to be open to what, i am sure, will be an appreciative public. that this ceremony should take place to-day is characteristic of the energy with which any project likely to benefit our community is pushed in this country, for it is only ten months ago, on the occasion of the opening of the local art gallery at montreal, that the proposal for the institution of the canadian academy of arts was made. to-day the academy is to be congratulated not only upon being able to show the pictures and the works of art which you see around you this evening, but upon the favourable reception which the appearance of such an association has received from all classes. i have indeed seen nothing but the kindest criticism. although i believe some gentlemen have been good enough to propose we should postpone the initiation of this institution for the present, and should wait for the short and moderate space of exactly years, and look forward to its incorporation in the year of grace . it is difficult to meet such gentle criticism, but the academy may be allowed to suggest that although in the words of the old saying, "art is long-lived," yet that "life is short." art will, no doubt, be in vigorous life in canada a century hence, but, on the other hand, we must remember that at that time these gentle critics may have disappeared from the scene, and they will themselves allow that it is for the benefit of the academy that it should begin its existence while still subject to their own friendly supervision. it is impossible to agree with the remark, that we have no material in canada for our present purposes, when we see many excellent works on these walls; and if some do not come up to the standard we may set ourselves, what is this but an additional argument for the creation of some association which shall act as an educator in these matters? now, gentlemen, what are the objects of your present effort? a glance at the constitution of the society will show your objects are declared to be: the encouragement of industrial art by the promotion of excellence of design, the support of schools of art throughout the country, and the formation of a national gallery of art at the seat of government. the first of these objects, the encouragement of good design, receives an illustration in a room which i hope all present will make it a point to visit--a room on the second floor, where many tasteful and good designs have been exhibited in competition for prizes generously given by several gentlemen, who recognise the good effect such competitions are likely to have upon trade. many of the best of these designs have been called forth by a prize offered by a member of the legislature, and it is to be sincerely hoped that in future years his example, and the example of those who have acted in a similar manner, may be more widely and generally followed. english manufacture, as you know, has become famous for its durability; french manufacture for its beauty and workmanship; and here, where we have a people sprung from both races, we should be able to combine these excellences, so that canadian manufacture may hold a high place in the markets of the world. the next object of the association is to be worked out on the same lines by the support afforded the local schools; and here i must emphatically impress on all who care for the encouragement of art in canada, that however popular the academy exhibitions may become, however much you are able to strengthen its hands in assisting provincial efforts, the assistance it gives to any provincial schools can only supplement, and can never stand in the place of, provincial effort. it is true that the gentlemen belonging to the academy give half of all they possess--one half of any surplus in all their revenues--in aid of local efforts, but it is by no means likely that that amount will be great. as the exhibitions are to be held each year in a different city, so that each province may in turn be visited, it will probably be found best that any donation which can be made shall be given to that town in which the yearly exhibition is held. i hope, for instance, that this year it may be possible to give a grant in aid of a local school to be formed at ottawa. with regard to the third object i have mentioned, the gentlemen who have been appointed academicians have patriotically undertaken, as a guarantee of their interest in the welfare of art in canada, that it shall be a condition of their acceptance of the office of academician that they shall give, each of them, a picture which shall become national property, and be placed here in an art gallery. these works, of which you already have several around you, will be at the disposal of one of the ministers, who may be charged with this trust, and it will be in his option to decide whether they shall be exhibited in other parts of the country, or lent for purposes of art instruction for a time to local schools. if you are not tired of these subjects, i would ask your attention for one moment to the organisation by which it is proposed to accomplish these purposes. first, there are a certain number of gentlemen who, after the model of similar institutions in other countries, where the plan has been found to work well, have been chosen as academicians. these comprise not only painters, but architects also, and designers, engravers, and sculptors. there are others again, forming a wider circle, and following the same professions, who have been chosen as associates, from whose ranks the academicians in the future will be annually elected. these gentlemen, the academicians, will govern the institution. they have already been supported by very many men in the country who follow other professions, and who will have nothing to do with the governing of the society, but who have been requested to join and give their aid as entertaining a love for art, and a desire that art should be enabled to assist in the most practical manner the interests of the country. it is probable that almost every gentleman of note in canada will be upon this roll. so much, then, for the purposes undertaken, and the machinery by which these are to be accomplished. one word only as to the part which, at the request of several gentlemen, i have ventured temporarily to undertake. it seemed difficult, if not impossible, to get the body as at present constituted elected at the start, for scattered as the artists of the dominion are, few knew the capabilities of others outside of his own neighbourhood. following, as we will have to do here therefore, an english precedent, it was thought best that the first list should be a nominated one. however carefully this has been attempted, some omissions and faults have been made, and these will be corrected, for the plan followed at the commencement will not be pursued hereafter, but at a general meeting held during the time of the exhibitions, elections will form part of the business of the assembly. although it may be for the interests of the academy that the governor-general of the day should be the patron of the society, you will find that the more self-governed it is the more healthful will be its prospects. at the outset the position of patron may be somewhat like the position of that useful but ugly instrument with which many of us are perhaps but too familiar, namely, the snow-plough. at the first formation of an artist society he may be expected to charge boldly into mountains of cold opposition, and to get rid of any ice crusts in front of the train, but after the winter of trial and probation, and difficulties of beginning are over, and the summer of success has come, his position, in regard to the artists, must be more like that of a figurehead. i have, however, great faith in the power of artists to make a figure-head useful as well as ornamental, although i do not know that they have shown a proof of this to-day by making their figure-head deliver a speech, which it is well known figure-heads never do, except on the strictest compulsion. you may remember that in old days in greece, an artist named pygmalion, carved a figure so beautiful that he himself fell in love with his work and infused his own life into the statue, so that it found breath and movement. i shall not expect the academy always to be in love with its figure-head, but i believe that you will be able to instil into him so much of your energy and vitality, that if the vessel gets into difficulties you may enable him to come down from his place, and even to give her a shove astern. let me, at all events, express a hope, in which i believe all present will join, that the canadian academy, this fair vessel that we launch to-day, may never get into any trouble, but that from every city, and from every province of the dominion, she may receive a favouring breeze whenever and wherever she may show a canvas. at quebec, upon the festival of st. jean baptiste, on the th june , there was a gathering of representatives of the french-canadian race from many cities of the united states as well as of canada, and the celebration in honour of their national saint was exceptionally enthusiastic. an opportunity was thus given to the governor-general to show that appreciation of french canadians which has been so constantly exhibited by his predecessors in office. he spoke in french and said:-- gentlemen and friends of the french-canadian race from abroad as well as from our own province,--i rise with the greatest pleasure to thank you for the way in which you have received the toast which has been proposed by the president in drinking the health of the princess and myself. the princess has especially desired me to convey to you her gratitude, and i regret that owing to the short duration of the stay of prince leopold in this country, she has been unable to remain with me for the imposing celebration which we have witnessed to-day. she is at all times sorry to quit quebec--a place she loves as much for the moral worth of its people as for the grandeur of its scenery. as for myself, gentlemen, i have obeyed a pleasant call in being amongst you to-day to testify my respect for our french-canadian fellow-citizens, and my appreciation of the value of the element furnished by its noble and gallant race in influencing for good our young and growing canadian nationality. i am here to show how much i prize the loyalty evinced by you on all occasions towards her majesty the queen, whose representative i am. at the same time i do not wonder at the devotion shown to so august an embodiment of the principle of constitutional rule. the queen sets the example of a sovereign, who has at all times given constant proof, that with us the acts of power are the expressions of the will of the people. it is this that gives to her the highest rank amongst rulers in the eyes of the nations who acknowledge her sceptre. it is among you especially that all men will expect that this should be recognised. it was the normans, who in france watched and guarded the cradle of that liberty at present enjoyed in england-- it was the men of normandy and brittany who at a later age laid the foundations of the liberty-loving community of canada. the very usages in the parliament of britain survive from the days when they were planted there by our norman ancestors. i do not know that it has been observed before in canada, but it has often occurred to me, that in the british parliament we still use the old words, used by your fathers for the sanction of the sovereign given to bills, of "la reine le veut," or "la reine remercie ses bons sujets, accepte leur benevolence et ainsi le veut,"--forms which i should like to see used at ottawa as marking our common origin, instead of the practice which is followed, of translating into modern french and english. in celebrating this fête, all can join in pride in the element predominant amongst us to-day, as it is to your race we owe the liberties of runnymede and the practices that mark the free discussions of our parliament. i rejoice to see so many met together, and that we have representatives of our allies the french, as well as of those who have made a home--let us hope a temporary one only--among our friends in the united states. i rejoice to see these members of the race repatriated, if only for a time, and may assure them that our old and our new lands of the west are wide and fertile enough to justify us in detaining them here and in annexing any number who may be willing to be so treated. as they well know, they will always have with us the most perfect guarantees of liberty, the fullest rights of franchise, while they will not suffer so much as now from frequent waves of moral heat incurred by all who have to take part in constant electioneering; nor will they, on the other hand, have to endure the winter and moral cold which may be experienced by all who have to undergo the effects of a gubernatorial or presidential veto. our visitors will see with us to-day the signs of a happy, a loyal, and contented people; they will see us sharing in that revival of trade which i am happy to say is marking the commencement of another decade; they will see us holding in highest esteem those traditions which associate us with the past; they will see you in the fullest enjoyment of your laws, your language, and your institutions; they will see, above all, that you use the strength you thus inherit from your ancestors for no selfish purposes, but as imparting vigour and unison with the powers of other races to our great confederation, and in cementing a patriotism which is willing to bear the burdens as it shares the glory of a great country, the greatest member of the mightiest empire ever known among mankind. the following was delivered at the opening of provincial fair. gentlemen of the agricultural and arts association of ontario,--believe me that any service which i can render to your invaluable association will always be at your command, and you may be sure that it is the desire of the princess always to join me in such endeavours. it must at the same time be remembered that ladies have not that iron constitution which it is necessary that an official should possess, and it is not always possible for them to be present as well in the body as in the spirit. i congratulate you on the great progress visible in the manufactures exhibited, and on having the provincial show held this year at hamilton. in ontario, where the science of agriculture is beginning to be so thoroughly understood, i fear i can say but little that may be of use to you, but i cannot too pointedly praise that most prudent of all speculations, which has made several of the gentlemen who lead the way in such matters purchase some of the best of british cattle. to be content with raising inferior stock is as unfortunate in economy as is an illiberal and unscientific treatment of the land. great as are the advantages possessed, in this country by the new soil, which has comparatively recently been broken up, yet the effects of unscientific farming are necessarily to be seen in many places, and it is quite as much an object of our agricultural exhibitions to point out defects of this nature, as it is to display the triumphs of those who, pursuing agriculture upon a wiser plan, can year after year show the superiority of a scientific and liberal culture of the land. i have no doubt that much good will result in the advice given in the report which will be issued of the agricultural commission now sitting in this province. there is much upon which you may be congratulated. the great increase in the numbers of horses raised here is meeting the demand for them--the growth of the cheese manufacture under the factory system-- the increased attention given to root growing in connection with cattle feeding--the care bestowed on more general under-draining--the development of fruit and vine culture, and the excellence and cheapness of your agricultural implements, are all features upon which we may dwell with the utmost satisfaction. your pasture lands are so wide, and the facilities afforded by the country for the raising of stock are so great, that it will be your own fault if you allow any others, be they breeders in the old country or the united states, to take the wind too much out of your sails. it is to be desired that provision be made against bad usage of the meat sent to england, for sufficient care is not taken of it at present after debarkation, and it appears to disadvantage in consequence in the markets. it must be remembered that at the present moment you have advantages with regard to the protection afforded you in the permission given to land your cattle alive in the old country, when it is denied to the states, which cannot be expected to last. it is impossible to urge too strongly the necessity of preparation against a time when american cattle will be again admitted alive into england. unless you get the very best stock, and produce high graded beasts, you cannot hold your own. the necessary expense attending the purchase of high-bred cattle will now pay you, and if with their produce you can maintain your place in the european markets, you may be assured that the money so spent could never have been spent to better purpose. i am informed that lately at toronto--and i hope we may see the same feature here in two days--galloways, polled angus, as well as good shorthorns, were to be seen in the yards. in sheep also, some of the gentlemen who with so much foresight lead the way amongst our agricultural communities, have made purchases this year of shropshire and other high-class animals. i trust that each year may see a marked improvement with respect to following such leaders, and i have the utmost confidence that with the spirit of enterprise which has made british north america proportionately equal to any area on this continent in population, and in all the arts which can lead to that population's prosperity and happiness, canada will not be found to be one whit behindhand. to an address presented at the opening of the quebec provincial fair, held at montreal, his excellency, the governor-general, replied, both in french and english, as follows:-- gentlemen,--it is a happy augury for our country that the expressions of loyalty to the throne, and confidence in the institutions under which we live, should be emphasised by you, who represent the different races of which our nationality is composed, when we meet to-day under roofs which shelter the products of the industrial and agricultural industry of a wide territory, now enjoying marked and unusual prosperity. it is not only a personal sentiment of reverence toward the august occupant of the throne, the faithful interpreter of our constitutional law, but it is to the perfected fabric of the experience of many centuries,--to the freest form of government on earth, that you declare your devotion. the love for such institutions can therefore be no passing phase dependent upon any single life; but is a love that lives with the life of the nation by whose decrees those institutions exist and abide. it is my happy duty to represent among you to-day the countenance given yearly by the federal government to one of those great provincial fairs, by which our people in each section of the country show the high value they place upon the comparison and competition to be obtained by such exhibitions. each year industrial art is thus aided, and a stimulus is given to the excellency of workmanship, which can alone content a people with its manufactures, and provide for their acceptance abroad. each year at such re-unions the prospects of fresh enterprise in agriculture are discussed. for instance, we look forward with confidence to the new organisations for the cultivation of the beet-root, to be undertaken under favourable auspices, experiments having already proved that the beet-root grown here possesses a far larger percentage of sugar than can be shown by that of either france or germany. again, in the exportation of phosphates, which have proved themselves so excellent as fertilisers that they have arrested the attention of the agricultural chambers of europe, fresh combinations will ensure a large supply from the valley of the ottawa. lastly, the encouragement of the improvement in the breed of cattle, and the solution of the problem how best to export them with profit, engage your minds. it is almost certain that although in some parts of our country the cattle must be fed during winter for a longer period than in others, yet with good management and proper co-operation, wherever good crops can be produced, the winter will form no obstacle to the profitable sale of cattle in the european markets. by contributing last year at ottawa, and this year at montreal, to a provincial exhibition, the government of our union designates its desire in the interest of the whole country to supplement each year, at a different place, those provincial resources which are so wisely lavished on many branches of education. the grant given on the part of the union by which this meeting is constituted a dominion exhibition, is the contribution made for a special branch of instruction. as by our constitution, education is a provincial matter, such federal grants, if made, must be given where more than the interests of one province only are concerned. the object to be attained is to help forward those who, owing to a less favouring fortune, are behindhand, by enabling them to see the results attained by their neighbours. the question must not only be, "will such an exhibition pay its expenses?" it must be asked, "will such an exhibition spread useful knowledge over wider districts which require it?" let me, in concluding these remarks in answer to your address, express on the part of the princess the gratitude she will feel at your mention of her name; and i shall now fulfil the duty, for the performance of which i have been invited here, in declaring this exhibition open to the public. at the laying of the foundation-stone of a new museum at m'gill university, montreal, in , his excellency spoke as follows:-- mr. chancellor, members of convocation, ladies and gentlemen,--now that my part in the physical exercises, which i cannot say i have graced, but have accomplished, is over, i have been asked to take also a part in the intellectual exercises of this day by saying a few words to you. when i first came to canada, and afterwards at the time when confederation was coming into being, the first political lesson that i learnt with regard to this country was that the federal government would have nothing whatever to do with education. the earliest lesson that i learnt, on arriving in canada fourteen years afterwards, was that the head of the federal government was frequently expected to attend on such occasions as that on which we are assembled to-day, which has certainly a great deal to do with education. perhaps, however, i may flatter myself by supposing that my presence here to-day has been desired more in the capacity of a friend than as an official--(applause) --and i hope that this may be the footing on which you will always allow me to meet you and see what you are doing. i can assure you i will never betray any of your secrets to my ministers, except under the advice of my honourable friend on my right (the lieutenant-governor robitaille), who is the natural protector and guardian of this university, and of education in this province. (laughter.) i share most heartily with you in the joy you must experience at the prospect of possessing so fine a hall for the accommodation of the treasures which are rapidly accumulating in your hands. that the necessity for a large building should have been so promptly met by the sympathetic support and far-seeing generosity of mr. redpath, proves that the race of benefactors, illustrated by the names of molson and m'gill, has not died out amongst us. (loud applause.) the removal of the geological collections belonging to the nation from montreal to ottawa, which has been determined upon as bringing more immediately under the eye of the legislature and the knowledge of the government the labours and results attained by our men of science, necessarily deprives the residents of montreal, who are students, of the facilities hitherto afforded by the presence in this city of those collections. it is satisfactory to know that this loss will be palliated by such noble gifts as those which have furnished you with other collections, which are now to find at last a proper place for their display. (applause.) you who have in your chancellor and members of convocation such eminent and worthy representatives of judicial attainment, of classical learning, of medical and surgical knowledge, and of scientific research, will well know how to give full value to the last of these subjects, namely, to the culture of the natural sciences. (applause.) besides the direct utility of a knowledge of zoology, botany, geology, and chemistry, and of the kindred branches grouped under the designation of natural science, the pleasure to be derived from them is not amongst the least of the advantages of their study. (hear, hear.) however forbidding the country in which he is placed, however uninteresting the other surroundings of a man's life may be, he need never miss the delights of an engrossing occupation, if the very earth on which he treads, each leaf and insect, and all the phenomena of nature around him, cause him to follow out new lines of study, and give his thought a wider range. this is enough to make a man feel as though in the enjoyment of a never-dying vitality, and i doubt if any one amongst you feels younger than your honoured principal, although his studies have led him in fancy over every region, and must make him feel as if a perpetual youth had caused him to live through all geological time. (laughter and applause.) to parallel a saying, spoken of another eminent man, he certainly has learnt all that rocks can teach, except to be hard-hearted. (renewed laughter.) it seems to me peculiarly appropriate that he who first established the certainty of the "dawn of life" amongst the laurentian rocks of canada, should here, through his untiring zeal, officiate in launching into the dawn of public recognition the young manhood of his country. (applause.) it is your great good fortune that in your principal you have a leader who is an admirable guide, not alone in the fairy realms of science, but also through those sterner, and, to some, less attractive regions which own the harsher rule of the exigencies of the daily life around us. (hear, hear.) he has traced in the rocks the writing of the creator, and with the magic light, only to be borne by him who has earned the power through toil of reason and of induction, he has been able to see in the spirit and describe the processes of creation. his knowledge has pierced the dark ages, when through countless aeons the earth was being prepared for man; he has shown how forests--vast as those we see to-day, but with vanished forms of vegetation and of life, grew, decayed, and were preserved in altered condition to give us in these days of colder skies the fuel we need. he has been for his beloved acadia the historian of the cycles when god formed her under the primal waters, fashioned her in the marshes teeming in his fervent heat, caused his fire to fuse the metal in her rocks, and his ice to scourge the coasts, thereafter to be subjected to yet more stupendous changes, and raised and made fit for the last and highest of his works. (loud applause.) but dr. dawson's great knowledge and wide learning have not led him, as they might lead many, to live apart in fastidious study and in selfish absorption, forgetful of the claims and contemptuous of the merits of others. (hear, hear.) his wisdom in these difficult studies has not separated him from us; it has only been a fresh cause for us to hail that public spirit which makes him give all he has, whether of strength, of time, or of knowledge, for the benefit of his fellow-citizens. (applause.) just as it was not for acadia alone, but in the interests of science, that his first labour was undertaken; so now it is not for any especial locality, but for the good of the whole of our country, that he is head of this place of learning, whence depart so many to take their lot in the civil life of canada. even in his presence it is right that this should be said of him, here on this spot, where you are to raise a new temple of the practical sciences, and now that he, with you, has become the recipient of this gift, which is a tribute from one who has earned success in the hard battle of life, offered to men who, with so much devotion, are training other lives to win their way by knowledge through the difficulties that may lie before them. (loud applause.) a fine statue of colonel de salaberry, by mr. hubert of montreal, was, in , unveiled at chambly. a large concourse of people, and representative men from all parts of the province of quebec, were present, and after eloquent speeches from colonel harwood and other gentlemen, his excellency said:-- accept my thanks for your address, which records your patriotic desire to honour in a befitting manner the memory of a patriot. i rejoice to be able to take part with you in this commemoration of a gallant soldier. we are here to unveil a monument dedicated to a man who worthily represented the loyal spirit of his age. that spirit exists to the full to-day. should need arise, there are many among the canadian nation who would emulate his example and endeavour to rival his achievements. this statue records a character typical of our countrymen. content with little for himself, content only with greatness for his country--such was the character of de salaberry; such is the character of the canadian to-day. at chambly, in the province where he had the good fortune to have the occasion to manifest that valour which was the proud tradition of his race, we place his statue. it is raised in no spirit of idle boasting, but with a hope that the virtues shown of old may, unforgotten, light and guide future generations. these virtues were conspicuous in this distinguished man, whose military talents enabled him to perform his duty with signal advantage to our arms. in rearing this monument to him, let us not forget to pay a passing tribute to his brothers. they, with him, in the hour of danger, took to the profession of arms, we may almost say as a part of their nature. three of them perished in upholding the honour of that flag which is to-day our symbol of unity and freedom. in this fair region, which was his home, a contrast between our times and those in which he lived comes forcibly before us. where are now the wide tracts of fertile fields and a country traversed by railways or to be reached by the steamers on our rivers, de salaberry and his voltigeurs, when they made their gallant defence, saw only scattered clearings among great forests. these, too, often concealed contending armies. while we cherish the recollection of gallant deeds performed, where english and french-speaking canadians equally distinguished themselves, it is not necessary to dwell on the bitter associations of those times. we are at peace, and live in what we hope will be an abiding friendship and alliance with the great and generous people of the south. they then endeavoured to conquer us, but were in the end only enabled to entertain for the canadians that respect which is the only true and lasting foundation of friend ship. we must be thankful and rejoice that our rivalries with them are now only in the fruitful fields of commerce. our resources in these peaceful paths are daily supplying the sinews of strength and the power to us in resources and population which would make any war undertaken against canada a war that would be a long and a difficult one. they do not desire to invade us. we trust that such a desire will never again arise, for nations do not now so often as of old interfere with their neighbours when no faction invites interference. if in canada was dear for her own sake to canadians, how much more is she so now? then possessed only of a small population, enjoying liberty under the aegis of a narrow constitution, now we see in her a great and growing people, self-governed at home, proud of the freest form of constitution, and able to use in association with her own representative the diplomatic strength of a great empire for the making of her commercial compacts with other nations. with us there is no party which would invite incursions or change of government. no man has a chance of success in canadian public life, no one is countenanced by our people, who is not a lover of free institutions. in inviting here the governor-general you have an officer present, who as the head of the federal government is nothing but the first and abiding representative of the people. it is, however, not only as an official that i rejoice with you to-day. personal feelings make it a joyful hour for me when i can visit the cradle of so much worth and valour, surrounded as i am by the members of the family of monsieur de salaberry. the princess and i can never forget the intimate friendship which existed between prince edward, duke of kent, and colonel de salaberry--a friendship between families which, i may be allowed to hope, will not be confined to the grandfathers. the princess asked me to express the deep interest she takes in this celebration. she wishes me to convey to you her sorrow that she is not here to-day with us. she yet hopes to be able to see this monument, where for the first time canadian art has so honourably recorded in sculpture canadian loyalty, bravery, and genius. in , at st thomas in ontario, over men of highland descent were present at a meeting attended by the governor-general, who spoke as follows in reply to an address delivered in gaelic and english:-- highlanders and friends from the land of the gael,--you do not know how much pleasure you give me in coming forward, and in such a touching and eloquent address as that to which i have just listened, giving me the assurance of the unchangeable loyalty which animates your hearts, and of the pride with which you look back upon the country of your forefathers. (applause.) it is not often that a man gets so many kindly words addressed to him from so great a meeting of his countrymen. although it is for canada as a whole that i work in this country, and for her whole population of whatever race that my heart, as well as my duty, urges me to strive, yet it is a peculiar delight that such endeavours should be illustrated by meeting with those who are descended from men at whose side, in the dark ages of trial and of difficulty, my fathers fought and died. we have many ancient memories in common. you tell me that these are rehearsed among you. i know that among your cousins at home the tales of the deeds of the heroes of the feinn of ireland and of scotland, and the achievements of the great men who have lived since their day, in successive centuries, are constantly repeated. i would give nothing for a man who could place little value upon the lives and times of his ancestors, not only because without them he himself would have no existence--(laughter)--but because in tracing the history of their lives, and in remembering the difficulties they encountered, he will be spurred to emulate, in as far as in him lies, the triumphs that have caused them to be remembered. (cheers.) i would give nothing for a french-canadian who could not look back with pride on the glorious discoveries and contests of the early pioneers of canada. i would give nothing for a german who in ontario could forget that he came from the race who under hermann hurled back the tide of roman invasion; nor for an englishman who forgets the splendid virtues which have made the english character comparable to the native oak. (applause.) such reminiscences and such incentives to display in the present day the virtues of our ancestors can have none but a good result. here our different races have, through god's providence, become the inheritors of a new country, where the blood of all is mingling, and where a nation is arising which we firmly believe will show through future centuries the nerve, the energy, and intellectual powers which characterised the people of northern europe. (hear, hear.) and let our pride in this country with reference to its sons not be so much seen in pride of the original stock, as in the feeling of joy which should arise when we can say, "such an orator, such a soldier, such a poet, or such a statesman is a canadian." (cheers.) keep up a knowledge of your ancient language; for the exercise given to a man's mind in the power given by the ability to express his thoughts in two languages is no mean advantage. i would gladly have given much of the time devoted in boyhood to acquiring greek to the acquisition of gaelic. my friends, let me now tell you how happy it makes me to see that the valour, the skill, and the bravery which used to make you chief among your neighbours in the strife of swords, is here shown in the mastery of the difficulties of nature. your lives are here cast in pleasant places. the aspect of the fertility of your lands, of the success of their cultivation, and of your prosperity in their enjoyment, is producing so powerful an effect upon your brethren at home, that we have some difficulty in persuading the most enterprising amongst them to remain in the old country. (laughter.) you know that economic causes have forced much of the increasing population of scotland to seek the towns, and the change in the proprietorship of lands has united in a few unfortunate instances with the love for hunting in tempting men, in more modern times, to care more for their preserves of animals than for the preserves they could point to as being filled with men. my family has always loved, not for policy, but on account of their fellow-citizens, to place in the balance, against the temptation for gain among the people, the love of home; and have thus had many men on their lands. in a small country, of poor climate as compared with canada, this must of course be regulated by the resources of the land. but i visit always with a peculiar pleasure those districts at home where a large population has been able to find a competent livelihood. one island known to many of you, namely, tiree, has upon a surface of twelve miles long by about two in width over three thousand souls. at the present day i find that some of those who have visited ontario, or who know from their friends what this land is like, now come to us and say, "we are tempted to go to canada, for each of our friends there has for himself a farm as big as the whole island of tiree." (laughter.) this is only an instance of how much the western highlander has thriven in these new and more spacious homes. (cheers.) some amongst you are of my name. i find that the campbells get on as well as anybody else in this country. lately a gentleman managed to praise himself, his wife, and me by making the following speech. he said, "i am glad to see you here as governor-general. i always find that the campbells in this country manage to get most excellent places." he then pointed to his wife, and proved his argument by the announcement, "my wife there is a campbell." (renewed laughter.) that you, your children, and children's children, may continue to prosper is the wish of my heart, and the desire of all in the mother country, who see that here you are one of the powers that constitute, in the new world, a community devoted to the great traditions, to the might and enduring grandeur of our united empire. (loud cheers.) had it not been so you would not have come to meet me here to-day. some time ago i visited killin, in perthshire, a most interesting place. it is a rocky island covered with heather, grass, and pine trees, placed in the centre of the foaming waters of the river dochart, which streams from benmore. it was the ancient burial place of the gallant race of macnab, a clan which with its chief came over to canada and was illustrious in the history of this country. its chief, sir allan, became, not by virtue of descent, but by ability and integrity, a leader in the public life of canada. his son came to killin to see this last resting-place of his fathers, and was there seen by a poet, who in some beautiful verses says:-- "would a son of the chieftain have dared to invade the isle where the heroes repose;" were it not, that as-- "a pilgrim he came to that place of the dead, for he knew that the tenant of each narrow bed, would hail him as worthy of them." he then asks how he and they had shown their metal, and in vindication of their fidelity to their ancient fame, he imagines that the very wind that waved the fir branches over the old tombs carries in rustling whisper, or in strong breath of storm, among the boughs:-- "a voice as it flies, from the far distant forest that fringes the deeps of the rushing st. lawrence, replies:-- that, however to albyn their name has become like a tale of past years that is told; on the shores of lake erie that race is the same, and as true to the land of its birth and its fame, as their gallant forefathers of old." may this be ever so with you, and may god prosper and bless you in all your undertakings. (prolonged cheers.) on his return to winnipeg, after his tour through the north-western territories in , his excellency spoke as follows:-- mr. chairman and gentlemen,--i beg to thank you most cordially for the pleasant reception you have given to me on my return to winnipeg, and for the words in which you proposed my health and have expressed a hope for the complete recovery of the princess from the effects of that most unfortunate accident which took place at ottawa. i know that the canadian people will always remember that it was in sharing the duties incurred in their service that the princess received injuries which have, only temporarily, i trust, so much impaired her health. (applause.) two years hence the journey i have undertaken will be an easy one for all to accomplish throughout its length, while at present the facilities of railway and steam accommodation only suffice for half of it. for a canadian, personal knowledge of the north-west is indispensable. to be ignorant of the north-west is to be ignorant of the greater portion of our country. (applause.) hitherto i have observed that those who have seen it justly look down upon those who have not, with a kind of pitying contempt which you may sometimes have observed that they who have got up earlier in the morning than others and seen some beautiful sunrise, assume towards the friends who have slept until the sun is high in the heavens. (laughter.) our track, though it led us far, only enabled us to see a very small portion of your heritage now being made accessible. had time permitted we should have explored the immense country which lies along the whole course of the wonderful saskatchewan, which, with its two gigantic branches, opens to steam navigation settlements of rapidly growing importance. as it was, we but touched the waters of the north and south branches, and striking southwestwards availed ourselves of the american railway lines in montana for our return. it was most interesting to compare the southern mountains and prairies with our own, and not even the terrible events which have recently cast so deep a gloom upon our neighbours, as well as ourselves, could prevent our kinsmen from showing that hospitality and courtesy which makes a visit to their country so great a pleasure. (loud applause.) i am the more glad to bear witness to this courtesy in the presence of the distinguished consul of the united states, who is your guest this evening, and who, in this city, so honourably represents his country--(applause)--in nothing more than in this, that he has never misrepresented our own. (loud applause.) like almost all his compatriots who occupy by the suffrage of their people official positions, he has recognised that fact, which is happily acknowledged by all of standing amongst ourselves, that the interests of the british empire and of the united states may be advanced side by side without jealousy or friction, and that the good of the one is interwoven with the welfare of the other. (cheers.) canada has recently shown that sympathy with her neighbour's grief which becomes her, and which has been so marked throughout all portions of our empire. she has sorrowed with the sorrow of the great commonwealth, whose chief has been struck down, in the fulness of his strength, in the height of his usefulness, in the day of universal recognition of his noble character, by the dastard hand of the assassin. we have felt in this as though we ourselves had suffered, for general garfield's position and personal worth made his own and his fellow citizens' misfortune a catastrophe for all english-speaking races. the bulletins telling of his calm and courageous struggle against cruel and unmerited affliction, have been read and discussed by us with as strong an admiration for the man, and with as tender a sentiment for the anxiety and misery of his family, as they have been awaited and perused in the south. it is fitting and good that this should be. we have with the americans, not only a common descent, but a similar position on this continent, and a like probable destiny. the community of feeling reaches beyond the fellowship arising from the personal interest attaching to the dignity of a high office sustained with honour, and to the reverence for the tender ties of hearth and home, sacred though these be, for canadians and americans have each a common aim and a common ideal. though belonging to very different political schools, and preferring to advance by very different paths, we both desire to live only in a land of perfect liberty. (loud cheers.) when the order which ensures freedom is desecrated by the cowardly rancour of the murderer, or by the tyranny of faction, the blow touches more than one life, and strikes over a wider circle than that where its nearer and immediate consequences are apparent. the people of the united states have been directed into one political organisation, and we are cherishing and developing another; but they will find no men with whom a closer and more living sympathy with their triumphs or with their trouble abides, than their canadian cousins in the dominion. (cheers.) let this be so in the days of unborn generations, and may we never have again to express our horror at such a deed of infamy as that which has lately called forth, in so striking a manner, the proofs of international respect and affection. (hear, hear.) to pass to other themes awaking no unhappy recollections, you will expect me to mention a few of the impressions made upon us by what we have seen during the last few weeks. beautiful as are the numberless lakes and illimitable forests of keewatin--the land of the north wind, to the east of you--yet it was pleasant to "get behind the north wind"--(laughter)--and to reach your open plains. the contrast is great between the utterly silent and shadowy solitudes of the pine and fir forests, and the sunlit and breezy ocean of meadowland, voiceful with the music of birds, which stretches onward from the neighbourhood of your city. in keewatin the lumber industry and mining enterprises can alone be looked for, but here it is impossible to imagine any kind of work which shall not produce results equal to those attained in any of the great cities of the world. (great cheering.) unknown a few years ago except for some differences which had arisen amongst its people, we see winnipeg now with a population unanimously joined in happy concord, and rapidly lifting it to the front rank amongst the commercial centres of the continent. we may look in vain elsewhere for a situation so favourable and so commanding--many as are the fair regions of which we can boast. (loud cheers.) there may be some among you before whose eyes the whole wonderful panorama of our provinces has passed--the ocean-garden island of prince edward; the magnificent valleys of the st. john and sussex; the marvellous country, the home of "evangeline," where blomidon looks down on the tides of fundy, and over tracts of red soil richer than the weald of kent. you may have seen the fortified paradise of quebec; and montreal, whose prosperity and beauty is worthy of her great st. lawrence, and you may have admired the well-wrought and splendid province of ontario, and rejoiced at the growth of her capital, toronto, and yet nowhere will you find a situation whose natural advantages promise so great a future as that which seems ensured to manitoba and to winnipeg, the heart city of our dominion. (tremendous cheering.) the measureless meadows which commence here stretch without interruption of their good soil westward to your boundary. the province is a green sea over which the summer winds pass in waves of rich grasses and flowers, and on this vast extent it is only as yet here and there that a yellow patch shows some gigantic wheat field. (loud cheering.) like a great net cast over the whole are the bands and clumps of poplar wood which are everywhere to be met with, and which, no doubt, when the prairie fires are more carefully guarded against, will, wherever they are wanted, still further adorn the landscape. (cheers.) the meshes of this wood-netting are never further than twenty or thirty miles apart little hay swamps and sparkling lakelets, teeming with wild fowl, are always close at hand, and if the surface water in some of these has alkali, excellent water can always be had in others, and by the simple process of digging for it a short distance beneath the sod with a spade, the soil being so devoid of stones that it is not even necessary to use a pick. no wonder that under these circumstances we hear no croaking. croakers are very rare animals throughout canada. it was remarked with surprise, by an englishman accustomed to british grumbling, that even the frogs sing instead of croaking in canada-- (great cheering)--and the few letters that have appeared speaking of disappointment will be amongst the rarest autographs which the next generation will cherish in their museums. but with even the best troops of the best army in the world you will find a few malingerers--a few skulkers. however well an action has been fought, you will hear officers who have been engaged say that there were some men whose idea seemed to be that it was easier to conduct themselves as became them at the rear, rather than in the front. (laughter and applause.) so there have been a few lonely and lazy voices raised in the stranger press dwelling upon your difficulties and ignoring your triumphs. these have appeared from the pens of men who have failed in their own countries and have failed here, who are born failures, and will fail, till life fails them. (laughter and applause.) they are like the soldiers who run away from the best armies seeking to spread discomfiture, which exists only in those things they call their minds--(laughter)--and who returning to the cities say their comrades are defeated, or if they are not beaten, they should in their opinion be so. we have found, as we expected, that their tales are not worthy the credence even of the timid. (applause.) there was not one person who had manfully faced the first difficulties--always far less than those to be encountered in the older provinces--but said that he was getting on well and he was glad he had come, and he generally added that he believed his bit of the country must be the best, and that he only wished his friends could have the same good fortune, for his expectations were more than realised. (cheers and laughter.) it is well to remember that the men who will succeed here, as in every young community, are usually the able-bodied, and that their entry on their new field of labour should be when the year is young. men advanced in life and coming from the old country will find their comfort best consulted by the ready provided accommodation to be obtained by the purchase of a farm in the old provinces. all that the settler in manitoba would seem to require is, that he should look out for a locality where there is either good natural drainage, and ninety-nine hundredths of the country has this, and that he should be able readily to procure in winnipeg, or elsewhere, some light pumps like those used in abyssinia for the easy supply of water from a depth of a few feet below the surface. alkali in the water will never hurt his cattle, and dykes of turf and the planting of trees would everywhere insure him and them the shelter that may be required. five hundred dollars should be his own to spend on his arrival, if he wishes to farm. if he comes as an artisan he may, like the happy masons now to be found in winnipeg, get the wages of a british army colonel, [ ] by putting up houses as fast as brick, wood, and mortar can be got together. favourable testimony as to the climate was everywhere given. the heavy night dews throughout the north-west keep the country green when everything is burned to the south, and the steady winter cold, although it sounds formidable when registered by the thermometer, is universally said to be far less trying than the cold to be encountered at the old english puritan city of boston, in massachussets. it is the moisture in the atmosphere which makes cold tell, and the englishman who, with the thermometer at zero, would, in his moist atmosphere, be shivering, would here find one flannel shirt sufficient clothing while working. i never like to make comparisons, and am always unwillingly driven to do so, although it seems to be the natural vice of the well-travelled englishman. over and over again in canada have i been asked if such and such a bay was not wonderfully like the bay of naples, for the inhabitants had often been told so. i always professed to be unable to see the resemblance, of course entirely out of deference to the susceptibilities of the italian nation. so one of our party, a scotsman, whenever in the rocky mountains he saw some grand pyramid or gigantic rock, ten or eleven thousand feet in height, would exclaim that the one was the very image of arthur's seat and the other of edinburgh castle. with the fear of ontario before my eyes i would therefore never venture to compare a winter here to those of our greatest province, but i am bound to mention that when a friend of mine put the question to a party of sixteen ontario men who had settled in the western portion of manitoba, as to the comparative merits of the cold season in the two provinces-- fourteen of them voted for the manitoba climate, and only two elderly men said that they preferred that of toronto. you will therefore see how that which is sometimes called a very unequal criterion of right and justice, a large majority, determines this question. now although we are at present in manitoba, and manitoba interests may dominate our thoughts, yet you may not object to listen for a few moments to our experience of the country which lies further to the west. to the present company the assertion may be a bold one, but they will be sufficiently tolerant to allow me to make it, if it goes no further, and i therefore say that we may seek for the main chance elsewhere than in main street. the future fortunes of this country beyond this province bear directly upon its prosperity. although you may not be able to dig for four feet through the same character of black loam that you have here when you get to the country beyond fort ellice, yet in its main features it is the same right up to the forks of the saskatchewan. i deeply regret that i was not able to visit edmonton, which bids fair to rival any place in the north-west. settlement is rapidly increasing there, and i met at battleford one man who alone had commissions from ten ontario farmers to buy for them at that place. nothing can exceed the fertility and excellence of the land along almost the whole course of that great river, and to the north of it in the wide strip belting its banks and extending up to the peace river, there will be room for a great population whose opportunities for profitable cultivation of the soil will be most enviable. the netting of wood of which i have spoken as covering all the prairie between winnipeg and battleford, is beyond that point drawn up upon the shores of the prairie sea, and lies in masses of fine forest in the gigantic half circle formed by the saskatchewan and the rockies. it is only in secluded valleys, on the banks of large lakes, and in river bottoms, that much wood is found in the far west, probably owing to the prevalence of fires. these are easily preventible, and there is no reason why plantations should not flourish there in good situations as well as elsewhere. before i leave the saskatchewan, let me advert to the ease with which the steam navigation of that river can be vastly improved. at present there is only one boat at all worthy of the name of a river steamer upon it, and this steamer lies up during the night. a new company is, i am informed, now being organised, and there is no reason why, if the new vessels are properly equipped and furnished with electric lights, which may now be cheaply provided, they should not keep up a night and day service, so that the settlers at prince albert, edmonton, and elsewhere, may not have, during another season, to suffer great privations incident to the wants of transportation which has loaded the banks of grand rapids during the present year with freight, awaiting steam transport the great cretaceous coal seams at the headwaters of the rivers which rise in the rocky mountains or in their neighbourhood and flow towards your doors, should not be forgotten. although you have some coal in districts nearer to you, we should remember that on the headwaters of these streams there is plenty of the most excellent kind which can be floated down to you before you have a complete railway system. want of time as well as a wish to see the less vaunted parts of the country took me southwestward from battleford, over land which in many of the maps is variously marked as consisting of arid plains or as a continuation of the "american desert." the newer maps, especially those containing the explorations of professor macoun, have corrected this wholly erroneous idea. for two days' march--that is to say, for about or miles south of battleford--we passed over land whose excellence could not be surpassed for agricultural purposes. thence to the neighbourhood of the red deer valley the soil is lighter, but still in my opinion in most places good for grain--in any case most admirable for summer pasturage,--and it will certainly be good also for stock in winter as soon as it shall pay to have some hay stored in the valleys. the whole of it has been the favourite feeding ground of the buffalo. their tracks from watering place to watering place, never too far apart from each other, were everywhere to be seen, while in very many tracks their dung lay so thickly that the appearance of the ground was only comparable to that of an english farmyard. let us hope that the _entre-acte_ will not be long before the disappearance of the buffalo on these scenes is followed by the appearance of domestic herds. the red deer valley is especially remarkable as traversing a country where, according to the testimony of indian chiefs travelling with us, snow never lies for more than three months, and the heavy growth of poplar in the bottoms, the quantity of the "bull" or high cranberry bushes, and the rich branches that hung from the choke-cherries showed us that we had come into that part of the dominion which among the plainsmen is designated as "god's country." from this, onward to the bow river and thence to the frontier line, the trail led through what will be one of the most valued of our provinces, subject to those warm winds called the "chinooks." the settler will hardly ever use anything but wheeled vehicles during winter, and throughout a great portion of the land early sowing--or fall sowing-will be all that will be necessary to ensure him against early frosts. at calgarry--a place interesting at the present time as likely to be upon that pacific railway line [ ] which will connect you with the pacific, and give you access to "that vast shore beyond the furthest sea," the shore of asia--a good many small herds of cattle have been introduced within the last few years. during this year a magnificent herd of between six and seven thousand has been brought in, and the men who attended them and who came from montana, oregon and texas, all averred that their opinion of their new ranche was higher than that of any with which they had been acquainted in the south. excellent crops have been raised by men who had sown not only in the river bottoms, but also upon the so-called "bench" lands or plateaux above. this testimony was also given by others on the way to fort macleod and beyond it, thus closing most satisfactorily the song of praise we had heard from practical men throughout our whole journey of miles. let me advert for one moment to some of the causes which have enabled settlers to enjoy in such peace the fruits of their industry. chief amongst these must be reckoned the policy of kindness and justice which was inaugurated by the hudson's bay company in their treatment of the indians. theirs is one of the cases in which a trader's association has upheld the maxim that "honesty is the best policy," even when you are dealing with savages. the wisdom and righteousness of their dealing on enlightened principles, which are fully followed out by their servants to-day, gave the cue to the canadian government. the dominion through her indian officers and her mounted constabulary is showing herself the inheritress of these traditions. she has been fortunate in organising the mounted police force, a corps of whose services it would be impossible to speak too highly. a mere handful in that vast wilderness, they have at all times shown themselves ready to go anywhere and do anything. they have often had to act on occasions demanding the combined individual pluck and prudence rarely to be found amongst any soldiery, and there has not been a single occasion on which any member of the force has lost his temper under trying circumstances, or has not fulfilled his mission as a guardian of the peace. severe journeys in winter and difficult arrests have had to be effected in the centre of savage tribes, and not once has the moral prestige which was in reality their only weapon, been found insufficient to cope with difficulties which, in america, have often baffled the efforts of whole columns of armed men. i am glad of this opportunity to name these men as well worthy of canada's regard-as sons who have well maintained her name and fame. and now that you have had the patience to listen to me, and we have crossed the continent together, let me advise you as soon as possible to get up a branch club-house, situated amongst our rocky mountains, where, during summer, your members may form themselves into an alpine club and thoroughly enjoy the beautiful peaks and passes of our alps. in the railway you will have a beautiful approach to the pacific, the line, after traversing for days the plains, will come upon the rivers whose sheltering valleys have all much the same character. the river-beds are like great moats in a modern fortress-you do not see them till close upon them. as in the glacis and rampart of a fortress, the shot can search across the smoothed surfaces above the ditch, so any winds that may arise may sweep across the twin levels above the river fosses. the streams run coursing along the sunken levels in these vast ditches, which are sometimes miles in width. sheltered by the undulating banks, knolls, or cliffs, which form the margin of their excavated bounds, are woods, generally of poplar, except in the northern and western fir fringe. on approaching the mountains their snow caps look like huge tents encamped along the rolling prairie. up to this great camp, of which a length of miles is sometimes visible, the rivers wind in trenches, looking like the covered ways by which siege works zig-zag up to a besieged city. on a nearer view the camp line changes to ruined marble palaces, and through their tremendous walls and giant woods you will soon be dashing on the train for a winter basking on the warm pacific coast. you have a country whose value it would be insanity to question, and which, to judge from the emigration taking place from the older provinces, will be indissolubly linked with them. it must support a vast population. if we may calculate from the progress we have already made in comparison with our neighbours, we shall have no reason to fear comparison with them on the new areas now open to us. we have now four million four hundred thousand people, and these, with the exception of the comparatively small numbers as yet in this province, are restricted to the old area. yet for the last ten years our increase has been over per cent, whereas during the same period all the new england states taken together have shown an increase only of per cent. in the last thirty years in ohio the increase has been per cent.--ontario has seen during that space of time per cent of increase, while quebec has increased per cent. manitoba in ten years has increased per cent, a greater rate than any hitherto attained, and to judge from this year's experience is likely to increase to an even more wonderful degree during the following decade. statistics are at all times wearisome, but are not these full of hope? are they not facts giving just ground for that pride in our progress which is conspicuous among our people, and ample reason for our belief that the future may be allowed to take care of itself. they who pour out prophecies of change, prescribing medicines for a sound body, are wasting their gifts and their time. it is among strangers that we hear such theories propounded by destiny men. with you the word "annexation" has in the last years only been heard in connection with the annexation of more territory to manitoba. i must apologise to a canadian audience for mentioning the word at all in any other connection. in america the annexation of this country is disavowed by all responsible leaders. as it was well expressed to me lately, the best men in the states desire only to annex the friendship and good will of canada. (loud cheers.) to be sure it may be otherwise with the camp followers; they often talk as if the swallowing and digestion of canada by them were only a question of time, and of rising reason amongst us. how far the power of the camp followers extends it is not for us to determine. they have, however, shown that they are powerful enough to capture a few english writers, our modern minor prophets who, in little magazine articles, are fond of teaching the nations how to behave, whose words preach the superiority of other countries to their own, and the proximate dismemberment of that british empire which has the honour to acknowledge them as citizens. they have with our american friends of whom i speak at all events one virtue in common, they are great speculators. in the case of our southern friends this is not a matter to be deplored by us, for american speculation has been of direct material benefit to canada, and we must regret that our american citizens are not coming over to us so fast as are the scotch, the irish, the germans, and the scandinavians. morally, also, it is not to be deplored that such speculations are made, for they show that it is thought that canadians would form a useful though an unimportant wing for one of the great parties; and, moreover, such prophecies clothe with amusement "the dry bones" of discussion. but it is best always to take men as we find them, and not to believe that they will be different even if a kindly feeling, first for ourselves and afterwards for them, should make us desire to change them. let us rather judge from the past and from the present than take flights, unguided by experience, into the imaginary regions of the future. what do we find has been, and is, the tendency of the peoples of this continent? does not history show, and do not modern and existing tendencies declare, that the lines of cleavage among them lie along the lines of latitude? men spread from east to west, and from east to west the political lines, which mean the lines of diversity, extend. the central spaces are, and will be yet more, the great centres of population. can it be imagined that the vast central hives of men will allow the eastern or western seaboard people to come between them with separate empire, and shut them out in any degree from full and free intercourse with the markets of the world beyond them? along the lines of longitude no such tendencies of division exist. the markets of the north pole are not as yet productive, and with south america commerce is comparatively small. the safest conclusion, if conclusions are to be drawn at all, is that what has hitherto been, will, in the nature of things, continue,--that whatever separations exist will be marked by zones of latitude. for other evidence we must search in vain. our county councils, the municipal corporations, the local provincial chambers, the central dominion parliament, and last not least, a perfectly unfettered press, are all free channels for the expression of the feelings of our citizens. why is it that in each and all of these reflectors of the thoughts of men, we see nothing but determination to keep and develop the precious heritage we have in our own constitution, so capable of any development which the people may desire. (cheers.) let us hear canadians if we wish to speak for them. these public bodies and the public press are the mouthpieces of the people's mind. let us not say for them what they never say for themselves. it is no intentional misrepresentation, i believe, which has produced these curious examples of the fact that individual prepossessions may distort public proof. it reminds me of an interpretation once said to have been given by a bad interpreter of a speech delivered by a savage warrior, who, in a very dignified and extremely lengthy discourse, expressed the contentment of his tribe with the order and with the good which had been introduced amongst them by the law of the white man. his speech was long enough fully to impress with its meaning and its truth all who took pains to listen to him, and who could understand his language, but the interpreter had unfortunately different ideas of his own, and was displeased with his own individual treatment. when at last he was asked what the chief and his council had said in their eloquent orations, he turned round and only exclaimed,--"he dam displeased!" (great laughter.) and what did his councillors say? "they dam displeased!" (roars of laughter.) no, gentlemen, let each man in public or literary life in both nations do all that in him lies to cement their friendship, so essential for their mutual welfare. but this cannot be cemented by the publication of vain vaticinations. this great part of our great empire has a natural and warm feeling for our republican brethren, whose fathers parted from us a century ago in anger and bloodshed. may this natural affection never die. it is like the love which is borne by a younger brother to an elder, so long as the big brother behaves handsomely and kindly. i may possibly know something of the nature of such affection, for as the eldest of a round dozen, i have had experience of the fraternal relation as exhibited by an unusual number of younger brothers. never have i known that fraternal tie to fail, but even its strength has its natural limit, so canada's affection may be measured. none of my younger brothers, however fond of me, would voluntarily ask that his prospects should be altogether overshadowed and swallowed up by mine. so canada, if i may express her feelings in words which our neighbours understand, wishes to be their friend, but does not desire to become their food. she rejoices in the big brother's strength and status, but is not anxious to nourish it by offering up her own body in order that it may afford him, when over-hungry, that happy festival he is in the habit of calling a "square meal." (loud laughter.) i must ask you now once more to allow me, gentlemen, to express my acknowledgments to you for this entertainment. it affords another indication of the feelings with which the citizens of winnipeg regard any person who has the honour, as the head of the canadian government, to represent the queen--(cheers)--you recognise in the governor-general the sign and symbol of the union which binds together in one the free and kindred peoples whom god has set over famous isles and over fertile spaces of mighty continents. i have touched, in speaking to you, on certain vaticinations and certain advice given by a few good strangers to canadians on the subject of the future of canada. gentlemen, i believe that canadians are well able to take care themselves of their future, and the outside world had better listen to them instead of promulgating weak and wild theories of its own. (loud applause.) but however uncertain, and i may add, foolish may be such forecasts, of one thing we may be sure, which is this, that the country you call canada, and which your sons and your children's children will be proud to know by that name, is a land which will be a land of power among the nations. (cheers.) mistress of a zone of territory favourable for the maintenance of a numerous and homogeneous white population, canada must, to judge from the increase in her strength during the past, and from the many and vast opportunities for the growth of that strength on her new provinces in the future, be great and worthy her position on the earth. affording the best and safest highway between asia and europe, she will see traffic from both directed to her coasts. with a hand upon either ocean she will gather from each for the benefit of her hardy millions a large share of the commerce of the world. to the east and to the west she will pour forth of her abundance, her treasures of food and the riches of her mines and of her forests, demanded of her by the less fortunate of mankind. i esteem those men favoured indeed, who, in however slight a degree, have had the honour, or may be yet called upon to take part in the councils of the statesmen who, in this early era of her history, are moulding this nation's laws in the forms approved by its representatives. for me, i feel that i can be ambitious of no higher title than to be known as one who administered its government in thorough sympathy with the hopes and aspirations of its first founders, and in perfect consonance with the will of its free parliament. (cheers.) i ask for no better lot than to be remembered by its people as rejoicing in the gladness born of their independence and of their loyalty. i desire no other reputation than that which may belong to him who sees his own dearest wishes in process of fulfilment, in their certain progress, in their undisturbed peace, and in their ripening grandeur. (cheers.) [ ] masons wages had risen to an extraordinary height in the autumn of . excellent pay can now be obtained by bricklayers, carpenters, and blacksmiths. [ ] the canadian pacific railway has now been completed to a valley in the rocky mountains beyond calgarry, through which place it passes. a monsieur le président et messieurs les membres de l'association de st. jean baptiste de manitoba. messieurs,--j'ai l'honneur de vous remercier au nom de sa majesté des sentiments de loyauté que vous venez d'exprimer. c'est pour moi un plaisir d'entendre exprimer des sentiments de dévouement au trône, de quelque race qu'ils proviennent, soit de la bouche de canadiens-frangais, d'anglais, d'ecossais, de canadiens-irlandais ou de canadiens d'origine quelconque. les gloires de chaque race aujourd'hui représentée au manitoba se confondent dans la gloire commune de la nation canadienne. que chacune d'elles conserve précieusement ses associations historiques! elles sont en effet autant de motifs d'encouragement à travailler à augmenter la force et la valeur de la nation entière, une et indivisible. a l'avenir, votre rivalité ne consistera que dans la sainte rivalité de votre dévouement à dieu et au grand pays qu'il vous a octroyé dans notre puissance du canada. c'est à un canadien-français que revient la gloire d'avoir le premier exploré notre pays. qu'il revienne aux descendants de cette race de cimenter leur union avec nos diverses races, et de leur donner ainsi de la force. un canadien-francais me disait tout dernièrement à québec: "ma famille a souvent versé de son sang en combattant les anglais." je lui répondis: "oui, monsieur, et ma propre famille en a versé encore bien plus en les combattant, car nous les avons combattus pendant plus de trois siècles." l'histoire de vos ancêtres est aussi glorieuse que celle de l'ecosse ou de l'angleterre. l'accueil que vous me faites comme chef du gouvernement fédéral et comme représentant sa majesté la reine, me convainc que le jour de la st. jean baptiste est célèbré par vous comme le sont les fêtes de st. georges, st. andré et st. patrice. ce sera une fête qui célébrera en même temps les traditions de la race, de la foi, et l'inconquérable résolution d'affermir notre population dans une fraternité chrétienne et une nationalité animée de sentiments chrétiens. in reply to the archbishop of st. boniface, winnipeg. monseigneur et messieurs,--j'ai l'honneur d'accuser réception de votre gracieuse adresse, renouvelant l'expression de vos sentiments de loyauté envers la couronne, et de vous assurer que j'en apprécie la sincérité du fond de mon coeur. son éloquence exprime, en termes qui prennent leur source dans le coeur, le devoir qui a été enseigné et pratiqué parmi vous, par des prédicateurs éloquents et des missionnaires héroïques. vos paroles remarquables seront transmises à la reine. tout récemment encore, sa majesté me faisait part du plaisir qu'elle avait ressenti, en prenant connaissance des paroles prononcées par des hommes distingués de la province de québec, lors de l'érection du monument à la mémoire du colonel de salaberry. ce monument, digne de l'art canadien, a été érigé en l'honneur d'un des enfants les plus illustres du canada. doué d'une force physique qui aurait fait envi aux preux paladins de roncevaux, le colonel de salaberry mit toute son énergie et sa force au service de son pays, et contribua à repousser l'ennemi qui menaçait l'intégrité de l'empire britannique en attaquant le canada. permettez-moi de vous remercier aussi de tout mon coeur de ce que vous avez dit à l'égard de la princesse, qui espère être de retour au canada à la fin d'octobre. j'aurais voulu qu'elle eût pu prendre part à la réception qui m'est faite à st. boniface. non seulement cette réception me cause une vive satisfaction, mais elle m'inspire le plus grand intérêt. st. boniface est le berceau de ce canada plus grand que l'ancien. sous les auspices de l'eglise, les canadiens-français sont venus ici et ont fondé une communauté heureuse et prospère. leurs compatriotes des provinces de l'est peuvent être certains que, sous les mêmes auspices, leurs enfants trouveront ici les mêmes bienfaits de l'éducation qui les guidera dans la vie. de nombreux canadiens quittent la province de québec pour se diriger vers le sud; ils abandonnent la vie saine des champs, et le bonheur de vivre avec leurs compatriotes pour la vie malsaine des manufactures sur la terre étrangère. un certain nombre d'entre eux songent à rentrer au pays après des années d'absence, mais il leur serait incomparablement plus avantageux, à tous, de se diriger, de suite, vers les plaines du nord-ouest canadien, où la fertilité du sol leur assurerait un avenir facile. j'ai rencontré sur la ligne du chemin de fer, près du portage du rat, plusieurs de vos compatriotes qui sont occupés à l'achèvement de cette grande et importante oeuvre nationale. tous m'ont donné à entendre qu'ils avaient écrit à leurs amis, pour leur conseiller de venir s'établir à manitoba. ils ajoutaient que, quant à eux-mêmes, leur unique but était de se procurer des terrains dans cette nouvelle et fertile province. je remercie votre grandeur et vous messieurs du clergé de st. boniface, de l'accueil si bienveillant que vous me faites; je me compte, volontiers, au premier rang de ceux qui se plaisent à reconnaître le prix du précieux élément fourni à notre population par la race gauloise. an address having been presented by the board of management of the manitoba college, the following was his excellency's reply: to the members of the board of management of the manitoba college:-- gentlemen,--let me thank you for your welcome. the wise experiment made in your confederation of colleges has been watched by all who take an interest in education. it has made manitoba as famous among men of thought as its wheat and other produce have rendered it well known among men interested in agriculture. your example will probably be followed in the older provinces, for where universities are not generally supported by the various denominations, and these separate themselves too definitely, it is difficult to secure that large number of students, which it is necessary to have, if a university is to attract the best men. it was at a college in ontario such as this that i first saw in practice that wise toleration and determination to unite for the common good which has guided you. i saw there the clergy of all denominations uniting in prayer, at a ceremony such as the present, celebrating the erection of new buildings for a college, free to all, but under presbyterian direction. the same enlightened feeling has prevailed in the west, where, having a free course, you have instituted a university to which all colleges are affiliated. where states are ancient and the habits of men settled deep in old grooves, the efforts made by an individual and the movement of thought, may have but little apparent effect. hearts may be broken over seemingly useless work, for the ways of the people are formed and custom precludes change. here in a new land, with a people spreading everywhere over the country whose value has only so lately been realised, you enjoy the more fortunate lot of being able to trace for the communities the outlines of their future life. it is this which makes these first steps of such incalculable importance. each touch you give will give shape and form and make a lasting impression, and your hands labour at no hard and inductile mass. it is a real satisfaction to me that i am able to be present at a meeting which marks a fresh advance in the status of a college organised in connection with the university of manitoba, and i thank you for the invitation you have given me. not even the constant exhibition of huge roots, tall heads of wheat, and gigantic potatoes and monster onions at the fairs in the eastern provinces can do more to make manitoba a temptation to settlers, than the proof you afford that their children shall be thoroughly educated by men belonging to the churches of which they are members, and in sympathy with their desires and hopes. where civil government is so perfect, where religious instruction and toleration are so well taught, and where education is prized even above the wonderful material prosperity guaranteed by the rich plains around you, men may be certain that they can choose no fairer land for themselves and for their children. before leaving fort shaw, montana, september , the members of the mounted police, who had accompanied the party for seven weeks, were paraded under command of major crozier, at his excellency's request, who in bidding them farewell said:-- officers, non commissioned officers and men,--our long march is over, and truly sorry we feel that it is so. i am glad that its last scene is to take place in this american fort where we have been so courteously and hospitably received. that good fellowship which exists between soldiers is always to the fullest extent shown between you and our kind friends. this perfect understanding is to be expected, for both our empires, unlike some others, send out to their distant frontier posts not their worst, but some of their very best men. i have asked for this parade this morning to take leave of you, and to express my entire satisfaction at the manner in which your duties have been performed. you have been subject to some searching criticism, for on my staff are officers who have served in the cavalry, artillery, and infantry. their unanimous verdict is to the effect that they have never seen work better, more willingly, or more smartly done while under circumstances of some difficulty caused by bad weather or otherwise. your appearance on parade was always as clean and bright and, soldier-like as possible. your force is often spoken of in canada as one of which canada is justly proud. it is well that this pride is so fully justified, for your duties are most important and varied. you must always act as guardians of the peace. there may be occasions also in which you may have to act as soldiers, and sometimes in dealing with our indian fellow-subjects you may have to show the mingled prudence, kindness, and firmness which constitute a diplomat. you have, with a force at present only [ ] strong, to keep order in a country whose fertile, wheat-growing area is reckoned about million of acres. the perfect confidence in the maintenance of the authority of the law prevailing over these vast territories, a confidence most necessary with the settlement now proceeding, show how thoroughly you have done your work. it will be with the greatest pleasure that i shall convey to the prime minister my appreciation of your services, and the satisfaction we have all had in having you with us as our escort and companions throughout the journey. [ ] the number of the north west mounted police was raised in to men. a society was founded by lord lorne, in , for the encouragement of science and literature. divided into sections, it was designed to furnish to canada what the french academy and the british association give to great britain. at its first meeting, which took place in the senate chamber, he opened the proceedings with these remarks:-- gentlemen,--these few words i do not address to you, presuming to call myself one of your brotherhood, either in science or literature, but i speak to you as one whose accidental official position may enable him to serve you, persuaded as i am that the furtherance of your interests is for the benefit and honour of canada. let me briefly state the object aimed at in the institution of this society. whether it be possible that our hopes be fulfilled according to our expectation the near future will show. but from the success which has attended similar associations in other lands possessed of less spirit, energy, and opportunity than our own, there is no reason to augur ill of the attempt to have here a body of men whose achievements may entitle them to recognise and encourage the appearance of merit in literature, and to lead in science and the useful application of its discoveries. it is proposed, then, that this society shall consist of a certain number of members who have made their mark by their writings, whether these be of imagination or the study of nature. in one division our fellow-countrymen, descended from the stock of old france, will discuss with that grace of diction and appreciation of talent, which is so conspicuous amongst them, all that may affect their literature and the maintenance of the purity of that grand language from which the english is largely derived. they well know how to pay compliments to rising authors, and how with tact and courtesy to crown the aspirants to the honours they will bestow. among englishmen of letters the grant of such formal marks of recognition by their brethren has not as yet become popular or usual, and it may be that it never will become a custom. on the other hand, it surely will be a pleasure to a young author, if, after a perusal of his thoughts, they who are his co-workers and successful precursors in the wide domain of poetry, fiction, or of history, should see fit to award him an expression of thanks for his contribution to the intellectual delight or to the knowledge of his time. they only, whose labours have met with the best reward--the praise of their contemporaries--can take the initiative in such a welcome to younger men, and whatever number may hereafter be elected to this society, it is to be desired that no man be upon its lists who has not by some original and complete work justified his selection. the meeting together of our eminent men will contribute to unite on a common ground those best able to express the thoughts and illustrate the history of the time. it will serve to strengthen emulation among us, for the discussion of progress made in other lands, will breed the desire to push the intellectual development of our own. we may hope that this union will promote the completion of the national collections which, already fairly representative in geology, may hereafter include archives, paintings, and objects illustrating ethnology and all branches of natural history. in science we have men whose names are widely known, and the vast field for study and exploration afforded by this magnificent country may be expected to reward, by valuable discoveries, the labours of the geologist and mineralogist. it would be out of place in these few sentences to detail the lines of research which have already engaged your attention. they will be spoken of in the record of your proceedings. among those, the utility of which must be apparent to all, one may be particularly mentioned. i refer to the meteorological observations, from which have been derived the storm warnings which during the last few years have saved many lives. a comparatively new science has thus been productive of results known to all our population and especially to seamen. here i have only touched upon one or two subjects in the wide range of study which will occupy the time and thoughts of one half of your membership, devoted as two of your four sections will be to geological and biological sciences. it will be your province to aid and encourage the workers in their acquisition of knowledge of that nature, each of whose secrets may become the prize of him who shall make one of her mysteries the special subject of thought. america already bids fair to rival france and germany in the number of her experts. canada may certainly have her share in producing those men whose achievements in science have more than equalled in fame the triumphs of statesmen. these last labour only for one country, while the benefits of the discoveries of science are shared by the world. but widely different as are the qualities which develop patriotism and promote science, yet i would call to the aid of our young association the love of country, and ask canadians to support and gradually to make as perfect as possible this their national society. imperfections there must necessarily be at first in its constitution--omissions in membership and organisation there may be. such faults may hereafter be avoided. our countrymen will recognise that in a body of gentlemen drawn from all our provinces and conspicuous for their ability, there will be a centre around which to rally. they will see that the welfare and strength of growth of this association shall be impeded by no small jealousies, no carping spirit of detraction, but shall be nourished by a noble motive common to the citizens of the republic of letters and to the student of the free world of nature, namely: the desire to prove that their land is not insensible to the glory which springs from numbering among its sons those whose success becomes the heritage of mankind. i shall not now further occupy your time, which will be more worthily used in listening to the addresses of the presidents and of those gentlemen who for this year have consented to take the chair at the meetings of the several sections. at san francisco, in , the following reply was given to the british residents:-- gentlemen,--our heartfelt thanks are due to you for the welcome given to us, a welcome whose expression is embodied in this beautifully decorated address. it echoes the loyal sentiments which remain predominant among those, who, wherever their business may cause them to reside, remember that they have been born under our british freedom. we shall gladly keep our gift in recollection of a visit to one of america's foremost cities, where the kindly feelings of our cousins have been shown in the generous hospitality which they are ever ready to extend to the stranger. with you whose interests are bound up with the greatness of california, and with the gigantic trade of the united states, we can cordially sympathise. connected as we are for a time with the fortunes of the sister land of canada, we know how much the welfare of the one country is affected by the good of the other; how the evil that falls on one must affect the other also. our blood makes us brothers, and our interests make us partners. our governments are engaged in the same task, and from experience there is no reason to think otherwise than that they will be allowed to work in that perfect harmony which is essential for their peace and for the peace of the world. they are arching the continent with two zones of civilisation; with light, not of one colour, but equally replacing the former darkness, and the harmony between them is as natural as is the relation in the rainbow of the separate hues of red and azure. your presence here shows how our commerce is interwoven. in crossing the continent and marvelling at the wealth and power shown by every city of this mighty people, it is a pride to think how much of all they have is theirs by virtue of british and irish blood; and when here and at new york, we reach the ports supplying this vast population, we find in the flags borne by the shipping, proof that it is still the old country that in the main ministers to and is benefited by the progress of her children. at victoria, in british columbia, in , at a public dinner in his honour, the governor-general said:-- mr. mayor and council,--it is, i assure you, with more than common feelings of gratitude that i rise to ask you to accept my acknowledgments and thanks for this evening's entertainment. the reception the princess and i have met with in victoria, and throughout british columbia, will long live in our memory as one of the brightest episodes of a time which has been made delightful to us by the heartfelt loyalty of the people of our canadian provinces. nowhere has the contentment insured by british institutions been more strongly expressed than on these beautiful shores of the pacific. i am rejoiced to observe signs that the days are now passed when we had to look upon this community as one too remote and too sundered from the rest to share to the full the rapid increase of prosperity which has been so remarkable since the union. attracted at first by the capricious temptations of the gold mines, your valleys were inundated by a large population. it was not to be anticipated that this could last, and although population declined with the temporary decrease of mining, it is evident that the period of depression in this, as in every other matter, has been passed. (applause.) i have everywhere seen signs that a more stable, and therefore more satisfactory, emigration has set in. victoria has made of late a decided start. i visited with much pleasure many of the factories which witness to this, and i hope before i leave to have made a still more exhaustive examination of the establishments which are rapidly rising among you. that the wares produced by these are appreciated beyond the limits of the city is very evident throughout the province, where cleanliness is insured by victoria soap, and comfort, or at least contentment and consolation, by kurtz's victoria cigars. (loud laughter and applause.) no words can be too strong to express the charm of this delightful land, where a climate softer and more constant than that of the south of england ensures at all times of the year a full enjoyment of the wonderful loveliness of nature around you. there is no doubt that any canadian who visits this island and the mainland shores and sees the happiness of the people, the forest laden coast, the tranquil gulfs and glorious mountains, can but congratulate himself that his country possesses scenes of such perfect beauty. (applause.) we who have been much touched by the warmth of your welcome will, i am sure, sympathise with the desire which will be felt by every travelled canadian in the future, that every alternate year at least the dominion parliament should meet at new westminster, nanaimo, or in victoria. (laughter and applause.) where men seem to live with such comfort, regret will inevitably arise that you have as yet so few to share your good fortune. though your contribution to the revenue is at least a million dollars, there are only twenty thousand white men over the three hundred and fifty thousand square miles of province. various causes, the most formidable of these being physical, have hitherto contributed to this. the physical difficulties, tremendous as they are, are being rapidly conquered there is no cause why any of a different character should not be surmounted with an equal success. what is wanted to effect this object is only cordial co-operation with the central government. (cheers.) there was perhaps a time when the governor-general would not have been regarded, in his official capacity at all events, with as much favour as i flatter myself may now be the case. (applause.) no wonder that the feeling is changed, now that the circumstances are better understood, for i challenge any one to mention any example in which a government, ruling over a comparatively small population of four and a half millions, has ever done as much as has the canadian government to insure for its furthest provinces the railway communication which is an essential for the development of the resources of the land. (cheering.) mr. francis [ ] will back me, i am certain, when i say that the united states, with a population of fifteen or twenty millions, when california was first settled in , did not push the railway through to the pacific coast in the vigorous manner in which the canadian government is now doing. (loud cheers.) i have full confidence that you will see that policy of enterprise and of justice nobly carried out. early promises, if made too hastily, showed that if there was profound ignorance of the physical geography of your country, there was at all events profound goodwill. later events have proved that in spite of all obstacles "where there is a will there is a way." pride in national feeling has made the country strain every nerve to bind still further with the sentiment of confidence the unity of the confederation. (applause.) where is now the old talk which we used to hear from a few of the faint-hearted of a change in destiny or of annexation? (cheers.) it does not exist. to be sure, here i have heard some vague terror expressed, but it is a terror which i have heard expressed among our friends on the american pacific slope also, and it is to the effect that annexation must soon take place to the celestial empire. (great laughter.) well, gentlemen, i fully sympathise with this fear. none of us like to die before our time, but i will suggest to you, from the healthy signs and vitality i see around me, that your time has not yet come. your object now is to live, and for that purpose to get your enterprises and your railways as part of your assets. (applause.) the rest will follow in time, but at the present moment we must concern ourselves with practical politics. let us look beyond this island and beyond even those difficult mountains, and see what our neighbours and friends to the south of us are about. an army of workmen--exactly double that now employed in this province--are driving with a speed that seems wonderful a railway through to the coast. in another year or two a large traffic, encouraged by the competition in freights between it, the central and the southern pacific will have been acquired. you are, by the very nature of things, heavily handicapped here, and a trade, as you know, once established is not easily rivalled. take care that you are in the market for this competition at as early a day as possible. when you are as rich as california, and have as many public works as queensland, it may be time for you to reconsider your position. there is no reason ultimately to doubt that the population attracted to you as soon as you have a line through the mountains, will be the population which we most desire to have--a people like that of the old imperial islands, drawn from the strongest races of northern europe,--one that with english, american, irish, german, french and scandinavian blood shall be a worthy son of the old mother of nations. (loud applause.) only last week, in seven days, no less than people came to san francisco by the overland route from the east. your case will be the same if with "a strong pull and a pull altogether" you get your public works completed. i have spoken of your being pretty heavily handicapped. in saying this, i refer to the agricultural capabilities of the province alone. of course you have nothing like the available land that the central provinces possess, yet it seems to me you have enough for all the men who are likely to come to you for the next few years as farmers or owners of small ranches. (applause.) the climate of the interior for at least one hundred miles north of the boundary line has a far shorter winter than that of most of alberta or arthabaska. losses of crops from early frosts or of cattle from severe weather are unknown to the settlers of your upper valleys. in these--and i wish there were more of these valleys--all garden produce and small fruits can be cultivated with the greatest success. for men possessing from £ to £ a year, i can conceive no more attractive occupation than the care of cattle or a cereal farm within your borders. (loud applause.) wherever there is open land, the wheat crops rival the best grown elsewhere, while there is nowhere any dearth of ample provision of fuel and lumber for the winter. (renewed applause.) as you get your colonisation roads pushed and the dykes along the fraser river built, you will have a larger available acreage, for there are quiet straths and valleys hidden away among the rich forests which would provide comfortable farms. as in the north-west last year, so this year i have taken down the evidence of settlers, and this has been wonderfully favourable. to say the truth, i was rather hunting for grumblers, and found only one! he was a young man of super-sensitiveness from one of our comfortable ontario cities, and he said he could not bear this country. anxious to come at the truth, and desiring to search to the bottom of things, we pressed him as to the reason. "did he know of any cases of misery? had he found starving settlers?" the reply was re-assuring, for he said, "no; but i don't like it. nobody in this country walks; everybody rides!" (laughter.) you will be happy to hear that he is going back to ontario. let me now allude, in a very few words, to those points which may be mentioned as giving you exceptional advantages. if you are handicapped in the matter of land in comparison with the provinces of the plains, you are certainly not so with regard to climate. (cheering.) agreeable as i think the steady and dry cold of an eastern winter, yet there are very many who would undoubtedly prefer the temperature enjoyed by those who live west of the mountains. even where it is coldest, spring comes in february, and the country is so divided into districts of greater dryness or greater moisture, that a man can always choose whether to have a rainfall small or great. i hope i am not wearying you in dwelling on these points, for my only excuse in making these observations is, that i have learnt that the interior is to many on the island as much a _terra incognita_ as it was to me. i can partly understand this after seeing the beautifully engineered road which was constructed by mr. trutch, for although i am assured it is as safe as a church--(laughter)--i can very well understand that it is pleasanter for many of the ladies to remain in this beautiful island than to admire the grandeur of the scenery in the gorges. as you have adopted protection in your politics, perhaps it would not be presumptuous in me to suggest that you should adopt protection also in regard to your precipices--(great laughter)--and that should the waggon road be continued in use, a few douglas firs might be sacrificed to make even more perfect that excellent road in providing protection at the sides. besides the climate, which is so greatly in your favour, you have another great advantage in the tractability and good conduct of the indian population. (applause.) i believe i have seen the indians of almost every tribe throughout the dominion, and nowhere can you find any who are so trustworthy in regard to conduct--(hear, hear)--so willing to assist the white settlers by their labour, so independent and anxious to learn the secret of the white man's power. (applause.) where elsewhere constant demands are met for assistance; your indians have never asked for any, for in the interviews given to the chiefs their whole desire seemed to be for schools and schoolmasters, and in reply to questions as to whether they would assist themselves in securing such institutions, they invariably replied that they would be glad to pay for them. (loud applause.) it is certainly much to be desired that some of the funds apportioned for indian purposes, be given to provide them fully with schools in which industrial education may form an important item. (hear, hear.) but we must not do injustice to the wilder tribes. their case is totally different from that of your indians. the buffalo was everything to the nomad. it gave him house, fuel, clothes, and thread. the disappearance of this animal left him starving. here, on the contrary, the advent of the white men has never diminished the food supply of the native. he has game in abundance, for the deer are as numerous now as they ever have been. he has more fish than he knows what to do with, and the lessons in farming that you have taught him have given him a source of food supply of which he was previously ignorant. throughout the interior it will probably pay well in the future to have flocks of sheep. the demand for wool and woollen goods will always be very large among the people now crowding in such numbers to those regions which our official world as yet calls the north-west, but which is the north-east and east to you. there is no reason why british columbia should not be for this portion of our territory what california is to the states in the supply afforded of fruits. (hear, hear.) the perfection attained by small fruits is unrivalled, and it is only with the peninsula of ontario that you would have to compete for the supplies of grapes, peaches, pears, apples, cherries, plums, apricots, and currants. every stick in these wonderful forests which so amply and generously clothe the sierras from the cascade range to the distant rocky mountains, will be of value as communication opens up. the great arch of timber lands beginning on the west of lake manitoba, circles round to edmonton and comes down along the mountains so as to include the whole of your province. poplar alone for many years must be the staple wood of the lands to the south of the saskatchewan, and your great opportunity lies in this, that you can give the settlers of the whole of that region as much of the finest timber in the world as they can desire, while cordwood cargoes will compete with the coal of alberta. (loud cheers.) coming down in our survey to the coast we come upon ground familiar to you all, and you all know how large a trade already exists with china and australia in wood, and how capable of almost indefinite expansion is this commerce. your forests are hardly tapped, and there are plenty more logs, like one i saw cut the other day at burrard inlet, of forty inches square and ninety and one hundred feet in length, down to sticks which could be used as props for mines or as cordwood for fuel. the business which has assumed such large proportions along the pacific shore of the canning of salmon, great as it is, is as yet almost in its infancy, for there is many a river swarming with fish from the time of the first run of salmon in spring to the last run of other varieties in the autumn, on which many a cannery is sure to be established. last, but certainly not least in the list of your resources, comes your mineral and chiefly your coal treasure. (applause.) the coal from the nanaimo mines now leads the market at san francisco. nowhere else in these countries is such coal to be found, and it is now being worked with an energy which bids fair to make nanaimo one of the chief mining stations on the continent. it is of incalculable importance not only to this province of the dominion, but also to the interests of the empire, that our fleets and mercantile marine as well as the continental markets should be supplied from this source. (hear, hear, and cheers.) where you have so good a list of resources it may be almost superfluous to add another, but i would strongly advise you to cultivate the attractions held out to the travelling public by the magnificence of your scenery. (cheers.) let this country become what switzerland is for europe in the matter of good roads to places which may be famed for their beauty, and let good and clean hotels attract the tourist to visit your grand valleys and marvellous mountain ranges. choose some district, and there are many from which you can choose, where trout and salmon abound, and where sport may be found among the deer and with the wild fowl. select some portion of your territory where pines and firs shroud in their greatest richness the giant slopes, and swarm upwards to glacier, snow field, and craggy peak, and where in the autumn the maples seem as though they wished to mimic in hanging gardens the glowing tints of the lava that must have streamed down the precipices of these old volcanoes. (loud cheering.) wherever you find these beauties in greatest perfection, and where the river torrents urge their currents most impetuously through the alpine gorges, there i would counsel you to set apart a region which shall be kept as a national park. in doing so you can follow the example of our southern friends,--an example which, i am sure mr. francis will agree with me, we cannot do better than imitate, and you would secure that they who make the round trip from new york or montreal shall return from san francisco, or come thence _via_ the canadian pacific railroad. (loud and continued applause.) i thought it might interest you, gentlemen, this evening to hear the last news regarding that railway, and therefore i should like to read to you a letter received only a day or two ago from the engineer in chief, major rogers. you will see he speaks hopefully and assuringly: "i have found the desired pass through the selkirks, it lying about twenty miles east of the forks of the ille-cille-want and about two miles north of the main east branch of the same. its elevation above sea level is about feet, or about feet lower than the pass across the rockies. the formation of the country, from the summits of the selkirks to the columbia river, has been much misrepresented. instead of the solid mass of mountain, as reported, there are two large valleys lying within these limits. the beaver river, which empties into the columbia river about twenty miles below the black-berry (or howse pass route), rises south of the fifty-first parallel (i have not seen its source, but have seen its valley for that distance), and the spellamacheen runs nearly parallel with the beaver but in an opposite direction, and lies between the beaver and the columbia. i have great hope of being able to take with me this fall the results of a preliminary survey of this route. it necessarily involves heavy work, as must any short line across the mountains, a condition which will be readily accepted in consideration of the material shortening of the route." this is the last news, and i hope we shall hear of its full corroboration before long. i beg, gentlemen, to thank you once more for your exceeding kindness, and for all the kindness shown us since our arrival. i have always been a firm friend of british columbia, and i hope before i leave the country to see still greater progress made towards meeting your wishes. [ ] the united states consul. at a meeting of the national rifle association, held at ottawa, th march , his excellency, spoke as follows:-- i believe all who value those qualities which lead to good rifle-shooting--steadiness and sobriety--and this means every family in the country, the father and mother, as well as the young men belonging to it, should give their ten cents or twenty-five cents, as they can afford it, to swell the funds of the association. as this association thus encourages personal, as well as a military training, it merits the support of all classes. we know that the amount of personal training that is required produces a love of temperance among those who attend the meetings of the association, and we know that by the military training given, a military sentiment is developed, which makes men at least not averse to discipline in moderation. it has been said by my predecessor, and i agree with the remark, that canada is certainly the most democratic country upon the north american continent, but we know that although everybody may have been born equal, yet that equality suddenly and mysteriously disappears as soon as the schoolboy goes upon the school bench, or the rifleman goes upon the rifle ground. the militiamen of canada show that a democratic people do not tolerate unearned superiority, but recognise the superiority given by training. i cannot let this opportunity pass without saying a last word as to the point of view from which i regard the importance of militia training in canada. it is more perhaps from the point of view of an imperial officer than from that of a man temporarily holding a canadian civil appointment. there is a certain amount of feeling in this country that our whole militia force is a mere matter of fuss and feathers, of "playing at soldiers" in fact. i think that is always a most unfortunate feeling, because i cannot say how anxiously in the old country those steps are watched by which canadians perfect themselves for purposes of self-defence. englishmen know that in case of any trouble arising, which i hope not to see, and do not believe we shall see, they are bound and pledged to come to your assistance. the question must necessarily be asked, with what army are they to operate? with one that will be of real assistance, or with one that will have no more cohesion than that which fell under the organised blows of the prussian army before orleans? i can always point to the efforts made in canada before my time to have an organised system of military training. i can point to the grants given by the government for the encouragement of individual and regimental proficiency in rifle shooting. i can point also to the military schools for the militia which are being founded, and to the steps which are to be taken that officers shall always have some training received from those schools before they undertake the responsibility of leading their fellow-citizens in the ranks. i can point also to that splendid institution, the military college at kingston, and i can certainly say to the old country people, that should any misfortune arise that should compel us to operate together, they will in time find in canada officers who will be perfectly able and ready to lead men, who from their physical powers and from their military sentiments and from their hardihood are likely, under proper training and guidance, to form some of the best troops in the world. (loud cheers.) at the second meeting of the royal society, at ottawa, may , the governor-general said:-- mr. president, mr. vice-president, and members of the royal society of canada,--when we met last year, and formally inaugurated a society for the encouragement of literature and science in canada, an experiment was tried. as with all experiments, its possible success was questioned by some who feared that the elements necessary for such an organisation were lacking. our meeting of this year assumes a character which an inaugural assembly could not possess. the position we took in asserting that the time had come for the institution of such a union of the scientific and literary men of this country has been established as good, not only by the honourable name accorded to us by her majesty, a designation never lightly granted, but also by that without which we could not stand, namely, the public favour extended to our efforts. parliament has recognised the earnest purpose and happy co-operation with which you have met and worked in unison, knowing that the talents exhibited are not those of gold and silver only, and has stamped with its approbation your designs by voting a sum of money, which in part will defray the expense of printing your transactions. and here, in speaking of this as a business meeting, i would venture to remind you, and all friends of this society throughout the country, that the $ annually voted by the house of commons will go but a very short way in preparing a publication which shall fully represent canada to the foreign scientific bodies of the world. we have only to look to the federal and state legislatures of america to see what vast sums are annually expended in the states for scientific research. we see there also how the proceeds of noble endowments are annually utilised for the free dissemination of knowledge. it is, therefore, not to be supposed that the comparatively small parallel assistance provided by any government can absolve wealthy individuals from the patriotic duty of bequeathing or of giving to such a national society the funds, without which it cannot usefully exist. you will forgive me, as one who may be supposed to have a certain amount of the traditional economical prudence of his countrymen, for mentioning one other matter on which, at all events, in the meantime, a saving can be effected. while it is necessary to have accurate and finely executed engravings of beautiful drawings for the illustration of scientific papers, it is necessary that the printing of the transactions should occasion as little cost as possible; and i believe you will find it advisable for the present that each paper shall be printed only in that language in which its author has communicated it to the society. your position is rather a peculiar one, for although you work for the benefit of the public, it is not to be expected that the public can understand all you say when your speech is of science in consultation with each other. the public will therefore, i trust, be in the position of those who are willing to pay their physicians when they meet in consultation, without insisting that every word the doctors say to each other shall be repeated in the hearing of all men. when funds increase, it seems to me that the economy it will probably now be necessary to exercise in regard to this may be discarded. in the sections dealing with literature it is proposed to establish a reading committee, whose duty it shall be to report on the publications of the year, that our thanks may be given to the authors who advance the cause of literature among us. to assist in that most necessary enterprise, the formation of a national museum, circulars have been addressed by the society to men likely to have opportunities for the collection of objects of interest, and the hudson bay company's officers have been foremost in promoting our wishes. the government is now prepared to house all objects sent to the secretary of the royal society at ottawa, and contributions for collections of archives, of antiquities, of zoology, and of all things of interest are requested. i rejoice, gentlemen, that i have been able to be with you now; that a year has elapsed since our incorporation, as this period allows us in some measure to judge of our future prospects. these are most encouraging, and the only possible difficulty that i can see ahead of you is this: that men may be apt to take exception to your membership because it is not geographically representative. i would earnestly counsel you to hold to your course in this matter. a scientific and literary society must remain one representing individual eminence, and that individual eminence must be recognised if, as it may happen accidentally, personal distinction in authorship may at any particular moment be the happy possession of only one part of the country. a complete work, and one recognised for its merit, should remain the essential qualification for election to the literary sections, and the same test should be applied as far as possible to the scientific branches. if men be elected simply because they came from such and such a college, or if they be elected simply because they came from the east, from the west, from the north, or from the south, you will get a heterogeneous body together quite unworthy to be compared with the foreign societies on whose intellectual level canada, as represented by her scientific men and authors, must in the future endeavour to stand. one word more on the kindly recognition already given to you. in america, in france, and in britain, the birth of the new institution has been hailed with joy, and our distinguished president is at this moment also a nominated delegate of britain. an illness we deplore has alone prevented the presence of an illustrious member of the academy of france, and the french government, with an enlightened generosity which does it honour, had expressed its wish to defray the expenses of the most welcome of ambassadors. we have the satisfaction of cordially greeting an eminent representative of the united states, and i express the desire which is shared by all in this hall, that our meeting may never want the presence of delegates of the great people who are dear as they are near to us. it is, gentlemen, greatly owing to your organisation that the british association for the advancement of science will next year meet at montreal, following in this a precedent happily established by the visit last year of the american association. these meetings at montreal are not without their significance. they show that it is not only among statesmen and politicians abroad that canada is valued and respected; but that throughout all classes, and wherever intellect, culture, and scientific attainment are revered, her position is acknowledged, and her aspiration to take her place among the nations is seen and welcomed. i am sure that your british brethren have chosen wisely in selecting montreal, for i know the hearty greeting which awaits them from its hospitable citizens. the facilities placed at the disposal of our british guests will enable them to visit a large portion of our immense territory, where in every part new and interesting matters will arrest their attention, and give delight to men who, in many cases, have but lately realised our resources. their words, biassed by no interests other than the desire for knowledge, and founded on personal observation, will find no contradiction when they assert that in the lifetime of the babes now born, the vast fertile regions of canada will be the home of a people more numerous than that which at the present time inhabits the united kingdom. i must not now further occupy your time, but would once more ask you to accept my heartfelt thanks for the determination shown by all to make the royal society a worthy embodiment of the literary activity and the scientific labour of our widely-scattered countrymen throughout this great land. the governor-general's reply to addresses from the royal academy and the ontario society of artists, toronto, june :-- mr. o'brien, mr. allan, and ladies and gentlemen,--i beg to thank you most cordially for the most kind and courteous addresses which you have been so good as to present to us. we shall keep them as mementos of the part we have been able to take in promoting art in the dominion. that part has necessarily been a very small one. i have been able to do very little more than make suggestions, and those suggestions have been patriotically and energetically acted upon by the gentlemen who have taken in hand the interests of art. but what we have done we have done with our whole hearts. the princess has taken the deepest interest from its inception in the project of establishing a royal academy. when, owing to the unfortunate accident at ottawa, she was unable to visit the first exhibition of the academy held in that city, i remember she insisted that i should bring up to her room nearly every one of the pictures exhibited, in order that she might judge of the position of canadian art at that time. (applause.) it is very fitting that your first meeting in toronto should be held in a building devoted to education, such as this normal school. i have not yet had the pleasure of seeing the exhibition, but i am given to understand that it is an excellent one, and shows marked progress. that the exhibition should be held in this building shows the appreciation of your efforts on the part of the government of ontario. it symbolises the wish of your association to promote education by extending art-training, and training in design. it is therefore most fitting that the normal school in toronto, the great centre from which come the masters of education for ontario, should be chosen as the place in which to hold this exhibition. perhaps when the exhibition is next held in this city, you will be privileged to meet in a hall belonging to the local art society--a gallery of paintings. a proper gallery is yet wanting. i have seen a good many such in other places, notably in boston, new york, and montreal. i am accustomed to think that toronto is quite in the front rank, if not ahead of any other city upon this continent. it should not be behindhand in this respect. i know, at all events, one eminent toronto man who lives not far from here, whose features and form are as well known as those of the colossus were to the inhabitants of rhodes in ancient days, who is not satisfied with himself, nor is the world quite satisfied, unless he is at least twenty lengths ahead of everybody else. [ ] the position he has earned for himself is such that the provincial government and the dominion government, with my full consent, are prepared to spend $ , this year in securing his habitation, so that it shall not be swept away by the waves of lake ontario. (applause and laughter.) i am sure--though i speak in the presence of much better authority--that if the association here shows itself as much ahead of the world as the gentleman to whom i have referred, the provincial and dominion government will, in the same manner, back up your position by money grants if necessary. (renewed laughter.) it has been a great satisfaction to me that when the royal academy was founded, i had the great assistance and support of the gentleman who was then president of your local association, mr. o'brien. as this may be the last time i shall have an opportunity to speak on art matters in canada, i should like to acknowledge the debt of gratitude which all those who had to do with founding the academy owe to him. with untiring zeal, good temper, and tact, he worked in a manner which deserves, i think, the highest recognition. as a result of the labour bestowed upon the project, we see here to-night the academy and the old society in one unbroken line. with regard to the work done by the academy, you are aware we have held three or four annual meetings, and marked progress has been seen. the patriotic determination not only to hold meetings in towns where good commercial results could be obtained, but in others, is shown by the holding of a meeting in halifax and other towns where it was not expected that a very large number of pictures could at once be sold. the good results of this course are shown by the fact that as a result of the meeting in halifax, a local art society is to be established there. a local association has been started at ottawa, and is making good progress. in montreal a great impetus has been given to the local society, and throughout the dominion the cause of art has been promoted by a central body bearing a high standard and encouraging contributions from all parts of the country. we have also to pride ourselves upon the enterprise of our artists in seeking instruction abroad. several names might be mentioned of those who have gone and have diligently studied at paris and elsewhere. at the paris salon this year, two of our lady members, miss jones and miss richards, have been very successful in having every picture they sent admitted to the exhibition. (applause.) a subscription was made in montreal, some years ago, for an excellent statue which was erected at chambly, the subject being colonel de salaberry, and the artist, mr. hébert of montreal, one of your members. i am happy to say that mr. hébert was successful in the face of strong competition from italy, france, england, and america, in carrying off the prize for the best model for a statue to be erected in honour of sir george cartier by the dominion government another of our members, mr. harris, has received a commission from the federal government to paint a picture commemorative of the confederation of the canadian dominion. these are marked proofs that the position attained by our academicians is now recognised; and it shows also, if i may be allowed to say so, the influence a society like this may virtuously exercise upon the government and the treasury. (laughter and applause.) there is only one other subject i would like to mention, though it has no direct connection with art. but it is one mooted by lord dufferin, i think, in this very place, at all events in toronto, some years ago. he asked me when i came not to lose sight of it, but to push it upon all possible occasions. i allude to the formation of a national park at niagara. i believe i am correct in saying that on the american side the suggestion originated with a mutual friend of lord dufferin's and mine, mr. bierstadt. lord dufferin took the most energetic steps in promoting the project. he wrote to the gentleman who was then governor of new york. some difficulties arose at the time, still steps were taken by which the project might have been successfully carried out before now. however, a change came, and a less sympathetic _regime_ followed that of the governor with whom lord dufferin had communicated. i believe that now our neighbours are perfectly ready, and have nearly, if not quite, carried a measure for the scheme so far as it affects them. their part of the work is of course a much more serious undertaking than ours. i request the influence of the canadian academy, and of the society of artists, in asking both the dominion and provincial governments to take measures to meet the americans in this movement, if they have made or are about to make it. we should secure the land necessary to make this park, so that the vexatious little exactions made of visitors may cease. i am sure it will be an immense boon to the public at large, as well as to the inhabitants of this province and of the state of new york, if this scheme, so well initiated, shall ultimately prove successful. [ ] mr hanlan, champion sculler of the world. ottawa, may .--address to his excellency.--mr. speaker announced the receipt of an informal intimation from the senate that they were awaiting the arrival of the commons to present the farewell address to his excellency the governor-general, in view of his early departure from the country. on the arrival of mr. speaker and the members of the commons in the senate chamber, the following address was read to his excellency and h. r. h. the princess louise by sir john macdonald. to his excellency the governor-general of canada, etc, etc.,--may it please your excellency, we, her majesty's dutiful subjects, the senate and house of commons of canada in parliament assembled, desire on behalf of those we represent, as well as on our own, to give expression to the general feeling of regret with which the country has learned that your excellency's official connection with canada is soon about to cease. we are happy, however, to believe that in the councils of the empire in the future, and whenever opportunity enables you to render her majesty service, canada will ever find in your excellency a steadfast friend, with knowledge of her wants and aspirations, and an earnest desire to forward her interests. your excellency's zealous endeavours to inform yourself by personal observation of the character, capabilities, and requirements of every section of the dominion have been highly appreciated by its people, and we feel that the country is under deep obligations to you for your untiring efforts to make its resources widely and favourably known. the warm personal interest which your excellency has taken in everything calculated to stimulate and encourage intellectual energy amongst us, and to advance science and art, will long be gratefully remembered the success of your excellency's efforts has fortified us in the belief that a full development of our national life is perfectly consistent with the closest and most loyal connection with the empire. the presence of your illustrious consort in canada seems to have drawn us closer to our beloved sovereign, and in saying farewell to your excellency and to her royal highness, whose kindly and gracious sympathies, manifested upon so many occasions, have endeared her to all hearts, we humbly beg that you will personally convey to her majesty the declaration of our loyal attachment, and of our determination to maintain firm and abiding our connection with the great empire over which she rules. his excellency the governor-general made the following reply:-- honourable gentlemen,--no higher personal honour can be received by a public man than that which, by this address, you have been pleased to accord to me. in asking you to accept my gratitude, i thank you also for your words regarding the princess, whose affection for canada fully equals mine. it will be my pride and duty to aid you in the future to the utmost of my power. now that the pre-arranged term of our residence among you draws to its end, and the happiest five years i have ever known are nearly spent, it is my fortune to look back on a time during which all domestic discord has been avoided, our friendship with the great neighbouring republic has been sustained, and an uninterrupted prosperity has marked the advance of the dominion. in no other land have the last seventeen years, the space of time which has elapsed since your federation, witnessed such progress. other countries have seen their territories enlarged and their destinies determined by trouble and war, but no blood has stained the bonds which have knit together your free and order-loving populations, and yet in this period, so brief in the life of a nation, you have attained to a union whose characteristics from sea to sea are the same. a judicature above suspicion, self-governing communities entrusting to a strong central government all national interests, the toleration of all faiths with favour to none, a franchise recognising the rights of labour by the exclusion only of the idler, the maintenance of a government not privileged to exist for any fixed term, but ever susceptible to the change of public opinion and ever open, through a responsible ministry, to the scrutiny of the people--these are the features of your rising power. finally, you present the spectacle of a nation already possessing the means to make its position respected by its resources in men available at sea or on land. may these never be required except to gather the harvests the bounty of god has so lavishly bestowed upon you. the spirit, however, which made your fathers resist encroachment on your soil and liberties is with you now, and it is as certain to-day, as it was formerly, that you are ready to take on yourselves the necessary burden to ensure the permanence of your laws and institutions. you have the power to make treaties on your own responsibility with foreign nations, and your high commissioner is associated, for purposes of negotiation, with the foreign office. you are not the subjects but the free allies of the great country which gave you birth, and is ready with all its energy to be the champion of your interests. standing side by side, canada and great britain work together for the commercial advancement of each other. it is the recognition of this which makes such an occasion as the present significant. personal ties, however dear to individuals, are of no public moment. these may be happy or unhappy accidents, but the satisfaction experienced from the conditions of the connection now subsisting between the old and the new lands can be affected by no personal accident. i therefore rejoice that again it has been your determination to show that canada remains as firmly rooted as ever in love to that free union which ensures to you and to great britain equal advantage. without it your institutions and national autonomy would not be allowed to endure for twelve months, while the loss of the alliance of the communities which were once the dependencies of england would be a heavy blow to her commerce and renown. i thank you once more for your words, which shall be dear treasures to me for ever, and may the end of the term of each public servant who fills with you the office which constitutes him at once your chief magistrate and the representative of a united empire, be a day for pronouncing in favour of a free national government defended by such imperial alliance. at the conclusion of his excellency's reply, mr. speaker returned to the commons chamber, followed by the members. the last paragraph of the speech from the throne was as follows:-- honourable gentlemen of the senate: gentlemen of the house of commons,--i desire to thank you for the great honour conferred on me by the presentation of a joint address. the princess and i have both been profoundly touched by your words, and the message of which you make us the bearers, comes, as we personally know, from a people determined to maintain the empire. the severance of my official connection with canada does not loosen the tie of affection which will ever make me desire to serve this country. i pray that the prosperity i have seen you enjoy may continue, and that the blessing of god may at all times be yours, to strengthen you in unity and peace. appendix. the annual exhibition of arts and manufactures of the province of ontario for was held at toronto. the formal opening was on sept. th, and his excellency, who was invited to open it, and who was received with the greatest enthusiasm, spoke as follows. ladies and gentlemen,--i only wish my voice were strong enough to carry to each of you the thanks we owe to every citizen of toronto, for nowhere have we received more kindness, and nowhere have we had occasion to feel greater gratitude for receptions accorded us, than in your city. these farewells i feel to be very sad occasions. i know that if the matter had rested with the princess she would have wished to postpone them for another year--(cheers)--for we have spent many happy days in canada, and would have wished to prolong them. that, however, could not be. the time for departing, i am sorry to say, has very nearly come. for my part, i feel as if the sands of the last days of happiness had nearly run out. (cheers.) i beg to thank you, sir, for the reference which you have made in your address to the visit of prince george of wales. (loud cheers.) it is now nearly twenty-four years, i think, since his royal highness the prince of wales (loud cheers) came here, he being at that time, nearly of the age which prince george has now attained. i have often heard from him of the kindness and loyalty with which he was greeted in canada. (cheers.) i know it has been a matter of regret to him that he has been unable in recent years to repeat his visit. i know how he watches with the greatest interest and sympathy the progress of this country, and how he hopes at some future day he may possibly revisit it. (loud cheers.) in the address you desire me to convey to her majesty the assurance of your loyalty--an assurance which we shall deliver, not that any such assurance is needed--(cheers)--the reverence and loyalty with which her majesty is regarded is well known to me, but we will faithfully carry out your commission. it is a message of devotion to the throne and empire coming from a great community. (loud cheers.) i do not know anything more remarkable in the recent history of this great continent than the story of this populous and extensive province, whose shores are washed by the beautiful waters of erie, huron, and ontario. within the lifetime of a man, indeed only sixty years ago, nothing but an untouched growth of wood was visible throughout this wide region, where there are now myriads of happy homesteads--(cheers,) and, while this remarkable result has been accomplished in so short a time, we see no diminution in the progress and prosperity of the province. during the last few years ontario may be said to have become a mother country, for she has sent out colonies to the west by tens of thousands, and yet, owing to the rapid and natural increase of her people, and to the manner in which the void occasioned by the departure of these has been filled up from across the seas, we still see the population constantly increasing--(cheers)--and i believe the next census will show as great an increase as the last, and that, i believe was per cent. (loud cheers.) i was very much struck some time ago by the manner in which some men, comfortably situated here, wished, nevertheless, to see the west. i had occasion to ask for the services of two men for a friend of mine who had taken a farm in manitoba. one was got immediately, and an ontario gentleman, to whom i applied, came to me and said: "you will be surprised to hear who the second man is whom i have obtained for your friend; he is a man having a large farm and a very comfortable homestead, and, while he does not wish to leave the province permanently, he desires to go to the north-west to see the country, and has volunteered to go as a hired man for a year to manitoba." he left for that year his wife and child at home. i hope by this time he has been able to rejoin them. i do not think the desire prevailing amongst you in ontario to go westward need cause the men of ontario one moment's anxiety. your ranks will be quickly refilled. numbers are now coming in from the old country--and i beg to congratulate the government of ontario on the successful way in which they have put forward the attractions, i may say the great attractions, of this province as compared with those of the west, with the view of arresting some of those who were on their passage farther west. (cheers.) i had a conversation only yesterday with a gentleman who is at the head of the agricultural science department of south kensington, in london; and to show you there is a wide field open for the surplus population of a class you wish to attract, i would like to quote that gentleman's words. he is a great authority, a government official, and i am sure his name is known to many of you--professor tanner. (cheers.) he told me that over , men are studying agriculture in great britain at the present time; that over , had passed last year the examination provided by government; that of those , there certainly would not be an opportunity in great britain for the employment of more than one-tenth; that is to say that nine-tenths will assuredly, if they wish to follow out the course which their studies would indicate as the career they seek to pursue, have to find a place outside the limits of the old country. i would certainly recommend them to come here. (cheers.) i have made such recommendations often at home. sometimes i have been told that i incur a great responsibility for doing so. (cheers.) i shall be very glad to assume the responsibility for the rest of my days. (renewed cheering.) i shall only ask of ontario societies when they invite women to come here, to back me in advising the old country people not to send too many instructresses of youth--(hear, hear)--for wherever i have made a speech in england advising women to emigrate, i have always received about letters on the succeeding day from people who said they were perfectly confident that there was an opening for a good governess in canada. (laughter and cheers.) i wish to emphasize the fact that there is hardly any opening, for we grow our own stock in that respect--(loud cheers),--and i believe in the exhibition of which we shall soon be making an examination strangers will see that among the objects placed in the most honourable position is the school desk, the school bench, and the school book. (renewed cheers.) they will find these exhibited along with the best products of the factory, the forest, the field and the mine. i say, i shall continue to recommend this province, for you have inspired me with additional confidence--(cheers)--perhaps because the community have confidence in themselves. (renewed cheers.) i will say nothing more, for i feel i might expatiate at too great a length upon your prospects. (continued cheers.) i beg now formally to declare the toronto exhibition of to be open to the public. (loud and continued cheering.) the following is the governor-general's reply to an address presented in the queen's park, toronto. several thousand persons had assembled although the rain had descended in torrents for some hours. mr. mayor and citizens of the city of toronto,--ladies and gentlemen of this great province of ontario,--i have again to thank you for a loyal and affectionate address, conveying your reverence and love to the queen. already several of the queen's children have visited canada. on this occasion you have been welcoming, kindly and cordially, a grandson of her majesty. (cheers.) on all occasions on which members of the queen's family have visited this country they have met with a welcome which evinces your determination to sustain the empire in which canada occupies so large a place. i thank you, sir, for what you have stated with regard to my term of office. you have had the good fortune to enjoy five years of prosperity and progress. i would, if you will allow me, take the words you have addressed to me as not in any sense conveying a personal compliment, but as expressing your appreciation of the value of the office which i have had the honour to hold for five years, and your wish to maintain its dignity. i confess that i am not so desirous of any personal popularity, but i am jealous for the position of the governor-general. i need not tell you, who know it already, the value of the constitutional rules under which its functions are exercised. they who disparage the office by telling you that it is one of no influence would be the first to cry out against its powers, and they would be right to do so, should those powers be used in excess of constitutional privilege. it is sufficient that the ministers, both of the last government and the present, regard the office as valuable, and desire its continuance. there is, however, one point in connection with it which i should wish to impress upon you. in some quarters, although not, i am satisfied, by the people at large, the presence of a governor-general is held to imply something called "etiquette"--(laughter),--and implies also the establishment of a "court." i wish to say from my experience in canada i am sure that this is by no means the case. etiquette may perhaps be defined as some rule of social conduct. i have found that no such rule is necessary in canada, for the self-respect of the people guarantees good manners. (cheers.) we have had no etiquette and no court. our only etiquette has been the prohibition of any single word spoken by strangers at the government house in disparagement of canada. (cheers.) our only court has been the courting of her fair name and fame. (cheers.) now, ladies and gentlemen, you ask me why it is i am so enthusiastic a canadian. i believe i am perhaps even more of a canadian than some of the canadians themselves. i ascribe it to the very simple cause that i have seen perhaps more of your country than have very many amongst you. i know what your great possessions are, and to what a magnificent heritage you have fallen heirs. i know that wide forest world out of which the older provinces have been carved. i know that great central region of glorious prairie-land from which shall be carved out future provinces as splendid or yet more splendid than those of which we now proudly boast. i know also that vast country beyond the rocky mountains, that wondrous region sometimes clothed in gloomy forest, sometimes smiling beneath the sun in pastoral beauty of valley and upland, or sometimes shadowed by alpine gorges and mighty mountain peaks--the territory of british columbia. and in each and all of these three immense sections of your great country i know that you have possessions which must make you in time one of the foremost among the nations, not only of this continent, but of the world. (cheers.) it is because i have seen so much of you and of your territories that i am enthusiastic in your behalf, and that the wish of my life shall be the desire to further your interests; and i pray the god who has granted to you this great country that he may in his own good time make you a great people. (loud cheers.) on leaving ottawa, an address was presented by the corporation of the city. the governor-general replied as follows:-- mr. mayor, members of the corporation, and citizens of ottawa--we both thank you most cordially for your words, which are so full of kindness. it is indeed a sorrowful thought to us that the present must be our last meeting for all time, as far as any official connection between us is concerned; but we shall hope that it will not be the last occasion on which we shall again be brought together, for it would be indeed a melancholy prospect to us were we not able to look forward to some future day on which we might revisit the scenes which have been so much endeared to us, and witness the continuance of that progress which has been so marked in the dominion during the last five years. you kindly wish us god-speed, and hope that our future career may be happy; but we can never again have a happier or more fortunate time than that spent amongst you; indeed, whenever, in the future, life's path is darker, we can take comfort and refreshment from the recollection of the bright days passed under the beautiful clear sunshine of the canadian seasons. if in any way we have been able to please you in the personal intercourse which it has been our happiness to have experienced on civic occasions, and in social meetings at government house, we shall certainly leave with the feeling that there is no community more easy to please. the interest and affection we have for you will always endure, and i hope that when any of you visit the old country (should i happen to be there) you will let me again see you. but, gentlemen, however pleasant may have been the friendships begun during the last few years, or the official relations at my office, it is important that we should not over-value individual likings. so long as the governor-general follows the example set by our beloved monarch as a constitutional sovereign, so long should the favour he finds with the people endure, and any personal popularity is a thing of no account. you have been pleased to endorse afresh the system under which we live and which you think infinitely preferable to that which obtains among our neighbours to the south of us. but my constitutional governorship is nearly over, and now that i am practically out of harness, i mean to assume autocratic airs, and confess to you that i have sometimes wished for the benefit and adornment of your city to become its dictator with plenary power of raising federal and local taxes for any object which may have seemed best to my despotic will. but i have faith in popular rule, and believe that when i next visit ottawa i shall see the city not only embellished by the completion of some of the good buildings which are now rising, or about to be erected, within its limits, but that i shall see every street, and especially those which are widest, planted with flourishing shade trees. i shall probably see a new government house, from whose windows the beautiful extent of your river shall be visible, as well as the noble outlines of your parliament buildings. leading from this to the city i shall mark how the long, fine avenue planted in , an avenue which will stretch all the way along sussex street past new edinburgh to government house, has sent forth beautiful branches of the foliage of the maple, which perhaps at intervals may mingle with a group or two of dark fir-trees. i am sure i shall see any boulders now lying by the wayside broken up to form the metal for excellent roads, and of course no vestiges of that burnt wooden house at the corner of pooley's bridge will remain. indeed, i shall see few tenements which are not of brick or stone both in ottawa and hull, and last, but not least, i am sure we shall find the ministry and supreme court properly housed in official residences such as are provided for those functionaries by most of the civilized nations of the world. but do not think that i say anything of this prophetic vision in any spirit of detraction of what we possess here at present. i know well that without federal help, such as is given at washington, and with the limited area from which assessments can be drawn, it must take time to build up an ideal city, and i have always found the ottawa of to-day a very pleasant place as a residence. you have a society of singular interest and variety, because so many men of ability are brought together at the seat of government, and i believe that a gayer and brighter season than the ottawa winter is hardly to be met with. by the increase of good accommodation afforded by the hotels, an improvement, which has been most notable within the last few years, has been effected for the comfort of visitors, and its results are apparent in the great number of strangers who throng your city during the time of the sitting of parliament. ottawa should become during these months more and more the social centre for the dominion, and in contributing towards this, and in working for this end, you will not only be benefitting yourselves, but aiding in strengthening the national spirit and the unity of sentiment between the provinces which may be greatly fostered in convening together, not only the leading men of the dominion, but those ladies belonging to other centres of social life in canada, without whose patriotic feeling it would be vain even for the ablest statesman to do much towards national unity and purpose. for our part we shall always look back upon many of the months spent in this city as being among the brightest and pleasantest, and in bidding you farewell we wish to express a hope that it may only be farewell for the present. let me now thank you once more, and may all good remain with you and yours. lorne. government house, ottawa, th october, . at montreal, on his departure, the st. jean baptiste society and the caledonian society presented addresses. lord lorne thanked them for the personal good wishes expressed, but referring to the presentation to the governor-general of addresses from societies representing some race or old national sentiment among canadians, he said that he would suggest that, for the future, canadians should approach the head of the government only as canadians, the mayor or warden representing all. although among themselves they might and would always cherish recollections of the nationality from which they sprang, a governor-general must recognize them only as that which they now are, namely, component parts of the canadian people. his excellency then replied as follows to the address presented by the mayor on behalf of the city:-- _to the mayor and corporation of the city of montreal._ gentlemen,--your kind words remind us rather of what we would have wished to have done than of any accomplishment of those desires. it is but little that an individual placed at the head of your government as its impartial chief magistrate can or may do, and it is perhaps as well that this is so, for it would be a matter of regret, and one to be deplored, if the esteem in which that high office is held should depend on any individual's capacity for capturing popular sympathy. the position is one capable of much good in moderating counsel, and even in the suggestion of methods of procedure in government; but any action the head of the state may take must be unknown, except at rare intervals, to the public, and must always be of such a nature that no party may claim him as their especial friend. as a sign of the union of your country with the rest of the empire, he has other functions more important than that of making canada well known abroad, which it may be in his power greatly to use for your benefit. steam communication has made the advent of emigrants easy, and the emigrant is a better advertiser for you than any official can be. in short, so far as the public activity of a governor-general is concerned, he should rely rather on the approbation of posterity than on any personal recognition, taking care only that his name be associated with constitutional rule, and his impartial recognition of whatever ministry the country, through the house of commons, elects for his advice. it is a source of much satisfaction to me to know that my successor is certain to follow in this respect the example of the queen, whose representative he is. it would be impertinence in me to speak of his private character, for they who desire to know of this have only to go and hear what is said by his loving tenantry and friends on his estates in county kerry, ireland, where an emphatic tribute to his personal worth has been lately paid him at dereen. in a few days he will land upon your shores, and i am certain he will receive that warm welcome which a generous and loyal people are ever ready to accord to the temporary representative of constitutional government. you have alluded, sir, to that happy day in november, five years ago, when montreal gave us so splendid a welcome. i remember when the horses became unmanageable it was the good will of the citizens to honour us by detaching them, and by drawing the carriage for a long distance until we reached the great windsor hotel. i told them at the time that i considered it an omen of how a governor might always trust to them for support. that impression was strengthened during my stay in canada, together with this other, namely, that if anything goes wrong, it is easy for the people to take matters into their own hands, and to change the programme, substituting another where order and active purpose may be clearly discerned. my residence amongst you has led me greatly to honour your people, and in honouring them it has been my privilege to honour also its men of both sides of politics in the state, who have been chosen by the constituencies to lead their political life. almost the only pain i have experienced during my term here has been caused by the personal attacks which are too frequently made on both sides against party men. believe me, gentlemen, such personal attacks do no good in advancing any cause, but belittle the nation in the eyes of strangers. they are also, as a rule, as unwarrantable as they are repulsive, useless and mischievous. i have seen a good deal of the public life and of the politicians of many countries, and i unhesitatingly affirm that you have in general in canada as pure and noble-minded statesmen as may be found anywhere the wide world over. where in other lands you see those who have had political power and patronage occupying palaces and raising themselves to be amongst the richest of the people, we here see perhaps too much of the other extreme, and men who have led parties to battle and been the victorious leaders in honest political strife are too often left to live in houses which an english squire would not consider good enough for his bailiff. this leads me to speak to you of a wish which i have often cherished, but which, to reveal a cabinet secret, i have never succeeded in persuading any canadian statesman to support by a speech in the chambers of the legislature. they fear, i suppose, that selfishness would be assigned as their motive. i therefore come to you, the people, to propose it, and to ask you--the representatives and citizens of the wealthiest community in canada--to take it up. it is this: that we should have at ottawa official residences not only for the judges of the supreme court, but for the dominion ministers of the day. this is, of course, a matter which would indifferently benefit whatever party may be in power. should you encourage the idea through your representatives you will be only following in the footsteps of many other peoples. every little state in germany provides good residences for its ministers. at berlin and at paris the nations of france and of germany look upon it as a matter of course that the ministry should possess fit residences. why should we not follow an example so obviously good, and, because we rightly ask the judges of the supreme court and federal ministry to reside at the capital, furnish them with the means of doing so in a manner suited to the dignity of this nation? forgive me for detaining you at length, but in speaking to you it is impossible not to remember that i am addressing the wealthiest and greatest community in the country. montreal must always keep her pre-eminent position on the st. lawrence, situated as she is at the end of the ocean waterways, which form so imperial an avenue to the artificial navigation connecting the great lakes that lie at the limits of the vast grain region of the prairies. but while our thoughts naturally turn westward to the vast interior with gratitude to the giver for so wondrous a wealth in the new soils of the central continent, let us be thankful also for the providence which has enabled our thrifty and hardy people to turn to good account the banks on both sides of the great stream flowing from hence seawards. let us be thankful that this great arterial channel has tempted people not only up its own current, but up the channels of its tributaries, and that under the guidance of men like labelle and others, we are gradually having the great country to the north opened up by settlements which have spread along the ottawa, the river rouge, the lievre and the saguenay, until the long silent shores of lake st. john have become the busy scenes of agricultural life. let us be grateful also that we have this country garrisoned by men who are as true to the constitution and the throne as they are faithful to their church, and while we direct our own young men and the youthful emigrant from europe to the north and to the west, let us take care to point out to the stranger the advantages which are so manifest here for those who either desire a city life or who wish to reside upon the fruitful and long cleared farms of the ancient provinces of old canada. now, _monsieur le maire_, accept our thanks and our farewell, but let me express our wish that our parting may be only for a time, and _au revoir_. on the th october the corporation of the city of quebec presented a farewell address. the governor-general in the course of his reply, made the following remarks:-- where the laws, the language, and the institutions of each of the provinces forming our great confederation are guarded by a constitution which sees its own strength in the happy continuance of local privileges, what wonder is it that success and progress are everywhere to be seen. the englishman, scotchman or irishman here finds the traditions of his country continued; the french-canadian enjoys the most absolute liberty and safety under the flag which secures to him in common with all citizens of every province a national life, the natural and legitimate desire of the growing communities of this great country. from east to west the spreading colonies are now able to give each other the hand. they are beginning to find out what vast possessions they have. they value national coherence and the maintenance of local laws. they glory in that glorious name which you first assumed--a canadian. you know me well enough by this time to make it superfluous for me to render any long _éloge_ upon your characteristics. although we leave you we shall always be with you in spirit, and cherish a desire to assist you. the words of affectionate regret come easily, and i have but little advice to give you. if there be any, it would be that no part of the dominion should exclude itself from the influence of the rest. they who know only themselves and avoid contact with others go backwards; they who welcome new impressions and compare the ideas of other men with their own, make progress. open your arms to the immigrants who come, while you endeavour to repatriate your own people; there is room enough here for all; continue to make the country to the north of you a second line of wealth-giving lands for the first line formed by the valley of the st. lawrence. remember to direct some of your young men to the west. i feel that you throughout canada are on the right track. you have only to keep it. with the motto--"our rights and our union" you will, with the blessing of god, become a people whose sons will be ever proud of the country of their birth. may your triumphs continue to be the triumphs of peace, your rewards the rewards of industry, loyalty, and faith! the end. wit and wisdom of lord tredegar [illustration: tredegar] wit and wisdom of lord tredegar . western mail, limited, cardiff, newport, swansea, merthyr, brecon and , fleet street, london. foreword. there are a few observations which may be deemed appropriate in presenting to the public this collection of extracts from the speeches of godfrey charles morgan, first viscount tredegar; but it is inconceivable that any should be necessary by way of apology. during the course of an active and a well-spent life, happily extended beyond the allotted span, lord tredegar has made hundreds of public utterances. innumerable are the functions he has attended during half-a-century and over; and at most of them he has been the central figure. but while his high station would always have secured attention and respect for his words, this volume may serve to prove to future generations what this generation well knows, that lord tredegar has held his listeners by his humour or by his earnestness, according to the occasion, and that, in the homely phrase, he has always had "something to say." it is my hope, however, that this little book may have a still worthier mission. for i think it will be found to reveal a noble mind. the simple words of lord tredegar have time and again struck deep to the hearts of his audience. collected here, they reveal the gentleness of his disposition and the purity of his motives. they show the consistency of his life. but they do much more. they appear to constitute a great moral force. not that his lordship ever posed as preacher, or constituted himself a court of judgment on any class of his fellows. there is no trace of a superior tone in his speeches. his words show sympathetic insight into the trials and difficulties that beset the path of every one of us, and his desire was never to censure, but ever to encourage and assist with kindly suggestion and cheering thought. no aspect of these extracts is so interesting as that which enables us to observe how faithfully and well lord tredegar has discharged his promises. long before he could describe himself as a landowner, he said that if ever he came into that position he would give any assistance he could to his tenants in the way of improving his land. he hoped he would never become "such a ruffian as some people would make landlords out to be." reading later speeches we find lord tredegar undertaking in his turn conscientiously the public duties previously discharged by his father. we find him making the acquaintance of the farmers and studying their difficulties. we find him raising the tredegar show to its present pre-eminence in the world of agriculture. it is a noble record of honesty of purpose. and agriculture, as well we know in wales and monmouthshire, is but one of lord tredegar's many interests. he has spoken wise words on education; he has urged the claims of charity. he has led the way in historical research, and inspired among many whose interest might not otherwise have been aroused a love of our ancient castles and our dear old parish churches. he has spoken eloquently of our welsh heroes and bards. upon the value of eisteddfodau he loves to expound. but it is not these higher interests of his that have made him so beloved. his appeals for the ragged urchin of the streets, his appreciation of the bravery of the worker, his jokes at bazaars, his quips at the cabmen's annual dinners, his love of old customs, his pleasantries at the servants' balls, by these and by his transparent sincerity he has won the affections of all classes of the people, who have found in him a leader who can share sorrows as well as joys. his brave words have been the consolation of the widow of the humble soldier slain in battle, as they have been the encouragement of the boy or girl scholar shyly taking from his hand a prize. he has told the boys they will be all the better for total abstinence, and he has dined and joked with licensed publicans. "here, at least, is inconsistency," may exclaim the stranger into whose hand this book may fall. but lord tredegar justifies himself by the fact that having licensed houses on his estate it is his duty to take an interest in those who conduct them. lord tredegar has never sought to adorn his speeches with rhetoric. he has always spoken so that he who heard could understand. and yet he is reputed justly to be among the best of after-dinner speakers. if it be necessary to delve into the possible secret of his success, one might hazard a guess that it is because in his speeches it is the unexpected that always happens. the transition from grave to gay or from gay to grave is so swift that the mind of the listener is held as it were by a spell, and all is over e'er yet one thought it had begun. much of this, however, is in passing. quite a multitude, at one time or another, has listened to the words of godfrey charles morgan. quite a multitude has been influenced by them. that multitude, i am sure, will be glad to have those words in permanent form. there may be but a sentence chosen from a speech that has been heard, but that sentence will be remembered or recollected. and to that greater multitude who by the natural force of circumstances cannot have listened to the words of viscount tredegar, this little collection may serve to show forth a figure that, though simple, is great in simplicity, and it were strange indeed if some sentences were not found which may help to make a crooked way straight. the editor. wit and wisdom of lord tredegar. epigrammatic eloquence. i would rather trust and be deceived, than be found to have suspected falsely. _reduction of armaments meeting, newport, march th, ._ some people will not go across a street to hear an oratorio, though they would go many miles to listen to that very entertaining melody, "whoa, emma!"--and i'm not sure that i shouldn't be one of them.-- _tredegar show. november th, ._ the other day i was doing a little bit of horse-cropping--i'm fond of that sort of thing--and went into an irish dealer's yard, where i saw a horse which grunted very much. looking at the dealer, i said, "the horse is a roarer," and the irishman replied: "ah, no, me lord, not a bit of it. i've 'ad 'im from two years ould, an' e' 'ad wunce a most desprit froight, an' 'e's 'ad the hiccups ever since!" _tredegar show, november th, ._ [illustration: "_'e's 'ad the hiccups ever since!_"] i do not think there is a man in england who has more at heart than myself the religious education of children. in the chartist riots took place at newport. in the following year national schools were opened, and i believe that had the men who took part in these riots received the education imparted at the national schools they would never have decided upon such a misguided course of action. _jubilee of newport national schools, may th, ._ i was rather alarmed when i received the notice, "peach blossom fancy dress fair," and i telegraphed at once to a lady who i thought knew what was going on and asked, "am i obliged to come in fancy dress?" the answer i got was, "you need not wear anything." _llangibby church fete, august, ._ [illustration: "_you need not wear anything._"] i generally pay great attention to what a clergyman says, but you cannot always take the advice of a clergyman. a certain man had a dog, and his minister told him that he had better sell the dog and get a pig, to which the man replied, "a pretty fool i should look going rat-catching with a pig." _st. paul's garden fete, newport, june rd, ._ without some sort of religion no man can be happy. _st. paul's garden fete, newport, june rd, ._ i am not accustomed to begging, being more accustomed to being begged of. that is one of the hereditary privileges of members of the house of lords. _meeting in connection with the new infirmary for newport, march th, ._ it appears to me that my good qualities increase in proportion as the hair comes off the top of my head, and it is well that in proportion as we grow less ornamental we should grow more useful. _tredegar show, november th, ._ i really think i must be out of place here. you know i am one of the hereditary nonentities. i cannot help the hereditary part of the business, and i have tried all my life to avoid the other. _south monmouthshire conservative association, december nd, ._ you ought, of course, to learn something about ancient art, or you will be like a certain lord mayor of whom i have heard. one day he received a telegram from some people who were carrying on excavations in greece, and who had discovered a statue by phidias. they thought, in common with most foreigners, that the lord mayor was the most powerful person in the kingdom--abroad he is supposed to rule the country. anyway, they sent him a telegram saying "phidias is recovered." the lord mayor wired back that he was pleased to hear it, but that he did not know that phidias had been unwell. _art school prize distribution, newport, december th, ._ a noted musician, when asked whether he thought it was right to carry out capital punishment, replied: "no; because you can do a man to death with a piano." _at llandaff, june th, ._ [illustration: "_you can do a man to death with a piano._"] i believe i have laid more foundation stones than any other man in england. i have mallets and trowels sufficient to supply, i believe, every parish church in the country. they are very handsome and ornamental, and i hope i shall have more of them. _foundation stone laying, st. john's church, cardiff, march th, ._ [illustration: "_i believe i have laid more foundation stones than any other man in england._"] we (agriculturists) are looked upon as a long-suffering and patient race, and some of the manufacturing class think we are fit subjects for bleeding. in fact, it has been said that agriculturists are like their own sheep, inasmuch as they can bear a close shaving without a bleat; whereas the manufacturers are like pigs; only touch their bristles and they will "holler like the devil." _tredegar show, december th, ._ lord rosebery is alternately a menace and a sigh. _conservative dinner, newport, november th, ._ we have had an old-fashioned winter, and i do not care if i never see another. the only people, i fancy, who have enjoyed the winter are the doctors and the press. _servants' ball_, _january th, ._ memories of balaclava. i consider myself one of the most fortunate men in england to have been one of those spared out of the about whom so much has been said and sung. although my military career has been brief, i have seen a great deal. i have seen war in all its horrors. it is said to be "an ill wind that blows nobody good"; so it has been with me. i have learned to doubly appreciate home and all its comforts. before going out to the crimea i was accustomed to see, on these occasions, farmers looking happy and contented, and i was in the habit of thinking what a great nation england was, and how she flourished in all things; but since the war commenced i have seen the other side of the picture. i have seen an army march into an hostile country, and in the midst of farms flowing with milk and honey, and teeming with corn and every luxury--and there, in a few hours, all was desolation, one stone not being left on another, and the people made slaves to the invaders. how thankful we ought to be that we are not suffering at the hand of an invading army. now that my military career is at an end i am sure that a great many of you will sympathise with my father, whose anxiety has been very great. we were out during the most dreadful period of the war, and it need not be wondered at that i yielded to the most earnest entreaties of my father to relinquish my connection with the army lest i should bring his grey hairs with sorrow to the grave. my father thought that one such action as i have been in was sufficient to prove the mettle of his son. i will not further enlarge on the horrors and miseries of war. may you never see them as i have done, and may we all meet at this festive board next year. _newport agricultural show, december th, ._ i do not intend to say much about balaclava to-day because you have heard the old story over and over again, and i am too old now to invent stories of balaclava. on my way down here i stopped to receive a telegram worded in these terms:--"fifteen survivors of the balaclava charge send your lordship hearty congratulations and affectionate remembrances on this day, the th anniversary." well, recollections of a sad event are at any time, of course, unpleasant, but it is particularly sad to think that there are now only survivors remaining out of the light brigade of . that attenuated number does not include myself, and there are three other officers still alive. you may be pretty confident that of these few survivors there were at least two or three with whom i conversed within a few hours of the balaclava charge. you can imagine those conversations. they were not very lively ones. they referred probably to some comrade who had been killed or to the difficulty of filling the place of some officer who had fallen; because when we drew up after the balaclava charge i was the officer in command of the decimated regiment. all my superior officers had been either killed or wounded, and i was placed in the difficult position to find men suddenly to fill the vacancies. so you can imagine the recollections of those survivors. since that time there have been a number of gallant deeds on the part of the british army, and i hope that those gallant deeds will be remembered, just as the balaclava charge is remembered here. i hope the british nation will never forget such events as trafalgar and waterloo, but will always hoist a flag or do something else to commemorate them. _balaclava dinner, bassaleg, october th, ._ my own courage in the memorable charge was small, but the deed of daring conferred everlasting credit on the senior officers who took part in it. i trust that you will keep your offspring fully acquainted with the heroic deeds of the british army, and induce them to display similar courage in the hour of their country's danger. _balaclava dinner, castleton, october th, ._ when a person gets beyond the allotted age of man there must, i think, be in his mind a melancholy thought regarding the possibility of his being present on a similar occasion twelve months hence. i am afraid that some men of my age would have to limp into a room, probably assisted by a crutch. fortunately, however, i was able to walk into the room without a crutch and without assistance, and i am thankful for that to the power above. the term "hero" is a term with which many soldiers do not agree. the mention of the word recalls to my mind the well-known lines of rudyard kipling: "we aren't no thin red 'eroes, an' we aren't no blackguards, too, but single men in barracks, most remarkable like you." i am sure the soldiers who fought with the light cavalry at balaclava did not think themselves greater heroes than others in the crimea who did their duty. quite recently i read an article in a military magazine, it dealt with the question of the advance of cavalry and the arms which should be given them--the lance, the sword, and the rifle. the article commenced with the statement that it was the business of every soldier to go into action with the determination to try and kill someone. i suppose that is right in its way, but it was hardly the sentiment we went into action with. we went into action to try to defeat the enemy, but the fewer we killed the better. i have to confess that i tried to kill someone, but to this day i congratulate myself on the fact that i do not know whether i succeeded or no. in these days of long range guns our consciences are saved a great deal, and so far as killing anyone goes i always give myself the benefit of the doubt, so that the charge of murder cannot be brought against me. _balaclava dinner, bassaleg, october th, ._ quips at the servants' ball. i have arrived at the age when to clasp the waist of one of the opposite sex for three hours is not considered the height of human happiness. i remember, however, with pleasure, a time in my younger days when i thought it was so, and perhaps some of those who can indulge in a valse without feeling giddy, or a polka without being "blown," think so now. _servants' ball, january th, ._ [illustration: "_i remember, however, with pleasure, a time in my younger days._"] i am happy to be able truly and honestly to say that i have not a word of difference with any servant of my establishment. each year as it rolls onward finds me stiffer in the joints, shorter in the breath, and less able than formerly to perform the double shuffle, but there are others coming on--the younger members of the family--who will be able to kick up their heels as lightly as once i was able to do. as each year rolls round, too, there are always saddening memories, but on an occasion of this sort i will make no allusions to them, ... i hope you will stick to old fashions and old ways. you may be told of new-fangled ways, and be advised to get rid of the old, but i think it will be well if you do not pay too much attention to those advisers. england is like old tredegar house, and you will find that the customs now prevailing have been in vogue for over years. you will probably be told that the best way to make people happy is to make the poor rich and the rich poor; but, in truth, the richer people are, the better able they are to help the poor. _servants' ball, january th, ._ many of you waited last night for the old year to go out and the new year to come in. i did for one. i listened at the window and i heard bells ringing, and noises which i can only describe as hideous. there is an invention in this part of the world, which i believe comes from america (where they have a great many disagreeable things) called a "hooter." when i listened last night it seemed to me that it was deliberately hooting out the old year which to so many of us had painful recollections; and it occurred to me that it was a most appropriate thing to do. it was the wettest spring, the coldest summer, the windiest autumn that i have ever known. _servants' ball, january st, ._ i can imagine the bassaleg parish council rejoicing in a license for dancing in the hall, and the teetotallers passing a resolution in favour of total abstinence, in which case we should have to obtain our refreshments from the village pump. _servants' ball, january th, ._ railways are springing up all round, and, reading the signs of the times as i do, i think there will be increased prosperity. if all the railways now proposed are constructed, we shall be able to paraphrase the poet's lines:-- railways to right of them, railways to left of them, railways behind them, most of them silly 'uns. into the lawyer's jaw, and the contractor's paw, go the eight millions. i shall be able to convert tredegar house into the "railway hotel," join the licensed victuallers' association, and do a good trade--if i can get a license. we have progressed a good deal lately, even in dancing. i can remember the minuet being the fashion. it was danced with a great deal of bowing and scraping. then the waltz, quadrille, and lancers came. we next had a kitchen lancers, and this year we have a barn dance. next year, perhaps, we shall have a pigstye polka, which will no doubt be very amusing. _servants' ball, january th, ._ [illustration: "_i shall be able to convert tredegar house into the 'railway hotel.'_"] there have been many changes in the manners and customs of the country during late years. i am very fond of old customs, and i hope this old-fashioned servants' ball will be kept up by those who come after me. i am sure there is no gentleman in england who is blessed with a better lot of servants than i have. if sometimes by my manner i do not appear pleased, i hope you will make allowance for the business anxieties constantly hanging over my head, and which do not always conduce to a pleasant expression. i will relate an incident. an individual who apparently takes a great deal of interest in me wrote to me not so long ago and asked, "why did you look so proud and haughty when you met me the other day?" i have no recollection of having been proud and haughty, but i have a very distinct recollection of a very tight boot and a very bad corn. _servants' ball, january th, ._ [illustration: "_when your toe begins to take a fantastic shape it is pretty nearly time to give up dancing._"] i always sympathise with you in your sorrows and try to join you in your pleasures. in this life, unfortunately, for a good many, there are more sorrows than pleasures, but i think it is the duty of all who have it in their power to try to make those around them have, if possible, more pleasures in their lives than sorrows. i congratulate myself that i have still a kick left in me. you know that milton, the poet, has said in two lines: "come and trip it as you go on the light fantastic toe." but when your toe begins to take a fantastic shape it is pretty nearly time to give up dancing. as my toes are beginning to take that shape, i am afraid i shall not have a kick left much longer. i have always spoken a few words to you on these occasions--sometimes of sentiment, sometimes of politics, and sometimes of fun. i usually prefer fun, because there is generally enough of the other phases around us. i will therefore content myself with giving the establishment a little bit of advice, or rather a hint. i have found that what i say on these occasions has somehow or other found its way into the papers. i do not know exactly how that is. however, i think it will be more impressive in print, because if you forget what i say before the end of the evening, you will be able to read it in the press next day. my hint is about fires. there are large fireplaces in tredegar house, which is an old one, full of old oak which is liable to catch fire. during the last few weeks some fine old country houses have been destroyed by fire. i do not think this has occurred through carelessness. i know my servants are not careless. what i want you to understand is the difference between a fire and a furnace. old welsh families--and my family is really an old welsh family--all believe that they have very long pedigrees. there are in the strong room at tredegar house a great many old records--some of which i have read out of curiosity. many of them, no doubt, are mythical, and some are accurate, but in all my study of them i have not been able to discover that i bear any relationship to shadrach, meshach and abednego. i therefore fail to see why the household staff should pile up furnaces, especially now that i assure them i am not quite impervious to fire. i always like to entertain you a little on these occasions. i will therefore just sing to you a few lines, and ask young charley (the huntsman) to come in at the end. i notice that old charley (the former huntsman) is also present, and he, perhaps, will join in as well. his lordship then sang the following verses to the tune of "ben bolt":-- there are soul-stirring sounds in the fiddle and flute when music begins in the hall, and a goddess in muslin that's likely to suit as the mate of your choice for the ball. but the player may strain every finger in vain and the fiddler may resin his bow, nor fiddle nor string such rapture shall bring as the sound of the sweet "tally-ho." _servants' ball, january th, ._ times have changed, and fashions change very quickly--so much so that i was half afraid you would have petitioned me to allow you to have a ping-pong tournament. i am glad to see that you still prefer to stick to the old custom of a ball. of all entertainments a ball is, in my opinion, the most harmless. it will always follow that there will be some who perhaps on the morrow will think that their affections had not been quite under control, and that they had spoken words of endearment that perhaps they regretted, and the lady might not. and perhaps there will always be those whose control over their thirst at a ball is not quite so strong as that of others. _servants' ball, january rd, ._ [illustration: "_perhaps there will always be those whose control over their thirst at a ball is not quite so strong as that of others._"] i have no doubt that much of what mr. perrott has just told you about the revels that have taken place in the hall during the last or years is perfectly true. there may perhaps have been more fun in the old days--that is a matter of history. i very much doubt it myself, and i have a sort of idea, and i hope and trust that at the servants' ball which still takes place here annually--unless there is some misfortune to prevent it--there is as much fun and revelry as has ever before taken place in this hall. the old lamp hung over your heads belonged to a former lord mayor of london--sir edward clark--from whom i inherited some property and plate. that lamp probably hung in the mansion house in london some two or three hundred years ago, and i have no doubt it has seen some peculiar scenes. _servants' ball, january th, ._ i also have my little anxieties. i have been hoping and praying that the enemy will not come up the bristol channel and land somewhere near here before i have got my territorial army into position. at the present moment the territorial army in monmouthshire consists exactly of men, all of whom are officers. so that unless the enemy give us due notice that they are coming here, i am afraid that we shall have to depend principally upon the tredegar house establishment. i am quite certain that you will all answer my call, the ladies more particularly. i don't care so much about the enemy, whenever he comes, so long as i have the ladies with me. _servants' ball, jan. th, ._ [illustration: "_i don't care so much about the enemy, whenever he comes, so long as i have the ladies with me._"] i take this opportunity of thanking you, and all those in my service who have spent this year together with me, for the happy way in which we have been enabled to pass the whole year together in our mutual admiration for each other. i was going to say affection for each other, and i should like to think so. we are--i propose using a silly phrase to express our relations at tredegar house--a brotherhood of men. we are here as a brotherhood of men, and a sisterhood of women, and i should like you to look upon me as one of yourselves. it may be, before this time next year, if things go on as they are, that i shall be calling you comrade perrot, and you will be calling me comrade morgan. things are going very fast just now, but i think there is a right feeling throughout the country that we are going too fast. it may be that next year, instead of being summoned to the ball here you will be asked to "come and trip as you go to the light fantastic veto," and we shall be invited to dance the referendum lancers. _servants' ball, january th, ._ [illustration: "_i shall be calling you comrade perrot, and you will be calling me comrade morgan._"] on archbishops and bishops. it is customary among certain classes to look upon bishops as men living in beautiful palaces, faring sumptuously, and rolling about in carriages; but there is no ploughman who does a harder day's work than does our bishop. as to the clergy, many of them labour amongst us for a stipend which many an artizan would despise. _bassaleg farmers' dinner, october th, ._ there is a certain class of advanced politicians who never lose an opportunity of serving their own ends by impressing upon their hearers their particular notions of what a bishop of the church of england is like. that dignitary is generally pictured as a gentleman who receives a large salary, is clothed in purple and fine linen, fares sumptuously every day, and lives in luxurious idleness. _the opening of the seamen's mission church, newport, january th, ._ we should remember the duties and responsibilities which rest on an archbishop. he has a vast correspondence, in which there is not a single letter that he can write without weighing every word. he is not like ordinary people, who are able to scribble off their correspondence; for if a word in a letter from an archbishop is in the wrong place, it may upset a college or cause a revolution. if you study the history of the archbishopric of canterbury, beginning with st. augustine, then going on to lanfranc, to anselm, to theodore, and down to benson and temple, you will, i believe, come to the conclusion that i have reached--that whilst many of the men who have gone before him have filled great parts in making the history of the nation, there is not one whose character, whose powers of speech, and whose earnestness in carrying out his duties, exceeded those of the present archbishop (dr. temple). _seventy-fifth anniversary of st. david's college, lampeter october th, ._ [illustration: "_there is not one whose character, and whose powers of speech exceeded those of the present archbishop (dr. temple)._"] the trials of the clergy. bishops and clergy have to deal with all sorts of communications from parishioners. i remember one case where a clergyman received a letter telling him he would never do for st. phillip's because he was altogether too quiet in his preaching, and not half sensational enough, but that if he would preach in a red coat in the morning, and with no coat at all at night, he would be just the man for the job. as to the bishops, they have so much to do that one of them--bishop magee, of peterborough, i believe--summed up the situation by saying that people seemed to have an idea that a bishop had nothing to do but sit in his library with the windows open, so that every jackass might put in his head and bray. _church luncheon, newport, may th, ._ sermons and sinners. if the clergy only preached as well as they might, there ought not to be a single sinner in their parishes. _licensed victuallers' dinner, newport, february th, ._ the old parish church. i believe that all classes, including the nonconformists, have a real love for the old parish church and its grey tower, beneath the shade of which so many of their ancestors are laid. here at michaelston-y-vedw we have a fine historic building, erected about . i may tell you that one of its old parish registers contains an interesting entry. it is that "godfrey charles morgan was baptised here on may th, ." _eisteddfod, cefn-mably, september th, ._ [illustration: "_godfrey charles morgan was baptised here on may th, ._"] i always take more interest in these historical little rural parish churches than i do in a brand new church erected in some populous district. of course, the church is really more necessary there than among the small communities; still, there is the sentiment, the old association of the old parish church and the churchyard in which "the rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep." those lines of the poet gray: "the cock's shrill clarion, nor the echoing horn, no more shall raise him from his lonely bed," often strike me, because the little church is so closely connected with the llangibby family. the llangibby and morgan families have been associated very often before in the long vista of history, but you have amongst you now a relation of mine, come to live amongst you, and who will look after this little church. religious tolerance. it is possible that i am very tolerant in my religious opinions. but seeing that we are now living under perfect tolerance, and that the religious wants of the people must be supplied, i think it is the duty of those who own property to see that there is accommodation for the religious needs of all who live thereon. as science advances there must be considerable differences of opinion on religion in a large and important town like cardiff. a great man once said that tolerance was simply indifference; i do not agree with him. i think it is possible to be tolerant without being indifferent to one's own opinions. there is a great leaning nowadays towards scientific religion. education is advancing very rapidly, and philosophical men are trying to make reasons for every line in scripture and every line in the prayer book. that may be useful in a way, but i cannot help thinking that many books written lately by men who are very learned, and with very good intent, will, if circulated among the young of the country, do a great deal of harm. i look forward to an increase of religious feeling throughout the country, and i shall be always ready to assist, as far as i can, in erecting chapels and other places for religious instruction and religious worship. _chapel, cardiff, september th, ._ i have never posed as one made of that stuff of which martyrs are made--and perhaps my remarks may offend some, or scandalize others. but i would rather see any place of worship in the town than none at all, i will go so far as to say i would rather see a mohammedan mosque in the town than no place of worship at all. i have the greatest possible admiration for faith of any sort. early in my life i had occasion to look with admiration upon the faith even of a mohammedan. i have listened to the minister of the mosque calling the faithful to prayers two, three or more times a day, and i have seen the mohammedans in the street go down on their knees and say their prayers in front of everybody. i have seen a regiment of mohammedans on the march, and at the hour of sunset every man in the regiment would kneel on his carpet and say his prayers. those were soldiers who were not afraid of their faith, though it might have been the wrong one. i have watched a poor italian peasant kneel on the roadside and offer his small tribute to the shrine. he was not afraid of praying before anybody; but i am afraid that some of us would rather be seen with our hands in somebody else's pocket than kneel down and say our prayers in the club-room. _foundation-stone laying at baptist church, cardiff, june th, ._ [illustration: "_but i am afraid that some of us would rather be seen with our hands in somebody else's pocket than kneel down and say our prayers in the club-room._"] the cricketer curate. cricket is the nicest, best and most gentlemanly exercise in great britain. how general is the love of cricket is shown by the story of some parishioners who, when asked by their vicar what sort of a curate they would like, said:--"we don't care much about the preaching, but what we want in the curate is a good break to the off." [illustration: "_we don't care much about the preaching but what we want in the curate is a good break to the off._"] the brotherhood of man. i think you are quite right in commencing with a religious service a ceremony such as i am about to perform. these institutions are established for the welfare of the inhabitants, and we begin with a religious service in order to impress on those who are going to use the hall hereafter that, whatever is done inside the hall should be done in a way which is really a christian way. it will not affect in any way the feelings of those who attend for amusement or instruction, except to prompt a religious feeling which we all wish to have some time or other in our lives. i was very pleased to be able to come to-day and perform the opening ceremony. a little pressure was put on me because at my time of life you don't recover from any extra exertion. i do like this term of brotherhood. those who have arrived at my time of life know what it is to have and to value a really sympathising brother. i am referring to my own dear brother, who has recently left us. throughout our lives we did not have a single word of difference or a thought of difference, and the word "brother" will draw me out at any time. it is the idea of universal feeling that everybody is trying his or her best in this world in whatever he or she may be trying to do--it is the feeling of brotherhood which helps us to get that feeling. _speech at the victoria brotherhood, newport, march th, ._ the uses of the parish room. [illustration: "_the ploughman returning from his weary work may just scrape his boots outside._"] in olden days the ordinary village school was the only place available for meetings or for general gatherings of the parishioners, and a long time ago that did very well. but the advance of education is tending to interfere a good deal with our old ideas and places, and it is now almost necessary that every church, or every parish, should have a clubroom--a room where all classes can mix together and improve the knowledge they have gained at the various county schools--intermediate or otherwise. we want the parish room to be open to everyone. the ploughman returning from his weary work may just scrape his boots outside, and he will be perfectly welcome any time he likes to come in. i am sure there is a great deal of learning to be acquired, a great deal of good to be done, a great deal of instruction to be gathered, in a church room of this description, when it is managed in the way it ought to be. as you know, there are certain superior people who like essays and that sort of thing, and who, are inclined to sneer at the village concerts and penny readings and little dances which are likely to take place here. but we do not all possess the wisdom of socrates, the dignity of pliny, or the wit of horace. perhaps i shall put it more plainly if i say we do not possess the wisdom of shakespeare, the dignity of wordsworth, or the wit of byron. but there is quite likely to be as much good sense in a humble gathering of an evening here as amongst those superior people who always try to teach us by telling us what we ought to do, what to think about, and what we ought to remember. those are the people who advertise the simple life. i fancy most of you are living fairly simple lives, whilst those gentlemen who advocate it so much do not know what the simple life means. not very far from us is where "the rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep," and in gray's beautiful elegy we are told: "perhaps in this neglected spot is laid some heart once pregnant with celestial fire; hands that the rod of empire might have sway'd, or waked to ecstasy the living lyre." might not some of those who are laid in the churchyard close by, if they had enjoyed the advantages we have, have "wakened to ecstasy the living lyre," or been great members of either parish councils or county councils, or even members of parliament! i think that before this room has been in existence many years we shall find that some of those attending the gatherings which i hope will take place here, have done their best to make themselves prominent in life, especially in trying to keep before the world the truths of that religion which we have thought so much of and heard so much of to-day. _opening of church-room at llanvaches, february, ._ gentle manners. there is one great thing that will carry you comfortably through life, and that is a nice, gentle manner. i see you all have nice, gentle manners, and what i ask you to do is to carry them outside the school, and retain them when you are on the roads or in the fields, or in your own homes. i ask the boys to cultivate the same language outside as inside the school, and the girls the same manners. _school prize distribution, rhiwderin, april th, ._ bad language is unnecessary. bad words are used by some people in every other sentence, without any necessity at all, and they mean nothing. if you can only learn to drop those disagreeable words you will be much more pleasant members of society. i like to see boys lively, spirited, and anxious to amuse themselves whenever they can. but they should be kind and gentle to their mothers and sisters. it is the nature of boys to be tyrannical to the other sex, but they will lose nothing by being as kind and gentle as they can be. _boys' brigade inspection, newport, april th, ._ [illustration: "_it is the nature of boys to be tyrannical to the other sex._"] it has been well said that good manners are something to everybody, and everything to somebody. some people will not take anyone into employment unless they have good manners. as an old soldier, i know the value of _esprit de corps_. a hundred soldiers with the spirit of their corps are worth two hundred who do not care a straw about the regiment. _pontywain school, december th, ._ mr. labouchere has said he would rather have a gentleman of bad morals who voted right, than a gentleman whose morals were right but who voted wrong. well, i would rather have a gentleman whose manners are good, even though he votes wrong, than one who votes right and whose manners are bad. _licensed victuallers' dinner, july th, ._ reverence for religion. as i grow older i find that the younger people are the less they like advice, and the less likely they are to take it. but i hope you will henceforth be good citizens of this great country. in your brigade you are taught to have reverence for religion and respect for authority, which are great principles to get on with. _boys' brigade inspection, april th, ._ the teaching of refinement. there has been a great deal of talk lately about education. we have had board schools and national schools, and we are now going to have technical schools. but there is one point we have not yet arrived at--the teaching of refinement. i look upon the eisteddfod as encouraging literature and music and art, as one of the great institutions for the encouragement of refinement in general life. we may become very well educated and very scientific, but unless there is refinement among us in general life, we will naturally tend towards roughness of manners. _brecon eisteddfod, august th, ._ in praise of hospitals. we are met to endeavour to raise sufficient money to erect a hospital or infirmary worthy of the town of newport. there are two statements nobody can dispute: newport is a large and yearly increasing seaport, and a town of this magnitude ought not to be without a large and splendid hospital. i am afraid that with many people the idea of a hospital or infirmary does not go further than a small subscription and a few admission tickets to give away. but i wish to explain to the public generally the enormous advantages and the necessity of a good and well-organized hospital in the town. whatever subscription you give you may be pretty nearly certain that the money will be spent in the right way. all other charities are more or less liable to some sort of imposture, but that is almost impossible with a hospital. i remember, as a soldier in the old days, that there was a certain sort of complaint we used to call malingering. if a man wanted to shirk any duty he pretended to be ill, but was very soon found out by the regimental doctor. so in the same way hospital doctors will soon find out the malingerer. a hospital is a high school of medicine for young doctors, who not only mix with scientific people at the institution, but gain a high moral feeling, so that there is no room for small petty jealousies amongst the medical practitioners. then look at the injured people carried to the hospital. they have the best of care, and in most cases are turned out cured, sound and strong. if it were not for the hospital, they would probably be cripples or invalids for life. in that way hospitals save the rates. i am sure that hundreds are yearly turned out of the infirmary sound in mind and body, able to support their families and keep them off the rates. then, again, a hospital makes an excellent school for nurses. that is one of the greatest benefits possible, because the authorities of the hospital are always strictly careful that nurses, before they are sent out, are thoroughly proficient. i am sure no building ground or house, or any other little present i may have given in the course of my life, will be more useful than the land i have given for this site. i hope, in addition to the land, to be able to give a good sum of money if i see it is required. _meeting in connection with a new infirmary for newport, march th, ._ when is a hospital a success. this toast has always appeared to me very difficult to word. i do not know whether success to the infirmary means a full infirmary with all the wards engaged. it reminds me of a celebrated american who, when asked what sort of a town he had just left, remarked that it was very flourishing, for every hospital was crammed, every workhouse was too full, and they were about to build another wing to the gaol. _cardiff infirmary, january th, ._ reclaim the street urchin. the arabians have a proverb to the effect that "the stone that is fit for the wall should not be allowed to lay in the way." amongst the children who wander about the streets there are many who are, so to speak, quite "fit for the wall"--that is to say, they may, through being brought under drill and other conditions found in the brigade, be turned into respectable members of society. _bazaar at cardiff, april th, ._ [illustration: "_the stone that is fit for the wall should not be allowed to lay in the way._"] the influence of women. [illustration: "_broke the engagement off because the young man said he had never heard of browning._"] women exercise a great deal of influence upon the affairs of the country, even without taking part in business, politics, or anything of that sort. for all i know, there may be some girls here who will affect political and many other movements in connection with the welfare of the nation. girls ought to be made to think that they will have great power in the future, and to realise that they may be able to influence some one for good, not by their great learning so much as by the power that a good girl or a good woman exercises over men. i heard the other day of a young lady who was engaged to be married, but who broke off the engagement because the young man said he had never heard of browning. i am glad to be able to tell you that she thought better of it afterwards.... it was said of the great queen cleopatra that when the roman emperor fell in love with her she was the means of altering the history of the world. some say that if cleopatra's nose had been shorter, the face of the world would have been different. the fate of some young men may depend upon the noses, as well as upon the learning, of some of the girls present. _re-opening of howell's school, llandaff, june th, ._ a friend for the friendless. there cannot possibly be an object in the wide world more worthy of sympathy than a girl without a friend. all over the world this society has its habitations, and it has already befriended , girls. it renders assistance when they are penniless, provides friends when they are friendless, and religious consolation when they require it. _girls' friendly society bazaar, newport, april th, ._ the bravery of the workers. i think it is my duty to allude to the dreadful accident which took place in july at the dock extension works. the facts stated in the report should be printed and go, not only to the shareholders, but to the country generally, as a record of the heroism and endurance that our workers, from the highest engineer to the lowliest navvy, were capable of under distressing and dreadful circumstances. we hear so much of the decadence of the english race nowadays, that i think the report of the disaster at the docks is well worthy of being printed. _half-yearly meeting alexandra (newport and south wales) docks and railway coy., london, august th, ._ i have always admired the working collier, and if british records could be printed thousands of colliers would be found as much entitled to the victoria cross as those soldiers who have performed doughty deeds on the battlefield. _workmen's outing at tredegar park, august th, ._ in the old town hall of newport many great celebrities have received testimonials, compliments and honours--warriors, church dignitaries, financiers and great politicians; but i do not think any circumstance like the present one has arisen before, and there could not be a more interesting ceremony than that which we are about to perform. it is necessary to make a slight excuse for the time which has expired since the great disaster on july nd, . those who remember the incidents know perfectly well that the whole of the dock premises and the town were in a state of excitement for some considerable period, and a large number of unfortunate men were overwhelmed by the disaster, while others fortunately escaped. i think the officials have done their very best to try and select those who really performed heroic efforts. those who have not received recognition, but think they deserve it, will, i feel sure, make all due allowance, and give those responsible the credit for having done their best. it is satisfactory to the directors to know that they have a body of men around them who are ready to do their duty. it is a trait of the educated british workman of to-day that, when given something useful to do, he will perform his task heroically--heroism is characteristic of him. _presentation of certificates for bravery on the occasion of the dock disaster, newport town hall, march th, ._ a tribute to the engine driver. [illustration: "_the feeling of a newport cabman when his horse runs away._"] i have the greatest admiration for engine drivers, particularly those on the great western railway, on which line i travel most. i have often wondered at the admirable manner in which they stop and start their trains. mr. gladstone once said that he could understand the mind of a great historian like gibbon, or of a great poet, like milton, byron, or wordsworth, but that he could not understand the formation of the mind of a man who wrote poems and plays like shakespeare. personally, i cannot understand the mind of an engine driver on an express train. i have been myself, in some very disagreeable positions, and have had some very nasty half minutes. not very long ago i found myself underneath my horse in a muddy ditch and the half minutes i spent in waiting for a friendly hand to drag me out, and in wondering whether assistance would come before i was suffocated, were very unpleasant ones. only a fortnight ago, too, a gentleman was driving me in a light vehicle down a narrow roadway when we saw a runaway horse attached to a lorry galloping towards us. it seemed as if there was nothing for it but for us to be knocked into the proverbial cocked-hat. however, our vehicle was drawn very close to the side and the runaway just cleared us. i can understand, too, the feeling of a man driving four horses when they run away with him, because that has happened to myself; or the feeling of a newport cabman when his horse runs away. but i cannot understand the feeling of sustained courage on the part of a driver of an express engine with his train going at miles an hour through the darkness of the night, perhaps in a storm of snow or sleet. to use a pretty strong expression, it must be like "hell with the lid off." those who travel on railways ought to think more of the responsibilities which rest on railway employees. _railwaymen's dinner, april st, ._ temperance "in all things." [illustration: "_there are many radicals who take a great deal more than they can carry._"] when i talk of temperance i mean temperance not only in drink, but in all things. there is temperance in eating, and temperance in life. in the present case there are three sections--the temperance people, the sunday closing people, and the total abstinence people. i cannot see how the question of religion can enter into party politics. i have known many tories who were habitual drunkards, and there are many radicals who take a great deal more than they can carry. there is always a difficulty in drawing the line between the enthusiast and the fanatic. enthusiastic gentlemen generally get what they require. fanatics, on the other hand, by the way they advocate their principles, turn people away. _opening of the new temperance hall, newport, may nd, ._ i believe that if the medical men of the country published their opinions concerning the cases which come under their notice, it would be a revelation to the general public how great a proportion of illness is due in one way or another to alcoholic drink. i cannot, however, help noticing that a great improvement and advance has taken place in the cause of temperance. a good many years ago, when there was going to be a great family festival--a wedding or something of that sort--one of the family retainers was asked if he was going to be there. "of course," was his reply, "and won't i just get drunk." that seemed to be the prevailing idea of enjoyment--to get drunk. but that attitude has been changed. _band of hope festival, newport, may rd, ._ [illustration: "_coming out and making themselves disagreeable to their neighbours._"] i have no doubt there are several in the hall who, like myself, are not total abstainers, but we are all one in our endeavour to promote temperance generally. to those who cannot be temperate, we advise total abstinence. there is nothing, i am sure, so fruitful of good as the advocacy of temperance amongst children. when children are taught to advocate a particular cause they do it more effectively than older people. but we are sometimes apt to become too much imbued with one particular idea, and it is never well to be too much of a bore to those around us. a little child was asked not long ago what she knew about king john and runnymede. she had evidently been a worker in the temperance cause, and replied, "oh, yes; he's the man they got down to runnymede and made him swear to take the pledge." she had forgotten about magna charta, and thought of only one kind of pledge. there is nothing that disturbs the general happiness and comfort so much as the action of those who persist in going into a public house when they need not do so, and coming out and making themselves disagreeable to their neighbours. i only hope that some of the younger portion of you will live to enjoy a bank holiday without seeing a single drunken person. _band of hope union, newport, may th, ._ total abstinence. there is a rule in the boys' brigade according to which you are supposed to be abstainers from drink. i need not say what a good thing that is. you will all be very much better for being abstainers. you will save a great deal of money, and probably keep your health up better. i wish i had been a total abstainer in my youth. i should have saved a great deal of money. _boys' brigade inspection, newport, april th, ._ an angelic vision. there is a phrase about "the happiness of the greatest number." it is an expressive phrase, but different people have different opinions of happiness. i was hunting in the midland counties and i asked, "where is tom?" the answer was, "he's retired, he's living the life of a hangel; he's a-heating, and a-drinking and a-cussing, and a-swearing all day long." that may not be your idea of the life of an angel, if it was my friend's idea. _the tredegar show, december th, ._ [illustration: "_he's retired, he's living the life of a hangel._"] chats to and about cabbies. i have had many rides in the cabs of newport, and have always found the cabbies very good drivers, prepared to go the pace according to the fare they expected at the end of the journey. _cabmen's dinner, newport, november th, ._ [illustration: "_prepared to go the pace according to the fare they expected at the end of the journey._"] [illustration: "_you try to blow me up on my way to tredegar house._"] i wish you had chosen some other patron saint than guy fawkes, for guy fawkes tried to blow up the house of lords, and on each anniversary you try to blow me up on my way to tredegar house. some persons may think that one conservative peer more or less does not matter, but i prefer that the experiment of blowing up should be tried upon the body of a radical peer. _cabmen's dinner, newport, nov th, ._ [illustration: "_look here, cut it short guv'nor! i've got the cab by the hour._"] there are very odd traditions about cabmen, and i am certain that sometimes they are not deserved. i have been told it is something of a tradition that it is the pride of a cabman to be able to whistle louder, to hit his horse harder, and to tell a bigger lie than anybody else. i believe that to be absolutely untrue, though some of you may know better than i do. one of you is supposed to have nearly upset a wedding. that was a dreadful thing to do. the bride and bridegroom were both at the altar and just about to have the knot tied nicely. the clergyman began to deliver his address, but the bridegroom appeared to be in a great hurry, and said to the clergyman, "look here, cut it short, guv'nor! i've got the cab by the hour." that was rather natural on the part of the bridegroom but the clergyman became very angry, and very nearly threw up the case.... [illustration: "_look here, mr. huddleston, i call you a thief, a blackguard, a scoundrel, and a villain._"] cabmen are limited in the language they may use. judge huddleston, when a barrister, was defending a client against a cabman, who had been using very bad language. the advocacy of huddleston won the case. the next day the cabman called upon him and said: "look here, mr. huddleston, you told me yesterday that i must not call people so and so. what are your charges for telling me what i can call anyone without getting into trouble?" mr. huddleston named his fee, cabby paid the money, and inquired what names he might call a man with impunity. mr. huddleston referred to his law books, and replied: "this is what you may call a man without being had up for libel or defamation of character. you may call him a villain, a scoundrel, a blackguard, and a thief, always supposing you don't accuse him of having stolen anything." the cabby took up his hat and said: "look here, mr. huddleston, i call you a thief, a blackguard, a scoundrel and a villain; not that i mean to say you ever stole anything. good morning." so you know now exactly what you can call a man if you do not like the fare he gives you. at the same time, i do not believe you would say such things. [illustration: "_that's where lord tredegar buried his charger; he made that mound himself._"] then, again, a cabman is always supposed to be a driving encyclopedia. when newport cabmen are driving along caerleon road or chepstow road, credulous individuals ask them the name of every house and place they pass, what it means and what it is. strangers want to know, and you must tell them something. there is an extraordinary tradition about a cabman driving along a road, when a lady fare asked him what "that mountain was with the tump on the top." "but what is the tump for?" persisted the lady. "oh, that's where lord tredegar buried his charger; he made that mound himself," was the reply. such stories are very interesting and amusing, but they spoil history, and that is why i think we are indebted to cabmen for the extraordinary traditions that go about the country. _cabmen's dinner, newport, november th, ._ cabmen have traditionally bad characters, and are supposed to possess a vocabulary which is not taught in the intermediate schools. they are also supposed to have a special method of calculating distances and coin. all those ideas are exploded like nursery rhymes, such as "whittington and his cat." cabmen are well looked after. there is the excise officer and the cruelty to animals society, and, if these are not enough, there is the watch committee. _cabmen's dinner, newport, november th, ._ [illustration: "_but the top of a 'bus is the place for us to see the coves go by._"] you have to compete with tramcars, motor cars, and all kinds of horrible conveyances. having been interested in nursery rhymes since i was very young, i have been looking through some children's books during the last few days to see what is provided for the children of these days, and i came across the following lines in a book for children:-- the hansom takes you quickest, the growler keeps you dry, but the top of the 'bus is the place for us to see the coves go by. i advise you not to give that little book to your children, as it will induce them to ride on the top of a 'bus instead of taking a cab. _cabmen's dinner, newport, november th, ._ [illustration: "_fast women and slow horses._"] i have never been able to find out exactly why the cabmen's dinner is fixed for guy fawkes' day. i have looked up guy fawkes' pedigree, and i cannot find that he ever drove a growler or even a hansom cab. then i thought it might have something to do with inkerman day, which is all upset nowadays, as you know. inkerman was always called a soldiers' battle, because it was so foggy that the generals could not see what they were doing. i have an idea that it must have been a cabmen's battle, and that it was cabmen who fought at inkerman or commanded at inkerman. speaking of cabmen, i think that they are like lord rosebery's dukes--poor, but honest. this is not an epoch-making dinner; it is not even a record dinner. "epoch-making" and "record-making" are terms which are frequently used now-a-days, and i wish people would give them a rest for a time. i remember a young gentleman who came into a fortune and very soon got through it because his company was very indifferent, he being very fond of racecourses and other iniquities of that sort. he went through the bankruptcy court, and when asked how he accounted for getting rid of his fortune so quickly, he replied, "fast women and slow horses." now i think cabmen would probably make a profit out of fast women and slow horses. one of you will take a very fine lady to caerleon racecourse next week, and, having a slow horse, will take two hours to do the journey, and charge a two hours' price. but i always like this society for one particular reason, namely, it has no small societies belonging to it. there is no cabmen's football club to write and ask you for a subscription. so far as i know, there is no cabmen's band, or other small institutions of which we have so many in every other circle of society. there is no cabmen's congress, and no cabmen's conferences and that is a great merit in the society, because i know that when i have done one thing, i have done all that i shall be required to do. _cabmen's dinner, november th, ._ talks to licensed victuallers. although the devil is not as black as he is painted, i hope neither i nor any other gentleman present bears any resemblance to his satanic majesty. the scythians, it is reported, first debated things when drunk, and then whilst sober, and perhaps at the end of this gathering i may be able to form a better opinion of the members of the newport corporation. _mayor's banquet, newport march th, ._ a few months ago, in the silly season, "the times" had about a couple of columns of letters from people discussing the uses and abuses of drink. i read the letters carefully, and came to the conclusion that there was a lot to be said on both sides. an octogenarian of wrote to say that his eyesight, hearing, and teeth were all sound, and that he had not tasted spirituous liquors in his life. shortly after, another octogenarian of , in addition to claiming the healthy condition of the previous writer, spoke of intending matrimony. he, however, said his memory was not so good as it was, but, so far as he could recollect, he had never been to bed sober in his life. after reading the first letter, i thought it was a "clincher," and went to bed without my usual brandy and soda, saying there would be no more licensed victuallers' dinners for me. when, however, i read the second letter, i changed my mind about the dinner. it has been said that life is not all beer and skittles, but it is a good thing to have something to drive away the depression which occasionally visits every one who has arrived at manhood. _licensed victuallers' dinner, cardiff, march th, ._ in the old days barons drank strong ale. the barons would have their liquor strong, and local veto at that time would have meant loss of licensed victuallers' heads. some people may wonder why i so persistently attend the licensed victuallers' association meetings--for i do attend regularly. i will tell you why, in a few words, if you will not tell anybody else. there is a clause in the family settlements that compels me to do it. i endeavour to act up to those settlements. _licensed victuallers' dinner, newport, march th, ._ i am not surprised that members of parliament are rather shy of going to licensed victuallers' dinners. they have to be very careful of what they say. words, it has been said, are given to conceal thoughts. after dinner, sometimes, thoughts get the mastery of words, and members of parliament have to think a good deal of the future. they have to ponder over the teetotal vote, and they have to be very careful that they do not offend the licensed victuallers. the difference as regards the members of the house of lords is this--they do not worry themselves about the teetotal vote, and they do not care a _darn_ for the licensed victuallers. a certain number of people think they can arrange everything satisfactorily upon an arithmetical principle. the latest fad is "one man one vote." if you do not take care it will be one man one glass. i would like to know how that could be arranged on arithmetical principles satisfactorily. there are a few other burning questions which i have never yet seen satisfactorily answered. one is 'what is home rule?' and the other is 'have you used pear's soap?' until we can find satisfactory answers to these, i think that legislation in regard to licensed victuallers will be quiet for a bit. i have never considered it necessary to apologise for dining with licensed victuallers. if there are any who think that in dining with that company i am stepping down from a pedestal on which i ought to remain, all i can do is to answer them in the beautiful motto of the order of the garter, "honi soit qui mal y pense." _licensed victuallers' dinner, cardiff, february th, ._ [illustration: "_if there are any who think that i am stepping down from a pedestal._"] cakes and ale. for my own part, i cannot see how the country could get on without licensed victuallers. some years ago when a frenchman wanted to describe an english country gentleman, he said he was one of those who, whenever he had nothing to do, suggested to those about him that they should go out and kill something. [illustration: "_if a time arrived when there were no more cakes and ale._"] there is a type of politician who, whenever he has nothing to do, says "let us go and abolish something." if this type had its way it would abolish the lord mayor's show and barnum's white elephant. i do not think the country would be one whit happier if a time arrived when there were no more cakes and ale. _licensed victuallers' dinner, january th, ._ the great land tyrant. i am now like the old man of the sea--someone you ought to get rid of. i am a great land tyrant. if you want a bit of land you can't get it. if you want a piece for a recreation ground you can't get it. if you want a piece for a church you can't get it. if you want a piece for a school you can't get it. if you want a place for any other amusement or for athletic grounds you can't get it. why? because it belongs to lord tredegar. so if you treat me like jonah, and throw me overboard, perhaps it would be much better for you. _conservative association meeting, newport. august th, ._ two lord tredegars. it appears to me sometimes that there are two lord tredegars.... most of you have been children at some time or other, and so most of you, i am happy to think, are acquainted with nursery rhymes. there is one which, probably, a great many of you have heard of. it is about an old lady with a basket who was going to market. she laid down on a bank and went to sleep, and a pedlar passing by, for some reason or other, cut her petticoats considerably above her knees. when she awoke the first thing she said was, "surely, this is not i." and sometimes, when he awoke in the morning, and saw what was said about lord tredegar, he was inclined to make the same remark, "surely, this is not i." when i read of a lord tredegar who is trying to reap what he has not sown, who binds his tenants down to covenants which do not exist, and who exacts the uttermost farthing from his miserable tenants, i think sometimes there must be two lord tredegars. _tredegar show, november th, ._ [illustration: "_surely, this is not i!_"] the trials of benefactors. [illustration: "_i have lately started a store in the village._"] the other day a friend of mine was in much the same position as i am to-night. he owned a large estate in the neighbourhood, and he was asked to preside at a meeting of the candidate who was going to come forward. i asked him afterwards if the meeting was successful. "oh, yes," he replied, "it was fairly successful, but they began to find out my failures and shortcomings." i said, "what have they found out about you?" the reply was, "i have lately started a store in the village, so that the agricultural labourers might have their beef and groceries at cost price. i thought that was rather a good thing to do, but it was far from a good thing in the opinion of my opponents. all the butchers and grocers declared they would make it very hot for me." i am in a somewhat similar position, and i told my friend so. "what have you done?" asked my friend, and i replied, "i have given a public park to the newport people." "what has that to do with it?" "well," said i, "they make out that it has increased the rates." _conservative meeting, newport, february nd, ._ what is a philanthropist? there are moments in a man's life when there is a contest between the lip and the eye, whether we should smile or cry. i am sure you would not like to see me cry just now, but there is a certain amount of sentiment in an affair of this sort. for a person in my position it is rather trying. i feel very much like the little boy you all knew in your nursery stories. the boy had a pie, and "he put in his thumb and pulled out a plum and said 'what a good boy am i.'" that is what i feel now. i suppose i should feel like a philanthropist. you probably all know what a philanthropist is. a philanthropist is an old gentleman, probably with a bald head, and he tries to make his conscience think he is doing good all the while he is having his pocket picked. _in reply to a vote of thanks._ "a splendid fellow." [illustration:"_a philanthropist is an old gentleman, probably with a bald head._"] it has been wisely said that there is nothing a man will not believe in his own favour. well, after the way you praise me i believe i am a splendid fellow altogether. but one's name is not always spoken of with that reverence with which a lord's name ought to be mentioned. still, i suppose there is such a thing as ignorance among men about those who do not live in the same station as themselves, and i always put it down to that. some day or other they may come to find out that what they say against lord tredegar is not all true. _st. mellons' show, september th, ._ naturally a conservative. you will not wonder that i am in a graver mood than is usual on these occasions. for more than years my lamented father occupied this chair, and i believe he was present on every occasion of this kind. in that time, the show has been raised from a very small one to be one of the most important in the country. my father has left me, amongst other possessions, an hereditary trust in the shape of this agricultural show. if i have given any hope that i shall fill the position as my father filled it, i shall feel very much flattered. it is not my intention to make great changes. there is no way of showing disrespect more than in making great changes, turning everything topsy-turvey, as if we knew everything better than those who went before us. i am naturally conservative, and come of a conservative family. i intend to keep to what was good of my late father. i have inherited a great trust in this show, and i hope that in future it will be seen that the show has not lost its prestige, its popularity or its utility. _tredegar show, december th, ._ politics on the brain. everybody now has got politics on the brain. we dream of politics and we almost drink politics--at least, we have been drinking politics to-night. so far as i am concerned, i should like, rip van winkle-like, to go to sleep for the next two months and wake up to find the general election over; only then i should like to wake up to find it had gone the right way. _farmers' dinner, bassaleg, october th, ._ the unruly hound. [illustration: "_i lick him whenever i have the opportunity._"] it is wrong to introduce politics at this dinner, and, in fact, i have no great liking for politics on any occasion, though i do at times have a little to do with them. and i have a little way of my own. i have a most unruly hound in my pack, which i call "radical," and i lick him whenever i have the opportunity. it does the hound good, and at the same time eases my own mind. though i have no great love of politics, i think this is a time, if ever, a member of parliament should feel inclined to speak. there is one subject which must be in everybody's mind, and for the consideration of which everyone must brace himself in the next session--that is "tenant's right." that is a question in which every agriculturist must take a deep interest; and for myself i think meetings of this sort much more likely to promote a goodly feeling between landlord and tenant than the provisions of any act of parliament. _tredegar show, december th, ._ the whoo whoops. i thank you for the way the toast of my health has been received; but i do not quite see the propriety of "whoo whoops" at the end. that is an expression that sportsmen use only when they are about to kill something; i do not see its applicability in the present case. i hope that you do not mean all you have expressed. _tredegar show, december th, ._ m.p.'s as badgers. during the intervals of pigeon pie and boiled beef, i have had the pleasure of a few minutes' conversation with mr. cordes, and from that conversation i have come to the conclusion that a member of parliament holds the same position to the human race that a badger does to the animal race. some people think that the only earthly purpose for which a badger can have been created was that of being baited, and i have an idea that some persons seem to imagine that a member of parliament was created for nothing but that we might bait him. but on this occasion we have been brought together not to bait mr. cordes, but to fête him. _conservative banquet, newport, january th, ._ the honour of being m.p. it is a great honour still, i am sure, to be a member of the british house of commons. lord rosebery, when he was chairman of the london county council, in a speech that he made--and i dare say many of you have been interested in some of lord rosebery's speeches because he has a fund of humour, and very often one is not quite certain whether he is in earnest or in jest--once said that the position of a town councillor is much more important than that of a member of parliament. it is quite possible that an individual member of a county council or a town council may be more important as an individual than a member of the house of commons, but his vote can only mainly affect the locality, whilst the action of a member of the house of commons may not only affect the whole of great britain, but the whole of the british empire. so i venture to think the position of a member of parliament is a little more important than that of a member of a town council or a county council. _monmouthshire county council, february nd, ._ nelson's saying. there still exists in the bosoms of our public men the feeling which animated lord nelson before the battle of the nile, when he said, "to-morrow i shall have either a peerage or westminster abbey." _press dinner, cardiff, may th, ._ the disadvantages of the peerage. [illustration: "_receiving eggs that are not fit for breakfast, and cats that have not received honourable interment._"] there are advantages and disadvantages in belonging to the house of lords. the peers are deprived of the right which other citizens have of standing on the hustings and receiving eggs that are not fit for breakfast and cats that have not received honourable interment. but they have the privilege of british citizens of being roundly abused by those whose talents lay in that direction. _associated chambers of commerce, newport, sept. st, ._ sweeps as peers. [illustration: "_i am acquainted with some sweeps._"] a certain gentleman who certainly thinks that the constitution of the country could be reorganised and set straight at once by a magazine article, says that if the house of lords rejects the home rule bill there is a very simple way to remedy the affair. mr. gladstone will then, he states, collect sweeps and make them peers so as to gain a majority. whether the gentleman intended to insult the sweeps or to insult the house of lords i do not know. i am acquainted with some sweeps. i have always looked upon sweeps in the same way as i look upon licensed victuallers. they are a body of men who are carrying on a very difficult profession with credit to themselves and advantage to the country. moreover, the sweeps with whom i am acquainted are most of them tories, and i shall not be surprised if as soon as those sweeps are collected and made peers, and have washed their faces and put on their coronets and robes, they do immediately range themselves on the opposition side of the house, and do, as most new gladstonian peers do, vote conservative directly they are created. _newport licensed victuallers' dinner, february rd, ._ you cannot please everybody. i have no doubt that if the house of lords were to pass by a large majority the disestablishment of the welsh church in the next session, the welsh party would say the hereditary principle was the only one to be depended upon. on the other hand, if the lords were to pass by a large majority a local veto bill, i have no doubt the licensed victuallers would at once go in for the abolition of the house of lords. _cardiff licensed victuallers' dinner, march th, ._ i am not a landlord myself, but i have strong opinions about the right of property, which i hope, in future legislation, will always be considered. if ever i become a landlord, i hope the interest which i have always felt in the welfare of my respected father's tenants will lead them to suppose that i shall never become such a ruffian as some people would make landlords out to be. _monmouthshire chamber of agriculture, february th, ._ i confess i was much comforted in reading one of those amiable, kind and christian-like speeches for the total suppression of landlords. i looked into the dictionary for the meaning of the word "landlord," and i found it was "a keeper of a public-house." when i read that, my soul was comforted. _newport licensed victuallers' dinner, january th, ._ i have always taken great interest in those who live on my property, it does not matter whether on agricultural land or in the bowels of the earth. a great landowner does not rest on a bed of roses. the loss to a landowner who only owns a small agricultural property, in days of agricultural depression when tenants cannot pay their rent, generally means a few hundred pounds and the reducing of all his expenses. but when it comes to great commercial interests, to owning the land on which our great ironworks, great tinworks, and collieries are situated, and when those interests are depressed, it means not a loss of a few hundreds, but the wiping off of several thousands. and it means occupying themselves night and day in ascertaining how they can help to still carry on those great interests which have employed so many hands, and which are so necessary for the welfare of the population of the district.... a great ironmaster, mr. carnegie, who found it to his best interest to carry on his great works in america, has enunciated a sentiment which appeals to me, to the effect that it is the business of every rich man to die poor. sometimes i feel that will probably be my fate if i go on as i am doing. however, i shall be poor in good company. _presentation to lord tredegar of miners' lamp and silver medal at risca eisteddfod, october th, ._ considerable difficulties attach to the position of a man who happens to own land round a large and increasing town. so many demands are placed before him. there are demands for building sites and for open spaces and public parks. it is difficult, when the land is limited in area, to satisfy all requirements. i hope, in a short time, however, to be enabled to make a present to the town of newport of a public park, one which will not cost much in laying out for use. _mayoral dinner, newport, december nd, ._ it may possibly happen that if the order to which i belong is swept away, i may become a candidate for municipal honours, and perhaps aspire to the civic chair. at present, however, i have my own responsibilities, for i am deeply troubled with what i may term the four r's--rates, roads, royalties, and rents. _mayor's banquet, march th, ._ keep us still our shorthorns. a gentleman who was very fond of writing poetry wrote a couple of lines which might be quoted against him although he has long since joined the majority. he wrote:-- let laws and learning, art and commerce die, but keep us still our old nobility. the last line can be altered as you like, and you can put anything you like for laws and learning, i would say buffaloes or anything else, but keep our shorthorns. in breeding shorthorns a pedigree of a long line of ancestors is indispensable. mr. stratton and myself have tried to work on those lines by breeding the nobility of shorthorns. _stock sale at the duffryn, newport, october th, ._ [illustration: "_i always find great difficulty in obtaining entrance to the dairy competitions._"] interest in dairying. my thoughts are at the moment running on ground rents, royalties and wayleaves, so if i wander from the subject i hope you will forgive me. i cannot regard the subject of dairying without thinking how we would have stood now supposing we had taken up the question as we ought to have done twenty years ago. we would not now be taking a back seat with the foreigners. but i always now find great difficulty in obtaining entrance to the dairy competitions, if i go there casually. whether it is the attractions of the pretty dairymaids inside, or the coolness of the atmosphere, there is certainly very great interest taken in the competitions and that is satisfactory. _monmouthshire dairy school prize distribution, november th, ._ where all classes meet. of all meetings which take place in the course of a year, there are none attended with such universal good as an agricultural meeting, because here all classes can meet, whereas in nearly all other meetings the attendances are of a sectional character. for instance, race meetings--many people think them wrong and never attend them. then there are church extension and missionary meetings--a great many do not like to attend them. but as to agricultural meetings, everybody seems to like to attend them, from the clergy to the racing man, the mechanic, the agricultural labourer, and the meetings must, therefore, promote a deal of harmony among classes. an agricultural meeting is much more effective than the proceedings of messrs. bright and cobden, who are going about preaching a war of classes. _tredegar show, december th, ._ where the agriculturist should study. some excursionists were going around the house of either wordsworth or tennyson--i forget which--and asked a servant where was her master's study. she replied, "here is my master's study, but he studies in the fields." that is the lesson to be learnt in respect to agriculture. _agricultural exhibition, newport, december nd, ._ a blue bottle and a bird. i hope you won't do what i did last time. it was a day very different from this. it was very hot. i saw an animal in the ring that i did not care the least about, and just then a great blue-bottle settled on my nose. the consequence was that i bought the worst animal at a very high price. _stock sale at the duffryn, newport, october th, ._ a limit even to science. [illustration: "_just then a great blue-bottle settled on my nose._"] in regard to scientific agriculture, i am not sure whether we are not rather overdoing things; but there is no doubt that, notwithstanding all the science we have, we have never succeeded in making a cow have more than one calf in a year, or a sheep more than two lambs. that goes to prove that there is a limit even to science in agriculture, and it reminds me of the saying, "you may pitchfork nature out of existence, but she is sure to come back to you." _bassaleg show, october th, ._ an eye for a good pair of horses. some men have an eye for one thing and some for another, but i think if i have a weakness it is to fancy that i have an eye for a good pair of horses, and for a straight line. when i see a line i can judge if it has been ploughed straight, and then i can judge whether the ploughman has had too much. of course, that sort of thing never happens at a ploughing match, but still it is as well to be on the look-out. _farmers' association, bassaleg, october th, ._ as cattle dealer. just before i came to the meeting i had put into my hand a small--a very small--paper in which i am described as a cattle-dealer. but i am not at all ashamed of that. _newport conservative meeting, april th, ._ the best farmer. it was the late lord beaconsfield, i believe, who said that the best educated farmer known spent all his life in the open air, and never read a book. there is a great deal of truth in that, and although science may aid farmers, observation and experience in the proper treatment of land and crops will do much more. _tredegar show, december th, ._ fox-hunting and diplomacy. many people imagine that to be a master of foxhounds you have only to get a horse--but besides the matter of pounds, shillings and pence, you have to create an interest amongst the farmers over whose land you hunt, and whose sheep, pigs and lambs you frighten. one, therefore, has to use a certain amount of diplomacy. _gelligaer steeplechases, april th, ._ nothing tends to brush away the cobwebs so much as a bracing run with the hounds. fox hunting is an admirable sport, and my neighbours shall enjoy it as long as there is a fox to be found on my estate. _at tredegar house, october th, ._ at an athletic club dinner. when i came into the room i expected to find one half of the company on crutches and the other half in splints. i am not at all certain that i am the proper man to be president of this club, because i think that the president of an athletic club should measure at least inches round the chest, and ought to have biceps of inches, and scale at least stone lbs. i am afraid all the dumb bells in the world would not get me up to that. i am what might be called an old fossil, though i cannot boast of the garrulity of old age, and therefore i will not tell you that when i played football i was always kicking the ball out of the ground into the river; or that when i played cricket i always drove the ball into the river. those are facts well known in newport. _first annual dinner of the newport athletic club, april th, ._ hunting. i am always delighted to see any member of the corporation at the meet of my hounds. if they came out horrid radicals they would go back half tories. [illustration: "_i am afraid all the dumb bells in the world would not get me up to that._"] "one touch of nature makes the whole world kin," and there is nothing like a meet in the open country for setting things right between friends and neighbours. _mayor's banquet, newport, january th, ._ a clever satirist has said that nature made the horse and hounds and threw in the fox as a connecting link. in my opinion, fox-hounds and hunting are the connecting links between the landlord and the tenant farmer. [illustration: "_'oh the devil!' i exclaimed. 'no, not the devil,' said the farmer, 'but the fox.'_"] i have made many pleasant acquaintances lately in my hunting expeditions, and i hope we shall always remain on the most amicable terms. but some have astonished me with their argument. said one, "beg pardon, major, i have lost such a sight of poultry." "dear me," i said. "yes, we lost forty ducks the other night." "oh, the devil!" i exclaimed. "no, not the devil," said the farmer, "but the fox." i asked the farmer how he managed to count so many. "well," was the reply, "i had four ducks sitting on ten eggs each; and that made forty." well, the chamber of agriculture has not yet settled the knotty point of "compensation for unexhausted improvements." however, the argument ended in our parting very good friends, as, said the farmer, "i and my landlord have been friends hitherto, and as i hope we shall continue to be." two unprofitable honours. i have the honour to hold two offices which, if i did not enjoy the friendship of the farmers, would be very thorny ones. one of them is that of being a member of parliament for an agricultural county. you will agree with me that, in such a position, if i were not on good terms with the farmer, i would often be on a bed of thorns. the other office i hold is that of master of a pack of hounds. i think also if i were not on good terms with the farmer that would not be a very pleasant position. i do not know that there is any similarity between the two offices, except that neither of them has any salary. i hope and trust that it will be a very long time before the country will be unable to find men willing to do the duties in either capacity without being paid for them. _tredegar show, december th, ._ the happy farmer. a great many people fancy that the farmer lives in a beautiful cottage, with vines climbing over it, that the cows give milk without any milking, that the earth yields forth her fruits spontaneously, and that the farmer has nothing to do but sit still and get rich. _tredegar show, december th, ._ equine expressions. our great orators, whenever they want to be more expressive than usual, make use of phrases savouring of horses and carriages. when the grand old man came into power, it was said he would have an awkward team to manage. again, when a great division was expected some time ago, and there were doubts as to which way two gentlemen would go, it was said that mr. fowler had kicked over the traces and that mr. saunders would jib. equine expressions are quite in the fashion. _may horse show dinner, may th, ._ kindness to animals. my experience of life is that a man who loves horses is a good member of society. a man who is kind to his horses is kind to everyone else. i belong to a four-in-hand club, two of the leading members, lord onslow and lord carrington, being close personal friends of mine. a relative of lord onslow once wrote: "what can tommy onslow do he can drive a coach and two; can tommy onslow do no more yes, he can drive a coach and four." yet lord onslow and lord carrington are something more than splendid whips; they are highly successful governors of british dependencies. _may day horse show dinner, march nd, ._ talks on education. i have been delighted to hand so many prizes to lady pupil teachers, and i recall the philosopher who once said, "all that is necessary is that a girl should have the morals of an angel, the manners of a kitten, and the mind of a flea." but after this distribution one cannot go away with the impression that the female mind is only the mind of a flea. _pupil teachers' prize distribution, january th, ._ we have been informed, to-night of different foreign educational systems, the german, the french, and the american, which we are generally told in this country we ought to copy. in the french system there is too much centralization. every teacher, whether at a university or at a small elementary school, is simply a government official. the german system is a splendid one, but it is all subsidized by government. the english government is not generous enough to do that for english schools, so we can hardly hope to copy the german system. then there is the american system. that is also certainly splendid, but unfortunately we have no great millionaires in england who will help us to copy the american system. it has been said that when an englishman becomes a millionaire, and he feels that he is nearing his end, he thinks--to use a sporting expression--that it is time to "hedge for a future state." then he builds a church. the american millionaire founds a university, or leaves large sums of money for a training college, and i think he is right. _technical school prize distribution, newport, december rd, ._ sir william preece has said that there were five new elements discovered within the last century. there were others undiscovered, and it only remained for some student to discover one of them to make himself famous, and, like xenophon, return to find his name writ large on the walls of his native town. a celebrated poet once declared-- "you can live without stars; you can live without books, but civilized man cannot live without cooks." some people may be able to live without books and only with cooks. but without science and books we should not have had our empire. books and science help us to keep up the empire. it is for these reasons that i do what i can to encourage technical and scientific education. _school of science and art prize distribution, december th, ._ you can be quite certain that no hooligan ever attended an art school. the intelligence and refinement of manners brought about by the study of sculpture, painting, and architecture have more to do with the stopping of drunkenness than any other teaching you could think of.... the charm of these art schools for me lies in the fact that we are always expecting something great, just as a fisherman at a little brook, where he has never caught anything much larger than his little finger, is always expecting to hook some big monster. in these art schools i am always expecting some great artist or sculptor turned out--somebody from newport schools--not only a credit to himself but to any town, somebody who will become a second millais or a great sculptor. newport has improved a good deal of late years, and i am sure the study of painting and architecture has had much to do with it. in looking over some old papers in the tredegar archives the other day, i came across a description by two people who passed from cardiff through newport about years ago. they said: "we went over a nasty, muddy river, on an old rotten wooden bridge, shocking to look at and dangerous to pass over. on the whole this is a nasty old town." _school of science and art prize distribution, december th, ._ sir john gorst has made reference to the indisposition of the territorial aristocracy to encourage high intellectual attainment. i think "territorial aristocracy" is rather an undefinable term, and perhaps school children will be asked what it is. i do not think that those who own land are as a class opposed to high intellectual attainment. the county councils to some extent are representative of territorial aristocracy, and of the county councils of england and wales have agreed to spend the whole of the government grant in education. that is a sign that the territorial aristocracy are not averse to intellectual attainment. perhaps colonel wallis will ask some of the children in the school what the meaning of "territorial aristocracy" is. i read that when a child was asked what the meaning of the word yankee was, the reply was that it was an animal bred in yorkshire. _opening of the school board offices, newport, march th, ._ victor hugo once said that the opening of a school means the closing of a prison. that is very true, regarded as an aphorism, and i wish it were true in reality, because there would not be any prisons left in england. _opening of intermediate schools, october th, ._ i am pleased that technical schools are taking such a firm hold in the town. i feel more and more that the teaching of art is doing a great deal of good. there is a great improvement in the tastes of the people, shown by the architectural beauty of their residences and in decorations generally. i was very much surprised a short time ago at reading a strong article by "ouida"--whose novels i have read with a great deal of interest--on the ugliness of our modern life. she certainly took a very pessimistic view of the matter and seemed to look only at the workaday part of the world--at the making of railways, the knocking down of old houses, and the riding of bicycles. i do not see that those things come under the title of art. one of the objects of instruction at the art schools is to induce students to create ideas of their own. at the same time i do not think you could do much better than study the old masters, than whose works i do not see anything better amongst modern productions. the great silver racing cups given away now, worth from £ to £ , do not compare with the handiwork of italian and venetian silver workers. i have some pieces of plate in the great cellar under tredegar house which i do not think it possible to improve upon. _school of science and art prize distribution, newport, january th, ._ one or two little incidents in my own experience lately shew the value of studying some particular trade or science or some form of art. only the other day i met a young lady at a country house. before i had seen her a few minutes she remarked: "i suppose you don't remember me, lord tredegar?" if i had been young and gallant, it would have been natural for me to have replied: "such a face as yours i am not in the least likely to forget." but i thought i was too old for that, and merely said that i did not remember at the moment having met her previously. the young lady then informed me that she had received a prize at my hands at a great school, and that in handing her the prize i had remarked, "you have well earned the prize, and it is a branch of art that, if continued, will prove very useful in after life." that branch of art had enabled her to take the position she then occupied. the other incident was that of a young man who had been left by his parents very poor. he had the greatest difficulty in getting anything at all to do, because he had never made himself proficient in any particular trade or science. i agree with the man who said one should know something about everything and everything about something. _school of science and art prize distribution, newport, december th, ._ it has been well said, i forget by whom, but i think it was dr. johnson, that you can do anything with a scotsman, if you catch him young. i think you can say just the same of the welshman or the monmouthshire man. _newport intermediate boys' school, november th, ._ one day i accompanied a young lady to her carriage on leaving a public function at which i had officiated. the band struck up a martial air, and i stepped actively to the time of the music. remarking to the young lady that the martial air appealed to an old soldier, she said, "why, lord tredegar, were you ever in the army?" that is the reason why i think we should have memorials and why i shall be very glad to have this picture in my house. _on the occasion of the presentation of a portrait of his lordship's statue in cathays park, cardiff, september th, ._ the commander of the french army said of the balaclava charge that it was magnificent, but that it was not war. i do not know what the french general called war, but my recollection of the charge is that it was something very nearly like it. i have to thank the power above for being here now, fifty-five years after the charge took place. whether this statue will commemorate me for a long time or not is of little moment, but i know it will commemorate for ever the sculptor, mr. goscombe john. _unveiling of equestrian statue of viscount tredegar in cathays park, cardiff, on th anniversary of the balaclava charge, october th, _ the archÃ�ology of monmouthshire. anyone who lives in monmouthshire, a county rich in its old castles, churches, camps, and cromlechs, cannot fail to be some sort of an archæologist, and it is this mild type i represent. i have always had a great fancy for history, and anyone who studies the archæology of monmouthshire must be well grounded in the history of england. the county has held a prominent place in history from the earliest period down to the present day, commencing with the silures, and passing on to the romans, saxons, and normans. some locality or other in the county was connected with each of those periods. one little failing about archæology which has always been a sore point with me is that it is apt to destroy some of those little illusions which we like to keep up. i hope when we go to caerwent, during the next day or two, my illusion concerning king arthur will not be dispelled, for i love to think of king arthur and his round table having been at that place. alexander wept because there were no new worlds to conquer, but i hope archæologists will not weep because there are no new ruins to be discovered. an old stone has been picked up on the moors at caldicot, and scientific men know that the stone proves the marches to have been reclaimed from the sea by the romans. the question of the origin of roman encampments is one about which there is a great deal of doubt, and i hope to hear some new story when we inspect the ancient part in tredegar park. _fourth annual meeting, cambrian archæological association, august th, ._ monmouthshire still welsh. in the reign of henry viii, monmouthshire was annexed to england, and therefore we are not now exactly in wales. but years have not eradicated the welsh language and the welsh traditions. _farmers' association dinner, bassaleg, october rd, ._ freedom of morgan brotherhood. i take my opinion of freedom from dr. samuel johnson, and that is good enough for me. dr. johnson said that freedom was "to go to bed when you wish, to get up when you like, to eat and drink whatever you choose, to say whatever occurs to you at the moment, and to earn your living as best you may." [illustration: "_i talk of buccaneer morgan._"] the lord mayor has hoped that he will prove to be a member of the tredegar family. the name of morgan is a splendid name. you can, with that name, get your pedigree from wherever you like. whenever i talk of bishops, i remember to speak of bishop morgan. if i speak to a football player, i talk of buccaneer morgan, and so it goes on in any subject you wish. i do not care--even if there is a great murder--a morgan is sure to be in it! i do not wish to detract from the lord mayor's desire to be in the pedigree, but, at all events, we can all belong to a morgan brotherhood. _reply to toast of "our guest," at city hall, cardiff, october th, ._ when the agitation for the new technical institute was going on, i daresay most of you heard all sorts of objections to it on the ground of expense and of there being no necessity for an institute of this description. some of the agitators went back to solomon. they said, "solomon was the wisest man who ever lived, and he has told us that 'he who increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.' so why," said they, "do you want to have more knowledge?" another objector said, "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing," and then somebody else said, "of the making of books there is no end," and "much study is a weariness of the flesh." all those old sayings were trotted out, but there was the other side to bring before you. there was the dear old lady who was so proud of her son--he was a kind of artist--that she thought he would become a second gainsborough. he got on very well, as she thought, and one day, meeting his professor, she said, "oh, professor, do you think my son will ever learn to draw?" and he replied, "yes, madam, if you harness him to a wagon." happily, newport went the right way, and built what i fancy is quite one of the most up-to-date technical institutions in the country. _technical institute prize distribution, newport, december st, ._ it is very difficult to address a mixed school of boys and girls. you require totally different things for boys and girls. a learned gentleman was once asked his ideal of a girl, and he replied, "most like a boy." asked his ideal of a boy, he replied, "only a human boy who dislikes learning anything." i was a human boy myself once, about years ago, and i hated learning anything except running about and making myself disagreeable to everyone. my experience of girls is that girls want to learn when a boy doesn't. a girl is nearly always anxious to learn, whilst a boy only wants to amuse himself. a great m.p. gave an address about education a week or so ago, and said our system was all wrong, that facts were no use, and that thinking was what they wanted. i totally disagree with him. facts are wanted, for it is from facts you get on to thinking. one examiner was much amused by the notion of a boy who said that what struck him most was the toughness of wood, the wetness of water, and the magnificent soapiness of soap. that boy was going to get on; he was thinking more about facts than anything else. [illustration: "_he was what they called 'a devil of a chap to jaw.'_"] another great school question is with regard to punishment, whether it is good to order a boy or girl to write out a certain number of lines or learn so many lines of poetry. a well known gentleman of the world, politically and otherwise, when at school was what they called "a devil of a chap to jaw." that was the expression of a fellow pupil. he was constantly in the playground jawing, and they sentenced him to run around the ground five times when he spoke for more than three minutes. that was supposed to cure him, but it did not. he speaks now more than anyone in the house of commons. _pontywaun school prize distribution, march th, ._ a hybrid county. we in monmouthshire are in a sort of hybrid county. a great many people think we are in wales and a great many people think we are not. cardiff is very jealous of us--jealous because we can get drunk on sundays and they can't. i hope we shall continue to be a county of ourselves, and when this great home rule question, which is so much talked about, is settled we shall, no doubt, have a parliament at newport-on-usk, or else at monmouth-upon-wye. _newport athletic club dinner, april th, ._ interest in exploration. i wish to renew interest among the people of the neighbourhood in the exploration work at caerwent. the reason, perhaps, why some of the interest has fallen off, is the illness and death of the late vicar of caerwent, who always took the greatest possible delight in explaining to visitors the history of the ancient city and the nature of the work of excavation. there is a great deal of fresh ground to be explored. i am glad to find that there is an increasing interest in great britain in this kind of work, and i hope it will continue to increase. if we expect to find any interest at all in matters of this kind, it would be in rome, and yet we find that in that city it has been decided recently to pull down some of the most valuable remains in the city, the great roman wall, which for so long a period kept out the goths and the vandals who besieged the city. if that is possible in rome, any indifference to this kind of work in great britain is not surprising. there is a fascination about the work of exploring, as we are always expecting to find something which has not been found before, and which may be very useful for historical purposes. all this part of the world is very interesting, not only caerwent, but llanvaches, where we find early christian evidences, and newport, where we have a castle of the middle ages. i cannot help thinking, when i look at the collection of roman coins in the caerwent museum, that it is not absolutely impossible that one of them may be the very coin which our saviour took and asked whose image it bore. for all we know, that very coin may have been in the possession of a roman soldier stationed in jerusalem at the time of the crucifixion, and brought by him to caerwent. _newport town hall, on the occasion of a lecture on "the excavations at caerwent," march th, ._ oliver cromwell and newport. there are few newportonians in this hall who do not remember perfectly well the curious little house, with a low th century portico, situated at the bottom of stow hill. it was regarded with great veneration by antiquarians, but was no doubt looked upon as a great nuisance by the great body of the people. however, that old portico is now treasured at tredegar house. the house was called "oliver cromwell's house." i think you will agree with me when i say that few people slept in so many bedrooms as king charles i. or oliver cromwell is said to have done. there is a room at tredegar house called king charles the first's room, but it was not built until ten years after that monarch was beheaded. with regard to the little house called oliver cromwell's house, there is some reason to believe that oliver cromwell might have occupied it. it was, sometime, occupied by the parliamentary troops, because i have at this moment an old fire back, which was found in the cellar with the royal arms of england and the crown dated -- something knocked off. no doubt this was found in the house by parliamentarians, who immediately proceeded to knock off the crown. we know that oliver cromwell passed that way, because he went to the siege of pembroke and found great difficulty in taking that town. i have a copy of a letter cromwell wrote to colonel saunders, one of his leaders, in which, after congratulating him upon his zeal and close attention, he referred to "the malignants--trevor williams of llangibby castle, and one sir william morgan, of tredegar," and directed him to seize them at once. that shows that oliver cromwell knew all about caerleon, newport and tredegar. _opening of tredegar hall, newport, march th, ._ welsh people even in cardiff. i am glad to find that the welsh church movement has been such a success. i was asked on one occasion if there were many welsh people in cardiff, and i confessed there were. when further asked if there was a welsh church there i had to admit with shame that there was not. from that moment i resolved to back up as much as i could the movement for providing a church for the welsh-speaking inhabitants of cardiff. no one could walk the streets of cardiff without being impressed with the number of welsh people one met and heard talking in their own language. probably a great number of those simply came into the town for the day, but a considerable number must be residents of the town. i see a great many ladies present, and i would urge them to do what they can, for, in the words of a church magnate, who was, if not an archbishop or a bishop, certainly an archdeacon--"mendicity is good, but women-dicity is better." _laying of the foundation stone of a welsh church at cardiff, july nd, ._ the siege of caerphilly castle. [illustration: "_two hundred tuns of wine! that is better than a temperance hotel._"] i am impressed by the energy displayed by the agriculturists of the district in sending such satisfactory exhibits. at the same time, you must not fancy yourselves quite too grand at the present day, because, if you read history you will find that during the siege of caerphilly castle, some or years ago--when the castle was taken--there were , oxen, , cows, , sheep, horses, , pigs and tuns of wine inside the castle walls. two hundred tuns of wine! that is better than a temperance hotel.... if you walk round this show you will not see one single sign of depression. it grows larger every year. cattle grow better, the horses better, the women grow prettier, and the men grow fatter. _east glamorgan agricultural show, caerphilly, september th, ._ gwern-y-cleppa. the foundations of gwern-y-cleppa, the palace of ivor hael, have been traced around a tree in cleppa park. although it has been termed a palace, i think it more likely to have been something of a manor house, for ivor was the younger son of a younger son, and therefore not likely to have had very large possessions. ivor's generous nature has been well depicted by his celebrated bard, dafydd ap gwilym. i have read in a book an account of an incident which tradition alleges took place near the spot on which we are standing. this was a contest between dafydd and his rival bard, rhys meigan. dafydd's shafts of satire overwhelmed his opponent, who fell dead--the victim of ridicule. _cardiff naturalists' visit to gwern-y-cleppa, may th, ._ in praise of eisteddfodau. as long ago as the th century an ancestor whom i have been reading about lately--ivor hael--appears to have been celebrated particularly for his support of the eisteddfodau of that period and of music in general. later on, my grandfather and father always did their best to promote the idea of the eisteddfod, and on several occasions presided at those gatherings. i, personally, consider the eisteddfod a great institution. one of the reasons why many of our english friends do not support eisteddfodau, and are inclined to speak slightingly of them, is because of the religious side which commences with the gorsedd; but i think if our friends paid a little more attention to it, and attended oftener, they would not be inclined to ridicule the institution. an eisteddfod, anywhere, is a very interesting event, but one at pontypridd seems to be of all others the most interesting. pontypridd itself is full of reminiscences of old and modern wales. on that very stone--the rocking stone--on the hill where some of us have been to-day, some very earnest bards, no doubt, at different times had their seats, and it does not require a very vivid imagination to picture on that stone one of those unfortunate bards that were left after the massacre of the bards of edward. then we have not far away the remains of the old monastery of pen rhys, where tradition says rested ap tudor, or at all events to whom the monastery was erected. at that very place, that great terror of england and of the normans--owen glendower--who was at that time residing at llantrisant, was stated to have presided at an eisteddfod soon after his incursion into wales. great bardic addresses were delivered there, and one, written to sir john morgan of tredegar, is now in the archives of tredegar. coming to later times, we have cadwgan of the battleaxe, who was supposed to have been sharpening his battleaxe at the time he was going down the rhondda, so that it must have been pretty sharp by the time he arrived at his destination. [illustration: "_there is at the present moment a wave of music-hall melodies passing over the country._"] there is at the present moment a wave of music-hall melodies passing over the country, and i think it is one of the duties of the eisteddfodau to try to counteract the music-hall fancy, now so prevalent. not many days ago, i was reminded of an incident in which a lady asked a friend whether he was fond of music, and he replied "yes, if it is not too good." unfortunately, that is the opinion of about one-half of the civilized world. the aim of the eisteddfod is to patronise good music which, combined with high art, has a tendency, as the latin poet puts it, to soften manners and assuage the natural ruggedness of human nature. _eisteddfod, pontypridd, july st, ._ miniature eisteddfodau, one of which we are celebrating, are most interesting, as being a sort of prelude to the great national eisteddfod which takes place annually. there is something peculiarly interesting in these essentially welsh gatherings, because however much we who live on this side of the rumney may, from legislative causes, be considered english, we never hear of an eisteddfod taking place on the other side of offa's dyke, which in my opinion is the boundary of wales. offa's dyke was formerly a great mound and ditch erected by king offa somewhere in the year or thereabouts, as a boundary between wales and england, and it ran from the mouth of the wye to chepstow. we seldom hear of an eisteddfod taking place on the other side of the dyke. it is true there are the great choral festivals, but those are festivals held in the grand cathedrals, at which very grand company assemble, and where some of the most celebrated singers sing; they are not competitive in any sense. here we have competitions, not so much for the prizes as for the honour of the thing, for the honour of the welsh nation, and for the advancement of music and art in wales. _risca, october th, ._ tredegar house. tredegar house is generally believed to have been designed by inigo jones, but it was not built until after that architect's death. it was built by william morgan, and finished about . a residence formerly stood on the spot, which leland mentioned as "a fair place of stone." owen glendower, when he ravaged wentloog, and destroyed houses, churches and newport castle, probably destroyed tredegar house. on an inquisition being taken after this period of the value of the lordship, the return was _nil_. _cambrian association meeting, august th, ._ a little family history. [illustration: "_i have made the discovery that the morgans were never remarkable for very great talent._"] as far as i have been able to read the family history, i have made the discovery that the morgans were never remarkable for very great talent; but for many generations we have lived in much the same spot, and it has been our motto to make life happy to those around us, and to assist those with whom we come in contact. i believe my family have lived for this object. there are many days in the history of the family that are much treasured by us, but there will be no one day more honoured than the memory of this one. when i hand these addresses to lady tredegar, and express to her the kind sentiments everyone has made use of as to the memory of the late lord tredegar, we shall one and all be thankful, and the memory of this day will live long in the heart of every member of the tredegar family. _tredegar memorial corn exchange, newport, september th, ._ the mayor has spoken of the commercial spirit which, he stated, has recently been evinced by the tredegar family. his worship in that respect erred a little, for several hundred years ago there was a gentleman who called himself merchant morgan. he sailed on the spanish main, and brought back with him a great deal of money which he had made in trade--or otherwise. from that day to this, the morgans have been very well off. later, there were ironworks in tredegar park, carried on by sir william morgan. those works paid also, and when he had money enough sir william morgan removed them away, restored the green fields, and left other people to attend to the works. _mayoral banquet, newport, december th, ._ sir henry morgan played an important part in the stirring drama of empire-building. his name has become a household word, and his daring exploits on the spanish main in the th century rival in song and story the heroic adventures of drake, frobisher, and hawkins. it is mainly to him that we own the island of jamaica, the most wealthy of our west indian possessions. he was not a plaster saint, it is true; but it is incorrect to call him a pirate, for there is no gainsaying the fact that all his actions were justified by instructions he received from time to time from his monarch, charles ii, who countenanced every movement of his, and even empowered him to commission whatever persons he thought fit, to be partakers with him and his majesty in his various expeditions and enterprises. he was cruel in the ordinary sense of cruelty exercised in warfare, no doubt, but only when in arms against the blood-thirsty spaniards. as a leader of men he was never surpassed by any captain of the seas, and in his glorious conquest of panama--which the great sir francis drake in had failed to take with , men when the city was but poorly fortified--sir henry ransacked it in when it had become doubly fortified, having with him only , men, and without the aid of any pikemen or horsemen. the charges of cruelty and rapacity levelled against him are beneath contempt and criticism. the spaniards tortured and murdered wholesale, and who can wonder that the heroic welshman made just reprisals, and carried out the biblical adjuration "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth," when punishing the apostles of the inquisition and assassination. it is due to one john esquemeling, the author of the first account of buccaneers, "the history of the buccaneers of america," first published in , that sir henry was designated a "pirate." esquemeling had served under morgan, and, being dissatisfied with the share of prize money allotted to him after the expedition at panama, nursed his revenge until his return to holland some years after. sir henry took action against him, and claimed to obtain substantial damages from esquemeling for his malicious and misleading statement. the late colonel morgan. the death of my brother, colonel morgan, has plunged us into grief, and all the neighbourhood felt the death of one whom they all loved, almost as much as i did myself. i feel that life can never be the same to me again. _servants' ball, january th, ._ [illustration: "_the death of my brother, colonel morgan, has plunged us into grief._"] the monmouthshire tribute. [illustration: "_what have i ever done to deserve this tribute._"] some years ago two statesmen were discussing the merits of mr. pitt and mr. fox. the first statesman said the oratory of mr. pitt was remarkable because he was never at a loss for a word. the other statesman replied, "yes, but mr. fox was never at a loss for the right word." i, this afternoon, cannot find the right word. i can hardly find any word at all to express adequately to you what i feel on this occasion. i have put this question to myself many times in the last month or so--"what does it all mean? what have i ever done to deserve this great tribute?" i thought that my duty was to go back over my past life, and i began very early, a very long time ago. i went back to the chartist riots. i don't suppose there are any of you here who know much about them except by hearsay. i was a very little boy at the time, spending my holidays at ruperra castle, and i was just going with my little terrier to hunt a rabbit that had got into the cabbage garden, when the post-boy, who had been sent to newport to bring out the letters, rode in, pale and quivering, and flung himself from his pony and said that the chartists were in newport--"they are lying dead all over the street, and the streets were running with blood. he passed through a lot of people with swords and pikes, but whether they were coming on to ruperra he did not know." what he effectively did was to pose as a great hero among the maid-servants, and i remember afterwards going up to the post-boy, saying, "bother your chartists; come out and help me to catch this rabbit." that was my first beginning in sport--my first excitement. then i thought a little bit more. i have a distant recollection that very soon after, i was gazetted as a viscount. i saw in a newspaper which does not hold the same opinions as i do, the question, "what on earth is lord tredegar made a viscount for?" and the answer was, "i suppose because he has been master of the tredegar hounds for years." i thought, therefore, that i had better leave sport alone for this occasion. for some time i have had running in my mind a stanza written by one who may be called the australian bush poet, mr. l. gordon, a gallant man, who spent most of his time roughing it in the bush. the lines are as follows:-- i've had my share of pastime, i've had my share of toil, it is useless now to trouble. this i know; i'd live the same life over if i had the chance again and the chances are i'd go where most men go. mr. gordon thought he knew where most men go; i don't. i don't pretend to know, but i had thought, until lately, that i would not wish to live the same life over again. but now, when i am here this afternoon, and have received from the hands of so many of my greatest friends these magnificent testimonials of their opinion of me, i can hardly go wrong if i say i would live the same life over if i had to live again. well, when i went on with my early history, i found that very, very soon i got among tombstones and family vaults, and i thought that the less i called to mind those among whom i spent my early life the happier it would be for me, certainly on this occasion. but still i wonder what it is that i have done, that has caused so many of my friends and neighbours to gather together to present me with this great tribute of their affection and respect. it is true that i have had more than my share of this world's goods. there is one thing that has always comforted me when this has been thrown in my teeth, and that is that it was a young man who went away sorrowfully because he had great possessions. i believe i have tried, more or less successfully, to help those in difficulties, and to give to many comfort and happiness who otherwise would have been in much distress and suffering; but i am quite sure that there is no person in this hall who would not have done exactly the same under the same circumstances. i have no doubt that i shall be able to find a place in tredegar house for this picture. it will, i hope, be a monument in tredegar house to help those who come after me to try and do some good in their generation with the wealth which may be at their disposal. i thank you from the very bottom of my heart for this great tribute you have paid me. _this speech was made in december, , in acknowledgment of monmouthshire's tribute to lord tredegar, which took the form of an oil painting of himself, a gold cup, an album, and £ , , which his lordship handed over to various hospitals._ the jubilee of queen victoria. we are about to celebrate the queen's jubilee, not so much because her majesty has merely reigned fifty years, but because she has reigned years in the hearts of her people. _county meeting with reference to queen victoria's jubilee, newport, february th, ._ the late queen victoria. the expression of the country's appreciation of the character of her late majesty has been done grandly and well. statesmen on both political sides have told of their experience of her, not merely their opinion, but the result of the interviews they have had with her. all classes have borne testimony to her goodness and greatness. we, as humble subjects of her majesty, knew her sympathetic qualities. everybody present has benefitted in some way directly or indirectly through her. i think of the line which says--"one touch of nature makes the whole world kin." it was the touch of nature in her character, and her sympathizing feelings, which have made the whole of the civilized world, and much of the uncivilized world, mourn on this occasion. _monmouthshire county council, february th, ._ the late king edward. it has been well said by a poet that "fierce is the light that beats upon the throne." since those words were written the light beating upon the throne has become ten times more powerful, but in the case of king edward that fact has only tended to emphasise his majesty's charm of life and of personality, and the power of his will, which have benefitted not only this country but the whole civilised world. _usk quarter sessions, june nd, --in moving a vote of condolence on the death of king edward._ the penny whistle of republicanism. there never was a time when the country was more loyal. the penny whistle of republicanism which tried to blow its notes some time ago has, i believe, burst itself, for it found no sympathetic echo in the heart of the nation. i believe there is no harder worked man in the united kingdom than the prince of wales. from morning to night he is at the beck and call of somebody or other, and we always find him ready to respond to the calls made upon him. _tredegar show, december th, ._ on pretoria day. we have done our best to publicly recognise the success that has been achieved in the occupation of pretoria, and to do honour to lord roberts and his gallant army. you can tell the kind of man lord roberts is by his despatches. you can depend on it that whenever you read a despatch from lord roberts you are reading what is true, complete and accurate. i hope we shall soon see lord roberts, who is an old and good friend of mine, in newport again. _pretoria day, june th, ._ admiration for american sailors. i have a great admiration for american sailors and the american people generally. when the crimean war broke out, in the summer of , the first soldiers sent out of england were the cavalry regiments, and i went with them. at that time england had been at peace for years, and when war commenced the authorities knew little about the transport of cavalry. we did not go out as a whole regiment in a large liner, and arrive at our destination without the loss of a horse, as would be the case now. we were sent out in troops of or at a time, in small sailing vessels of tons. in the ship in which i sailed the horses were packed in the hold, and when they got to the bay of biscay a violent gale sprang up. in a few hours half a dozen horses broke loose and struggled about in the hold. there was only one american sailor among the crew, and he went down and "calculated" and uttered dreadful oaths. but he had not been down in the hold half an hour before he had all the horses tied up again. ever since then i have had the greatest respect for american sailors. _cardiff eisteddfod, august th, ._ improvements in the army. i always feel some diffidence in returning thanks for the army, since i am no longer in it; but i may add that i am proud to have belonged to it. no gentleman who has been in her majesty's service can look back with other than happy feelings to that time. when i first joined the army, it was not in its present state. many things connected with that service have improved. among others, the social condition of the soldier has been improved. i feel that no individual in this country, however high his position may be, need be ashamed of his connection with the army. at one time, the people of newport knew more about soldiers than now. some time ago i asked the duke of cambridge to send a regiment, or part of a regiment, to newport, and his grace said, in answer to me, that the people would be obliged to stir up a riot in the county if they wished to secure the presence of soldiers! i hope such a contingency will not arise, living as i do in the county. however, his grace promised to do his best in the matter, and i hope we shall soon again have the advantage of a regiment in newport. _dinner to lord tredegar and alexandra dock directors, july th, ._ the boy scout movement. the boy scout movement instructs the boy just at the time when he is between school and a trade, when it would perhaps be better if he stayed a bit longer at school, for the time hangs heavy on his hands; and that is the time when you catch hold of these boys and give them an interest in their country, and an interest in the necessity of having somebody to protect the country. the scouts that i have had any experience of are all boys who seem to have improved in their manners, their ways, and their education very soon after they have joined the boy scouts. _meeting in newport in connection with the boy scout movement, march th, ._ not known here. when the ironworks were started here they received the name of tredegar, and the town itself was also called tredegar. it is rather disagreeable to me at times. i have letters addressed, "lord tredegar, tredegar, monmouthshire." they are sent to tredegar, where they are marked by the postal officials: "not known here; try tredegar park." life's tragedy and comedy. life is said to be a comedy to those who think and a tragedy to those who feel, and as we all feel and think we must meet with a good deal of comedy and a good deal of tragedy. i hope you all have more comedy than tragedy. _presentation to lord tredegar of miner's lamp and silver medal at risca eisteddfod, october th, ._ newport a second liverpool i hope the day is not far distant when newport will be a second liverpool, and maindee a second birkenhead. _tredegar show, december th, ._ oxford and cambridge. i have read somewhere that an oxford man walks about looking as if oxford and the rest of the world belong to him. a cambridge man, on the other hand, walks as if he does not care a--well, does not care two straws who the place belongs to. _seventy-fifth anniversary of st. david's college, lampeter, october th, ._ doctors-old style and new. [illustration: "_the old-fashioned gentleman, who first of all pulled out a watch as big as a warming-pan._"] the owning of a hospital is not a very lively proceeding, but i cannot help giving a few of my reminiscences in connection with doctors. i can go back to the real old-style of doctor; not the present-day smart young gentleman with the radium light in his pocket, but the old-fashioned gentleman who first of all pulled out a watch as big as a warming-pan, and who felt the pulse and asked the patient to put out his tongue, and ended up by saying "haw!" that meant a tremendous lot, for he did not tell any more. i well remember a medical friend of mine saying once that he lived in a land flowing with rhubarb, magnesia, and black draughts. that was the way we were treated as children, and which possibly enabled us to live a long life. _opening of a hospital at abertysswg, october rd, ._ all sorts and conditions. i am one of those who like mixing with all sorts and conditions of men. i can dine with lords and ladies whenever i like, but i cannot always dine with an assembly of working men. _may horse show dinner, may th, ._ [illustration: "_i can dine with lords and ladies whenever i like, but i cannot always dine with an assembly of working men._"] a contrast in correspondence. i have a great deal of correspondence of one sort and another. i keep no secretary, and my correspondence is with all sorts and conditions of men. only this morning, in the hurried moment before i left, i wrote two letters, one to a descendant of warwick the kingmaker, and the other to a little boy living in the back slums of newport about a football match. that is the sort of correspondence i like, for i like to mix with all sorts and conditions of men and do what i can for them. _foundation-stone laying, presbyterian church, newport, august th, ._ dreams and tears. i never remember to have had a dream that was merry. i never remember to have awakened from a dream with a smile or a laugh; but many times have i done so with tears on my cheeks. _bazaar at ystrad mynach, september th, ._ the precipice of matrimony. you have heard things said about matrimony. it is an annual occurrence at this dinner, until i have become like a man who can walk along the verge of a precipice and look down without falling over. i have looked so long without a desire to plunge, that i am able now to look over without any danger of falling. _the tredegar show, december th, ._ how to live for ever. people who regularly study the newspapers come across advertisements of many things calculated to make them doubt whether there is any need for a cottage hospital at all. in fact, as far as i can see, judging by these advertisements, there is no reason why anybody should die. _pontypridd cottage hospital, may th, ._ punctuality "the thief of time." as an old military man, i fully appreciate the value of punctuality. undoubtedly punctuality is the first great duty in this world if we wish to carry on business satisfactorily. there are those who say punctuality is a great mistake, because a deal of time has to be spent in waiting for other people. that is a very pleasant way of looking at an unpunctual individual. _intermediate school prize distribution, october th, ._ no knowledge of kisses. [illustration: "_my brother and i had a fine-looking animal. we used to smoke our cigars as we gazed at it._"] there is no prize worth much that does not take some trouble to gain. i have heard that kisses, when taken without much trouble, are not worth having. of course i do not know anything about that sort of thing. my brother and i had a fine looking animal. we used to smoke our cigars as we gazed at it, and think there was nothing like it in the world. we thought we would send it to birmingham; and then, if any good, to smithfield. it was of no use, however. it reminded me of a celebrated trainer who used to come into this county, who said: "oh, you've nothing at home to try him with. you think your horse goes very fast past trees." i expect it was very much the same thing with our ox. it looked very good alongside the cattle trough. a smart retort. when i had the pleasure of presenting bedwellty park to this town (tredegar) one of my critics asked: "are you quite sure, lord tredegar, that you have not given the tredegar people a white elephant?" that simile did not trouble me, for i told them i was quite sure in a few months the park would be as black as the rest of tredegar. _bazaar at tredegar, may rd, ._ the bushranger's method. [illustration: "_young man, this is a two dollar show._"] just as i came into the hall, i encountered an individual dressed in a rather extraordinary garb. i looked him up and down, and saw that he was well armed. it reminded me of the case of a minister in the backwoods calling on a bushranger to go round with the hat. the latter did so, and the first young man he came to dropped in two or three cents. the bushranger looked at him in a peculiar way, cocked his pistol in a significant manner, and said, "young man, this is a two dollar show." the young man at once dropped in two dollars. i think that perhaps my friend might come round with me presently, we might frighten some of the gentlemen who have come here with full purses. _congregational church bazaar, newport, october nd, ._ making the waist places glad. i have a little advice to give to you in conclusion. a school-boy was being examined in scripture knowledge, and was asked the meaning of the words, "make the waste places glad." he answered, "put your arm around a lady's waist and make her glad." that, i think, is a very good hint for the young men present, and i advise them to make the evening as pleasant as they can for the ladies. to the ladies i would say this--"don't put too much faith in the promise of love that may be whispered in your ears before the close of the ball." _servants' ball, january th, ._ as others see us. a celebrated philosopher has said there are three different personalities about a man. first, there is what god thinks about him; secondly, what his friends think about him; and, thirdly, what he thinks of himself.... there is another personality to be thought of, and that is the opinion of newspapers. it is very difficult to arrange those different personalities, because one's own opinion is entirely different from other people's. i like a gentleman who proposes my health to lay it on thick, as some of it is sure to stick, whether i deserve it or not. _opening of the new hospital, abergavenny, october th, ._ the mighty lord mayor. many people have the impression that the lord mayor of london is the greatest man in this kingdom. there is a line or two in an old song relating to a lover who did not like to pop the question to his girl. he said:-- "if i were a lord mayor, a marquis or an earl, blowed if i wouldn't marry old brown's girl." that represents a great deal of the feeling in this country about the magnificence of the position of the lord mayor of london. _newport conservative meeting, july th, ._ a day of great joy. it is a high honour, because it is the greatest that the lord mayor and corporation have the power of conferring upon anybody. my only drawback is the fear that i cannot be worthy of the others whose names are on the roll of cardiff's freemen. you know that comparisons are odious, and when you read the names on that list and compare mine with them, i hope you will look with leniency upon me. the lord mayor promised me just now that he would not be very long in his address and in his references to me on this occasion. at one moment i felt very much inclined to remind him of his promise, as the great king henry iv did with a lord mayor who went on his knees to deliver the keys of the city. without delivering them he rose from his knees and said, "i have twelve reasons for not yielding up the keys of the city. the first is that there are no keys." the king said, "that is quite enough; we don't want any more reasons." i felt inclined to stop the lord mayor and say, "you have said quite enough about me; i will take the remainder for granted." [illustration: "_i see no reason why i should not be civil to the members of the corporation unless they are uncivil to me. i should probably do then what other people would do._"] i see no reason why i should not be civil to the members of the corporation unless they are uncivil to me. i should probably then do what other people would do. the lord mayor has said that glamorgan could not claim me as a glamorgan man. well, i was born in glamorgan, at ruperra castle, on this side of the rumney. i know that if a man is born in a stable it doesn't make him a horse, but i always understood that the place of your birth had a certain claim upon you. it is not very long ago that i was discussing with somebody what i was going to do in the future, and i quoted the line from shakespeare: "my grief lies onward, but my joy is behind." i think now that i spoke a little too soon, this day being one of great joy to me, as you can easily understand. _presentation of the freedom of cardiff to viscount tredegar, october th, ._ the good old english oath. i never was good at personal abuse. i have got a good old-fashioned oath when i am angry--a good old english oath, good enough for most people--but that is only when i am very angry. and though we have been told that this is the greatest crisis we have ever seen, unfortunately i cannot get angry enough about it to abuse other people. but in the circumstances, if i am put to it, i think i would quote falstaff, who said, "if any part of a lie will do me grace, i will gild it with the heaviest terms i have." _south monmouthshire conservative association, december nd, ._ praise in bucketsful. [illustration: "_if i live a little longer, i should like it in buckets._"] oliver wendell holmes, the celebrated american writer, said that when he was young he liked his praises in teaspoonfuls. when he got a little older he liked them in tablespoonfuls, and later on in ladles. i think i have had a good ladleful this afternoon. if i live a little longer, i should like it in buckets. _cardiff, september th, ._ an easy solution. [illustration: "_i should like the suffragettes to marry the passive resisters and go away for a long honeymoon._"] i have a notion by which we could be relieved of two wearisome questions. i should like the suffragettes to marry the passive resisters and go away for a long honeymoon. _servants' ball, ._ a ready answer. four or five years ago i received a letter from the war office asking how many horses i would put at the service of her majesty in case of emergency. i wrote back and said, "all of them." by return of post i received a letter saying that i had given a very patriotic answer, but that it did not help them in the least; what they wanted to know was how many horses i could put upon the register. i sent back and registered eighteen horses. that was the whole of the tredegar hunt. well, a couple of days ago i received a notice that all of those horses would be wanted. so if the tredegar hunt collapses suddenly, you will know the cause of it. _st. mellons ploughing dinner, october th, ._ welcome. what a beautiful word is the english word "welcome!" what a world of sympathy it expresses! it does not matter whether the welcome comes from a father, mother, brother, or sister, or from the girl of your own heart. it is always the same. i have arrived at the time of life when i can not expect an eye to look brighter when i come, but many eyes are brighter when they fall on these volunteers who left their homes, not when they thought the war was over, but in the time of england's darkest hour. that was the time when our gallant yeomanry and service companies went to assist their country in its distress. they went to redeem again the honour of england, which at one moment looked as if it were rather smirched. they must have seen suffering by disease and bullet wounds, and in other ways, and must have been brought face to face with all kinds of distress, and witnessed the agony of death from disease and bullets. all that tends to make a man more sympathetic to those whom at other times he might be inclined to blame. _presentation to returned volunteers (boer war), rogerstone, july th, ._ the seven ages. i liken myself to shakespeare's "seven ages." i have been the baby, the schoolboy, the lover, and the warrior, and i am now the justice, but unlike the poet's justice, i can not boast of "a fair round belly with good capon lined." having disappointed the poet in one thing, i hope to disappoint him in another, and not to degenerate into a "lean and slippered pantaloon." _servants' ball, january th, ._ a delicate point. [illustration: "_some difficulty might be experienced in getting the ladies to wear the costumes of those districts._"] the bazaar may be described as an "european fair," because the stalls represent most of the nations of europe. the reason for that is that if we went to africa or other dark countries, some difficulty might be experienced in getting the ladies to wear the costumes of those districts. _opening of "world's fair" bazaar, newport, april th, ._ the historic house of lords. it is in itself no great thing to be a lord; in fact, there used to be a saying, "as drunk as a lord." but it is a great thing to sit in the house of lords. that house is an institution which i believe every country wishing for constitutional government has, for the last hundred years, striven to imitate, but without success, and in my opinion they are never likely to succeed, because the house of lords is an institution which, being the growth of centuries, can not be imitated in a day. it is recruited from various classes of society, and it is simply impossible to create a body similar to it all in a moment. in the old days, some three hundred years ago, king james, being in need of money, thought it would be a very good thing to create an extra rank, namely, that of baronet, and he sold baronetcies at £ , a piece, which brought him in a goodly sum of money. anyone applying for a baronetcy was required to show a certain amount of pedigree, proving that he had had a grandfather or something of that sort. now, if his sovereign calls him, there is nothing to prevent any one, having talent and worth, from entering the house of lords, even if he never had a grandfather. great divines, great soldiers, great statesmen, great lawyers, and great engineers, representatives of all the rank and wealth of the country, are to be found in that august body; and i think it is a long time since any expression on the part of the house of lords has been adverse to the general opinion of the country. _licensed victuallers' dinner, january th, ._ finis. western mail, limited, printers, cardiff selections from the speeches and writings of edmund burke. by edmund burke introductory essay. ... "id dico, eum qui sit orator, virum bonum esse oportere. in omnibus quae dicit tanta auctoritas inest, ut dissentire pudeat; nec advocati studium, sed testis aut judicis afferat fidem."--quintilianus. "democracy is the most monstrous of all governments, because it is impossible at once to act and control; and, consequently, the sovereign power is then left without any restraint whatever. that form of government is the best which places the efficient direction in the hands of the aristocracy, subjecting them in its exercise to the control of the people at large."--sir james mackintosh. ... the intellectual homage of more than half a century has assigned to edmund burke a lofty pre-eminence in the aristocracy of mind, and we may justly assume succeeding ages will confirm the judgment which the past has thus pronounced. his biographical history is so popularly known, that it is almost superfluous to record it in this brief introduction. it may, however, be summed up in a few sentences. he was born at dublin in . his father was an attorney in extensive practice, and his mother's maiden name was nogle, whose family was respectable, and resided near castletown, roche, where burke himself received five years of boyish education under the guidance of a rustic schoolmaster. he was entered at trinity college, dublin, in , but only remained there until . in he became a member of the middle temple, and maintained himself chiefly by literary toil. bristol did itself the honour to elect him for her representative in , and after years of splendid usefulness and mental triumph, as an orator, statesman, and patriot, he retired to his favourite retreat, beaconsfield, in buckinghamshire, where he died on july th, . he was buried here; and the pilgrim who visits the grave of this illustrious man, when he gazes on the simple tomb which marks the earthly resting place of himself, brother, son, and widow, may feelingly recall his own pathetic wish uttered some forty years before, in london:--"i would rather sleep in the southern corner of a little country churchyard, than in the tomb of the capulets. i should like, however, that my dust should mingle with kindred dust. the good old expression, 'family burying-ground,' has something pleasing in it, at least to me." alluding to his approaching dissolution, he thus speaks, in a letter addressed to a relative of his earliest schoolmaster:--"i have been at bath these four months for no purpose, and am therefore to be removed to my own house at beaconsfield to-morrow, to be nearer a habitation more permanent, humbly and fearfully hoping that my better part may find a better mansion." it is a source of deep thankfulness for those who reverence the genius and eloquence of this great man, to state, that burke's religion was that of the cross, and to find him speaking of the "intercession" of our redeeming lord, as "what he had long sought with unfeigned anxiety, and to which he looked with trembling hope." the commencing paragraph in his will also authenticates the genuine character of his personal christianity. "according to the ancient, good, and laudable custom, of which my heart and understanding recognise the propriety, i bequeath my soul to god, hoping for his mercy only through the merits of our lord and saviour jesus christ. my body i desire to be buried in the church of beaconsfield, near to the bodies of my dearest brother, and my dearest son, in all humility praying, that as we have lived in perfect unity together, we may together have part in the resurrection of the just." (in the "epistolary correspondence of the right hon. edmund burke and dr. french laurence", rivingtons, london, ), are several touching allusions to that master-grief which threw a mournful shadow over the closing period of burke's life. in one letter the anxious father says, "the fever continues much as it was. he sleeps in a very uneasy way from time to time?-but his strength decays visibly, and his voice is, in a manner, gone. but god is all-sufficient--and surely his goodness and his mother's prayers may do much" (page ). again, in another communication addressed to his revered correspondent, we find a beautiful allusion to his departed son, which involves his belief in that most soothing doctrine of the church,--a recognition of souls in the kingdom of the beatified. "here i am in the last retreat of hunted infirmity; i am indeed 'aux abois.' but, as through the whole of a various and long life i have been more indebted than thankful to providence, so i am now singularly so, in being dismissed, as hitherto i appear to be, so gently from life, and sent to follow those who in course ought to have followed me, whom, i trust, i shall yet, in some inconceivable manner, see and know; and by whom i shall be seen and known" (pages , ). in reference to the intellectual grandeur, the eloquent genius, and prophetic wisdom of burke, which have caused his writings to become oracles for future statesmen to consult, it is quite unnecessary for contemporary criticism to speak. by the concurring judgment, both of political friends and foes, as well as by the highest arbiters of taste throughout the civilized world, burke has been pronounced, not only "primus inter pares," but "facile omnium princeps." at the termination of these introductory remarks, the reader will be presented with critical portraitures of burke from the writings and speeches of men, who, while opposed to him in their principles of legislative policy, with all the chivalry and candour of genius paid a noble homage to the vastness and variety of his unrivalled powers. meanwhile, it may not be presumptuous for a writer, on an occasion like the present, to contemplate this great man under certain aspects, which, perhaps, are not sufficiently regarded in their distinctive bearings on the worth and wisdom of his character and writings. we say "distinctive," because the eloquence of burke, beyond that of all other orators and statesmen which great britain has produced, is featured with expressions, and characterised by qualities, as peculiar as they are immortal. so far as invention, imagination, moral fervour, and metaphorical richness of illustration, combined with that intense "pathos and ethos," which the roman critic describes ("huc igitur incumbat orator: hoc opus ejus, hic labor est; sine quo caetera nuda, jejuna, infirma, ingrata sunt: adeo velut spiritus operis hujus atque animus est in affectibus. horum autem, sicut antiquitus traditum accepimus, duae sunt species: alteram graeci pathos vocant, quem nos vertentes recte ac proprie affectum dicimus; alteram ethos, cujus nomine (ut ego quidem sentio) caret sermo romanus, mores appellantur."--quintilian, "instit. orat." lib. vi. cap. .) as essential to the true orator, are concerned, the author of "reflections on the french revolution," and "letters on a regicide peace," is justly admired and appreciated. moreover, if what we understand by the "sublime" in eloquence has ever been embodied, the speeches and writings of burke appear to have been drawn from those five sources ("pegai") to which longinus alludes. in the th chapter of his fragment "on the sublime," he observes, that if we assume an ability for speaking well, as a common basis, there are five copious fountains from whence sublimity in eloquence may be said to flow; viz. . boldness and grandeur of thought. . the pathetic, or the power of exciting the passions into an enthusiastic reach and noble degree. . a skilful application of figures, both from sentiment and language. . a graceful, finished, and ornate style, embellished by tropes and metaphors. . lastly, as that which completes all the rest,--the structure of periods, in dignity and grandeur. these five sources of the sublime, the same philosophical critic distinguishes into two classes; the first two he asserts to be gifts of nature, and the remaining three are considered to depend, in a great measure, upon literature and art. again, if we may linger for a moment in the attractive region of classical authorship, how justly applicable are the words of cicero in his "de oratore," to the vastness and variety of burke's attainments! "ac mea quidem sententia, nemo poterit esse omni laude cumulatus orator, nisi erit omnium rerum magnarum atque artium scientiam consecutus."--cic. "de orat." lib. i. cap. . equally descriptive of burke's power in raising the dormant sensibilities of our moral nature by his intuitive perception of what that nature really and fundamentally is, are the following expressions of the same great authority:--"quis enim nescit, maximam vim existere oratoris, in hominum mentibus vel ad iram aut ad odium, aut dolorem incitandis, vel, ab hisce, iisdem permonitionibus, ad lenitatem misericordiamque revocandis? quare, nisi qui naturas hominum, vimque omnem humanitatis, causasque eas quibus mentes aut excitantur, aut reflectuntur, penitus perspexerit, dicendo, quod volet, perficere non poterit."--cic. "de orat." lib. i. cap. . but to return. if a critical analysis of burke, as an exhibition of genius, be attempted, his characteristic endowments may, probably, be not incorrectly represented by the following succinct statement. . endless variety in connection with exhaustless vigour of mind. . a lofty power of generalisation, both in speculative views and in his argumentative process. . vivid intensity of conception, which caused abstractions to stand out with almost living force and visible feature, in his impassioned moments. . an imagination of oriental luxuriance, whose incessant play in tropes, metaphors, and analogies, frequently causes his speeches to gleam on the intellectual eye, as aeschylus says the ocean does, when the sun irradiates its bosom with the "anerithmon gelasma" of countless beams. . his positive acquirements in all the varied realms of art, science, and literature, endowed him with such vast funds of knowledge (in the wealth of his multitudinous acquirements, burke seems to realise cicero's ideal of what a perfect orator should know:--"equidem omnia, quae pertinent ad usum civium, morem hominum, quae versantur in consuetudine vitae, in ratione reipublicae, in hac societate civili, in sensu hominum communi, in natura, in moribus, co hendenda esse oratori puto."--cicero "de orat." lib. ii. cap. .), that johnson declared of burke--"enter upon what subject you will, and burke is ready to meet you." . in addition to these high gifts, may be added, an ability to wield the weapons of sarcasm and irony, with a keenness of application and effect rarely equalled. but, in all candour, it may be added, that just as a profusion of figures and metaphors sometimes tempted this great orator into incongruous images and coarse analogies, so his passion for irony was occasionally too intense. hence, there are occasions where his pungency is embittered into acrimony, strength degenerates into vulgarism, and the vehemence of satire is infuriated with the fierceness of invective. . with regard to language and style, it may be truly said, they were the absolute vassals of his genius, and did homage to its command in every possible mode by which it chose to employ them. thus, in his "letters on a regicide peace," and above all, in "french revolutions," the reader will find almost every conceivable manner of style and mode of expression the english language can develop; and what is more,--together with classical richness, there are also the pointed seriousness and persuasive simplicity of our own vernacular saxon, which increase the attractions of burke's style to a wonderful extent. but, beyond controversy, among these great endowments, the imaginative faculty is that which appears to be the most transcendent in the mental constitution of burke. and so truly is this the case, that both among his contemporaries, as well as among his successors, this predominance of imagination has caused his just claims as a philosophic thinker and statesman to be partially overlooked. the union of ideal theory and practical realisation, of imaginative creation with logical induction, is indeed so rare, we cannot be surprised at the injustice which the genius of burke has had to endure in this respect. and yet, in the nature of our faculties themselves, there exists no necessity why a vivid power to conceive ideas, should not be combined with a dialectic skill in expressing them. degerando, an admirable french writer, in one of his treatises, has some profound observations on this subject; and does not hesitate to define poetry itself as a species of "logique cachee." but when we assert that these excellencies, which have thus been succinctly exhibited, characterise the mental constitution of burke, we do not mean that others have not, in their degree, possessed similar endowments. such an inference would be an absurd extravagance. but what we mean to affirm is--the qualifications enumerated have never been combined into co-operative harmony, and developed in proportionable effect, as they appear in the speeches and writings of this wonderful man. but after all, we have not reached what may be considered a peerless excellence, the peculiar gift,--the one great and glorious distinction, which separates burke's oratory from that of all others, and which has caused his speeches to be blended with political history, and to incorporate themselves with the moral destiny of europe,--namely, his intuitive perception of universal principles. the truth of this statement may be verified, by comparing the eloquence of burke with specimens of departed orators; or by a reference to existing standards in the parliamentary debates. compared, then, either with the speeches of chatham, holland, pitt, fox, etc. etc., we perceive at once the grand distinction to which we refer. these illustrious men were effective debaters, and, in various senses, orators of surpassing excellency. but how is it, that with all their allowed grandeur of intellect and political eminence, they have ceased to operate upon the hearts and minds of the present age, either as teachers of political truth, or oracles of legislative wisdom? simply, because they were too popular in temporary effect, ever to become influential by permanent inspiration. in their highest moods, and amid their noblest hours of triumph, they were "of the earth earthy." party; personality; crushing rejoinders, or satirical attacks; a felicitous exposure of inconsistency, or a triumphant self-vindication; brilliant repartees, and logical gladiatorship,--such are among the prominent characteristics which caused parliamentary debates in burke's day to be so animating and interesting to those who heard, or perused them, amid the excitements of the hour. it is not to be denied that commanding eloquence, vast genius, political ardour, intellectual enthusiasm, together with indignant denunciation and argumentative subtlety, were thus summoned into exercise by the perils of the nation, and the contentions of party. nevertheless, the local, the temporal, the conventional, and the individual, in all which relates to the science of politics or the tactics of partisanship,--are sufficient to excite and employ the energies and qualities which made the general parliamentary debates of burke's period so captivating. but when we revert to his own speeches and writings, we at once perceive why, as long as the mind can comprehend what is true, the heart appreciate what is pure, or the conscience authenticate the sanction of heaven and the distinctions between right and wrong,--edmund burke will continue to be admired, revered, and consulted, not only as the greatest of english orators, but as the profoundest teacher of political science. it was not that he despised the arrangement of facts, or overlooked the minutiae of detail; on the contrary, as may be proved by his speeches on "economical reform," and warren hastings; in these respects his research was boundless, and his industry inexhaustible. moreover, he was quite alive to the claims of a crisis, and with the coolness and calm of a practical statesman, knew how to confront a sudden emergency, and to contend with a gigantic difficulty. yet all these qualifications recede before burke's amazing power of expanding particulars into universals, and of associating the accidents of a transient discussion with the essential properties of some permanent law in policy, or abstract truth in morals. his genius looked through the local to the universal; in the temporal perceived the eternal; and while facing the features of the individual, was enabled to contemplate the attributes of a race. (cicero, in many respects a counterpart of burke, both in statesmanship and oratory, appears to recognise what is here expressed when he says:--"plerique duo genera ad dicendum dederunt; unum de certa definitaque causa, quales sunt quae in litibus, quae in deliberationibus versantur;--alterum, quod appellant omnes fere scriptores, explicat nemo, infinitam generis sine tempore, et sine persona quaestionem."--"de orat." lib. ii. cap. .) hence his speeches are virtual prophecies; and his writings a storehouse of pregnant axioms and predictive enunciations, as limitless in their range as they are undying in duration. in one word, no speeches delivered in the english parliament, are so likely to be eternalized as burke's, because he has combined with his treatment of some especial case or contingency before him, the assertion of immutable principles, which can be detached from what is local and national, and thus made to stand forth alone in all the naked grandeur of their truth and their tendency. let us be permitted to investigate this topic a little further. if, then, what quintilian asserted of the roman orator may be applied to our own british cicero,--"ille se profecisse sciat, cui cicero valde placebit;" and if, moreover, this pre-eminence be chiefly discovered in burke's instinctive grasp of that moral essence which is incorporated with all questions of political science, and social ethics--from whence came this diviner energy of his genius? no believer in christian revelation will hesitate to appropriate, even to this subject, the apostolic axiom, "every good gift, and every perfect gift is from above." but while we subscribe with reverential sincerity to this announcement, it is equally true, that the infinite inspirer of all good adjusts his secret energies by certain laws, and condescends to work by analogous means. bearing this in mind, we venture to think burke's gift of almost prescient insight into the recesses of our common nature, and his consummate faculty of instructing the future through the medium of the present,--were partly derived from the elevation of his sentiments, and the purity of his private life. (the action and reaction maintained between our moral and intellectual elements is but remotely discussed by quintilian in his "institutes." but still, in more than one passage, he most impressively declares, that mental proficiency is greatly retarded by perversity of heart and will. for instance, on one occasion we find him speaking thus:--"nihil enim est tam occupatum, tam multiforme, tot ac tam variis affectibus concisum, atque laceratum, quam mala ac improba mens. quis inter haec, literis, aut ulli bonae arti, locus? non hercle magis quam frugibus, in terra sentibus ac rubis occupata."--"nothing is so flurried and agitated, so self-contradictory, or so violently rent and shattered by conflicting passions, as a bad heart. in the distractions which it produces, what room is there for the cultivation of letters, or the pursuits of any honourable art? assuredly, no more than there is for the growth of corn in a field overrun with thorns and brambles.") it would be unwise to draw invidious comparisons, but no student of the period in which burke was in parliament, can deny that, compared with some of his illustrious contemporaries, he was indeed a model of what reason and conscience alike approve in all the relative duties and personal conduct of a man, when beheld in his domestic career. it is, indeed, a source of deep thankfulness, the admirer of burke's genius in public, has no reason to blush for his character in private; and that when we have listened to his matchless oratory upon the arena of the house of commons, we have not to mourn over dissipation, impurity, and depravity amid the circles of private history. our theory, then, is, that beyond what his distinctive genius inspired, burke's wondrous power of enunciating everlasting principles and of associating the loftiest abstractions of wisdom with the commonest themes of the hour,--was sustained and strengthened by the purity of his heart, and the subjection of passion to the law of conscience. and if the worshippers of mere intellect, apart from, or as opposed to, moral elevation, are inclined to ridicule this view of burke's genius, we beg to remind them, that "one greater than the temple" of mortal wisdom, and all the idols enshrined therein, has asserted a positive connection to exist between mental insight and moral purity. we allude to the redeemer's words, when he declares,--"if any man wills to do his will, he shall know of the doctrine." how the passions act upon our perceptions, and by what process the motions of the will elevate or depress the forces of the intellect, is beyond our metaphysics to analyse. but that there exists a real, active, and influential connection between our moral and mental life, is undeniable: and since burke's power of seizing the essential idea, or fundamental principle of every complex detail which came before him, was pre-eminently his gift,--the intellectual insight such gift developed, was not only an expression of senatorial wisdom, but also a witness for the elevation of his moral character. we must now allude to the public conduct of burke, as a statesman and politician, and only regret the limited range of a popular essay confines us to one view, namely, his alleged inconsistency. there was a period when charges of apostasy were brought against him with reckless audacity: but time, the instructor of ignorance, and the subduer of prejudice, is now beginning to place the conduct of burke in its true light. the facts of the case are briefly these. up to the period of , fox and burke fought in the same rank of opposition, and stood together upon a basis of complete identity in principle and sentiment. but even before the celebrated disruption of , the progress of republicanism in america, and the approaching separation of the colonies from their parent state, burke's views of political liberty had received extensive modifications; and the ardour of his confidence in the so-called friends of freedom had been greatly cooled. but in , the disruption between burke and fox became open, absolute, and final, when the latter statesman uttered, in the hearing of his friend, this fearful eulogium on the french revolution:--"the new constitution of france is the most stupendous and glorious edifice of liberty which had been erected on the foundation of human integrity in any age or country!" (that ancient sage unto whose political wisdom frequent reference has been made in this essay, thus speaks on the reverence due unto an existing government, even when contemplated from its weakest side:--"formidable as these arguments seem, they may be opposed by others of not less weight; arguments which prove that even the rust of government is to be respected, and that its fabric is never to be touched but with a fearful and trembling hand. when the evil of persevering in hereditary institutions is small, it ought always to be endured, because the evil of departing from them is certainly very great. slight imperfections, therefore, whether in the laws themselves, or in those who administer and execute the laws, ought always to be overlooked, because they cannot be corrected without occasioning a much greater mischief, and tending to weaken that reverence which the safety of all governments requires that the citizens at large should entertain, cultivate, and cherish for the hereditary institutions of their country. the comparison drawn from the improvement of arts does not apply to the amendment of laws. to change or improve an art, and to alter or amend a law, are things as dissimilar in their operation as different in their tendency; for laws operate as practical principles of moral action; and, like all the rules of morality, derive their force and efficacy, as even the name imports, from the customary repetition of habitual acts, and the slow operation of time. every alteration of the laws, therefore, tends to subvert that authority on which the persuasive agency of all laws is founded, and to abridge, weaken, and destroy the power of the law itself."--aristotle's "politics.") the reply of burke to this burst of jacobinism, with all its consequences in the political history of europe, is far too well known to be quoted here. but, since it was at this point in the career of burke the charge of apostasy was commenced, and which has never quite died away, even in existing times, we may be permitted, first, to cite a noble passage from burke's self-vindication; and secondly, to adduce a still more impressive evidence of his political rectitude and wisdom, derived from the admission of those who were once his uncompromising opponents. in relation to the attacks of fox upon his supposed inconsistency, mr. burke thus replies:-- "i pass to the next head of charge,--mr. burke's inconsistency. it is certainly a great aggravation of his fault in embracing false opinions, that in doing so he is not supposed to fill up a void, but that he is guilty of a dereliction of opinions that are true and laudable. this is the great gist of the charge against him. it is not so much that he is wrong in his book (that however is alleged also), as that he has therein belied his whole life. i believe, if he could venture to value himself upon anything, it is on the virtue of consistency that he would value himself the most. strip him of this, and you leave him naked indeed. "in the case of any man who had written something, and spoken a great deal, upon very multifarious matter, during upwards of twenty-five years' public service, and in as great a variety of important events as perhaps have ever happened in the same number of years, it would appear a little hard, in order to charge such a man with inconsistency, to see collected by his friend, a sort of digest of his sayings, even to such as were merely sportive and jocular. this digest, however, has been made, with equal pains and partiality, and without bringing out those passages of his writings which might tend to show with what restrictions any expressions, quoted from him, ought to have been understood. from a great statesman he did not quite expect this mode of inquisition. if it only appeared in the works of common pamphleteers, mr. burke might safely trust to his reputation. when thus urged, he ought, perhaps, to do a little more. it shall be as little as possible, for i hope not much is wanting. to be totally silent on his charges would not be respectful to mr. fox. accusations sometimes derive a weight from the persons who make them, to which they are not entitled for their matter. "a man who, among various objects of his equal regard, is secure of some, and full of anxiety for the fate of others, is apt to go to much greater lengths in his preference of the objects of his immediate solicitude than mr. burke has ever done. a man so circumstanced often seems to undervalue, to vilify, almost to reprobate and disown, those that are out of danger. this is the voice of nature and truth, and not of inconsistency and false pretence. the danger of anything very dear to us removes, for the moment, every other affection from the mind. when priam had his whole thoughts employed on the body of his hector, he repels with indignation, and drives from him with a thousand reproaches, his surviving sons, who with an officious piety crowded about him to offer their assistance. a good critic (there is no better than mr. fox) would say, that this is a master-stroke, and marks a deep understanding of nature in the father of poetry. he would despise a zoilus, who would conclude from this passage that homer meant to represent this man of affliction as hating, or being indifferent and cold in his affections to the poor relics of his house, or that he preferred a dead carcass to his living children. "mr. burke does not stand in need of an allowance of this kind, which, if he did, by candid critics ought to be granted to him. if the principles of a mixed constitution be admitted, he wants no more to justify to consistency everything he has said and done during the course of a political life just touching to its close. i believe that gentleman has kept himself more clear of running into the fashion of wild, visionary theories, or of seeking popularity through every means, than any man perhaps ever did in the same situation. "he was the first man who, on the hustings, at a popular election, rejected the authority of instructions from constituents; or who, in any place, has argued so fully against it. perhaps the discredit into which that doctrine of compulsive instructions under our constitution is since fallen, may be due, in a great degree, to his opposing himself to it in that manner, and on that occasion. "the reformers in representation, and the bills for shortening the duration of parliaments, he uniformly and steadily opposed for many years together, in contradiction to many of his best friends. these friends, however, in his better days, when they had more to hope from his service and more to fear from his loss than now they have, never chose to find any inconsistency between his acts and expressions in favour of liberty, and his votes on those questions. but there is a time for all things." we need not, however, confine our vindication of burke to his own eloquence, but invite the especial attention of his accusers and defamers unto two forgotten facts: st. a few weeks before fox died, he dictated a despatch to lord yarmouth, which confirmed all the policy for which pitt for fifteen years had contended: moreover, in a debate on wyndham's "military system," , fox thus delivered his own recantation:--"indeed, by the circumstances of europe, i am ready to confess i have been weaned from the opinions i formerly held with respect to the force which might suffice in time of peace: nor do i consider this any inconsistency, because i see no rational prospect of any peace, which would exempt us from the necessity of watchful preparation and powerful establishment." but the change of fox's opinions, and their similarity to those maintained by pitt, with reference to our war with france, are by no means all which history can produce in justification of burke's political wisdom and consistency. the whole civilized world has read the "reflections on the french revolution," whose sale, in one year, achieved the enormous number of , copies, in connection with medals or marks of honour from almost every court in europe. now, of all the replies made to this masterpiece of reasoning and reflection, mackintosh's "vindiciae gallicae" was incontestably the ablest and profoundest. and yet, the greatest of all his intellectual opponents thus addresses burke, as appears from "memoirs" of mackintosh, volume i. page :--"the enthusiasm with which i once embraced the instruction conveyed in your writings is now ripened into solid conviction by the experience and conviction of more mature age. for a time, seduced by the love of what i thought liberty, i ventured to oppose, without ceasing to venerate, that writer who had nourished my understanding with the most wholesome principles of political wisdom...since that time, a melancholy experience has undeceived me on many subjects, in which i was the dupe of my own enthusiasm." let us part from this branch of our subject by quoting burke's own words, uttered, as it were, on the very brink of eternity. they attest, to the latest moment of his life, with what a sacred intensity and unflinching sincerity he clung to his original sentiments touching the french revolution. nor let the present writer shrink from adding, they constitute but one of the many specimens of that instinctive prescience, whereby this profoundest of philosophical statesmen was enabled to herald from afar the final triumphs of courage, patriotism, and truth. the passage occurs towards the conclusion of his "letters on a regicide peace," and is as follows:--"never succumb. it is a struggle for your existence as a nation. if you must die, die with the sword in your hand. but i have no fear whatever for the result. there is a salient living principle of energy in the public mind of england, which only requires proper direction to enable her to withstand this, or any other ferocious foe. persevere, therefore, till this tyranny be over-past." if from the glare of public history, we follow this great man into the shades of domestic seclusion, or watch the features of his social character unfolding themselves in the varied circle which he graced by his presence, or dignified by his worth,--he is alike the object of respectful esteem and love. warmth of heart, chivalry of sentiment, and that true high-breeding which springs from the soul rather than a pedigree, eminently characterise the history of burke in private life. above all, a sympathising tendency for the children of genius, and a catholic largeness of view in all which relates unto mental effort, combined with the utmost charity for human failings and infirmities,--cannot but endear him to our deepest affections, while his unrivalled endowments command our highest admiration. to illustrate what is here alluded to, let the reader recall burke's noble generosity towards that erratic victim of genius and grief,--the painter barry; or his instantaneous sympathy in behalf of crabbe the poet, when almost a foodless wanderer in our vast metropolis; and our estimate of burke's excellencies as a man, will not be deemed overdrawn. it now remains for the selector of the following pages to offer a few remarks on their nature, and design. accustomed, from the earliest period of his mental life to read and study the writings of edmund burke, he has long wished that such a selection as now appears, should be published. the works of burke extend through a vast range of large volumes; and it is feared thousands have been deterred from holding communion with a master-spirit of british literature, by the magnitude of his labours. hence, a concentrated specimen of his intellect may not only tempt the "reading public" (coleridge's horror, yet an author's friend!) to study some of burke's noblest passages, but even ultimately to introduce them into a full acquaintance with his entire products. let it be distinctly understood, the selection now published, is not a second-hand one, grafted on some pre-existing volume; but the result of a diligent, careful, and analytical perusal of burke's writings. in attempting such a work, there was one difficulty, which none but those who have intimately studied this great orator can appreciate,--we allude to the giving general titles, or descriptive headings, to passages selected for quotation. there is a mental fulness, a moral variety, and such a rapid transition of idea, in most of burke's speeches, that it almost baffles ability to abbreviate the spirit of his paragraphs, so as to exhibit under some general head the bearing of the whole. the selector, in this respect, can only say, he has done his best; and those who are most competent to appreciate difficulty, will be least inclined to criticise failure. finally, as to the leading design of this volume, its title, "first principles," is sufficiently descriptive to save much explanation. burke represents an unrivalled combination of patriot, senator, and orator; and as such, the moral and intellectual nature of the age will be purified and expanded, when brought into contact with the attributes of his character, and the productions of his mind. nor can the meditative statesman, whose party is his country, and whose political creed is based upon a true philosophy of human nature, forget,--that while the french revolution, as involving facts, belongs to history, as enclosing principles, it appertains to humanity: and hence, the abiding application of burke's profound views, not only to france and england, but to the world. of course, those who reverence the majesty of eloquence, and are fascinated by a florid richness of style, boundless imagination, inexhaustible metaphor, and all the attending graces of consummate rhetoric, will also be charmed by the appropriate supply these pages afford. but, without seeking to be homiletical, let the writer be permitted to add, a far higher purpose than mere literary amusement, or the gratification of taste, is designed by the present volume. it is the selector's most earnest hope, that the "first principles" these pages so eloquently inculcate, may be transcribed in all their purity, loftiness, and truth, into the reason and conscience of his countrymen. and among these, for whose especial guidance he ventures to think the profound wisdom of these pages to be invaluable, are the rising statesmen and senators of the day, who are either being trained in our public schools, at the universities, or about to enter upon the difficult but inspiring arena of the house of commons. in reference to this sphere of legislative action, with all reverence to its claims and character, let it be said,--material ends (a boundless passion for physical good, whether indulged in by a nation, or professed by an individual, is rebuked with solemn wisdom in the following passage from aristotle:--"the external advantages of power and fortune are acquired and maintained by virtue, but virtue is not acquired and maintained by them; and whether we consider the virtuous energies themselves, or the fruits which they unceasingly produce, the sovereign good of life must evidently be found in moral and intellectual excellence, moderately supplied with external accommodations, rather than in the greatest accumulation of external advantages, unimproved and unadorned by virtue. external prosperity is, indeed, instrumental in producing happiness, and, therefore, like every other instrument, must have its assigned limits, beyond which it is inconvenient or hurtful. but to mental excellence no limit can be assigned; the further it extends the more useful it becomes, if the epithet of 'useful' need ever be added to that of honourable. besides this, the relative importance of qualities is best estimated by that of their respective subjects. but the mind, both in itself and in reference to man, is far better than the body, or than property. the excellencies of the mind, therefore, are in the same proportion to be preferred to the highest perfection of the body, and the best disposition of external circumstances. the two last are of a far inferior, and merely subservient nature; since no man of sense covets or pursues them, but for the sake of the mind, with a view to promote its genuine improvement and augment its native joys. let this great truth then be acknowledged,--a truth evinced by the deity himself, who is happy, not from any external cause, but through the inherent attributes of his divine nature."--"politics," lib. iv.), commercial objects, and secular aggrandizement, are now receiving an idolatrous homage and passionate regard, which no christian patriot can contemplate without anxiety. the ideal, the imaginative, and the religious element, is almost sneered out of the house of commons at the existing moment; and any glowing exhibition of oratory, or splendid manifestation of intellect, is derided, as being "unpractical" and ill-adapted to the sobriety of the english senate! against this heartless materialism and unholy mammon-worship, burke's pages are a magnificent protest; and are admirably suited to protect the political youth and dawning statesmen of our country, from the blight and the blast of doctrines which decry enthusiasm as folly, and condemn the beautiful as worthless and untrue. ships, colonies, and commerce; exports and imports; taxes and imposts; charters and civic arrangements,--none but a madman will depreciate what such themes involve, of duty, energy, and zeal, in political life. still, let it be fearlessly maintained, neither wealth, nor commerce, in themselves, can constitute the real greatness of an empire; it is only because they stand in relation to the higher destinies and holier responsibilities of an empire, that a true statesman will regard them as vitally wound up with the vigour and prosperity of national development. such, at least, is the philosophy of politics, breathed from the undying pages of edmund burke. he who studies this great writer, will, more and more, sympathise with what hooker taught, and bishop sanderson inculcates. in one word, he will learn to venerate with increasing reverence the british constitution, as "that peerless growth of patriotic mind, the great eternal wonder of mankind!" burke traced the ultimate origin of civil government to the divine will, both as declared in revelation, and imaged forth by the moral constitution of man. in this respect, it is well-known how fundamentally he differs from the theories of hobbes, mandeville, shaftesbury, and hutcheson. not less also, is he opposed to locke, who tells us,--"the original compact which begins and actually constitutes any political society, is nothing but the consent of any number of freemen capable of a majority, to unite and incorporate into such a society. and this is that, and that only, which could give beginning to any lawful government in the world." in one word, locke declares that civil government is not from god in the way of principle, but from man in the way of fact; and thus, being a mere contingency, or moral accident in the history of human development, self-government is the essential prerogative of our nature. in accordance with this irrational and unscriptural hypothesis, we find price and priestly expanding locke's views at the period of burke; while in the writings of that apostle of political antinomianism, rousseau, and his english counterpart tom paine,--the principles of the assumed "contrat social" display their utmost virulence. this is not the place to discuss the origin of civil government; but the classical reader, who has been taught to revere the political wisdom of those ancient teachers, whose insight was almost prophetical in abstract science, will thank us for an extract from aristotle's "politics," which bears upon this subject. it presents a most striking coincidence of sentiment between two master-spirits on the philosophy of government; and will at once remind the reader of burke's memorable passage, beginning with, "society is a partnership," etc. etc. the passage to which we allude in aristotle's "politics," begins thus: "ote men oun e polis phusei proteron e ekastos," k.t.l. the whole passage may be thus freely translated. "a participation in rights and advantages forms the bond of political society; an institution prior, in the intention of nature, to the families and individuals from whom it is constituted. what members are to the body, that citizens are to a commonwealth. the hands or foot, when separated from the body, retains its name, but totally changes its nature, because it is completely divested of its uses and powers. in the same manner a citizen is a constituent part of a whole system, which invests him with powers and qualifies him for functions for which, in his individual capacity, he is totally unfit; and independently of such system, he might subsist indeed as a lonely savage, but could never attain that improved and happy state to which his progressive nature invariably tends. perfected by the offices and duties of social life, man is the best; but, rude and undisciplined, he is the very worst, of animals. for nothing is more detestable than armed improbity; and man is armed with craft and courage, which, uncontrolled by justice, he will most wickedly pervert, and become at once the most impious and fiercest of monsters, the most abominable in gluttony, and shameless in personality. but justice is the fundamental virtue of political society, since the order of society cannot be maintained without law, and laws are constituted to proclaim what is just." let us add to this noble passage, aristotle remarks in his "ethics" (lib. x. c. ), that a higher destination than political virtue is the true end of man. in this respect, he concurs with plato; who teaches us in his "theaetetus," the main object of human pursuit ought to be "omoiosis to theo kata to dunaton," etc. etc.; i.e. "a similitude unto god as far as possible; which similitude consists in an imitation of his justice, holiness, and wisdom." to conclude: the noblest end of all policy on earth, is to educate human nature for that august "politeuma" (phil. iii. v. ), that eternal commonwealth which awaits perfected spirits above, when, through infinite grace, they are finally admitted into a "city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is god." (heb. xi. .) (the dim approximations of platonic philosophy to certain discoveries in divine revelation, have rightly challenged the attention of theological enquirers. the above quotation from st. paul suggests a reference to one of these, which occurs towards the termination of plato's ninth book of "the republic." he is uttering a protest against our concluding, that because degeneracy appears to be the invariable law or destiny of all human commonwealths, therefore, no archetypal model exists of any perfect state, or polity: and then, in opposition to this political scepticism, plato adds these remarkable words:--"en ourano isos paradeigma anakeitai to boulomeno oran kai oronti eauton katoikizein," etc. etc.--"the state we have here established, which exists only in our reasoning, but it seems to me, has no existence on earth. but in heaven, probably, i replied, there is a model of it for any one inclined to contemplate the same, and by so contemplating it, to regulate himself accordingly.") appendix. the following are the critical sketches of burke's character, alluded to in the commencement of this essay. they are from the pens of his most distinguished contemporaries, who were opposed to him in their political views and public career. (from sir james mackintosh.) "there can be no hesitation in according to him a station among the most extraordinary men that ever appeared; and we think there is now but little diversity of opinion as to the kind of place which it is fit to assign him. he was a writer of the first class, and excelled in almost every kind of composition. possessed of most extensive knowledge, and of the most various description; acquainted alike with what different classes of men knew, each in his own province, and with much that hardly any one ever thought of learning; he could either bring his masses of information to bear directly upon the subjects to which they severally belonged,--or he could avail himself of them generally to strengthen his faculties, and enlarge his views,--or he could turn any of them to account for the purpose of illustrating his theme, or enriching his diction. hence, when he is handling any one matter, we perceive that we are conversing with a reasoner or a teacher, to whom almost every other branch of knowledge is familiar: his views range over all the cognate objects; his reasonings are derived from principles applicable to other themes, as well as the one in hand; arguments pour in from all sides, as well as those which start up under our feet,--the natural growth of the path he is leading us over; while to throw light round our steps, and either explore its darkest places, or serve for our recreation; illustrations are fetched from a thousand quarters, and an imagination marvellously quick to descry unthought of resemblances, points to our use the stores, which a love yet more marvellously has gathered from all ages and nations, and arts and tongues. we are, in respect of the argument, reminded of bacon's multifarious knowledge, and the exuberance of his learned fancy; whilst the many-lettered diction recalls to mind the first of english poets, and his immortal verse, rich with the spoils of all sciences and all times. ... "he produced but one philosophical treatise; but no man lays down abstract principles more soundly, or better traces their application. all his works, indeed, even his controversial, are so infused with general reflection, so variegated with speculative discussion, that they wear the air of the lyceum, as well as the academy." (from lord erskine.) "i shall take care to put burke's work on the french revolution into the hands of those whose principles are left to my protection. i shall take care that they have the advantage of doing, in the regular progression of youthful studies, what i have done even in the short intervals of laborious life; that they shall transcribe with their own hands from all the works of this most extraordinary person, and from this last, among the rest, the soundest truths of religion, the justest principles of morals, inculcated and rendered delightful by the most sublime eloquence; the highest reach of philosophy brought down to the level of common minds by the most captivating taste; the most enlightened observations on history, and the most copious collection of useful maxims for the experience of common life." (from king, bishop of rochester.) "in the mind of mr. burke political principles were not objects of barren speculation. wisdom in him was always practical. whatever his understanding adopted as truth, made its way to his heart, and sank deep into it; and his ardent and generous feelings seized with promptitude every occasion of applying it to mankind. where shall we find recorded exertions of active benevolence at once so numerous, so varied, and so important, made by one man? among those, the redress of wrongs, and the protection of weakness from the oppression of power, were most conspicuous. ... the assumption of arbitrary power, in whatever shape it appeared, whether under the veil of legitimacy, or skulking in the disguise of state necessity, or presenting the shameless front of usurpation--whether the prescriptive claim of ascendancy, or the career of official authority, or the newly-acquired dominion of a mob,--was the pure object of his detestation and hostility; and this is not a fanciful enumeration of possible cases," etc. selections from the speeches and writings of edmund burke. nature and functions of the house of commons. whatever alterations time and the necessary accommodation of business may have introduced, this character can never be sustained, unless the house of commons shall be made to bear some stamp of the actual disposition of the people at large. it would (among public misfortunes) be an evil more natural and tolerable, that the house of commons should be infected with every epidemical frenzy of the people, as this would indicate some consanguinity, some sympathy of nature with their constituents, than that they should in all cases be wholly untouched by the opinions and feelings of the people out of doors. by this want of sympathy they would cease to be a house of commons. for it is not the derivation of the power of that house from the people, which makes it in a distinct sense their representative. the king is the representative of the people; so are the lords, so are the judges. they all are trustees for the people, as well as the commons; because no power is given for the sole sake of the holder; and although government certainly is an institution of divine authority, yet its forms, and the persons who administer it, all originate from the people. a popular origin cannot therefore be the characteristical distinction of a popular representative. this belongs equally to all parts of government, and in all forms. the virtue, spirit, and essence of a house of commons consists in its being the express image of the feelings of the nation. it was not instituted to be a control upon the people, as of late it has been taught, by a doctrine of the most pernicious tendency. it was designed as a control for the people. other institutions have been formed for the purpose of checking popular excesses; and they are, i apprehend, fully adequate to their object. if not, they ought to be made so. the house of commons, as it was never intended for the support of peace and subordination, is miserably appointed for that service; having no stronger weapon than its mace, and no better officer than its serjeant-at-arms, which it can command of its own proper authority. a vigilant and jealous eye over executory and judicial magistracy; an anxious care of public money; an openness, approaching towards facility, to public complaint; these seem to be the true characteristics of a house of commons. but an addressing house of commons, and a petitioning nation; a house of commons full of confidence, when the nation is plunged in despair; in the utmost harmony with ministers, whom the people regard with the utmost abhorrence; who vote thanks, when the public opinion calls upon them for impeachments; who are eager to grant, when the general voice demands account; who, in all disputes between the people and administration, presume against the people; who punish their disorders, but refuse even to inquire into the provocations to them; this is an unnatural, a monstrous state of things in this constitution. such an assembly may be a great, wise, awful senate; but it is not, to any popular purpose, a house of commons. this change from an immediate state of procuration and delegation to a course of acting as from original power, is the way in which all the popular magistracies in the world have been perverted from their purposes. it is indeed their greatest and sometimes their incurable corruption. for there is a material distinction between that corruption by which particular points are carried against reason (this is a thing which cannot be prevented by human wisdom, and is of less consequence), and the corruption of the principle itself. for then the evil is not accidental, but settled. the distemper becomes the natural habit. retrospect and resignation. you are but just entering into the world; i am going out of it. i have played long enough to be heartily tired of the drama. whether i have acted my part in it well or ill, posterity will judge with more candour than i, or than the present age, with our present passions, can possibly pretend to. for my part, i quit it without a sigh, and submit to the sovereign order without murmuring. the nearer we approach to the goal of life, the better we begin to understand the true value of our existence, and the real weight of our opinions. we set out much in love with both: but we leave much behind us as we advance. we first throw away the tales along with the rattles of our nurses; those of the priest keep their hold a little longer; those of our governors the longest of all. but the passions which prop these opinions are withdrawn one after another; and the cool light of reason, at the setting of our life, shows us what a false splendour played upon these objects during our more sanguine seasons. modesty of mind. if any inquiry thus carefully conducted should fail at last of discovering the truth, it may answer an end perhaps as useful, in discovering to us the weakness of our own understanding. if it does not make us knowing, it may make us modest. if it does not preserve us from error, it may at least from the spirit of error; and may make us cautious of pronouncing with positiveness or with haste, when so much labour may end in so much uncertainty. newton and nature. when newton first discovered the property of attraction, and settled its laws, he found it served very well to explain several of the most remarkable phenomena in nature; but yet with reference to the general system of things, he could consider attraction but as an effect, whose cause at that time he did not attempt to trace. but when he afterwards began to account for it by a subtle elastic aether, this great man (if in so great a man it be not impious to discover anything like a blemish) seemed to have quitted his usual cautious manner of philosophising: since, perhaps, allowing all that has been advanced on this subject to be sufficiently proved, i think it leaves us with as many difficulties as it found us. that great chain of causes, which linking one to another even to the throne of god himself, can never be unravelled by any industry of ours. when we go but one step beyond the immediate sensible qualities of things, we go out of our depth. all we do after is but a faint struggle, that shows we are in an element which does not belong to us. theory and practice. it is, i own, not uncommon to be wrong in theory, and right in practice; and we are happy that it is so. men often act right from their feelings, who afterwards reason but ill on them from principle: but as it is impossible to avoid an attempt at such reasoning, and equally impossible to prevent its having some influence on our practice, surely it is worth taking some pains to have it just, and founded on the basis of sure experience. induction and comparison. we must not attempt to fly, when we can scarcely pretend to creep. in considering any complex matter, we ought to examine every distinct ingredient in the composition, one by one; and reduce everything to the utmost simplicity; since the condition of our nature binds us to a strict law and vary narrow limits. we ought afterwards to re-examine the principles by the effect of the composition, as well as the composition by that of the principles. we ought to compare our subject with things of a similar nature, and even with things of a contrary nature; for discoveries may be, and often are, made by the contrast, which would escape us on the single view. the greater number of the comparisons we make, the more general and the more certain our knowledge is likely to prove, as built upon a more extensive and perfect induction. divine power on the human idea. whilst we consider the godhead merely as he is an object of the understanding, which forms a complex idea of power, wisdom, justice, goodness, all stretched to a degree far exceeding the bounds of our comprehension, whilst we consider the divinity in this refined and abstracted light, the imagination and passions are little or nothing affected. but because we are bound, by the condition of our nature, to ascend to these pure and intellectual ideas, through the medium of sensible images, to judge of these divine qualities by their evident acts and exertions, it becomes extremely hard to disentangle our idea of the cause from the effect by which we are led to know it. thus, when we contemplate the deity, his attributes and their operation, coming united on the mind, form a sort of sensible image, and as such are capable of affecting the imagination. now, though in a just idea of the deity, perhaps none of his attributes are predominant, yet, to our imagination, his power is by far the most striking. some reflection, some comparing, is necessary to satisfy us of his wisdom, his justice, and his goodness. to be struck with his power, it is only necessary that we should open our eyes. but whilst we contemplate so vast an object, under the arm, as it were of almighty power, and invested upon every side with omnipresence, we shrink into the minuteness of our own nature, and are, in a manner, annihilated before him. union of love and dread in religion. true religion has, and must have, a large mixture of salutary fear; and false religions have generally nothing else but fear to support them. before the christian religion had, as it were, humanized the idea of the divinity, and brought it somewhat nearer to us, there was very little said of the love of god. the followers of plato have something of it, and only something; the other writers of pagan antiquity, whether poets or philosophers, nothing at all. and they who consider with what infinite attention, by what a disregard of every perishable object, through what long habits of piety and contemplation it is that any man is able to attain an entire love and devotion to the deity, will easily perceive that it is not the first, the most natural and the most striking, effect which proceeds from that idea. office of sympathy. whenever we are formed by nature to any active purpose, the passion which animates us to it is attended with delight, or a pleasure of some kind, let the subject-matter be what it will; and as our creator had designed that we should be united by the bond of sympathy, he has strengthened that bond by a proportionable delight; and there most where our sympathy is most wanted,--in the distresses of others. words. natural objects affect us, by the laws of that connexion which providence has established between certain motions and configurations of bodies, and certain consequent feelings in our mind. painting affects in the same manner, but with the superadded pleasure of imitation. architecture affects by the laws of nature, and the law of reason; from which latter result the rules of proportion, which make a work to be praised or censured, in the whole or in some part, when the end for which it was designed is or is not properly answered. but as to words; they seem to me to affect us in a manner very different from that in which we are affected by natural objects, or by painting or architecture; yet words have as considerable a share in exciting ideas of beauty and of the sublime as many of those, and sometimes a much greater than any of them. nature anticipates man. whenever the wisdom of our creator intended that we should be affected with anything, he did not confide the execution of his design to the languid and precarious operation of our reason; but he endued it with powers and properties that prevent the understanding, and even the will; which, seizing upon the senses and imagination, captivate the soul before the understanding is ready either to join with them, or to oppose them. it is by a long deduction, and much study, that we discover the adorable wisdom of god in his works: when we discover it, the effect is very different, not only in the manner of acquiring it, but in its own nature, from that which strikes us without any preparation from the sublime or the beautiful. self-inspection. whatever turns the soul inward on itself, tends to concentre its forces, and to fit it for greater and stronger flights of science. by looking into physical causes our minds are opened and enlarged; and in this pursuit, whether we take or whether we lose our game, the chase is certainly of service. power of the obscure. poetry, with all its obscurity, has a more general, as well as a more powerful, dominion over the passions, than the other art. and i think there are reasons in nature, why the obscure idea, when properly conveyed, should be more affecting than the clear. it is our ignorance of things that causes all our admiration, and chiefly excites our passions. knowledge and acquaintance make the most striking causes affect but little. it is thus with the vulgar; and all men are as the vulgar in what they do not understand. the ideas of eternity and infinity, are among the most affecting we have: and yet perhaps there is nothing of which we really understand so little, as of infinity and eternity. female beauty. the object therefore of this mixed passion, which we call love, is the beauty of the sex. men are carried to the sex in general, as it is the sex, and by the common law of nature; but they are attached to particulars by personal beauty. i call beauty a social quality; for where women and men, and not only they, but when other animals give us a sense of joy and pleasure in beholding them (and there are many that do so), they inspire us with sentiments of tenderness and affection towards their persons; we like to have them near us, and we enter willingly into a kind of relation with them, unless we should have strong reasons to the contrary. novelty and curiosity. curiosity is the most superficial of all the affections; it changes its object perpetually, it has an appetite which is very sharp, but very easily satisfied; and it has always an appearance of giddiness, restlessness, and anxiety. curiosity, from its nature, is a very active principle; it quickly runs over the greatest part of its objects, and soon exhausts the variety which is commonly to be met with in nature; the same things make frequent returns, and they return with less and less of any agreeable effect. in short, the occurrences of life, by the time we come to know it a little, would be incapable of affecting the mind with any other sensations than those of loathing and weariness, if many things were not adapted to affect the mind by means of other powers besides novelty in them, and of other passions besides curiosity in ourselves. pleasures of analogy. the mind of man has naturally a far greater alacrity and satisfaction in tracing resemblances than in searching for differences: because by making resemblances we produce new images; we unite, we create, we enlarge our stock; but in making distinctions we offer no food at all to the imagination; the task itself is more severe and irksome, and what pleasure we derive from it is something of a negative and indirect nature. ambition. god has planted in man a sense of ambition, and a satisfaction arising from the contemplation of his excelling his fellows in something deemed valuable amongst them. it is this passion that drives men to all the ways we see in use of signalizing themselves, and that tends to make whatever excites in a man the idea of this distinction so very pleasant. it has been so strong as to make very miserable men take comfort, that they were supreme in misery; and certain it is, that, where we cannot distinguish ourselves by something excellent, we begin to take a complacency in some singular infirmities, follies, or defects of one kind or other. it is on this principle that flattery is so prevalent; for flattery is no more than what raises in a man's mind an idea of a preference which he has not. extensions of sympathy. for sympathy must be considered as a sort of substitution, by which we are put into the place of another man, and affected in many respects as he is affected; so that this passion may either partake of the nature of those which regard self-preservation, and turning upon pain may be a source of the sublime; or it may turn upon ideas of pleasure; and then whatever has been said of the social affections, whether they regard society in general, or only some particular modes of it, may be applicable here. it is by this principle chiefly that poetry, painting, and other affecting arts, transfuse their passions from one breast to another, and are often capable of grafting a delight on wretchedness, misery, and death itself. philosophy of taste. so far, then, as taste belongs to the imagination, its principle is the same in all men; there is no different in the manner of their being affected, nor in the causes of the affection; but in the degree there is a difference, which arises from two causes principally; either from a greater degree of natural sensibility, or from a closer and longer attention to the object. clearness and strength in style. we do not sufficiently distinguish, in our observations upon language, between a clear expression and a strong expression. these are frequently confounded with each other, though they are in reality extremely different. the former regards the understanding; the latter belongs to the passions. the one describes a thing as it is; the latter describes it as it is felt. now, as there is a moving tone of voice, an impassioned countenance, an agitated gesture, which affect independently of the things about which they are exerted, so there are words, and certain dispositions of words, which being peculiarly devoted to passionate subjects, and always used by those who are under the influence of any passion, touch and move us more than those which far more clearly and distinctly express the subject-matter. we yield to sympathy what we refuse to description. the truth is, all verbal description, merely as naked description, though never so exact, conveys so poor and insufficient an idea of the thing described, that it could scarcely have the smallest effect, if the speaker did not call in to his aid those modes of speech that mark a strong and lively feeling in himself. then, by the contagion of our passions, we catch a fire already kindled in another, which probably might never have been struck out by the object described. words, by strongly conveying the passions, by those means which we have already mentioned, fully compensate for their weakness in other respects. unity of imagination. since the imagination is only the representation of the senses, it can only be pleased or displeased with the images, from the same principle on which the sense is pleased or displeased with the realities; and consequently there must be just as close an agreement in the imaginations as in the senses of men. a little attention will convince us that this must of necessity be the case. effect of words. if words have all their possible extent of power, three effects arise in the mind of the hearer. the first is, the sound; the second, the picture, or representation of the thing signified by the sound; the third is, the affection of the soul produced by one or by both of the foregoing. compounded abstract words, of which we have been speaking (honour, justice, liberty, and the like), produce the first and the last of these effects, but not the second. simple abstracts, are used to signify some one simple idea without much adverting to others which may chance to attend it, as blue, green, hot, cold, and the like; these are capable of effecting all three of the purposes of words; as the aggregate words, man, castle, horse, etc. are in a yet higher degree. but i am of opinion, that the most general effect, even of these words, does not arise from their forming pictures of the several things they would represent in the imagination; because, on a very diligent examination of my own mind, and getting others to consider theirs, i do not find that once in twenty times any such picture is formed, and, when it is, there is most commonly a particular effort of the imagination for that purpose. but the aggregate words operate, as i said of the compound-abstracts, not by presenting any image to the mind, but by having from use the same effect on being mentioned, that their original has when it is seen. investigation. i am convinced that the method of teaching which approaches most nearly to the method of investigation is incomparably the best; since, not content with serving up a few barren and lifeless truths, it leads to the stock on which they grew; it tends to set the reader himself in the track of invention, and to direct him into those paths in which the author has made his own discoveries, if he should be so happy as to have made any that are valuable. the sublime. whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain, and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime; that is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling. obscurity. those despotic governments which are founded on the passions of men, and principally upon the passion of fear, keep their chief as much as may be from the public eye. the policy has been the same in many cases of religion. almost all the heathen temples were dark. even in the barbarous temples of the americans at this day, they keep their idol in a dark part of the hut which is consecrated to his worship. for this purpose too the druids performed all their ceremonies in the bosom of the darkest woods, and in the shade of the oldest and most spreading oaks. no person seems better to have understood the secret of heightening, or of setting terrible things, if i may use the expression, in their strongest light, by the force of a judicious obscurity, than milton. principles of taste. whatever certainty is to be acquired in morality and the science of life; just the same degree of certainty have we in what relates to them in works of imitation. indeed, it is for the most part in our skill in manners, and in the observances of time and place, and of decency in general, which is only to be learned in those schools to which horace recommends us, that what is called taste, by way of distinction, consists; and which is in reality no other than a more refined judgment. on the whole it appears to me, that what is called taste, in its most general acceptation, is not a simple idea, but is partly made up of a perception of the primary pleasures of sense, of the secondary pleasures of the imagination, and of the conclusions of the reasoning faculty, concerning the various relations of these, and concerning the human passions, manners, and actions. all this is requisite to form taste, and the ground-work of all these is the same in the human mind; for as the senses are the great originals of all our ideas, and consequently of all our pleasures, if they are not uncertain and arbitrary, the whole ground-work of taste is common to all, and therefore there is a sufficient foundation for a conclusive reasoning on these matters. the beautiful. beauty is a thing much too affecting not to depend upon some positive qualities. and, since it is no creature of our reason, since it strikes us without any reference to use, and even where no use at all can be discerned, since the order and method of nature is generally very different from our measures and proportions, we must conclude that beauty is, for the greater part, some quality in bodies acting mechanically upon the human mind by the intervention of the senses. the real and the ideal. choose a day on which to represent the most sublime and affecting tragedy we have: appoint the most favourite actors; spare no cost upon the scenes and decorations; unite the greatest efforts of poetry, painting, and music; and when you have collected your audience, just at the moment when their minds are erect with expectation, let it be reported that a state criminal of high rank is on the point of being executed in the adjoining square; in a moment the emptiness of the theatre would demonstrate the comparative weakness of the imitative arts, and proclaim the triumph of the real sympathy. i believe that this notion of our having a simple pain in the reality, yet a delight in the representation, arises from hence, that we do not sufficiently distinguish what we would by no means choose to do, from what we should be eager enough to see if it was once done. we delight in seeing things, which so far from doing, our heartiest wishes would be to see redressed. this noble capital, the pride of england and of europe, i believe no man is so strangely wicked as to desire to see destroyed by a conflagration or an earthquake, though he should be removed himself to the greatest distance from the danger. but suppose such a fatal accident to have happened, what numbers from all parts would crowd to behold the ruins, and amongst them many who would have been content never to have seen london in its glory! judgment in art. a rectitude of judgment in the arts, which may be called a good taste, does in a great measure depend upon sensibility; because, if the mind has no bent to the pleasures of the imagination, it will never apply itself sufficiently to works of that species to acquire a competent knowledge in them. but, though a degree of sensibility is requisite to form a good judgment, yet a good judgment does not necessarily arise from a quick sensibility of pleasure. moral effects of language. this arises chiefly from these three causes. first. that we take an extraordinary part in the passions of others, and that we are easily affected and brought into sympathy by any tokens which are shown of them; and there are no tokens which can express all the circumstances of most passions so fully as words; so that if a person speaks upon any subject, he can not only convey the subject to you, but likewise the manner in which he is himself affected by it. certain it is, that the influence of most things on our passions is not so much from the things themselves, as from our opinions concerning them; and these again depend very much on the opinions of other men, conveyable for the most part by words only. secondly. there are many things of a very affecting nature, which can seldom occur in the reality, but the words that represent them often do; and thus they have an opportunity of making a deep impression and taking root in the mind, whilst the idea of the reality was transient; and to some perhaps never really occurred in any shape, to whom it is notwithstanding very affecting, as war, death, famine, etc. besides, many ideas have never been at all presented to the senses of any men but by words, as god, angels, devils, heaven, and hell, all of which have, however, a great influence over the passions. thirdly. by words we have it in our power to make such combinations as we cannot possibly do otherwise. by this power of combining, we are able, by the addition of well-chosen circumstances, to give a new life and force to the simple object. in painting we may represent any fine figure we please; but we never can give it those enlivening touches which it may receive from words. to represent an angel in a picture, you can only draw a beautiful young man winged: but what painting can furnish out anything so grand as the addition of one word, "the angel of the lord?" security of truth. i then thought, and am still of the same opinion, that error, and not truth of any kind, is dangerous; that ill conclusions can only flow from false propositions; and that, to know whether any proposition be true or false, it is a preposterous method to examine it by its apparent consequences. imitation an instinctive law. for as sympathy makes us take a concern in whatever men feel, so this affection prompts us to copy whatever they do; and consequently we have a pleasure in imitating, and in whatever belongs to imitation merely as it is such, without any intervention of the reasoning faculty, but solely from our natural constitution, which providence has framed in such a manner as to find either pleasure or delight, according to the nature of the object, in whatever regards the purposes of our being. it is by imitation far more than by precept, that we learn everything; and what we learn thus, we acquire not only more effectually, but more pleasantly. this forms our manners, our opinions, our lives. it is one of the strongest links of society; it is a species of mutual compliance, which all men yield to each other, without constraint to themselves, and which is extremely flattering to all. standard of reason and taste. it is probable that the standard both of reason and taste is the same in all human creatures. for if there were not some principles of judgment as well as of sentiment common to all mankind, no hold could possibly be taken either on their reason or their passions, sufficient to maintain the ordinary correspondence of life. use of theory. a theory founded on experiment, and not assumed, is always good for so much as it explains. our inability to push it indefinitely is no argument at all against it. this inability may be owing to our ignorance of some necessary mediums; to a want of proper application; to many other causes besides a defect in the principles we employ. political outcasts. in the mean time, that power, which all these changes aimed at securing, remains still as tottering and as uncertain as ever. they are delivered up into the hands of those who feel neither respect for their persons, nor gratitude for their favours; who are put about them in appearance to serve, in reality to govern them; and, when the signal is given, to abandon and destroy them, in order to set up some new dupe of ambition, who in his turn is to be abandoned and destroyed. thus, living in a state of continual uneasiness and ferment, softened only by the miserable consolation of giving now and then preferments to those for whom they have no value; they are unhappy in their situation, yet find it impossible to resign. until, at length, soured in temper, and disappointed by the very attainment of their ends, in some angry, in some haughty, or some negligent moment, they incur the displeasure of those upon whom they have rendered their very being dependent. then perierunt tempora longi servitii; they are cast off with scorn; they are turned out, emptied of all natural character, of all intrinsic worth, of all essential dignity, and deprived of every consolation of friendship. having rendered all retreat to old principles ridiculous, and to old regards impracticable, not being able to counterfeit pleasure, or to discharge discontent, nothing being sincere or right, or balanced in their minds, it is more than a chance, that, in the delirium of the last stage of their distempered power, they make an insane political testament, by which they throw all their remaining weight and consequence into the scale of their declared enemies, and the avowed authors of their destruction. injustice to our own age. if these evil dispositions should spread much farther they must end in our destruction; for nothing can save a people destitute of public and private faith. however, the author, for the present state of things, has extended the charge by much too widely; as men are but too apt to take the measure of all mankind from their own particular acquaintance. barren as this age may be in the growth of honour and virtue, the country does not want, at this moment, as strong, and those not a few, examples as were ever known, of an unshaken adherence to principle, and attachment to connexion, against every allurement of interest. those examples are not furnished by the great alone; nor by those, whose activity in public affairs may render it suspected that they make such a character one of the rounds in their ladder of ambition; but by men more quiet, and more in the shade, on whom an unmixed sense of honour alone could operate. false coalitions. no system of that kind can be formed, which will not leave room fully sufficient for healing coalitions: but no coalition which, under the specious name of independency, carries in its bosom the unreconciled principles of the original discord of parties, ever was, or will be, an healing coalition. nor will the mind of our sovereign ever know repose, his kingdom settlement, or his business order, in efficiency or grace with his people, until things are established upon the basis of some set of men, who are trusted by the public, and who can trust one another. political empiricism. men of sense, when new projects come before them, always think a discourse proving the mere right or mere power of acting in the manner proposed, to be no more than a very unpleasant way of mispending time. they must see the object to be of proper magnitude to engage them; they must see the means of compassing it to be next to certain: the mischiefs not to counterbalance the profit; they will examine how a proposed imposition or regulation agrees with the opinion of those who are likely to be affected by it; they will not despise the consideration even of their habitudes and prejudices. they wish to know how it accords or disagrees with the true spirit of prior establishments, whether of government or of finance; because they well know, that in the complicated economy of great kingdoms, and immense revenues, which in a length of time, and by a variety of accidents, have coalesced into a sort of body, an attempt towards a compulsory equality in all circumstances, and an exact practical definition of the supreme rights in every case, is the most dangerous and chimerical of all enterprises. the old building stands well enough, though part gothic, part grecian, and part chinese, until an attempt is made to square it into uniformity. then it may come down upon our heads altogether, in much uniformity of ruin; and great will be the fall thereof. a visionary. enough of this visionary union; in which much extravagance appears without any fancy, and the judgment is shocked without anything to refresh the imagination. it looks as if the author had dropped down from the moon, without any knowledge of the general nature of this globe, of the general nature of its inhabitants, without the least acquaintance with the affairs of this country. party divisions. party divisions, whether on the whole operating for good or evil, are things inseparable from free government. this is a truth which, i believe, admits little dispute, having been established by the uniform experience of all ages. the part a good citizen ought to take in these divisions has been a matter of much deeper controversy. but god forbid that any controversy relating to our essential morals should admit of no decision. it appears to me, that this question, like most of the others which regard our duties in life, is to be determined by our station in it. private men may be wholly neutral, and entirely innocent; but they who are legally invested with public trust, or stand on the high ground of rank and dignity, which is trust implied, can hardly in any case remain indifferent, without the certainty of sinking into insignificance; and thereby in effect deserting that post in which, with the fullest authority, and for the wisest purposes, the laws and institutions of their country have fixed them. however, if it be the office of those who are thus circumstanced, to take a decided part, it is no less their duty that it should be a sober one. decorum in party. it ought to be circumscribed by the same laws of decorum, and balanced by the same temper, which bound and regulate all the virtues. in a word, we ought to act in party with all the moderation which does not absolutely enervate that vigour, and quench that fervency of spirit, without which the best wishes for the public good must evaporate in empty speculation. not so bad as we seem. our circumstances are indeed critical; but then they are the critical circumstances of a strong and mighty nation. if corruption and meanness are greatly spread, they are not spread universally. many public men are hitherto examples of public spirit and integrity. whole parties, as far as large bodies can be uniform, have preserved character. however they may be deceived in some particulars, i know of no set of men amongst us which does not contain persons on whom the nation, in a difficult exigence, may well value itself. private life, which is the nursery of the commonwealth, is yet in general pure, and on the whole disposed to virtue; and the people at large want neither generosity nor spirit. no small part of that very luxury, which is so much the subject of the author's declamation, but which, in most parts of life, by being well balanced and diffused, is only decency and convenience, has perhaps as many or more good than evil consequences attending it. it certainly excites industry, nourishes emulation, and inspires some sense of personal value into all ranks of people. what we want is to establish more fully an opinion of uniformity, and consistency of character, in the leading men of the state; such as will restore some confidence to profession and appearance, such as will fix subordination upon esteem. without this all schemes are begun at the wrong end. politics without principle. people not very well grounded in the principles of public morality find a set of maxims in office ready made for them, which they assume as naturally and inevitably, as any of the insignia or instruments of the situation. a certain tone of the solid and practical is immediately acquired. every former profession of public spirit is to be considered as a debauch of youth, or, at best, as a visionary scheme of unattainable perfection. the very idea of consistency is exploded. the convenience of the business of the day is to furnish the principle for doing it. then the whole ministerial cant is quickly got by heart. the prevalence of faction is to be lamented. all opposition is to be regarded as the effect of envy and disappointed ambition. all administrations are declared to be alike. the same necessity justifies all their measures. it is no longer a matter of discussion, who or what administration is; but that administration is to be supported, is a general maxim. flattering themselves that their power is become necessary to the support of all order and government, everything which tends to the support of that power is sanctified, and becomes a part of the public interest. moral debasement progressive. i believe the instances are exceedingly rare of men immediately passing over a clear, marked line of virtue into declared vice and corruption. there are a sort of middle tints and shades between the two extremes; there is something uncertain on the confines of the two empires which they first pass through, and which renders the change easy and imperceptible. there are even a sort of splendid impositions so well contrived, that, at the very time the path of rectitude is quitted for ever, men seem to be advancing into some higher and nobler road of public conduct. not that such impositions are strong enough in themselves; but a powerful interest, often concealed from those whom it affects, works at the bottom, and secures the operation. men are thus debauched away from those legitimate connexions, which they had formed on a judgment, early perhaps but sufficiently mature, and wholly unbiassed. despotism. it is the nature of despotism to abhor power held by any means but its own momentary pleasure; and to annihilate all intermediate situations between boundless strength on its own part, and total debility on the part of the people. judgment and policy. nothing can render this a point of indifference to the nation, but what must either render us totally desperate, or sooth us into the security of idiots. we must soften into a credulity below the milkiness of infancy, to think all men virtuous. we must be tainted with a malignity truly diabolical, to believe all the world to be equally wicked and corrupt. men are in public as in private, some good, some evil. the elevation of the one, and the depression of the other, are the first objects of all true policy. but that form of government, which, neither in its direct institutions, nor in their immediate tendency, has contrived to throw its affairs into the most trustworthy hands, but has left its whole executory system to be disposed of agreeably to the uncontrolled pleasures of any one man, however excellent or virtuous, is a plan of polity defective not only in that member, but consequentially erroneous in every part of it. popular discontent. to complain of the age we live in, to murmur at the present possessors of power, to lament the past, to conceive extravagant hopes of the future, are the common dispositions of the greatest part of mankind; indeed, the necessary effects of the ignorance and levity of the vulgar. such complaints and humours have existed in all times; yet as all times have not been alike, true political sagacity manifests itself in distinguishing that complaint which only characterises the general infirmity of human nature, from those which are symptoms of the particular distemperature of our own air and season. the people and their rulers. i am not one of those who think that the people are never in the wrong. they have been so, frequently and outrageously, both in other countries and in this. but i do say, that in all disputes between them and their rulers, the presumption is at least upon a par in favour of the people. experience may perhaps justify me in going farther. when popular discontents have been very prevalent, it may well be affirmed and supported, that there has been generally something found amiss in the constitution, or in the conduct of government. the people have no interest in disorder. when they do wrong, it is their error, and not their crime. government favouritism. it is this unnatural infusion of a government which in a great part of its constitution is popular, that has raised the present ferment in the nation. the people, without entering deeply into its principles, could plainly perceive its effects, in much violence, in a great spirit of innovation, and a general disorder in all the functions of government. i keep my eye solely on this system; if i speak of those measures which have arisen from it, it will be so far only as they illustrate the general scheme. this is the fountain of all those bitter waters, of which, through an hundred different conduits, we have drunk until we are ready to burst. the discretionary power of the crown in the formation of ministry, abused by bad or weak men, has given rise to a system which, without directly violating the letter of any law, operates against the spirit of the whole constitution. a plan of favouritism for our executory government is essentially at variance with the plan of our legislature. one great end undoubtedly of a mixed government like ours, composed of monarchy, and of controls, on the part of the higher people and the lower, is that the prince shall not be able to violate the laws. this is useful indeed and fundamental. but this, even at first view, in no more than a negative advantage; an armour merely defensive. it is therefore next in order, and equal in importance, that the discretionary powers which are necessarily vested in the monarch, whether for the execution of the laws, or for the nomination to magistracy and office, or for conducting the affairs of peace and war, or for ordering the revenue, should all be exercised upon public principles and national grounds, and not on the likings or prejudices, the intrigues or policies, of a court. administration and legislation. in arbitrary governments, the constitution of the ministry follows the constitution of the legislature. both the law and the magistrate are the creatures of will. it must be so. nothing, indeed, will appear more certain, on any tolerable consideration of this matter, than that every sort of government ought to have its administration correspondent to its legislature. if it should be otherwise, things must fall into a hideous disorder. the people of a free commonwealth, who have taken such care that their laws should be the result of general consent, cannot be so senseless as to suffer their executory system to be composed of persons on whom they have no dependence, and whom no proofs of the public love and confidence have recommended to those powers, upon the use of which the very being of the state depends. influence of the crown. the power of the crown, almost dead and rotten as prerogative, has grown up anew, with much more strength, and far less odium, under the name of influence. an influence, which operated without noise and without violence; an influence which converted the very antagonist into the instrument of power; which contained in itself a perpetual principle of growth and renovation; and which the distresses and the prosperity of the country equally tend to augment, was an admirable substitute for a prerogative, that, being only the offspring of antiquated prejudices, had moulded into its original stamina irresistible principles of decay and dissolution. the ignorance of the people is a bottom but for a temporary system; the interest of active men in the state is a foundation perpetual and infallible. voice of the people. government is deeply interested in everything which, even through the medium of some temporary uneasiness, may tend finally to compose the minds of the subjects, and to conciliate their affections. i have nothing to do here with the abstract value of the voice of the people. but as long as reputation, the most precious possession of every individual, and as long as opinion, the great support of the state, depend entirely upon that voice, it can never be considered as a thing of little consequence either to individuals or to governments. nations are not primarily ruled by laws; less by violence. whatever original energy may be supposed either in force or regulation, the operation of both is, in truth, merely instrumental. nations are governed by the same methods, and on the same principles, by which an individual without authority is often able to govern those who are his equals or his superiors--by a knowledge of their temper, and by a judicious management of it; i mean, when public affairs are steadily and quietly conducted; and when government is nothing but a continued scuffle between the magistrate and the multitude; in which sometimes the one and sometimes the other is uppermost; in which they alternately yield and prevail, in a series of contemptible victories, and scandalous submissions. the temper of the people amongst whom he presides ought therefore to be the first study of a statesman. and the knowledge of this temper it is by no means impossible for him to attain, if he has not an interest in being ignorant of what it is his duty to learn. fallacy of extremes. it is a fallacy in constant use with those who would level all things, and confound right with wrong, to insist upon the inconveniences which are attached to every choice, without taking into consideration the different weight and consequence of those inconveniences. the question is not concerning absolute discontent or perfect satisfaction in government; neither of which can be pure and unmixed at any time, or upon any system. the controversy is about that degree of good humour in the people, which may possibly be attained, and ought certainly to be looked for. while some politicians may be waiting to know whether the sense of every individual be against them, accurately distinguishing the vulgar from the better sort, drawing lines between the enterprises of a faction and the efforts of a people, they may chance to see the government, which they are so nicely weighing, and dividing, and distinguishing, tumble to the ground in the midst of their wise deliberation. prudent men, when so great an object as the security of government, or even its peace, is at stake, will not run the risk of a decision which may be fatal to it. they who can read the political sky will see a hurricane in a cloud no bigger than a hand at the very edge of the horizon, and will run into the first harbour. no lines can be laid down for civil or political wisdom. they are a matter incapable of exact definition. but, though no man can draw a stroke between the confines of day and night, yet light and darkness are, upon the whole, tolerably distinguishable. nor will it be impossible for a prince to find out such a mode of government, and such persons to administer it, as will give a great degree of content to his people; without any curious and anxious research for that abstract, universal, perfect harmony, which, while he is seeking, he abandons those means of ordinary tranquillity which are in his power without any research at all. private character a basis for public confidence. before men are put forward into the great trusts of the state, they ought, by their conduct, to have obtained such a degree of estimation in their country, as may be some sort of pledge and security to the public, that they will not abuse those trusts. it is no mean security for a proper use of power, that a man has shown by the general tenor of his actions, that the affection, the good opinion, the confidence of his fellow citizens, have been among the principal objects of his life; and that he has owed none of the degradations of his power or fortune to a settled contempt, or occasional forfeiture of their esteem. that man who before he comes into power has no friends, or who coming into power is obliged to desert his friends, or who losing it has no friends to sympathise with him; he who has no sway among any part of the landed or commercial interest, but whose whole importance has begun with his office, and is sure to end with it; is a person who ought never to be suffered by a controlling parliament to continue in any of those situations which confer the lead and direction of all our public affairs; because such a man has no connection with the interest of the people. those knots or cabals of men who have got together avowedly without any public principle, in order to sell their conjunct iniquity at the higher rate, and are therefore universally odious, ought never to be suffered to domineer in the state; because they have no connection with the sentiments and opinions of the people. prevention. every good political institution must have a preventive operation as well as a remedial. it ought to have a natural tendency to exclude bad men from government, and not to trust for the safety of the state to subsequent punishment alone: punishment, which has ever been tardy and uncertain, and which, when power is suffered in bad hands, may chance to fall rather on the injured than the criminal. confidence in the people. they may be assured, that however they amuse themselves with a variety of projects for substituting something else in the place of that great and only foundation of government, the confidence of the people, every attempt will but make their condition worse. when men imagine that their food is only a cover for poison, and when they neither love nor trust the hand that serves it, it is not the name of the roast beef of old england, that will persuade them to sit down to the table that is spread for them. when the people conceive that laws, and tribunals, and even popular assemblies, are perverted from the ends of their institution, they find in those names of degenerated establishments only new motives to discontent. those bodies which, when full of life and beauty, lay in their arms, and were their joy and comfort, when dead and putrid, become but the more loathsome from remembrance of former endearments. a sullen gloom and furious disorder prevail by fits: the nation loses its relish for peace and prosperity; as it did in that season of fulness which opened our troubles in the time of charles the first. a species of men to whom a state of order would become a sentence of obscurity, are nourished into a dangerous magnitude by the heat of intestine disturbances; and it is no wonder that, by a sort of sinister piety, they cherish, in their turn, the disorders which are the parents of all their consequence. false maxims assumed as first principles. it is an advantage to all narrow wisdom and narrow morals, that their maxims have a plausible air; and, on a cursory view, appear equal to first principles. they are light and portable. they are as current as copper coin; and about as valuable. they serve equally the first capacities and the lowest; and they are, at least, as useful to the worst men as to the best. of this stamp is the cant of not men, but measures; a sort of charm by which many people get loose from every honourable engagement. when i see a man acting this desultory and disconnected part, with as much detriment to his own fortune as prejudice to the cause of any party, i am not persuaded that he is right; but i am ready to believe he is in earnest. i respect virtue in all its situations; even when it is found in the unsuitable company of weakness. i lament to see qualities rare and valuable, squandered away without any public utility. but when a gentleman with great visible emoluments abandons the party in which he has long acted, and tells you, it is because he proceeds upon his own judgment; that he acts on the merits of the several measures as they arise; and that he is obliged to follow his own conscience, and not that of others; he gives reasons which it is impossible to controvert, and discovers a character which it is impossible to mistake. what shall we think of him who never differed from a certain set of men until the moment they lost their power, and who never agreed with them in a single instance afterwards? would not such a coincidence of interest and opinion be rather fortunate? would it not be an extraordinary cast upon the dice, that a man's connexions should degenerate into faction, precisely at the critical moment when they lose their power, or he accepts a place? when people desert their connexions, the desertion is a manifest fact, upon which a direct simple issue lies, triable by plain men. whether a measure of government be right or wrong, is no matter of fact, but a mere affair of opinion, on which men may, as they do, dispute and wrangle without end. but whether the individual thinks the measure right or wrong, is a point at still a greater distance from the reach of all human decision. it is therefore very convenient to politicians, not to put the judgment of their conduct on overt acts, cognizable in any ordinary court, but upon such matter as can be triable only in that secret tribunal, where they are sure of being heard with favour, or where at worst the sentence will be only private whipping. lord chatham. another scene was opened, and other actors appeared on the stage. the state, in the condition i have described it, was delivered into the hands of lord chatham--a great and celebrated name; a name that keeps the name of this country respectable in every other on the globe. it may be truly called-- clarum et venerabile nomen gentibus, et multum nostrae quod proderat urbi. sir, the venerable age of this great man, his merited rank, his superior eloquence, his splendid qualities, his eminent services, the vast space he fills in the eye of mankind; and, more than all the rest, his fall from power, which, like death, canonizes and sanctifies a great character, will not suffer me to censure any part of his conduct. i am afraid to flatter him; i am sure i am not disposed to blame him. let those, who have betrayed him by their adulation, insult him with their malevolence. but what i do not presume to censure, i may have leave to lament. for a wise man, he seemed to me at that time to be governed too much by general maxims. i speak with the freedom of history, and i hope without offence. one or two of these maxims, flowing from an opinion not the most indulgent to our unhappy species, and surely a little too general, led him into measures that were greatly mischievous to himself; and for that reason, among others, perhaps fatal to his country; measures, the effects of which, i am afraid, are for ever incurable. he made an administration, so checkered and speckled; he put together a piece of joinery, so crossly indented and whimsically dove-tailed; a cabinet so variously inlaid; such a piece of diversified mosaic; such a tesselated pavement without cement; here a bit of black stone, and there a bit of white; patriots and courtiers, king's friends and republicans; whigs and tories; treacherous friends and open enemies; that it was indeed a very curious show; but utterly unsafe to touch, and unsure to stand on. the colleagues whom he had assorted at the same boards, stared at each other, and were obliged to ask, "sir, your name?--sir, you have the advantage of me--mr. such-a-one--i beg a thousand pardons--" i venture to say, it did so happen, that persons had a single office divided between them, who had never spoken to each other in their lives, until they found themselves, they knew not how, pigging together, heads and points, in the same truckle-bed. sir, in consequence of this arrangement, having put so much the larger part of his enemies and opposers into power, the confusion was such, that his own principles could not possibly have any effect or influence in the conduct of affairs. if ever he fell into a fit of the gout, or if any other cause withdrew him from public cares, principles directly the contrary were sure to predominate. when he had executed his plan, he had not an inch of ground to stand upon. when he had accomplished his scheme of administration, he was no longer a minister. when his face was hid but for a moment, his whole system was on a wide sea, without chart or compass. the gentlemen, his particular friends, who, with the names of various departments of ministry, were admitted to seem as if they acted a part under him, with a modesty that becomes all men, and with a confidence in him, which was justified even in its extravagance by his superior abilities, had never, in any instance, presumed upon any opinion of their own. deprived of his guiding influence, they were whirled about, the sport of every gust, and easily driven into any port; and as those who joined with them in manning the vessel were the most directly opposite to his opinions, measures, and character, and far the most artful and most powerful of the set, they easily prevailed, so as to seize upon the vacant, unoccupied, and derelict minds of his friends; and instantly they turned the vessel wholly out of the course of his policy. as if it were to insult as well as to betray him, even long before the close of the first session of his administration, when everything was publicly transacted, and with great parade, in his name, they made an act, declaring it highly just and expedient to raise a revenue in america. for even then, sir, even before this splendid orb was entirely set, and while the western horizon was in a blaze with his descending glory, on the opposite quarter of the heavens arose another luminary, and, for his hour, became lord of the ascendant. grenville. mr. grenville was a first-rate figure in this country. with a masculine understanding, and a stout and resolute heart, he had an application undissipated and unwearied. he took public business not as a duty which he was to fulfil, but as a pleasure he was to enjoy; and he seemed to have no delight out of this house, except in such things as some way related to the business that was to be done within it. if he was ambitious, i will say this for him, his ambition was of a noble and generous strain. it was to raise himself, not by the low, pimping politics of a court, but to win his way to power, through the laborious gradations of public service; and to secure himself a well-earned rank in parliament, by a thorough knowledge of its constitution, and a perfect practice in all its business. sir, if such a man fell into errors, it must be from defects not intrinsical; they must be rather sought in the particular habits of his life; which though they do not alter the ground-work of character, yet tinge it with their own hue. he was bred in a profession. he was bred to the law, which is, in my opinion, one of the first and noblest of human sciences; a science which does more to quicken and invigorate the understanding, than all the other kinds of learning put together; but it is not apt, except in persons very happily born, to open and to liberalize the mind exactly in the same proportion. passing from that study he did not go very largely into the world; but plunged into business; i mean into the business of office; and the limited and fixed methods and forms established there. much knowledge is to be had undoubtedly in that line; and there is no knowledge which is not valuable. but it may be truly said, that men too much conversant in office are rarely minds of remarkable enlargement. their habits of office are apt to give them a turn to think the substance of business not to be much more important than the forms in which it is conducted. these forms are adapted to ordinary occasions; and therefore persons who are nurtured in office do admirably well as long as things go on in their common order; but when the high roads are broken up, and the waters out, when a new and troubled scene is opened, and the file affords no precedent, then it is that a greater knowledge of mankind, and a far more extensive comprehension of things, is requisite, than ever office gave, or than office can ever give. charles townshend. this light too is passed and set for ever. you understand, to be sure, that i speak of charles townshend, officially the reproducer of this fatal scheme; whom i cannot even now remember without some degree of sensibility. in truth, sir, he was the delight and ornament of this house, and the charm of every private society which he honoured with his presence. perhaps there never arose in this country, nor in any country, a man of a more pointed and finished wit; and (where his passions were not concerned) of a more refined, exquisite, and penetrating judgment. if he had not so great a stock, as some have had who flourished formerly, of knowledge long treasured up, he knew better by far, than any man i ever was acquainted with, how to bring together within a short time, all that was necessary to establish, to illustrate, and to decorate that side of the question he supported. he stated his matter skilfully and powerfully. he particularly excelled in a most luminous explanation and display of his subject. his style of argument was neither trite and vulgar, nor subtle and abstruse. he hit the house just between wind and water. and not being troubled with too anxious a zeal for any matter in question, he was never more tedious, or more earnest, than the pre-conceived opinions and present temper of his hearers required; to whom he was always in perfect unison. he conformed exactly to the temper of the house; and he seemed to guide, because he was always sure to follow it. party and place. party is a body of men united, for promoting by their joint endeavours the national interest, upon some particular principle in which they are all agreed. for my part, i find it impossible to conceive that any one believes in his own politics, or thinks them to be of any weight, who refuses to adopt the means of having them reduced into practice. it is the business of the speculative philosopher to mark the proper ends of government. it is the business of the politician, who is the philosopher in action, to find out proper means towards those ends, and to employ them with effect. therefore every honourable connection will avow it is their first purpose to pursue every just method to put the men who hold their opinions into such a condition as may enable them to carry their common plans into execution, with all the power and authority of the state. as this power is attached to certain situations, it is their duty to contend for these situations. without a proscription of others, they are bound to give to their own party the preference in all things; and by no means, for private considerations, to accept any offers of power in which the whole body is not included; nor to suffer themselves to be led, or to be controlled, or to be overbalanced, in office or in council, by those who contradict the very fundamental principles on which their party is formed, and even those upon which every fair connection must stand. such a generous contention for power, on such manly and honourable maxims, will easily be distinguished from the mean and interested struggle for place and emolument. the very style of such persons will serve to discriminate them from those numberless imposters who have deluded the ignorant with professions incompatible with human practice, and have afterwards incensed them by practices below the level of vulgar rectitude. political connections. every profession, not excepting the glorious one of a soldier, or the sacred one of a priest, is liable to its own particular vices, which, however, form no argument against those ways of life; nor are the vices themselves inevitable to every individual in those professions. of such a nature are connections in politics; essentially necessary for the full performance of our public duty, accidentally liable to degenerate into faction. commonwealths are made of families, free commonwealths of parties also; and we may as well affirm, that our natural regards and ties of blood tend inevitably to make men bad citizens, as that the bonds of our party weaken those by which we are held to our country. some legislators went so far as to make neutrality in party a crime against the state. i do not know whether this might not have been rather to overstrain the principle. certain it is, the best patriots in the greatest commonwealths have always commended and promoted such connections. idem sentire de republica, was with them a principal ground of friendship and attachment; nor do i know any other capable of forming firmer, dearer, more pleasing, more honourable, and more virtuous habitudes. the romans carried this principle a great way. even the holding of offices together, the disposition of which arose from chance, not selection, gave rise to a relation which continued for life. it was called necessitudo sortis; and it was looked upon with a sacred reverence. breaches of any of these kinds of civil relation were considered as acts of the most distinguished turpitude. the whole people was distributed into political societies, in which they acted in support of such interests in the state as they severally affected. for it was then thought no crime to endeavour, by every honest means, to advance to superiority and power those of your own sentiments and opinions. this wise people was far from imagining that those connections had no tie, and obliged to no duty; but that men might quit them without shame, upon every call of interest. they believed private honour to be the great foundation of public trust; that friendship was no mean step towards patriotism; that he who, in the common intercourse of life, showed he regarded somebody besides himself, when he came to act in a public situation, might probably consult some other interest than his own. neutrality. they were a race of men (i hope in god the species is extinct) who, when they rose in their place, no man living could divine, from any known adherence to parties, to opinions, or to principles, from any order or system in their politics, or from any sequel or connection in their ideas, what part they were going to take in any debate. it is astonishing how much this uncertainty, especially at critical times, called the attention of all parties on such men. all eyes were fixed on them, all ears open to hear them; each party gaped, and looked alternately for their vote, almost to the end of their speeches. while the house hung on this uncertainty, now the hear hims rose from this side--now they rebellowed from the other; and that party, to whom they fell at length from their tremulous and dancing balance, always received them in a tempest of applause. the fortune of such men was a temptation too great to be resisted by one to whom a single whiff of incense withheld gave much greater pain than he received delight in the clouds of it which daily rose about him from the prodigal superstition of innumerable admirers. he was a candidate for contradictory honours; and his great aim was to make those agree in admiration of him who never agreed in anything else. weakness in government. let us learn from our experience. it is not support that is wanting to government, but reformation. when ministry rests upon public opinion, it is not indeed built upon a rock of adamant; it has, however, some stability. but when it stands upon private humour, its structure is of stubble, and its foundation is on quicksand. i repeat it again--he that supports every administration subverts all government. the reason is this: the whole business in which a court usually takes an interest goes on at present equally well, in whatever hands, whether high or low, wise or foolish, scandalous or reputable; there is nothing, therefore, to hold it firm to any one body of men, or to any one consistent scheme of politics. nothing interposes to prevent the full operation of all the caprices and all the passions of a court upon the servants of the public. the system of administration is open to continual shocks and changes, upon the principles of the meanest cabal, and the most contemptible intrigue. nothing can be solid and permanent. all good men at length fly with horror from such a service. men of rank and ability, with the spirit which ought to animate such men in a free state, while they decline the jurisdiction of dark cabal on their actions and their fortunes, will, for both, cheerfully put themselves upon their country. they will trust an inquisitive and distinguishing parliament; because it does inquire, and does distinguish. if they act well, they know that, in such a parliament, they will be supported against any intrigue; if they act ill, they know that no intrigue can protect them. this situation, however awful, is honourable. but in one hour, and in the self-same assembly, without any assigned or assignable cause, to be precipitated from the highest authority to the most marked neglect, possibly into the greatest peril of life and reputation, is a situation full of danger, and destitute of honour. it will be shunned equally by every man of prudence, and every man of spirit. american progress. nothing in the history of mankind is like their progress. for my part, i never cast an eye on their flourishing commerce, and their cultivated and commodious life, but they seem to me rather ancient nations grown to perfection through a long series of fortunate events, and a train of successful industry, accumulating wealth in many centuries, than the colonies of yesterday; than a set of miserable outcasts, a few years ago, not so much sent as thrown out, on the bleak and barren shore of a desolate wilderness, three thousand miles from all civilized intercourse. combination, not faction. that connection and faction are equivalent terms, is an opinion which has been carefully inculcated at all times by unconstitutional statesmen. the reason is evident. whilst men are linked together, they easily and speedily communicate the alarm of any evil design. they are enabled to fathom it with common counsel, and to oppose it with united strength. whereas, when they lie dispersed, without concert, order, or discipline, communication is uncertain, counsel difficult, and resistance impracticable. where men are not acquainted with each other's principles, nor experienced in each other's talents, nor at all practised in their mutual habitudes and dispositions by joint efforts in business; no personal confidence, no friendship, no common interest, subsisting among them; it is evidently impossible that they can act a public part with uniformity, perseverance, or efficacy. in a connection, the most inconsiderable man, by adding to the weight of the whole, has his value, and his use; out of it, the greatest talents are wholly unserviceable to the public. no man, who is not inflamed by vain-glory into enthusiasm, can flatter himself that his single, unsupported, desultory, unsystematic endeavours, are of power to defeat the subtle designs and united cabals of ambitious citizens. when bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle. great men. great men are the guide-posts and land-marks in the state. the credit of such men at court, or in the nation, is the sole cause of all the public measures. it would be an invidious thing (most foreign, i trust, to what you think my disposition) to remark the errors into which the authority of great names has brought the nation, without doing justice at the same time to the great qualities whence that authority arose. the subject is instructive to those who wish to form themselves on whatever of excellence has gone before them. there are many young members in the house (such of late has been the rapid succession of public men) who never saw that prodigy, charles townshend; nor of course know what a ferment he was able to excite in everything by the violent ebullition of his mixed virtues and failings. for failings he had undoubtedly--many of us remember them; we are this day considering the effect of them. but he had no failings which were not owing to a noble cause; to an ardent, generous, perhaps an immoderate, passion for fame; a passion which is the instinct of all great souls. power of constituents. the power of the people, within the laws, must show itself sufficient to protect every representative in the animated performance of his duty, or that duty cannot be performed. the house of commons can never be a control on other parts of government, unless they are controlled themselves by their constituents; and unless these constituents possess some right in the choice of that house, which it is not in the power of that house to take away. if they suffer this power of arbitrary incapacitation to stand, they have utterly perverted every other power of the house of commons. the late proceeding i will not say is contrary to law, it must be so; for the power which is claimed cannot, by any possibility, be a legal power in any limited member of government. influence of place in government. it is no inconsiderable part of wisdom, to know how much of an evil ought to be tolerated; lest, by attempting a degree of purity impracticable in degenerate times and manners, instead of cutting off the subsisting ill practices, new corruptions might be produced for the concealment and security of the old. it were better, undoubtedly, that no influence at all could affect the mind of a member of parliament. but of all modes of influence, in my opinion, a place under the government is the least disgraceful to the man who holds it, and by far the most safe to the country. i would not shut out that sort of influence which is open and visible, which is connected with the dignity and the service of the state, when it is not in my power to prevent the influence of contracts, of subscriptions, of direct bribery, and those innumerable methods of clandestine corruption, which are abundantly in the hands of the court, and which will be applied as long as these means of corruption, and the disposition to be corrupted, have existence among us. our constitution stands on a nice equipoise, with steep precipices and deep waters upon all sides of it. in removing it from a dangerous leaning towards one side, there may be a risk of oversetting it on the other. every project of a material change in a government so complicated as ours, combined at the same time with external circumstances, still more complicated, is a matter full of difficulties: in which a considerate man will not be too ready to decide; a prudent man too ready to undertake; or an honest man too ready to promise. they do not respect the public nor themselves, who engage for more than they are sure that they ought to attempt, or that they are able to perform. taxation involves principle. no man ever doubted that the commodity of tea could bear an imposition of threepence. but no commodity will bear threepence, or will bear a penny, when the general feelings of men are irritated, and two millions of people are resolved not to pay. the feelings of the colonies were formerly the feelings of great britain. theirs were formerly the feelings of mr. hampden when called upon for the payment of twenty shillings. would twenty shillings have ruined mr. hampden's fortune? no! but the payment of half twenty shillings, on the principle it was demanded, would have made him a slave. good member of parliament. to be a good member of parliament is, let me tell you, no easy task; especially at this time, when there is so strong a disposition to run into the perilous extremes of servile compliance or wild popularity. to unite circumspection with vigour is absolutely necessary; but it is extremely difficult. we are now members for a rich commercial city; this city, however, is but a part of a rich commercial nation, the interests of which are various, multiform, and intricate. we are members for that great nation, which however is itself but part of a great empire, extended by our virtue and our fortune to the farthest limits of the east and of the west. all these wide-spread interests must be considered; must be compared; must be reconciled, if possible. we are members for a free country; and surely we all know, that the machine of a free constitution is no simple thing; but as intricate and as delicate as it is valuable. we are members in a great and ancient monarchy; and we must preserve religiously the true legal rights of the sovereign, which form the key-stone that binds together the noble and well-constructed arch of our empire and our constitution. fisheries of new england. as to the wealth which the colonies have drawn from the sea by their fisheries, you had all that matter fully opened at your bar. you surely thought those acquisitions of value, for they seemed even to excite your envy; and yet the spirit by which that enterprising employment has been exercised ought rather, in my opinion, to have raised your esteem and admiration. and pray, sir, what in the world is equal to it! pass by the other parts, and look at the manner in which the people of new england have of late carried on the whale fishery. whilst we follow them among the tumbling mountains of ice, and behold them penetrating into the deepest frozen recesses of hudson's bay and davis's straits, whilst we are looking for them beneath the arctic circle, we hear that they have pierced into the opposite region of polar cold, that they are at the antipodes, and engaged under the frozen serpent of the south. falkland island, which seemed too remote and romantic an object for the grasp of national ambition, is but a stage and resting-place in the progress of their victorious industry. nor is the equinoctial heat more discouraging to them, than the accumulated winter of both the poles. we know that whilst some of them draw the line and strike the harpoon on the coast of africa, others run the longitude, and pursue their gigantic game along the coast of brazil. no sea but what is vexed by their fisheries. no climate that is not witness to their toils. neither the perseverance of holland, nor the activity of france, nor the dexterous and firm sagacity of english enterprise, ever carried this most perilous mode of hard industry to the extent to which it has been pushed by this recent people; a people who are still, as it were, but in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood. preparation for parliament. when i first devoted myself to the public service, i considered how i should render myself fit for it; and this i did by endeavouring to discover what it was that gave this country the rank it holds in the world. i found that our prosperity and dignity arose principally, if not solely, from two sources;--our constitution and commerce. both these i have spared no study to understand, and no endeavour to support. the distinguishing part of our constitution is its liberty. to preserve that liberty inviolate, seems the particular duty and proper trust of a member of the house of commons. but the liberty, the only liberty i mean, is a liberty connected with order; that not only exists along with order and virtue, but which cannot exist at all without them. it inheres in good and steady government, as in its substance and vital principle. the other source of our power is commerce, of which you are so large a part, and which cannot exist, no more than your liberty, without a connection with many virtues. it has ever been a very particular and a very favourite object of my study, in its principles, and in its details. i think many here are acquainted with the truth of what i say. this i know, that i have ever had my house open, and my poor services ready, for traders and manufacturers of every denomination. my favourite ambition is to have those services acknowledged. i now appear before you to make trial, whether my earnest endeavours have been so wholly oppressed by the weakness of my abilities as to be rendered insignificant in the eyes of a great trading city; or whether you choose to give a weight to humble abilities, for the sake of the honest exertions with which they are accompanied. this is my trial to-day. my industry is not on trial. of my industry i am sure, as far as my constitution of mind and body admitted. bathurst and america's future. let us, however, before with descend from this noble eminence, reflect that this growth of our national prosperity has happened within the short period of the life of man. it has happened within sixty-eight years. there are those alive whose memory might touch the two extremities. for instance, my lord bathurst might remember all the stages of the progress. he was, in , of an age at least to be made to comprehend such things. he was then old enough "acta parentum jam legere, et quae sit poterit cognoscere virtus." suppose, sir, that the angel of this auspicious youth, foreseeing the many virtues which made him one of the most amiable, as he is one of the most fortunate, men of his age, had opened to him in vision, that when, in the fourth generation, the third prince of the house of brunswick had sat twelve years on the throne of that nation, which (by the happy issue of moderate and healing councils) was to be made great britain, he should see his son, lord chancellor of england, turn back the current of hereditary dignity to its fountain, and raise him to a higher rank of peerage, whilst he enriched the family with a new one. if amidst these bright and happy scenes of domestic honour and prosperity, that angel should have drawn up the curtain, and unfolded the rising glories of his country, and whilst he was gazing with admiration on the then commercial grandeur of england, the genius should point out to him a little speck, scarce visible in the mass of the national interest, a small seminal principle, rather than a formed body, and should tell him--"young man, there is america--which at this day serves for little more than to amuse you with stories of savage men, and uncouth manners; yet shall, before you taste of death, show itself equal to the whole of that commerce which now attracts the envy of the world. whatever england has been growing to by a progressive increase of improvement, brought in by varieties of people, by succession of civilizing conquests and civilizing settlements in a series of seventeen hundred years, you shall see as much added to her by america in the course of a single life!" if this state of his country had been foretold to him, would it not require all the sanguine credulity of youth, and all the fervid glow of enthusiasm, to make him believe it? fortunate man, he has lived to see it! fortunate, indeed, if he lives to see nothing that shall vary the prospect, and cloud the setting of his day! candid policy. refined policy ever has been the parent of confusion; and ever will be so, as long as the world endures. plain good intention, which is as easily discovered at the first view, as fraud is surely detected at last, is, let me say, of no mean force in the government of mankind. genuine simplicity of heart is a healing and cementing principle. my plan, therefore, being formed upon the most simple grounds imaginable, may disappoint some people, when they hear it. it has nothing to recommend it to the pruriency of curious ears. there is nothing at all new and captivating in it. it has nothing of the splendour of the project which has been lately laid upon your table by the noble lord in the blue riband. it does not propose to fill your lobby with squabbling colony agents, who will require the interposition of your mace, at every instant, to keep the peace amongst them. it does not institute a magnificent auction of finance, where captivated provinces come to general ransom by bidding against each other, until you knock down the hammer, and determine a proportion of payments beyond all the powers of algebra to equalize and settle. wisdom of concession. peace implies reconciliation; and where there has been a material dispute, reconciliation does in a manner always imply concession on the one part or the other. in this state of things i make no difficulty in affirming that the proposal ought to originate from us. great and acknowledged force is not impaired, either in effect or in opinion, by an unwillingness to exert itself. the superior power may offer peace with honour and with safety. such an offer from such a power will be attributed to magnanimity. but the concessions of the weak are the concessions of fear. when such a one is disarmed, he is wholly at the mercy of his superior; and he loses for ever that time and those chances which, as they happen to all men, are the strength and resources of all inferior power. magnanimity. as for the trifling petulance which the rage of party stirs up in little minds, though it should show itself even in this court, it has not made the slightest impression on me. the highest flight of such clamorous birds is winged in an inferior region of the air. we hear them, and we look upon them, just as you, gentlemen, when you enjoy the serene air on your lofty rocks, look down upon the gulls that skim the mud of your river, when it is exhausted of its tide. duty of representatives. it ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents. their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinion high respect; their business unremitted attention. it is his duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasures, his satisfactions, to theirs; and above all, ever, and in all cases, to prefer their interest to his own. but, his unbiassed opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living. these he does not derive from your pleasure; no, nor from the law and the constitution. they are a trust from providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply answerable. your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion. prudential silence. though i gave so far into his opinion, that i immediately threw my thoughts into a sort of parliamentary form, i was by no means equally ready to produce them. it generally argues some degree of natural impotence of mind, or some want of knowledge of the world, to hazard plans of government except from a seat of authority. propositions are made, not only ineffectually, but somewhat disreputably, when the minds of men are not properly disposed for their reception: and for my part, i am not ambitious of ridicule; not absolutely a candidate for disgrace. colonial ties. they are "our children;" but when children ask for bread, we are not to give a stone. is it because the natural resistance of things, and the various mutations of time, hinders our government, or any scheme of government, from being any more than a sort of approximation to the right, is it therefore that the colonies are to recede from it infinitely? when this child of ours wishes to assimilate to its parent, and to reflect with a true filial resemblance the beauteous countenance of british liberty, are we to turn to them the shameful parts of our constitution? are we to give them our weakness for their strength? our opprobrium for their glory? and the slough of slavery, which we are not able to work off, to serve them for their freedom? government and legislation. if government were a matter of will upon any side, yours, without question, ought to be superior. but government and legislation are matters of reason and judgment, and not of inclination; and what sort of reason is that, in which the determination precedes the discussion; in which one set of men deliberate, and another decide; and where those who form the conclusion are perhaps three hundred miles distant from those who hear the arguments? parliament. parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests, which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates; but parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices, ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole. you choose a member indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is not member of bristol, but he is a member of parliament. moral levellers. this moral levelling is a servile principle. it leads to practical passive obedience far better than all the doctrines which the pliant accommodation of theology to power has ever produced. it cuts up by the roots, not only all idea of forcible resistance, but even of civil opposition. it disposes men to an abject submission, not by opinion, which may be shaken by argument or altered by passion, but by the strong ties of public and private interest. for if all men who act in a public situation are equally selfish, corrupt, and venal, what reason can be given for desiring any sort of change, which, besides the evils which must attend all changes, can be productive of no possible advantage? the active men in the state are true samples of the mass. if they are universally depraved, the commonwealth itself is not sound. we may amuse ourselves with talking as much as we please of the virtue of middle or humble life; that is, we may place our confidence in the virtue of those who have never been tried. but if the persons who are continually emerging out of that sphere be no better than those whom birth has placed above it, what hopes are there in the remainder of the body, which is to furnish the perpetual succession of the state? all who have ever written on government are unanimous, that among a people generally corrupt, liberty cannot long exist. and indeed how is it possible? when those who are to make the laws, to guard, to enforce, or to obey them, are, by a tacit confederacy of manners, indisposed to the spirit of all generous and noble institutions. public salary and patriotic service. i am not possessed of an exact common measure between real service and its reward. i am very sure that states do sometimes receive services which it is hardly in their power to reward according to their worth. if i were to give my judgment with regard to this country, i do not think the great efficient offices of the state to be overpaid. the service of the public is a thing which cannot be put to auction, and struck down to those who will agree to execute it the cheapest. when the proportion between reward and service is our object, we must always consider of what nature the service is, and what sort of men they are that must perform it. what is just payment for one kind of labour, and full encouragement for one kind of talents, is fraud and discouragement to others. many of the great offices have much duty to do, and much expense of representation to maintain. a secretary of state, for instance, must not appear sordid in the eyes of the ministers of other nations; neither ought our ministers abroad to appear contemptible in the courts where they reside. in all offices of duty, there is, almost necessarily, a great neglect of all domestic affairs. a person in high office can rarely take a view of his family house. if he sees that the state takes no detriment, the state must see that his affairs should take as little. i will even go so far as to affirm, that if men were willing to serve in such situations without salary, they ought not to be permitted to do it. ordinary service must be secured by the motives to ordinary integrity. i do not hesitate to say, that that state which lays its foundations in rare and heroic virtues, will be sure to have its superstructure in the basest profligacy and corruption. an honourable and fair profit is the best security against avarice and rapacity; as in all things else, a lawful and regulated enjoyment is the best security against debauchery and excess. for as wealth is power, so all power will infallibly draw wealth to itself by some means or other: and when men are left no way of ascertaining their profits but by their means of obtaining them, those means will be increased to infinity. this is true in all the parts of administration, as well as in the whole. if any individual were to decline his appointments, it might give an unfair advantage to ostentatious ambition over unpretending service; it might breed invidious comparisons; it might tend to destroy whatever little unity and agreement may be found among ministers. and, after all, when an ambitious man had run down his competitors by a fallacious show of disinterestedness, and fixed himself in power by that means, what security is there that he would not change his course, and claim as an indemnity ten times more than he has given up? rational liberty. liberty, too, must be limited in order to be possessed. the degree of restraint it is impossible in any case to settle precisely. but it ought to be the constant aim of every wise public council to find out by cautious experiments, and rational, cool endeavours, with how little, not how much, of this restraint the community can subsist. for liberty is a good to be improved, and not an evil to be lessened. it is not only a private blessing of the first order, but the vital spring and energy of the state itself, which has just so much life and vigour as there is liberty in it. but whether liberty be advantageous or not (for i know it is a fashion to decry the very principle), none will dispute that peace is a blessing; and peace must in the course of human affairs be frequently bought by some indulgence and toleration at least to liberty. for as the sabbath (though of divine institution) was made for man, not man for the sabbath, government, which can claim no higher origin or authority, in its exercise at least, ought to conform to the exigencies of the time, and the temper and character of the people with whom it is concerned; and not always to attempt violently to bend the people to their theories of subjection. the bulk of mankind on their part are not excessively curious concerning any theories whilst they are really happy; and one sure symptom of an ill-conducted state is the propensity of the people to resort to them. ireland and magna charta. the feudal baronage and the feudal knighthood, the roots of our primitive constitution, were early transplanted into that soil, and grew and flourished there. magna charta, if it did not give us originally the house of commons, gave us at least a house of commons of weight and consequence. but your ancestors did not churlishly sit down alone to the feast of magna charta. ireland was made immediately a partaker. this benefit of english laws and liberties, i confess, was not at first extended to all ireland. mark the consequence. english authority and english liberty had exactly the same boundaries. your standard could never be advanced an inch beyond your privileges. sir john davis shows, beyond a doubt, that the refusal of a general communication of these rights was the true cause why ireland was five hundred years in subduing; and after the vain projects of a military government, attempted in the reign of queen elizabeth, it was soon discovered that nothing could make that country english, in civility and allegiance, but your laws and your forms of legislature. it was not english arms, but the english constitution, that conquered ireland. from that time ireland has ever had a general parliament, as she had before a partial parliament. you changed the people; you altered the religion; but you never touched the form or the vital substance of free government in that kingdom. you deposed kings; you restored them; you altered the succession to theirs, as well as to your own crown; but you never altered their constitution; the principle of which was respected by usurpation; restored with the restoration of monarchy, and established, i trust, for ever, by the glorious revolution. colonies and british constitution. for that service, for all service, whether of revenue, trade, or empire, my trust is in her interest in the british constitution. my hold of the colonies is in the close affection which grows from common names, from kindred blood, from similar privileges, and equal protection. these are ties, which, though light as air, are as strong as links of iron. let the colonies always keep the idea of their civil rights associated with your government;--they will cling and grapple to you; and no force under heaven will be of power to tear them from their allegiance. but let it be once understood that your government may be one thing, and their privileges another; that these two things may exist without any mutual relation; the cement is gone; the cohesion is loosened; and everything hastens to decay and dissolution. as long as you have the wisdom to keep the sovereign authority of this country as the sanctuary of liberty, the sacred temple consecrated to our common faith, wherever the chosen race and sons of england worship freedom, they will turn their faces towards you. the more they multiply, the more friends you will have; the more ardently they love liberty, the more perfect will be their obedience. slavery they can have anywhere. it is a weed that grows in every soil. they may have it from spain, they may have it from prussia. but, until you become lost to all feeling of your true interest and your natural dignity, freedom they can have from none but you. this is the commodity of price, of which you have the monopoly. this is the true act of navigation, which binds to you the commerce of the colonies, and through them secures to you the wealth of the world. deny them this participation of freedom, and you break that sole bond, which originally made, and must still preserve, the unity of the empire. do not entertain so weak an imagination, as that your registers and your bonds, your affidavits and your sufferances, your cockets and your clearances, are what form the great securities of your commerce. do not dream that your letters of office, and your instructions, and your suspending clauses, are the things that hold together the great contexture of this mysterious whole. these things do not make your government. dead instruments, passive tools as they are, it is the spirit of the english communion that gives all their life and efficacy to them. it is the spirit of the english constitution, which, infused through the mighty mass, pervades, feeds, unites, invigorates, vivifies every part of the empire, even down to the minutest member. reciprocal confidence. at the first fatal opening of this contest, the wisest course seemed to be to put an end as soon as possible to the immediate causes of the dispute; and to quiet a discussion, not easily settled upon clear principles, and arising from claims, which pride would permit neither party to abandon, by resorting as nearly as possible to the old, successful course. a mere repeal of the obnoxious tax, with a declaration of the legislative authority of this kingdom, was then fully sufficient to procure peace to both sides. man is a creature of habit, and, the first breach being of very short continuance, the colonies fell back exactly into their ancient state. the congress has used an expression with regard to this pacification, which appears to me truly significant. after the repeal of the stamp act, "the colonies fell," says this assembly, "into their ancient state of unsuspecting confidence in the mother country." this unsuspecting confidence is the true centre of gravity amongst mankind, about which all the parts are at rest. it is this unsuspecting confidence that removes all difficulties, and reconciles all the contradictions which occur in the complexity of all ancient, puzzled, political establishments. happy are the rulers which have the secret of preserving it! pensions and the crown. when men receive obligations from the crown, through the pious hands of fathers, or of connections as venerable as the paternal, the dependencies which arise from thence are the obligations of gratitude, and not the fetters of servility. such ties originate in virtue, and they promote it. they continue men in those habitudes of friendship, those political connexions, and those political principles, in which they began life. they are antidotes against a corrupt levity, instead of causes of it. what an unseemly spectacle would it afford, what a disgrace would it be to the commonwealth that suffered such things, to see the hopeful son of a meritorious minister begging his bread at the door of that treasury, from whence his father dispensed the economy of an empire, and promoted the happiness and glory of his country! why should he be obliged to prostrate his honour, and to submit his principles at the levee of some proud favourite, shouldered and thrust aside by every impudent pretender, on the very spot where a few days before he saw himself adored?--obliged to cringe to the author of the calamities of his house, and to kiss the hands that are red with his father's blood. colonial progress. but nothing in progression can rest on its original plan. we may as well think of rocking a grown man in the cradle of an infant. therefore as the colonies prospered and increased to a numerous and mighty people, spreading over a very great tract of the globe; it was natural that they should attribute to assemblies, so respectable in their formal constitution, some part of the dignity of the great nations which they represented. no longer tied to by-laws, these assemblies made acts of all sorts and in all cases whatsoever. they levied money, not for parochial purposes, but upon regular grants to the crown, following all the rules and principles of a parliament to which they approached every day more and more nearly. those who think themselves wiser than providence, and stronger than the course of nature, may complain of all this variation, on the one side or the other, as their several humours and prejudices may lead them. but things could not be otherwise; and english colonies must be had on these terms, or not had at all. feudal principles and modern times. in the first place, it is formed, in many respects, upon feudal principles. in the feudal times, it was not uncommon, even among subjects, for the lowest offices to be held by considerable persons; persons as unfit by their incapacity, as improper from their rank, to occupy such employments. they were held by patent, sometimes for life, and sometimes by inheritance. if my memory does not deceive me, a person of no slight consideration held the office of patent hereditary cook to an earl of warwick. the earl of warwick's soups, i fear, were not the better for the dignity of his kitchen. i think it was an earl of gloucester, who officiated as steward of the household to the archbishops of canterbury. instances of the same kind may in some degree be found in the northumberland house-book, and other family records. there was some reason in ancient necessities, for these ancient customs. protection was wanted; and the domestic tie, thought not the highest, was the closest. the king's household has not only several strong traces of this feudality, but it is formed also upon the principles of a body corporate; it has its own magistrates, courts, and by-laws. this might be necessary in the ancient times, in order to have a government within itself, capable of regulating the vast and often unruly multitude which composed and attended it. this was the origin of the ancient court called the green cloth--composed of the marshal, treasurer, and other great officers of the household, with certain clerks. the rich subjects of the kingdom who had formerly the same establishments (only on a reduced scale) have since altered their economy; and turned the course of their expense from the maintenance of vast establishments within their walls, to the employment of a great variety of independent trades abroad. their influence is lessened; but a mode of accommodation, and a style of splendour, suited to the manners of the times, has been increased. royalty itself has insensibly followed; and the royal household has been carried away by the resistless tide of manners: but with this very material difference;--private men have got rid of the establishments along with the reasons of them; whereas the royal household has lost all that was stately and venerable in the antique manners, without retrenching anything of the cumbrous charge of a gothic establishment. it is shrunk into the polished littleness of modern elegance and personal accommodation; it has evaporated from the gross concrete into an essence and rectified spirit of expense, where you have tuns of ancient pomp in a vial of modern luxury. restrictive virtues. i know, that all parsimony is of a quality approaching to unkindness; and that (on some person or other) every reform must operate as a sort of punishment. indeed, the whole class of the severe and restrictive virtues are at a market almost too high for humanity. what is worse, there are very few of those virtues which are not capable of being imitated, and even outdone, in many of their most striking effects, by the worst of vices. malignity and envy will carve much more deeply, and finish much more sharply, in the work of retrenchment, than frugality and providence. i do not, therefore, wonder that gentlemen have kept away from such a task, as well from good-nature as from prudence. private feeling might, indeed, be overborne by legislative reason; and a man of a longd-sighted and a strong-nerved humanity might bring himself, not so much to consider from whom he takes a superfluous enjoyment, as for whom in the end he may preserve the absolute necessaries of life. libellers of human nature. i hope there are none of you corrupted with the doctrine taught by wicked men for the worst purposes, and received by the malignant credulity of envy and ignorance, which is, that the men who act upon the public stage are all alike; all equally corrupt; all influenced by no other views than the sordid lure of salary and pension. the thing i know by experience to be false. never expecting to find perfection in men, and not looking for divine attributes in created beings, in my commerce with my contemporaries, i have found much human virtue. i have seen not a little public spirit; a real subordination of interest to duty; and a decent and regulated sensibility to honest fame and reputation. the age unquestionably produces (whether in a greater or less number than former times, i know not) daring profligates, and insidious hypocrites. what then? am i not to avail myself of whatever good is to be found in the world, because of the mixture of evil that will always be in it? the smallness of the quantity in currency only heightens the value. they who raise suspicions on the good on account of the behaviour of ill men, are of the party of the latter. the common cant is no justification for taking this party. i have been deceived, say they, by titius and maevius; i have been the dupe of this pretender or of that mountebank; and i can trust appearances no longer. but my credulity and want of discernment cannot, as i conceive, amount to a fair presumption against any man's integrity. a conscientious person would rather doubt his own judgment, than condemn his species. he would say, i have observed without attention, or judged upon erroneous maxims; i trusted to profession, when i ought to have attended to conduct. such a man will grow wise, not malignant, by his acquaintance with the world. but he that accuses all mankind of corruption, ought to remember that he is sure to convict only one. in truth i should much rather admit those, whom at any time i have disrelished the most, to be patterns of perfection, than seek a consolation to my own unworthiness, in a general communion of depravity with all about me. refusal a revenue. what (says the financier) is peace to us without money? your plan gives us no revenue. no! but it does--for it secures to the subject the power of refusal; the first of all revenues. experience is a cheat, and fact a liar, if this power in the subject of proportioning his grant, or of not granting at all, has not been found the richest mine of revenue ever discovered by the skill or by the fortune of man. it does not indeed vote you , pounds : : / ths, nor any other paltry limited sum. but it gives the strong box itself, the fund, the bank, from whence only revenues can arise amongst a people sensible of freedom: posita luditur arca. cannot you in england; cannot you at this time of day; cannot you, a house of commons, trust to the principle which has raised so mighty a revenue, and accumulated a debt of near millions in this country? is this principle to be true in england, and false everywhere else? is it not true in ireland? has it not hitherto been true in the colonies? why should you presume, that, in any country, a body duly constituted for any function, will neglect to perform its duty, and abdicate its trust? such a presumption would go against all governments in all modes. but, in truth, this dread of penury of supply, from a free assembly, has no foundation in nature. for first observe, that besides the desire which all men have naturally of supporting the honour of their own government, that sense of dignity, and that security to property, which ever attend freedom, have a tendency to increase the stock of the free community. most may be taken where most is accumulated. and what is the soil or climate where experience has not uniformly proved, that the voluntary flow of heaped-up plenty, bursting from the weight of its own rich luxuriance, has ever run with a more copious stream of revenue, than could be squeezed from the dry husks of oppressed indigence, by the straining of all the politic machinery in the world. a party man. the only method which has ever been found effectual to preserve any man against the corruption of nature and example, is a habit of life and communication of counsels with the most virtuous and public-spirited men of the age you live in. such a society cannot be kept without advantage or deserted without shame. for this rule of conduct i may be called in reproach a party man; but i am little affected with such aspersions. in the way which they call party, i worship the constitution of your fathers; and i shall never blush for my political company. all reverence to honour, all idea of what it is, will be lost out of the world, before it can be imputed as a fault to any man, that he has been closely connected with those incomparable persons, living and dead, with whom for eleven years i have constantly thought and acted. if i have wandered out of the paths of rectitude into those of interested faction, it was in company with the saviles, the dowdeswells, the wentworths, the bentincks; with the lenoxes, the manchesters, the keppels, the saunderses; with the temperate, permanent, hereditary virtue of the whole house of cavendish; names, among which, some have extended your fame and empire in arms, and all have fought the battle of your liberties in fields not less glorious. these, and many more like these, grafting public principles on private honour, have redeemed the present age, and would have adorned the most splendid period in your history. patriotism and public income. is it not the same virtue which does everything for us here in england? do you imagine, then, that it is the land-tax which raises your revenue? that it is the annual vote in the committee of supply, which gives you your army? or that it is the mutiny bill, which inspires it with bravery and discipline? no! surely no! it is the love of the people; it is their attachment to their government, from the sense of the deep stake they have in such a glorious institution, which gives you your army and your navy, and infuses into both that liberal obedience, without which your army would be a base rabble, and your navy nothing but rotten timber. all this, i know well enough, will sound wild and chimerical to the profane herd of those vulgar and mechanical politicians, who have no place among us; a sort of people who think that nothing exists but what is gross and material; and who therefore, far from being qualified to be directors of the great movement of empire, are not fit to turn a wheel in the machine. but to men truly initiated and rightly taught, these ruling and master principles, which, in the opinion of such men as i have mentioned, have no substantial existence, are in truth everything, and all in all. magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together. if we are conscious of our situation, and glow with zeal to fill our places as becomes our station and ourselves, we ought to auspicate all our public proceedings on america, with the old warning of the church, sursum corda! we ought to elevate our minds to the greatness of that trust to which the order of providence has called us. by adverting to the dignity of this high calling, our ancestors have turned a savage wilderness into a glorious empire; and have made the most extensive, and the only honourable conquests, not by destroying, but by promoting the wealth, the number, the happiness of the human race. let us get an american revenue as we have got an american empire. english privileges have made it all that it is; english privileges alone will make it all it can be. american protestantism. if anything were wanting to this necessary operation of the form of government, religion would have given it a complete effect. religion, always a principle of energy, in this new people is no way worn out or impaired; and their mode of professing it is also one main cause of this free spirit. the people are protestants; and of that kind which is the most adverse to all implicit submission of mind and opinion. this is a persuasion not only favourable to liberty, but built upon it. i do not think, sir, that the reason of this averseness in the dissenting churches, from all that looks like absolute government, is so much to be sought in their religious tenets, as in their history. every one knows that the roman catholic religion is at least coeval with most of the governments where it prevails; that it has generally gone hand in hand with them, and received great favour and every kind of support from authority. the church of england, too, was formed from her cradle, under the nursing care of regular government. but the dissenting interests have sprung up in direct opposition to all the ordinary powers of the world; and could justify that opposition only on a strong claim to natural liberty. their very existence depended on the powerful and unremitted assertion of that claim. all protestantism, even the most cold and passive, is a sort of dissent. but the religion most prevalent in our northern colonies is a refinement on the principle of resistance; it is the dissidence of dissent, and the protestantism of the protestant religion. right of taxation. i am resolved this day to have nothing at all to do with the question of the right of taxation. some gentlemen startle, but it is true; i put it totally out of the question. it is less than nothing in my consideration. i do not indeed wonder, nor will you, sir, that gentlemen of profound learning are fond of displaying it on this profound subject. but my consideration is narrow, confined, and wholly limited to the policy of the question. i do not examine whether the giving away a man's money be a power excepted and reserved out of the general trust of government; and how far all mankind, in all forms of polity, are entitled to an exercise of that right by the charter of nature. or whether, on the contrary, a right of taxation is necessarily involved in the general principle of legislation, and inseparable from the ordinary supreme power. these are deep questions, where great names militate against each other; where reason is perplexed; and an appeal to authorities only thickens the confusion. for high and reverend authorities lift up their heads on both sides; and there is no sure footing in the middle. this point is the great serbonian bog, betwixt damiata and mount casius old, where armies whole have sunk. i do not intend to be overwhelmed in that bog, though in such respectable company. the question with me is, not whether you have a right to render your people miserable; but whether it is not your interest to make them happy. it is not what a lawyer tells me i may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me i ought to do. is a politic act the worse for being a generous one? is no concession proper, but that which is made from your want of right to keep what you grant? or does it lessen the grace or dignity of relaxing in the exercise of an odious claim, because you have your evidence-room full of titles, and your magazines stuffed with arms to enforce them? what signify all those titles, and all those arms? of what avail are they, when the reason of the thing tells me, that the assertion of my title is the loss of my suit; and that i could do nothing but wound myself by the use of my own weapons? contracted views. it is exceedingly common for men to contract their love to their country into an attachment to its petty subdivisions; and they sometimes even cling to their provincial abuses, as if they were franchises and local privileges. accordingly, in places where there is much of this kind of estate, persons will be always found who would rather trust to their talents in recommending themselves to power for the renewal of their interests, than to incumber their purses, though never so lightly, in order to transmit independence to their posterity. it is a great mistake, that the desire of securing property is universal among mankind. gaming is a principle inherent in human nature. it belongs to us all. i would therefore break those tables; i would furnish no evil occupation for that spirit. i would make every man look everywhere, except to the intrigue of a court, for the improvement of his circumstances, or the security of his fortune. assimilating power of contact. i am sure that the only means of checking precipitate degeneracy is heartily to concur with whatever is the best in our time; and to have some more correct standard of judging what that best is, than the transient and uncertain favour of a court. if once we are able to find, and can prevail on ourselves to strengthen, a union of such men, whatever accidentally becomes indisposed to ill-exercised power, even by the ordinary operation of human passions, must join with that society, and cannot long be joined without in some degree assimilating to it. virtue will catch as well as vice by contact; and the public stock of honest, manly principle will daily accumulate. we are not too nicely to scrutinize motives as long as action is irreproachable. it is enough (and for a worthy man perhaps too much) to deal out its infamy to convicted guilt and declared apostacy. prudence of timely reform. but there is a time when men will not suffer bad things because their ancestors have suffered worse. there is a time when the hoary head of inveterate abuse will neither draw reverence nor obtain protection. if the noble lord in the blue riband pleads "not guilty" to the charges brought against the present system of public economy, it is not possible to give a fair verdict by which he will not stand acquitted. but pleading is not our present business. his plea or his traverse may be allowed as an answer to a charge, when a charge is made. but if he puts himself in the way to obstruct reformation, then the faults of his office instantly become his own. instead of a public officer in an abusive department, whose province is an object to be regulated, he becomes a criminal who is to be punished. i do most seriously put it to administration, to consider the wisdom of a timely reform. early reformations are amicable arrangements with a friend in power; late reformations are terms imposed upon a conquered enemy: early reformations are made in cool blood; late reformations are made under a state of inflammation. in that state of things people behold in government nothing that is respectable. they see the abuse, and they will see nothing else: they fall into the temper of a furious populace provoked at the disorder of a house of ill-fame; they never attempt to correct or regulate; they go to work by the shortest way--they abate the nuisance, they pull down the house. difficulties of reformers. nothing, you know, is more common than for men to wish, and call loudly, too, for a reformation, who, when it arrives, do by no means like the severity of its aspect. reformation is one of those pieces which must be put at some distance in order to please. its greatest favourers love it better in the abstract than in the substance. when any old prejudice of their own, or any interest that they value, is touched, they become scrupulous, they become captious, and every man has his separate exception. some pluck out the black hairs, some the gray; one point must be given up to one; another point must be yielded to another; nothing is suffered to prevail upon its own principle; the whole is so frittered down, and disjointed, that scarcely a trace of the original scheme remains! thus, between the resistance of power, and the unsystematical process of popularity, the undertaker and the undertaking are both exposed, and the poor reformer is hissed off the stage both by friends and foes. philosophy of commerce. if honesty be true policy with regard to the transient interest of individuals, it is much more certainly so with regard to the permanent interests of communities. i know, that it is but too natural for us to see our own certain ruin in the possible prosperity of other people. it is hard to persuade us, that everything which is got by another is not taken from ourselves. but it is fit that we should get the better of these suggestions, which come from what is not the best and soundest part of our nature, and that we should form to ourselves a way of thinking, more rational, more just, and more religious. trade is not a limited thing; as if the objects of mutual demand and consumption could not stretch beyond the bounds of our jealousies. god has given the earth to the children of men, and he has undoubtedly, in giving it to them, given them what is abundantly sufficient for all their exigencies; not a scanty, but a most liberal, provision for them all. the author of our nature has written it strongly in that nature, and has promulgated the same law in his written word, that man shall eat his bread by his labour; and i am persuaded, that no man, and no combination of men, for their own ideas of their particular profit, can, without great impiety, undertake to say, that he shall not do so; that they have no sort of right, either to prevent the labour, or to withhold the bread. theorizing politicians. there are people who have split and anatomised the doctrine of free government, as if it were an abstract question concerning metaphysical liberty and necessity; and not a matter of moral prudence and natural feeling. they have disputed, whether liberty be a positive or a negative idea; whether it does not consist in being governed by laws, without considering what are the laws, or who are the makers; whether man has any rights by nature; and whether all the property he enjoys be not the alms of his government, and his life itself their favour and indulgence. others corrupting religion, as these have perverted philosophy, contend, that christians are redeemed into captivity; and the blood of the saviour of mankind has been shed to make them the slaves of a few proud and insolent sinners. these shocking extremes provoking to extremes of another kind, speculations are let loose as destructive to all authority, as the former are to all freedom; and every government is called tyranny and usurpation which is not formed on their fancies. in this manner the stirrers-up of this contention, not satisfied with distracting our dependencies and filling them with blood and slaughter, are corrupting our understandings; they are endeavouring to tear up, along with practical liberty, all the foundations of human society, all equity and justice, religion and order. economy and public spirit. economy and public spirit have made a beneficent and an honest spoil; they have plundered from extravagance and luxury, for the use of substantial service, a revenue of near four hundred thousand pounds. the reform of the finances, joined to this reform of the court, gives to the public nine hundred thousand pounds a year and upwards. the minister who does these things is a great man--but the king who desires that they should be done is a far greater. we must do justice to our enemies--these are the acts of a patriot king. i am not in dread of the vast armies of france; i am not in dread of the gallant spirit of its brave and numerous nobility; i am not alarmed even at the great navy which has been so miraculously created. all these things louis the fourteenth had before. with all these things, the french monarchy has more than once fallen prostrate at the feet of the public faith of great britain. it was the want of public credit which disabled france from recovering after her defeats, or recovering even from her victories and triumphs. it was a prodigal court, it was an ill-ordered revenue, that sapped the foundations of all her greatness. credit cannot exist under the arm of necessity. necessity strikes at credit, i allow, with a heavier and quicker blow under an arbitrary monarchy, than under a limited and balanced government; but still necessity and credit are natural enemies, and cannot be long reconciled in any situation. from necessity and corruption, a free state may lose the spirit of that complex constitution which is the foundation of confidence. reform ought to be progressive. whenever we improve, it is right to leave room for a further improvement. it is right to consider, to look about us, to examine the effect of what we have done. then we can proceed with confidence, because we can proceed with intelligence. whereas in hot reformations, in what men, more zealous than considerate, call making clear work, the whole is generally so crude, so harsh, so indigested; mixed with so much imprudence, and so much injustice; so contrary to the whole course of human nature and human institutions, that the very people who are most eager for it are among the first to grow disgusted at what they have done. then some part of the abdicated grievance is recalled from its exile in order to become a corrective of the correction. then the abuse assumes all the credit and popularity of a reform. the very idea of purity and disinterestedness in politics falls into disrepute, and is considered as a vision of hot and inexperienced men; and thus disorders become incurable, not by the virulence of their own quality, but by the unapt and violent nature of the remedies. a great part, therefore, of my idea of reform is meant to operate gradually; some benefits will come at a nearer, some at a more remote period. we must no more make haste to be rich by parsimony, than by intemperate acquisition. civil freedom. civil freedom, gentlemen, is not, as many have endeavoured to persuade you, a thing that lies hid in the depth of abstruse science. it is a blessing and a benefit, not an abstract speculation; and all the just reasoning that can be upon it is of so coarse a texture, as perfectly to suit the ordinary capacities of those who are to enjoy, and of those who are to defend it. far from any resemblance to those propositions in geometry and metaphysics, which admit no medium, but must be true or false in all their latitude; social and civil freedom, like all other things in common life, are variously mixed and modified, enjoyed in very different degrees, and shaped into an infinite diversity of forms, according to the temper and circumstances of every community. the extreme of liberty (which is its abstract perfection, but its real fault) obtains nowhere, nor ought to obtain anywhere. because extremes, as we all know, in every point which relates either to our duties or satisfactions in life, are destructive both to virtue and enjoyment. tendencies of power. when any community is subordinately connected with another, the great danger of the connection is the extreme pride and self-complacency of the superior, which in all matters of controversy will probably decide in its own favour. it is a powerful corrective to such a very rational cause of fear if the inferior body can be made to believe that the party inclination, or political views, of several in the principal state will induce them in some degree to counteract this blind and tyrannical partiality. there is no danger that any one acquiring consideration or power in the presiding state should carry this leaning to the inferior too far. the fault of human nature is not of that sort. power, in whatever hands, is rarely guilty of too strict limitations on itself. but one great advantage to the support of authority attends such an amicable and protecting connection, that those who have conferred favours obtain influence; and from the foresight of future events can persuade men who have received obligations, sometimes to return them. thus, by the mediation of those healing principles (call them good or evil), troublesome discussions are brought to some sort of adjustment, and every hot controversy is not a civil war. individual good and public benefit. the individual good felt in a public benefit is comparatively so small, comes round through such an involved labyrinth of intricate and tedious revolutions; whilst a present, personal detriment is so heavy where it falls, and so instant in its operation, that the cold commendation of a public advantage never was, and never will be a match for the quick sensibility of a private loss: and you may depend upon it, sir, that when many people have an interest in railing, sooner or later, they will bring a considerable degree of unpopularity upon any measure, so that, for the present at least, the reformation will operate against the reformers, and revenge (as against them at the least) will produce all the effects of corruption. public corruption. nor is it the worst effect of this unnatural contention, that our laws are corrupted. whilst manners remain entire, they will correct the vices of law, and soften it at length to their own temper. but we have to lament, that in most of the late proceedings we see very few traces of that generosity, humanity, and dignity of mind which formerly characterized this nation. war suspends the rules of moral obligation, and what is long suspended is in danger of being totally abrogated. civil wars strike deepest of all into the manners of the people. they vitiate their politics; they corrupt their morals; they pervert even the natural taste and relish of equity and justice. by teaching us to consider our fellow-citizens in a hostile light, the whole body of our nation becomes gradually less dear to us. the very names of affection and kindred, which were the bond of charity whilst we agreed, become new incentives to hatred and rage when the communion of our country is dissolved. we may flatter ourselves that we shall not fall into this misfortune. but we have no charter of exemption, that i know of, from the ordinary frailties of our nature. cruelty and cowardice. a conscientious man would be cautious how he dealt in blood. he would feel some apprehension at being called to a tremendous account for engaging in so deep a play, without any sort of knowledge of the game. it is no excuse for presumptuous ignorance, that it is directed by insolent passion. the poorest being that crawls on earth, contending to save itself from injustice and oppression, is an object respectable in the eyes of god and man. but i cannot conceive any existence under heaven (which, in the depths of its wisdom, tolerates all sorts of things) that is more truly odious and disgusting, than an impotent helpless creature, without civil wisdom or military skill, without a consciousness of any other qualification for power but his servility to it, bloated with pride and arrogance, calling for battles which he is not to fight, contending for a violent dominion which he can never exercise, and satisfied to be himself mean and miserable, in order to render others contemptible and wretched. bad laws produce base subserviency. bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny. in such a country as this they are of all bad things the worst, worse by far than anywhere else; and they derive a particular malignity even from the wisdom and soundness of the rest of our institutions. for very obvious reasons you cannot trust the crown with a dispensing power over any of your laws. however, a government, be it as bad as it may, will, in the exercise of a discretionary power, discriminate times and persons; and will not ordinarily pursue any man when its own safety is not concerned. a mercenary informer knows no distinction. under such a system, the obnoxious people are slaves, not only to the government, but they live at the mercy of every individual; they are at once the slaves of the whole community, and of every part of it; and the worst and most unmerciful men are those on whose goodness they most depend. in this situation men not only shrink from the frowns of a stern magistrate, but they are obliged to fly from their very species. the seeds of destruction are sown in civil intercourse, in social habitudes. the blood of wholesome kindred is infected. their tables and beds are surrounded with snares. all the means given by providence to make life safe and comfortable are perverted into instruments of terror and torment. this species of universal subserviency, that makes the very servant who waits behind your chair the arbiter of your life and fortune, has such a tendency to degrade and abase mankind, and to deprive them of that assured and liberal state of mind which alone can make us what we ought to be, that i vow to god i would sooner bring myself to put a man to immediate death for opinions i disliked, and so to get rid of the man and his opinions at once, than to fret him with a feverish being, tainted with the jail-distemper of a contagious servitude, to keep him above ground an animated mass of putrefaction, corrupted himself, and corrupting all about him. false regret. if we repent of our good actions, what, i pray you, is left for our faults and follies? it is not the beneficence of the laws, it is the unnatural temper which beneficence can fret and sour that is to be lamented. it is this temper which, by all rational means, ought to be sweetened and corrected. if froward men should refuse this cure, can they vitiate anything but themselves? does evil so react upon good, as not only to retard its motion, but to change its nature? if it can so operate, then good men will always be in the power of the bad; and virtue, by a dreadful reverse of order, must lie under perpetual subjection and bondage to vice. british dominion in east india. with very few, and those inconsiderable, intervals, the british dominion, either in the company's name, or in the names of princes absolutely dependent upon the company, extends from the mountains that separate india from tartary to cape comorin,--that is, one-and-twenty degrees of latitude! in the northern parts it is a solid mass of land, about eight hundred miles in length, and four or five hundred broad. as you go southward, it becomes narrower for a space. it afterwards dilates; but, narrower or broader, you possess the whole eastern and north-eastern coast of that vast country, quite from the borders of pegu. bengal, bahar, and orissa, with benares (now unfortunately in our immediate possession), measure , square english miles; a territory considerably larger than the whole kingdom of france. oude, with its dependent provinces, is , square miles, not a great deal less than england. the carnatic, with tanjore and the circars, is , square miles, very considerably larger than england; and the whole of the company's dominions, comprehending bombay and salsette, amounts to , square miles; which forms a territory larger than any european dominion, russia and turkey excepted. through all that vast extent of country there is not a man who eats a mouthful of rice but by permission of the east-india company. so far with regard to the extent. the population of this great empire is not easily to be calculated. when the countries, of which it is composed, came into our possession, they were all eminently peopled, and eminently productive; though at that time considerably declined from their ancient prosperity. but, since they are come into our hands!--! however, if we make the period of our estimate immediately before the utter desolation of the carnatic, and if we allow for the havoc which our government had even then made in these regions, we cannot, in my opinion, rate the population at much less than thirty millions of souls,--more than four times the number of persons in the island of great britain. my next inquiry to that of the number, is the quality and description of the inhabitants. this multitude of men does not consist of an abject and barbarous populace; much less of gangs of savages, like the guaranies and chiquitos, who wander on the waste borders of the river of amazons, or the plate; but a people for ages civilized and cultivated; cultivated by all the arts of polished life, whilst we were yet in the woods. there have been (and still the skeletons remain) princes once of great dignity, authority, and opulence. there are to be found the chiefs of tribes and nations. there is to be found an ancient and venerable priesthood, the depository of their laws, learning, and history, the guides of the people whilst living, and their consolation in death; a nobility of great antiquity and renown; a multitude of cities, not exceeded in population and trade by those of the first class in europe; merchants and bankers, individual houses of whom have once vied in capital with the bank of england; whose credit had often supported a tottering state, and preserved their governments in the midst of war and desolation; millions of ingenious manufacturers and mechanics; millions of the most diligent, and not the least intelligent, tillers of the earth. there are to be found almost all the religions professed by men,--the brahminical, the mussulman, the eastern and the western christian. if i were to take the whole aggregate of our possessions there, i should compare it, as the nearest parallel i can find, with the empire of germany. our immediate possessions i should compare with the austrian dominions,--and they would not suffer in the comparison. the nabob of oude might stand for the king of prussia; the nabob of arcot i would compare, as superior in territory and equal in revenue, to the elector of saxony. cheyt sing, the rajah of benares, might well rank with the prince of hesse, at least; and the rajah of tanjore (though hardly equal in extent of dominion, superior in revenue), to the elector of bavaria. the polygars and the northern zemindars, and other great chiefs, might well class with the rest of the princes, dukes, counts, marquises, and bishops, in the empire; all of whom i mention to honour, and surely without disparagement to any or all of those most respectable princes and grandees. all this vast mass, composed of so many orders and classes of men, is again infinitely advocated by manners, by religion, by hereditary employment, through all their possible combinations. this renders the handling of india a matter in a high degree critical and delicate. but oh! it has been handled rudely indeed. even some of the reformers seem to have forgot that they had anything to do but to regulate the tenants of a manor, or the shopkeepers of the next county town. it is an empire of this extent, of this complicated nature, of this dignity and importance, that i have compared to germany, and the german government; not for an exact resemblance, but as a sort of a middle term, by which india might be approximated to our understandings, and if possible to our feelings; in order to awaken something of sympathy for the unfortunate natives, of which i am afraid we are not perfectly susceptible, whilst we look at this very remote object through a false and cloudy medium. political charity. honest men will not forget either their merit or their sufferings. there are men (and many, i trust, there are) who, out of love to their country and their kind, would torture their invention to find excuses for the mistakes of their brethren; and who, to stifle dissension, would construe even doubtful appearances with the utmost favour: such men will never persuade themselves to be ingenious and refined in discovering disaffection and treason in the manifest, palpable signs of suffering loyalty. persecution is so unnatural to them, that they gladly snatch the very first opportunity of laying aside all the tricks and devices of penal politics; and of returning home, after all their irksome and vexatious wanderings, to our natural family mansion, to the grand social principle, that unites all men, in all descriptions, under the shadow of an equal and impartial justice. evils of distraction. the very attempt towards pleasing everybody discovers a temper always flashy, and often false and insincere. therefore as i have proceeded straight onward in my conduct, so i will proceed in my account of those parts of it which have been most excepted to. but i must first beg leave just to hint to you, that we may suffer very great detriment by being open to every talker. it is not to be imagined how much of service is lost from spirits full of activity and full of energy, who are pressing, who are rushing forward, to great and capital objects, when you oblige them to be continually looking back. whilst they are defending one service, they defraud you of an hundred. applaud us when we run; console us when we fall; cheer us when we recover; but let us pass on--for god's sake let us pass on. charles fox. and now, having done my duty to the bill, let me say a word to the author. i should leave him to his own noble sentiments, if the unworthy and illiberal language with which he has been treated, beyond all example of parliamentary liberty, did not make a few words necessary; not so much in justice to him, as to my own feelings. i must say, then, that it will be a distinction honourable to the age, that the rescue of the greatest number of the human race that ever were so grievously oppressed, from the greatest tyranny that was ever exercised, has fallen to the lot of abilities and dispositions equal to the task; that it has fallen to one who has the enlargement to comprehend, the spirit to undertake, and the eloquence to support, so great a measure of hazardous benevolence. his spirit is not owing to his ignorance of the state of men and things; he well knows what snares are spread about his path, from personal animosity, from court intrigues, and possibly from popular delusion. but he has put to hazard his ease, his security, his interest, his power, even his darling popularity, for the benefit of a people whom he has never seen. this is the road that all heroes have trod before him. he is traduced and abused for his supposed motives. he will remember, that obloquy is a necessary ingredient in the composition of all true glory: he will remember, that it was not only in the roman customs, but it is in the nature and constitution of things, that calumny and abuse are essential parts of triumph. these thoughts will support a mind, which only exists for honour, under the burthen of temporary reproach. he is doing indeed a great good; such as rarely falls to the lot, and almost as rarely coincides with the desires, of any man. let him use his time. let him give the whole length of the reins to his benevolence. he is now on a great eminence, where the eyes of mankind are turned to him. he may live long, he may do much. but here is the summit. he never can exceed what he does this day. he has faults; but they are faults that, though they may in a small degree tarnish the lustre, and sometimes impede the march, of his abilities, have nothing in them to extinguish the fire of great virtues. in those faults there is no mixture of deceit, of hypocrisy, of pride, of ferocity, of complexional despotism, or want of feeling for the distresses of mankind. his are faults which might exist in a descendant of henry the fourth of france, as they did exist in that father of his country. henry the fourth wished that he might live to see a fowl in the pot of every peasant in his kingdom. that sentiment of homely benevolence was worth all the splendid sayings that are recorded of kings. but he wished perhaps for more than could be obtained, and the goodness of the man exceeded the power of the king. but this gentleman, a subject, may this day say this at least, with truth, that he secures the rice in his pot to every man in india. a poet of antiquity thought it one of the first distinctions to a prince whom he meant to celebrate, that through a long succession of generations, he had been the progenitor of an able and virtuous citizen, who by force of the arts of peace, had corrected governments of oppression, and suppressed wars of rapine. indole proh quanta juvenis, quantumque daturus ausoniae populis ventura in saecula civem. ille super gangem, super exauditus et indos, implebit terras voce; et furialia bella fulmine compescet linguae.-- this was what was said of the predecessor of the only person to whose eloquence it does not wrong that of the mover of this bill to be compared. but the ganges and the indus are the patrimony of the fame of my honourable friend, and not of cicero. i confess, i anticipate with joy the reward of those, whose whole consequence, power, and authority, exist only for the benefit of mankind; and i carry my mind to all the people, and all the names and descriptions, that, relieved by this bill, will bless the labours of this parliament, and the confidence which the best house of commons has given to him who the best deserves it. the little cavils of party will not be heard, where freedom and happiness will be felt. there is not a tongue, a nation, or religion in india which will not bless the presiding care and manly beneficence of this house, and of him who proposes to you this great work. your names will never be separated before the throne of the divine goodness, in whatever language, or with whatever rites, pardon is asked for sin, and reward for those who imitate the godhead in his universal bounty to his creatures. these honours you deserve, and they will surely be paid, when all the jargon of influence, and party, and patronage, are swept into oblivion. the impracticable undesirable. i know it is common for men to say, that such and such things are perfectly right--very desirable; but that, unfortunately, they are not practicable. oh! no, sir, no. those things, which are not practicable, are not desirable. there is nothing in the world really beneficial that does not lie within the reach of an informed understanding, and a well-directed pursuit. there is nothing that god has judged good for us that he has not given us the means to accomplish, both in the natural and the moral world. if we cry, like children, for the moon, like children we must cry on. constitution of the commons. the late house of commons has been punished for its independence. that example is made. have we an example on record of a house of commons punished for its servility? the rewards of a senate so disposed are manifest to the world. several gentlemen are very desirous of altering the constitution of the house of commons; but they must alter the frame and constitution of human nature itself before they can so fashion it by any mode of election that its conduct will not be influenced by reward and punishment, by fame, and by disgrace. if these examples take root in the minds of men, what members hereafter will be bold enough not to be corrupt? especially as the king's highway of obsequiousness is so very broad and easy. to make a passive member of parliament, no dignity of mind, no principles of honour, no resolution, no ability, no industry, no learning, no experience, are in the least degree necessary. to defend a post of importance against a powerful enemy, requires an elliot; a drunken invalid is qualified to hoist a white flag, or to deliver up the keys of the fortress on his knees. emoluments of office. no man knows, when he cuts off the incitements to a virtuous ambition, and the just rewards of public service, what infinite mischief he may do his country, through all generations. such saving to the public may prove the worst mode of robbing it. the crown, which has in its hands the trust of the daily pay for national service, ought to have in its hands also the means for the repose of public labour, and the fixed settlement of acknowledged merit. there is a time when the weather-beaten vessels of the state ought to come into harbour. they must at length have a retreat from the malice of rivals, from the perfidy of political friends, and the inconstancy of the people. many of the persons, who in all times have filled the great offices of state, have been younger brothers, who had originally little, if any, fortune. these offices do not furnish the means of amassing wealth. there ought to be some power in the crown of granting pensions out of the reach of its own caprices. an entail of dependence is a bad reward of merit. moral distinctions. those who are least anxious about your conduct are not those that love you most. moderate affection and satiated enjoyment are cold and respectful; but an ardent and injured passion is tempered up with wrath, and grief, and shame, and conscious worth, and the maddening sense of violated right. a jealous love lights his torch from the firebrands of the furies. they who call upon you to belong wholly to the people, are those who wish you to return to your proper home; to the sphere of your duty, to the post of your honour, to the mansion-house of all genuine, serene, and solid satisfaction. electors and representatives. look, gentlemen, to the whole tenour of your member's conduct. try whether his ambition or his avarice have jostled him out of the straight line of duty; or whether that grand foe of the offices of active life, that master vice in men of business, a degenerate and inglorious sloth--has made him flag and languish in his course. this is the object of our inquiry. if our member's conduct can bear this touch, mark it for sterling. he may have fallen into errors; he must have faults; but our error is greater, and our fault is radically ruinous to ourselves, if we do not bear, if we do not even applaud, the whole compound and mixed mass of such a character. not to act thus is folly; i had almost said it is impiety. he censures god, who quarrels with the imperfections of man. gentlemen, we must not be peevish with those who serve the people. for none will serve us whilst there is a court to serve but those who are of a nice and jealous honour. they who think everything, in comparison of that honour, to be dust and ashes, will not bear to have it soiled and impaired by those for whose sake they make a thousand sacrifices to preserve it immaculate and whole. we shall either drive such men from the public stage, or we shall send them to the court for protection; where, if they must sacrifice their reputation, they will at least secure their interest. depend upon it, that the lovers of freedom will be free. none will violate their conscience to please us, in order afterwards to discharge that conscience, which they have violated, by doing us faithful and affectionate service. if we degrade and deprave their minds by servility, it will be absurd to expect, that they who are creeping and abject towards us, will ever be bold and incorruptible assertors of our freedom, against the most seducing and the most formidable of all powers. no! human nature is not so formed; nor shall we improve the faculties or better the morals of public men, by our possession of the most infallible receipt in the world for making cheats and hypocrites. let me say with plainness, i who am no longer in a public character, that if by a fair, by an indulgent, by a gentlemanly behaviour to our representatives, we do not give confidence to their minds, and a liberal scope to their understandings; if we do not permit our members to act upon a very enlarged view of things; we shall at length infallibly degrade our national representation into a confused and scuffling bustle of local agency. when the popular member is narrowed in his ideas, and rendered timid in his proceedings, the service of the crown will be the sole nursery of statesmen. among the frolics of the court, it may at length take that of attending to its business. then the monopoly of mental power will be added to the power of all other kinds it possesses. on the side of the people there will be nothing but impotence: for ignorance is impotence; narrowness of mind is impotence; timidity is itself impotence, and makes all other qualities that go along with it, impotent and useless. popular opinion a fallacious standard. when we know, that the opinions of even the greatest multitudes are the standard of rectitude, i shall think myself obliged to make those opinions the masters of my conscience. but if it may be doubted whether omnipotence itself is competent to alter the essential constitution of right and wrong, sure i am that such things, as they and i, are possessed of no such power. no man carries further than i do the policy of making government pleasing to the people. but the widest range of this politic complaisance is confined within the limits of justice. i would not only consult the interest of the people, but i would cheerfully gratify their humours. we are all a sort of children that must be soothed and managed. i think i am not austere or formal in my nature. i would bear, i would even myself play my part in any innocent buffooneries to divert them. but i never will act the tyrant for their amusement. if they will mix malice in their sports, i shall never consent to throw them any living, sentient creature whatsoever--no, not so much as a kitling, to torment. english reformation. the condition of our nature is such, that we buy our blessings at a price. the reformation, one of the greatest periods of human improvement, was a time of trouble and confusion. the vast structure of superstition and tyranny, which had been for ages in rearing, and which was combined with the interest of the great and of the many, which was moulded into the laws, the manners, and civil institutions of nations, and blended with the frame and policy of states, could not be brought to the ground without a fearful struggle; nor could it fall without a violent concussion of itself and all about it. when this great revolution was attempted in a more regular mode by government, it was opposed by plots and seditions of the people; when by popular efforts, it was repressed as a rebellion by the hand of power; and bloody executions (often bloodily returned) marked the whole of its progress through all its stages. the affairs of religion, which are no longer heard of in the tumult of our present contentions, made a principal ingredient in the wars and politics of that time; the enthusiasm of religion threw a gloom over the politics; and political interests poisoned and perverted the spirit of religion upon all sides. the protestant religion in that violent struggle, infected, as the popish had been before, by worldly interests and worldly passions, became a persecutor in its turn, sometimes of the new sects, which carried their own principles further than it was convenient to the original reformers; and always of the body from whom they parted: and this persecuting spirit arose, not only from the bitterness of retaliation, but from the merciless policy of fear. it was long before the spirit of true piety and true wisdom, involved in the principles of the reformation, could be depurated from the dregs and feculence of the contention with which it was carried through. however, until this be done, the reformation is not complete; and those who think themselves good protestants, from their animosity to others, are in that respect no protestants at all. proscription. this way of proscribing the citizens by denominations and general descriptions, dignified by the name of reason of state, and security for constitutions and commonwealths, is nothing better at bottom, than the miserable invention of an ungenerous ambition, which would fain hold the sacred trust of power, without any of the virtues or any of the energies that give a title to it: a receipt of policy, made up of a detestable compound of malice, cowardice, and sloth. they would govern men against their will; but in that government they would be discharged from the exercise of vigilance, providence, and fortitude; and therefore, that they may sleep on their watch, they consent to take some one division of the society into partnership of the tyranny over the rest. but let government, in what form it may be, comprehend the whole in its justice, and restrain the suspicious by its vigilance; let it keep watch and ward; let it discover by its sagacity, and punish by its firmness, all delinquency against its power, whenever delinquency exists in the overt acts; and then it will be as safe as ever god and nature intended it should be. crimes are the acts of individuals, and not of denominations; and therefore arbitrarily to class men under general descriptions, in order to proscribe and punish them in the lump for a presumed delinquency, of which perhaps but a part, perhaps none at all, are guilty, is indeed a compendious method, and saves a world of trouble about proof; but such a method, instead of being law, is an act of unnatural rebellion against the legal dominion of reason and justice; and this vice, in any constitution that entertains it, at one time or other will certainly bring on its ruin. just freedom. i must fairly tell you, that so far as my principles are concerned, (principles that i hope will only depart with my last breath), i have no idea of a liberty unconnected with honesty and justice. nor do i believe that any good constitutions of government, or of freedom, can find it necessary for their security to doom any part of the people to a permanent slavery. such a constitution of freedom, if such can be, is in effect no more than another name for the tyranny of the strongest faction; and factions in republics have been, and are, full as capable as monarchs of the most cruel oppression and injustice. it is but too true, that the love, and even the very idea of genuine liberty is extremely rare. it is but too true, that there are many whose whole scheme of freedom is made up of pride, perverseness, and insolence. they feel themselves in a state of thraldom, they imagine that their souls are cooped and cabined in, unless they have some man, or some body of men, dependent on their mercy. the desire of having some one below them descends to those who are the very lowest of all,--and a protestant cobbler, debased by his poverty, but exalted by his share of the ruling church, feels a pride in knowing it is by his generosity alone that the peer, whose footman's instep he measures, is able to keep his chaplain from a gaol. england's embassy to america. they enter the capital of america only to abandon it; and these assertors and representatives of the dignity of england, at the tail of a flying army, let fly their parthian shafts of memorials and remonstrances at random behind them. their promises and their offers, their flatteries and their menaces, were all despised; and we were saved from the disgrace of their formal reception, only because the congress scorned to receive them; whilst the state-house of independent philadelphia opened her doors to the public entry of the ambassador of france. from war and blood we went to submission; and from submission plunged back again to war and blood; to desolate and be desolated, without measure, hope, or end. i am a royalist, i blushed for this degradation of the crown. i am a whig, i blushed for the dishonour of parliament. i am a true englishman, i felt to the quick for the disgrace of england. i am a man, i felt for the melancholy reverse of human affairs in the fall of the first power in the world. howard, the philanthropist. i cannot name this gentleman without remarking that his labours and writings have done much to open the eyes and hearts of mankind. he has visited all europe,--not to survey the sumptuousness of palaces, or the stateliness of temples; not to make accurate measurements of the remains of ancient grandeur, nor to form a scale of the curiosity of modern art; not to collect medals, or collate manuscripts:--but to dive into the depths of dungeons; to plunge into the infection of hospitals; to survey the mansions of sorrow and pain; to take the gauge and dimensions of misery, depression, and contempt; to remember the forgotten, to attend to the neglected, to visit the forsaken, and to compare and collate the distresses of all men in all countries. his plan is original; and is as full of genius as it is of humanity. it was a voyage of discovery; a circumnavigation of charity. already the benefit of his labour is felt more or less in every country; i hope he will anticipate his final reward by seeing all its effects fully realized in his own. he will receive, not by detail, but in gross, the reward of those who visit the prisoner; and he has so forestalled and monopolized this branch of charity, that there will be, i trust, little room to merit by such acts of benevolence hereafter. parliamentary retrospect. it is certainly not pleasing to be put out of the public service. but i wish to be a member of parliament, to have my share of doing good and resisting evil. it would therefore be absurd to renounce my objects in order to obtain my seat. i deceive myself indeed most grossly if i had not much rather pass the remainder of my life hidden in the recesses of the deepest obscurity, feeding my mind even with the visions and imaginations of such things, than to be placed on the most splendid throne of the universe, tantalized with a denial of the practice of all which can make the greatest situation any other than the greatest curse. gentlemen, i have had my day. i can never sufficiently express my gratitude to you for having set me in a place wherein i could lend the slightest help to great and laudable designs. if i have had my share in any measure giving quiet to private property, and private conscience; if by my vote i have aided in securing to families the best possession, peace; if i have joined in reconciling kings to their subjects, and subjects to their prince; if i have assisted to loosen the foreign holdings of the citizen, and taught him to look for his protection to the laws of his country, and for his comfort to the goodwill of his countrymen--if i have thus taken my part with the best of men in the best of their actions, i can shut the book;--i might wish to read a page or two more--but this is enough for my measure,--i have not lived in vain. people and parliament. let the commons in parliament assembled be one and the same thing with the commons at large. the distinctions that are made to separate us are unnatural and wicked contrivances. let us identify, let us incorporate, ourselves with the people. let us cut all the cables and snap the chains which tie us to an unfaithful shore, and enter the friendly harbour that shoots far out into the main its moles and jettees to receive us.--"war with the world, and peace with our constituents." be this our motto, and our principle. then, indeed, we shall be truly great. respecting ourselves, we shall be respected by the world. at present all is troubled, and cloudy, and distracted, and full of anger and turbulence, both abroad and at home; but the air may be cleared by this storm, and light and fertility may follow it. let us give a faithful pledge to the people, that we honour indeed the crown, but that we belong to them; that we are their auxiliaries, and not their task-masters,--the fellow-labourers in the same vineyard,--not lording over their rights, but helpers of their joy: that to tax them is a grievance to ourselves; but to cut off from our enjoyments to forward theirs, is the highest gratification we are capable of receiving. reformed civil list. as things now stand, every man, in proportion to his consequence at court, tends to add to the expense of the civil list, by all manner of jobs, if not for himself, yet for his dependents. when the new plan is established, those who are now suitors for jobs will become the most strenuous opposers of them. they will have a common interest with the minister in public economy. every class, as it stands low, will become security for the payment of the preceding class; and, thus, the persons whose insignificant services defraud those that are useful, would then become interested in their payment. then the powerful, instead of oppressing, would be obliged to support the weak; and idleness would become concerned in the reward of industry. the whole fabric of the civil economy would become compact and connected in all its parts; it would be formed into a well-organized body, where every member contributes to the support of the whole; and where even the lazy stomach secures the vigour of the active arm. french and english revolution. he felt some concern that this strange thing, called a revolution in france, should be compared with the glorious event commonly called the revolution in england; and the conduct of the soldiery, on that occasion, compared with the behaviour of some of the troops of france in the present instance. at that period the prince of orange, a prince of the blood-royal in england, was called in by the flower of the english aristocracy to defend its ancient constitution, and not to level all distinctions. to this prince, so invited, the aristocratic leaders who commanded the troops went over with their several corps, in bodies, to the deliverer of their country. aristocratic leaders brought up the corps of citizens who newly enlisted in this cause. military obedience changed its object; but military discipline was not for a moment interrupted in its principle. the troops were ready for war, but indisposed to mutiny. but as the conduct of the english armies was different, so was that of the whole english nation at that time. in truth, the circumstances of our revolution (as it is called) and that of france, are just the reverse of each other in almost every particular, and in the whole spirit of the transaction. with us it was the case of a legal monarch attempting arbitrary power--in france it is the case of an arbitrary monarch, beginning, from whatever cause, to legalize his authority. the one was to be resisted, the other was to be managed and directed; but in neither case was the order of the state to be changed, lest government might be ruined, which ought only to be corrected and legalized. with us we got rid of the man, and preserved the constituent parts of the state. there they get rid of the constituent parts of the state, and keep the man. what we did was in truth and substance, and in a constitutional light, a revolution, not made, but prevented. we took solid securities; we settled doubtful questions; we corrected anomalies in our law. in the stable, fundamental parts of our constitution we made no revolution; no, nor any alteration at all. we did not impair the monarchy. perhaps it might be shown that we strengthened it very considerably. the nation kept the same ranks, the same orders, the same privileges, the same franchises, the same rules for property, the same subordinations, the same order in the law, in the revenue, and in the magistracy; the same lords, the same commons, the same corporations, the same electors. the church was not impaired. her estates, her majesty, her splendour, her orders and gradations, continued the same. she was preserved in her full efficiency, and cleared only of a certain intolerance, which was her weakness and disgrace. the church and the state were the same after the revolution that they were before, but better secured in every part. was little done because a revolution was not made in the constitution? no! everything was done; because we commenced with reparation, not with ruin. accordingly the state flourished. instead of laying as dead, in a sort of trance, or exposed, as some others, in an epileptic fit, to the pity or derision of the world, for her wild, ridiculous, convulsive movements, impotent to every purpose but that of dashing out her brains against the pavement, great britain rose above the standard even of her former self. an era of a more improved domestic prosperity then commenced, and still continues not only unimpaired, but growing, under the wasting hand of time. all the energies of the country were awakened. england never preserved a firmer countenance, nor a more vigorous arm, to all her enemies, and to all her rivals. europe under her respired and revived. everywhere she appeared as the protector, assertor, or avenger, of liberty. a war was made and supported against fortune itself. the treaty of ryswick, which first limited the power of france, was soon after made; the grand alliance very shortly followed, which shook to the foundations the dreadful power which menaced the independence of mankind. the states of europe lay happy under the shade of a great and free monarchy, which knew how to be great without endangering its own peace at home, or the internal or external peace of any of its neighbours. armed discipline. he knew too well, and he felt as much as any man, how difficult it was to accommodate a standing army to a free constitution, or to any constitution. an armed, disciplined, body is, in its essence, dangerous to liberty; undisciplined, it is ruinous to society. its component parts are, in the latter case, neither good citizens nor good soldiers. what have they thought of in france, under such a difficulty as almost puts the human faculties to a stand? they have put their army under such a variety of principles of duty, that it is more likely to breed litigants, pettifoggers, and mutineers, than soldiers. they have set up, to balance their crown army, another army, deriving under another authority, called a municipal army--a balance of armies, not of orders. these latter they have destroyed with every mark of insult and oppression. states may, and they will best, exist with a partition of civil powers. armies cannot exist under a divided command. this state of things he thought, in effect, a state of war, or, at best, but a truce instead of peace, in the country. gilded despotism. in the last century, louis the fourteenth had established a greater and better disciplined military force than ever had been before seen in europe, and with it a perfect despotism. though that despotism was proudly arrayed in manners, gallantry, splendour, magnificence, and even covered over with the imposing robes of science, literature, and arts, it was, in government, nothing better than a painted and gilded tyranny; in religion, a hard, stern intolerance, the fit companion and auxiliary to the despotic tyranny which prevailed in its government. the same character of despotism insinuated itself into every court of europe, the same spirit of disproportioned magnificence--the same love of standing armies, above the ability of the people. in particular, our then sovereigns, king charles and king james, fell in love with the government of their neighbour, so flattering to the pride of kings. a similarity of sentiments brought on connections equally dangerous to the interests and liberties of their country. it were well that the infection had gone no farther than the throne. the admiration of a government flourishing and successful, unchecked in its operations, and seeming therefore to compass its objects more speedily and effectually, gained something upon all ranks of people. the good patriots of that day, however, struggled against it. they sought nothing more anxiously than to break off all communication with france, and to be get a total alienation from its councils and its example; which, by the animosity prevalent between the abettors of their religious system and the assertors of ours, was in some degree effected. our french dangers. in the last age we were in danger of being entangled by the example of france in the net of a relentless despotism. it is not necessary to say anything upon that example. it exists no longer. our present danger from the example of a people, whose character knows no medium, is, with regard to government, a danger from anarchy; a danger of being led through an admiration of successful fraud and violence, to an imitation of the excesses of an irrational, unprincipled, proscribing, confiscating, plundering, ferocious, bloody, and tyrannical democracy. on the side of religion, the danger of their example is no longer from intolerance, but from atheism; a foul, unnatural vice, foe to all the dignity and consolation of mankind; which seems in france, for a long time, to have been embodied into a faction, accredited, and almost avowed. sir george saville. when an act of great and signal humanity was to be done, and done with all the weight and authority that belonged to it, the world would cast its eyes upon none but him. i hope that few things which have a tendency to bless or to adorn life have wholly escaped my observation in my passage through it. i have sought the acquaintance of that gentleman, and have seen him in all situations. he is a true genius; with an understanding vigorous, and acute, and refined, and distinguishing even to excess; and illuminated with a most unbounded, peculiar, and original cast of imagination. with these he possesses many external and instrumental advantages; and he makes use of them all. his fortune is among the largest; a fortune which, wholly unincumbered, as it is, with one single charge from luxury, vanity, or excess, sinks under the benevolence of its dispenser. this private benevolence, expanding itself into patriotism, renders his whole being the estate of the public, in which he has not reserved a peculium for himself of profit, diversion, or relaxation. during the session, the first in, and the last out of the house of commons; he passes from the senate to the camp; and, seldom seeing the seat of his ancestors, he is always in the senate to serve his country, or in the field to defend it. corruption not self-reformed. those, who would commit the reformation of india to the destroyers of it, are the enemies to that reformation. they would make a distinction between directors and proprietors, which, in the present state of things, does not, cannot exist. but a right honourable gentleman says, he would keep the present government of india in the court of directors; and would, to curb them, provide salutary regulations;--wonderful! that is, he would appoint the old offenders to correct the old offences; and he would render the vicious and the foolish wise and virtuous, by salutary regulations. he would appoint the wolf as guardian of the sheep; but he has invented a curious muzzle, by which this protecting wolf shall not be able to open his jaws above an inch or two at the utmost. thus his work is finished. but i tell the right honourable gentleman, that controlled depravity is not innocence; and that it is not the labour of delinquency in chains that will correct abuses. will these gentlemen of the direction animadvert on the partners of their own guilt? never did a serious plan of amending any old tyrannical establishment propose the authors and abettors of the abuses as the reformers of them. the bribed and the bribers. if i am to speak my private sentiments, i think that in a thousand cases for one it would be far less mischievous to the public, and full as little dishonourable to themselves, to be polluted with direct bribery, than thus to become a standing auxiliary to the oppression, usury, and peculation, of multitudes, in order to obtain a corrupt support to their power. it is by bribing, not so often by being bribed, that wicked politicians bring ruin on mankind. avarice is a rival to the pursuits of many. it finds a multitude of checks, and many opposers, in every walk of life. but the objects of ambition are for the few; and every person who aims at indirect profit, and therefore wants other protection, than innocence and law, instead of its rival becomes its instrument. there is a natural allegiance and fealty do you to this domineering, paramount evil, from all the vassal vices, which acknowledge its superiority, and readily militate under its banners; and it is under that discipline alone that avarice is able to spread to any considerable extent, or to render itself a general, public mischief. hyder ali. when at length hyder ali found that he had to do with men who either would sign no convention, or whom no treaty and no signature could bind, and who were the determined enemies of human intercourse itself, he decreed to make the country possessed by these incorrigible and predestinated criminals a memorable example to mankind. he resolved, in the gloomy recesses of a mind capacious of such things, to leave the whole carnatic an everlasting monument of vengeance, and to put perpetual desolation as a barrier between him and those, against whom the faith which holds the moral elements of the world together, was no protection. he became at length so confident of his force, so collected in his might, that he made no secret whatsoever of his dreadful resolution. having terminated his disputes with every enemy, and every rival, who buried their mutual animosities in their common detestation against the creditors of the nabob of arcot, he drew from every quarter whatever a savage ferocity could add to his new rudiments in the arts of destruction; and compounding all the materials of fury, havoc, and desolation, into one black cloud, he hung for a while on the declivities of the mountains. whilst the authors of all these evils were idly and stupidly gazing on this menacing meteor, which blackened all their horizon, it suddenly burst, and poured down the whole of its contents upon the plains of the carnatic. then ensued a scene of woe, the like of which no eye had seen, no heart conceived, and which no tongue can adequately tell. all the horrors of war before known or heard of, were mercy to that new havoc. a storm of universal fire blasted every field, consumed every house, destroyed every temple. the miserable inhabitants flying from their flaming villages, in part were slaughtered; others, without regard to sex, to age, to the respect of rank, or sacredness of function, fathers torn from children, husbands from wives, enveloped in a whirlwind of cavalry, and amidst the goading spears of drivers, and the trampling of pursuing horses, were swept into captivity, in an unknown and hostile land. those who were able to evade the tempest fled to the walled cities. but escaping from fire, sword, and exile, they fell into the jaws of famine. the alms of the settlement in this dreadful exigency, were certainly liberal; and all was done by charity that private charity could do; but it was a people in beggary; it was a nation which stretched out its hands for food. for months together these creatures of sufferance, whose very excess and luxury in their most plenteous days had fallen short of the allowance of our austerest fasts, silent, patient, resigned, without sedition or disturbance, almost without complaint, perished by an hundred a day in the streets of madras; every day seventy at least laid their bodies in the streets, or on the glacis of tanjore, and expired of famine in the granary of india. i was going to awake your justice towards this unhappy part of our fellow-citizens, by bringing before you some of the circumstances of this plague of hunger. of all the calamities which beset and waylay the life of man, this comes the nearest to our heart, and is that wherein the proudest of us all feels himself to be nothing more than he is: but i find myself unable to manage it with decorum: these details are of a species of horror so nauseous and disgusting; they are so degrading to the sufferers and to the hearers; they are so humiliating to human nature itself, that, on better thoughts, i think it more advisable to throw a pall over this hideous object, and to leave it to your general conceptions. reformation and anarchy contrasted and compared. that the house must perceive, from his coming forward to mark an expression or two of his best friend, how anxious he was to keep the distemper of france from the least countenance in england, where he was sure some wicked persons had shown a strong disposition to recommend an imitation of the french spirit of reform. he was so strongly opposed to any the least tendency towards the means of introducing a democracy like theirs, as well as to the end itself, that much as it would afflict him, if such a thing could be attempted, and that any friend of his could concur in such measures (he was far, very far, from believing they could), he would abandon his best friends, and join with his worst enemies to oppose either the means or the end; and to resist all violent exertions of the spirit of innovation, so distant from all principles of true and safe reformation; a spirit well calculated to overturn states, but perfectly unfit to amend them. that he was no enemy to reformation. almost every business in which he was much concerned, from the first day he sat in that house to that hour, was a business of reformation; and when he had not been employed in correcting, he had been employed in resisting, abuses. some traces of this spirit in him now stand on their statute-book. in his opinion, anything which unnecessarily tore to pieces the contexture of the state, not only prevented all real reformation, but introduced evils which would call, but perhaps call in vain, for new reformation. that he thought the french nation very unwise. what they valued themselves on, was a disgrace to them. they had gloried (and some people in england had thought fit to take share in that glory) in making a revolution; as if revolutions were good things in themselves. all the horrors, and all the crimes of the anarchy which led to their revolution, which attend its progress, and which may virtually attend it in its establishment, pass for nothing with the lovers of revolutions. the french have made their way, through the destruction of their country, to a bad constitution, when they were absolutely in possession of a good one. they were in possession of it the day the states met in separate orders. their business, had they been either virtuous or wise, or had they been left to their own judgment, was to secure the stability and independence of the states, according to those orders, under the monarch on the throne. it was then their duty to redress grievances. instead of redressing grievances, and improving the fabric of their state, to which they were called by their monarch, and sent by their country, they were made to take a very different course. they first destroyed all the balances and counterpoises which serve to fix the state, and to give it a steady direction, and which furnish sure correctives to any violent spirit which may prevail in any of the orders. these balances existed in their oldest constitution; and in the constitution of this country; and in the constitution of all the countries in europe. these they rashly destroyed, and then they melted down the whole into one incongruous, ill-connected mass. when they had done this, they instantly, and with the most atrocious perfidy and breach of all faith among men, laid the axe to the root of all property, and consequently of all national prosperity, by the principles they established, and the example they set, in confiscating all the possessions of the church. they made and recorded a sort of institute and digest of anarchy, called the rights of man, in such a pedantic abuse of elementary principles as would have disgraced boys at school; but this declaration of rights was worse than trifling and pedantic in them, as by their name and authority they systematically destroyed every hold of authority by opinion, religious or civil, on the minds of the people. by this mad declaration they subverted the state, and brought on such calamities as no country, without a long war, has ever been known to suffer; and which may in the end produce such a war, and perhaps many such. with them the question was not between despotism and liberty. the sacrifice they made of the peace and power of their country was not made on the altar of freedom. freedom, and a better security for freedom than that they have taken, they might have had without any sacrifice at all. they brought themselves into all the calamities they suffer, not that through them they might obtain a british constitution; they plunged themselves headlong into those calamities to prevent themselves from settling into that constitution, or into anything resembling it. confidence and jealousy. confidence might become a vice, and jealousy a virtue, according to circumstances. that confidence, of all public virtues, was the most dangerous, and jealousy in a house of commons, of all public vices, the most tolerable; especially where the number and the charge of standing armies in time of peace was the question. economy of injustice. strange as this scheme of conduct in ministry is, and inconsistent with all just policy, it is still true to itself, and faithful to its own perverted order. those who are bountiful to crimes, will be rigid to merit, and penurious to service. their penury is even held out as a blind and cover to their prodigality. the economy of injustice is, to furnish resources for the fund of corruption. then they pay off their protection to great crimes and great criminals by being inexorable to the paltry frailties of little men; and these modern flagellants are sure, with a rigid fidelity, to whip their own enormities on the vicarious back of every small offender. subsistence and revenue. the benefits of heaven to any community ought never to be connected with political arrangements, or made to depend on the personal conduct of princes; in which the mistake, or error, or neglect, or distress, or passion of a moment on either side, may bring famine on millions, and ruin an innocent nation perhaps for ages. the means of the subsistence of mankind should be as immutable as the laws of nature, let power and dominion take what course they may. authority and venality. it is difficult for the most wise and upright government to correct the abuses of remote, delegated power, productive of unmeasured wealth, and protected by the boldness and strength of the same ill-got riches. these abuses, full of their own wild native vigour, will grow and flourish under mere neglect. but where the supreme authority, not content with winking at the rapacity of its inferior instruments, is so shameless and corrupt as openly to give bounties and premiums for disobedience to its laws, when it will not trust to the activity of avarice in the pursuit of its own gains, when it secures public robbery by all the careful jealousy and attention with which it ought to protect property from such violence, the commonwealth then is become totally perverted from its purposes; neither god nor man will long endure it; nor will it long endure itself. in that case there is an unnatural infection, a pestilential taint fermenting in the constitution of society, which fever and convulsions of some kind or other must throw off; or in which the vital powers, worsted in an unequal struggle, are pushed back upon themselves, and, by a reversal of their whole functions, fester to gangrene, to death; and instead of what was but just now the delight and boast of the creation, there will be cast out in the face of the sun a bloated, putrid, noisome carcass, full of stench, and poison, an offence, a horror, a lesson to the world. prerogative of the crown and privilege of parliament. it is the undoubted prerogative of the crown to dissolve parliament; but we beg leave to lay before his majesty, that it is, of all the trusts vested in his majesty, the most critical and delicate, and that in which this house has the most reason to require, not only the good faith, but the favour of the crown. his commons are not always upon a par with his ministers in an application to popular judgment: it is not in the power of the members of this house to go to their election at the moment the most favourable to them. it is in the power of the crown to choose a time for their dissolution whilst great and arduous matters of state and legislation are depending, which may be easily misunderstood, and which cannot be fully explained before that misunderstanding may prove fatal to the honour that belongs, and to the consideration that is due, to members of parliament. with his majesty is the gift of all the rewards, the honours, distinctions, favour, and graces of the state; with his majesty is the mitigation of all the rigours of the law: and we rejoice to see the crown possessed of trusts calculated to obtain goodwill, and charged with duties which are popular and pleasing. our trusts are of a different kind. our duties are harsh and invidious in their nature; and justice and safety is all we can expect in the exercise of them. we are to offer salutary, which is not always pleasing, counsel; we are to inquire and to accuse: and the objects of our inquiry and charge will be for the most part persons of wealth, power, and extensive connections: we are to make rigid laws for the preservation of revenue, which of necessity more or less confine some action, or restrain some function, which before was free: what is the most critical and invidious of all, the whole body of the public impositions originate from us, and the hand of the house of commons is seen and felt in every burthen that presses on the people. whilst, ultimately, we are serving them, and in the first instance whilst we are serving his majesty, it will be hard, indeed, if we should see a house of commons the victim of its zeal and fidelity, sacrificed by his ministers to those very popular discontents, which shall be excited by our dutiful endeavours for the security and greatness of his throne. no other consequence can result from such an example, but that, in future, the house of commons, consulting its safety at the expense of its duties, and suffering the whole energy of the state to be relaxed, will shrink from every service, which, however necessary, is of a great and arduous nature; or that, willing to provide for the public necessities, and, at the same time, to secure the means of performing that task, they will exchange independence for protection, and will court a subservient existence through the favour of those ministers of state, or those secret advisers, who ought themselves to stand in awe of the commons of this realm. a house of commons respected by his ministers is essential to his majesty's service: it is fit that they should yield to parliament, and not that parliament should be new modelled until it is fitted to their purposes. if our authority is only to be held up when we coincide in opinion with his majesty's advisers, but is to be set at nought the moment it differs from them, the house of commons will sink into a mere appendage of administration; and will lose that independent character which, inseparably connecting the honour and reputation with the acts of this house, enables us to afford a real, effective, and substantial support to his government. it is the deference shown to our opinion when we dissent from the servants of the crown, which alone can give authority to the proceedings of this house when it concurs with their measures. that authority once lost, the credit of his majesty's crown will be impaired in the eyes of all nations. foreign powers, who may yet wish to revive a friendly intercourse with this nation, will look in vain for that hold which gave a connection with great britain the preference to an alliance with any other state. a house of commons, of which ministers were known to stand in awe, where everything was necessarily discussed, on principles fit to be openly and publicly avowed, and which could not be retracted or varied without danger, furnished a ground of confidence in the public faith, which the engagement of no state dependent on the fluctuation of personal favour, and private advice, can ever pretend to. if faith with the house of commons, the grand security for the national faith itself, can be broken with impunity, a wound is given to the political importance of great britain, which will not easily be healed. burke and fox. his confidence in mr. fox was such, and so ample, as to be almost implicit. that he was not ashamed to avow that degree of docility. that when the choice is well made, it strengthens instead of oppressing our intellect. that he who calls in the aid of an equal understanding doubles his own. he who profits of a superior understanding raises his powers to a level with the height of the superior understanding he unites with. he had found the benefit of such a junction, and would not lightly depart from it. he wished almost, on all occasions, that his sentiments were understood to be conveyed in mr. fox's words; and he wished, as amongst the greatest benefits he could wish the country, an eminent share of power to that right honourable gentleman; because he knew, that, to his great and masterly understanding, he had joined the greatest possible degree of that natural moderation, which is the best corrective of power; that he was of the most artless, candid, open, and benevolent disposition; disinterested in the extreme; of a temper mild and placable even to a fault; without one drop of gall in his whole constitution. peers and commons. the commons have the deepest interest in the purity and integrity of the peerage. the peers dispose of all the property in the kingdom, in the last resort; and they dispose of it on their honour and not on their oaths, as all the members of every other tribunal in the kingdom must do; though in them the proceeding is not conclusive. we have, therefore, a right to demand that no application shall be made to peers of such a nature as may give room to call in question, much less to attaint, our sole security for all that we possess. this corrupt proceeding appeared to the house of commons, who are the natural guardians of the purity of parliament, and of the purity of every branch of judicature, a most reprehensible and dangerous practice, tending to shake the very foundation of the authority of the house of peers: and they branded it as such by their resolution. natural self-destruction. the french had shown themselves the ablest architects of ruin that had hitherto existed in the world. in that very short space of time they had completely pulled down to the ground their monarchy, their church, their nobility, their law, their revenue, their army, their navy, their commerce, their arts, and their manufactures. they had done their business for us as rivals, in a way in which twenty ramilies or blenheims could never have done it. were we absolute conquerors, and france to lie prostrate at our feet, we should be ashamed to send a commission to settle their affairs which could impose so hard a law upon the french, and so destructive of all their consequence as a nation, as that they had imposed on themselves. the carnatic. the carnatic is a country not much inferior in extent to england. figure to yourself, mr. speaker, the land in whose representative chair you sit; figure to yourself the form and fashion of your sweet and cheerful country from thames to trent, north and south, and from the irish to the german sea east and west, emptied and embowelled (may god avert the omen of our crimes!) by so accomplished a desolation. extend your imagination a little further, and then suppose your ministers taking a survey of this scene of waste and desolation; what would be your thoughts if you should be informed, that they were computing how much had been the amount of the excises, how much the customs, how much the land and malt-tax, in order that they should charge (take it in the most favourable light) for public service, upon the relics of the satiated vengeance of relentless enemies, the whole of what england had yielded in the most exuberant seasons of peace and abundance? what would you call it? to call it tyranny sublimed into madness, would be too faint an image; yet this very madness is the principle upon which the ministers at your right hand have proceeded in their estimate of the revenues of the carnatic, when they were providing, not supply for the establishments of its protection, but, rewards for the authors of its ruin. every day you are fatigued and disgusted with this cant, "the carnatic is a country that will soon recover, and become instantly as prosperous as ever." they think they are talking to innocents, who will believe that, by sowing of dragons' teeth, men may come up ready grown and ready armed. they who will give themselves the trouble of considering (for it requires no great reach of thought, no very profound knowledge) the manner in which mankind are increased, and countries cultivated, will regard all this raving as it ought to be regarded. in order that the people, after a long period of vexation and plunder, may be in a condition to maintain government, government must begin by maintaining them. here the road to economy lies not through receipt, but through expense; and in that country nature has given no short cut to your object. men must propagate like other animals, by the mouth. never did oppression light the nuptial torch; never did extortion and usury spread out the genial bed. does any one of you think that england, so wasted, would, under such a nursing attendance, so rapidly and cheaply recover? but he is meanly acquainted with either england or india, who does not know that england would a thousand times sooner resume population, fertility, and what ought to be the ultimate secretion from both--revenue, than such a country as the carnatic. the carnatic is not by the bounty of nature a fertile soil. the general size of its cattle is proof enough that it is much otherwise. it is some days since i moved, that a curious and interesting map, kept in the india house, should be laid before you. the india house is not yet in readiness to send it; i have therefore brought down my own copy, and there it lies for the use of any gentleman who may think such a matter worthy of his attention. it is indeed a noble map, and of noble things; but it is decisive against the golden dreams and sanguine speculations of avarice run mad. in addition to what you know must be the case in every part of the world (the necessity of a previous provision of habitation, seed, stock, capital), that map will show you, that the uses of the influences of heaven itself are in that country a work of art. the carnatic is refreshed by few or no living brooks or running streams, and it has rain only at a season; but its product of rice exacts the use of water subject to perpetual command. this is the national bank of the carnatic, on which it must have a perpetual credit, or it perishes irretrievably. for that reason, in the happier times of india, a number, almost incredible, of reservoirs have been made in chosen places throughout the whole country; they are formed for the greater part of mounds of earth and stones, with sluices of solid masonry; the whole constructed with admirable skill and labour, and maintained at a mighty charge. in the territory contained in that map alone, i have been at the trouble of reckoning the reservoirs, and they amount to upwards of eleven hundred, from the extent of two or three acres to five miles in circuit. from these reservoirs currents are occasionally drawn over the fields, and these watercourses again call for a considerable expense to keep them properly scoured and duly leveled. taking the district in that map as a measure, there cannot be in the carnatic and tanjore fewer than ten thousand of these reservoirs of the larger and middling dimensions, to say nothing of those for domestic services, and the uses of religious purification. these are not the enterprises of your power, nor in a style of magnificence suited to the taste of your minister. these are the monuments of real kings, who were the fathers of their people; testators to a posterity which they embraced as their own. these were the grand sepulchres built by ambition; but by the ambition of an insatiable benevolence, which, not contented with reigning in the dispensation of happiness during the contracted term of human life, had strained, with all the reachings and graspings of a vivacious mind, to extend the dominion of their bounty beyond the limits of nature, and to perpetuate themselves through generations of generations, the guardians, the protectors, the nourishers of mankind. abstract theory of human liberty. i love a manly, moral, regulated liberty as well as any gentleman of that society, be he who he will: and perhaps i have given as good proofs of my attachment to that cause in the whole course of my public conduct. i think i envy liberty as little as they do, to any other nation. but i cannot stand forward, and give praise or blame to anything which relates to human actions, and human concerns, on a simple view of the object, as it stands stripped of every relation, in all the nakedness and solitude of metaphysical abstraction. circumstances (which with some gentlemen pass for nothing) give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing colour and discriminating effect. the circumstances are what render every civil and political scheme beneficial or noxious to mankind. abstractedly speaking, government, as well as liberty, is good; yet could i, in common sense, ten years ago, have felicitated france on her enjoyment of a government (for she then had a government) without inquiry what the nature of that government was, or how it was administered? can i now congratulate the same nation upon its freedom? is it because liberty in the abstract may be classed amongst the blessings of mankind that i am seriously to felicitate a madman, who has escaped from the protecting restraint and wholesome darkness of his cell, on his restoration to the enjoyment of light and liberty? am i to congratulate a highwayman and murderer, who has broken prison, upon the recovery of his natural rights? this would be to act over again the scene of the criminals condemned to the galleys, and their heroic deliverer, the metaphysic knight of the sorrowful countenance. when i see the spirit of liberty in action, i see a strong principle at work; and this, for a while, is all i can possibly know of it. the wild gas, the fixed air, is plainly broke loose: but we ought to suspend our judgment until the first effervescence is a little subsided, till the liquor is cleared, and until we see something deeper than the agitation of a troubled and frothy surface. i must be tolerably sure, before i venture publicly to congratulate men upon a blessing, that they have really received one. flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver; and adulation is not of more service to the people than to kings. i should therefore suspend my congratulations on the new liberty of france, until i was informed how it had been combined with government; with public force; with the discipline and obedience of armies; with the collection of an effective and well-distributed revenue; with morality and religion; with solidity and property; with peace and order; with civil and social manners. all these (in their way) are good things too; and, without them, liberty is not a benefit whilst it lasts, and is not likely to continue long. the effect of liberty to individuals, is, that they may do what they please: we ought to see what it will please them to do before we risk congratulations, which may be soon turned into complaints. prudence would dictate this in the case of separate, insulated, private men; but liberty, when men act in bodies, is power. considerate people, before they declare themselves, will observe the use which is made of power; and particularly of so trying a thing as new power in new persons, of whose principles, tempers, and dispositions, they have little or no experience, and in situations where those who appear the most stirring in the scene may possibly not be the real movers. politics and the pulpit. supposing, however, that something like moderation were visible in this political sermon; yet politics and the pulpit are terms that have little agreement. no sound ought to be heard in the church but the healing voice of christian charity. the cause of civil liberty and civil government gains as little as that of religion by this confusion of duties. those who quit their proper character to assume what does not belong to them, are, for the greater part, ignorant both of the character they leave, and of the character they assume. wholly unacquainted with the world in which they are so fond of meddling, and inexperienced in all its affairs, on which they pronounce with so much confidence, they have nothing of politics but the passions they excite. surely the church is a place where one day's truce ought to be allowed to the dissensions and animosities of mankind. idea of french revolution. it appears to me as if i were in a great crisis, not of the affairs of france alone, but of all europe, perhaps of more than europe. all circumstances taken together, the french revolution is the most astonishing that has hitherto happened in the world. the most wonderful things are brought about in many instances by means the most absurd and ridiculous; in the most ridiculous modes; and, apparently, by the most contemptible instruments. everything seems out of nature in this strange chaos of levity and ferocity, and of all sorts of crimes jumbled together with all sorts of follies. in viewing this monstrous tragi-comic scene, the most opposite passions necessarily succeed, and sometimes mix with each other in the mind; alternate contempt and indignation; alternate laughter and tears; alternate scorn and horror. patriotic distinction. i certainly have the honour to belong to more clubs than one in which the constitution of this kingdom and the principles of the glorious revolution are held in high reverence; and i reckon myself among the most forward in my zeal for maintaining that constitution and those principles in their utmost purity and vigour. it is because i do so that i think it necessary for me that there should be no mistake. those who cultivate the memory of our revolution, and those who are attached to the constitution of this kingdom, will take good care how they are involved with persons, who, under the pretext of zeal towards the revolution and constitution, too frequently wander from their true principles; and are ready on every occasion to depart from the firm but cautious and deliberate spirit which produced the one, and which presides in the other. kingly power not based on popular choice. according to this spiritual doctor of politics, if his majesty does not owe his crown to the choice of his people, he is no lawful king. now nothing can be more untrue than that the crown of this kingdom is so held by his majesty. therefore, if you follow their rule, the king of great britain, who most certainly does not owe his high office to any form of popular election, is in no respect better than the rest of the gang of usurpers, who reign, or rather rob, all over the face of this our miserable world, without any sort of right or title to the allegiance of their people. the policy of this general doctrine, so qualified, is evident enough. the propagators of this political gospel are in hopes that their abstract principle (their principle that a popular choice is necessary to the legal existence of the sovereign magistracy) would be overlooked, whilst the king of great britain was not affected by it. in the mean time the ears of their congregations would be gradually habituated to it, as if it were a first principle admitted without dispute. for the present it would only operate as a theory, pickled in the preserving juices of pulpit eloquence, and laid by for future use. condo et compono quae mox depromere possim. by this policy, whilst our government is soothed with a reservation in its favour to which it has no claim, the security, which it has in common with all governments, so far as opinion is security, is taken away. thus these politicians proceed, whilst little notice is taken of their doctrines; but when they come to be examined upon the plain meaning of their words, and the direct tendency of their doctrines, then equivocations and slippery construction come into play. when they say the king owes his crown to the choice of his people, and is, therefore, the only lawful sovereign in the world, they will perhaps tell us they mean to say no more than that some of the king's predecessors have been called to the throne by some sort of choice; and therefore he owes his crown to the choice of his people. thus, by a miserable subterfuge, they hope to render their proposition safe by rendering it nugatory. they are welcome to the asylum they seek for their offence, since they take refuge in their folly. for, if you admit this interpretation, how does their idea of election differ from our idea of inheritance? and how does the settlement of the crown in the brunswick line derived from james i. come to legalize our monarchy, rather than that of any of the neighbouring countries? at some time or other, to be sure, all the beginners of dynasties were chosen by those who called them to govern. there is ground enough for the opinion that all the kingdoms of europe were, at a remote period, elective, with more or fewer limitations in the objects of choice. but whatever kings might have been here or elsewhere a thousand years ago, or in whatever manner the ruling dynasties of england or france may have begun, the king of great britain is, at this day, king by a fixed rule of succession, according to the laws of his country; and whilst the legal conditions of the compact of sovereignty are performed by him (as they are performed), he holds his crown in contempt of the choice of the revolution society, who have not a single vote for a king amongst them, either individually or collectively; though i make no doubt they would soon erect themselves into an electoral college, if things were ripe to give effect to their claim. his majesty's heirs and successors, each in his time and order, will come to the crown with the same contempt of their choice with which his majesty has succeeded to that he wears. whatever may be the success of evasion in explaining away the gross error of fact, which supposes that his majesty (though he holds it in concurrence with the wishes) owes his crown to the choice of his people, yet nothing can evade their full explicit declaration concerning the principle of a right in the people to choose; which right is directly maintained, and tenaciously adhered to. all the oblique insinuations concerning election bottom in this proposition, and are referable to it. lest the foundation of the king's exclusive legal title should pass for a mere rant of adulatory freedom, the political divine proceeds dogmatically to assert, that, by the principles of the revolution, the people of england have acquired three fundamental rights, all of which, with him, compose one system, and lie together in one short sentence; namely, that we have acquired a right, . "to choose our own governors." . "to cashier them for misconduct." . "to frame a government for ourselves." this new, and hitherto unheard of, bill of rights, though made in the name of the whole people, belongs to those gentlemen and their faction only. the body of the people of england have no share in it. they utterly disclaim it. they will resist the practical assertion of it with their lives and fortunes. they are bound to do so by the laws of their country, made at the time of that very revolution which is appealed to in favour of the fictitious rights claimed by the society which abuses its name. preaching democracy of dissent. if the noble seekers should find nothing to satisfy their pious fancies in the old staple of the national church, or in all the rich variety to be found in the well-assorted warehouses of the dissenting congregations, dr. price advises them to improve upon non-conformity; and to set up, each of them, a separate meeting-house upon his own particular principles. it is somewhat remarkable that this reverend divine should be so earnest for setting up new churches, and so perfectly indifferent concerning the doctrine which may be taught in them. his zeal is of a curious character. it is not for the propagation of his own opinions, but of any opinions. it is not for the diffusion of truth, but for the spreading of contradiction. let the noble teachers but dissent, it is no matter from whom or from what. this great point once secured, it is taken for granted their religion will be rational and manly. i doubt whether religion would reap all the benefits which the calculating divine computes from this "great company of great preachers." it would certainly be a valuable addition of nondescripts to the ample collection of known classes, genera and species, which at present beautify the hortus siccus of dissent. a sermon from a noble duke, or a noble marquis, or a noble earl, or baron bold, would certainly increase and diversify the amusements of this town, which begins to grow satiated with the uniform round of its vapid dissipations. i should only stipulate that these new mess-johns in robes and coronets should keep some sort of bounds in the democratic and levelling principles which are expected from their titled pulpits. the new evangelists will, i dare say, disappoint the hopes that are conceived of them. they will not become, literally as well as figuratively, polemic divines, nor be disposed so to drill their congregations, that they may, as in former blessed times, preach their doctrines to regiments of dragoons and corps of infantry and artillery. such arrangements, however favourable to the cause of compulsory freedom, civil and religious, may not be equally conducive to the national tranquillity. these few restrictions i hope are no great stretches of intolerance, no very violent exertions of despotism. jargon of republicanism. dr. price, in this sermon, condemns very properly the practice of gross, adulatory addresses to kings. instead of this fulsome style, he proposes that his majesty should be told, on occasions of congratulation, that "he is to consider himself as more properly the servant than the sovereign of his people." for a compliment, this new form of address does not seem to be very soothing. those who are servants in name, as well as in effect, do not like to be told of their situation, their duty and their obligations. the slave, in the old play, tells his master, "haec commemoratio est quasi exprobatio." it is not pleasant as compliment; it is not wholesome as instruction. after all, if the king were to bring himself to echo this new kind of address, to adopt it in terms, and even to take the appellation of servant of the people as his royal style, how either he or we should be much mended by it, i cannot imagine. i have seen very assuming letters, signed, your most obedient, humble servant. the proudest denomination that ever was endured on earth took a title of still greater humility than that which is now proposed for sovereigns by the apostle of liberty. kings and nations were trampled upon by the foot of one calling himself "the servant of servants;" and mandates for deposing sovereigns were sealed with the signet of "the fisherman." i should have considered all this as no more than a sort of flippant, vain discourse, in which, as in an unsavoury fume, several persons suffer the spirit of liberty to evaporate, if it were not plainly in support of the idea, and a part of the scheme, of "cashiering kings for misconduct." in that light it is worth some observation. kings, in one sense, are undoubtedly the servants of the people, because their power has no other rational end than that of the general advantage; but it is not true that they are, in the ordinary sense (by our constitution at least), anything like servants; the essence of whose situation is to obey the commands of some other, and to be removable at pleasure. but the king of great britain obeys no other person; all other persons are individually, and collectively too, under him, and owe to him a legal obedience. the law, which knows neither to flatter nor to insult, calls this high magistrate, not our servant, as this humble divine calls him, but "our sovereign lord the king;" and we, on our parts, have learned to speak only the primitive language of the law, and not the confused jargon of their babylonian pulpits. conservative progress of inherited freedom. the policy appears to me to be the result of profound reflection; or rather the happy effect of following nature, which is wisdom without reflection, and above it. a spirit of innovation is generally the result of a selfish temper, and confined views. people will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors. besides, the people of england well know that the idea of inheritance furnishes a sure principle of conservation, and a sure principle of transmission, without at all excluding a principle of improvement. it leaves acquisition free; but it secures what it acquires. whatever advantages are obtained by a state proceeding on these maxims, are locked fast as in a sort of family settlement; grasped as in a kind of mortmain for ever. by a constitutional policy working after the pattern of nature, we receive, we hold, we transmit our government and our privileges, in the same manner in which we enjoy and transmit our property and our lives. the institutions of policy, the goods of fortune, the gifts of providence, are handed down to us, and from us, in the same course and order. our political system is placed in a just correspondence and symmetry with the order of the world, and with the mode of existence decreed to a permanent body composed of transitory parts; wherein, by the disposition of a stupendous wisdom, moulding together the great mysterious incorporation of the human race, the whole, at one time, is never old, or middle-aged, or young, but, in a condition of unchangeable constancy, moves on through the varied tenour of perpetual decay, fall, renovation, and progression. thus, by preserving the method of nature in the conduct of the state, in what we improve, we are never wholly new; in what we retain, we are never wholly obsolete. by adhering in this manner and on those principles to our forefathers, we are guided not by the superstition of antiquarians, but by the spirit of philosophic analogy. in this choice of inheritance we have given to our frame of polity the image of a relation in blood; binding up the constitution of our country with our dearest domestic ties; adopting our fundamental laws into the bosom of our family affections; keeping inseparable, and cherishing with the warmth of all their combined and mutually reflected charities, our state, our hearths, our sepulchres, and our altars. through the same plan of a conformity to nature in our artificial institutions, and by calling in the aid of her unerring and powerful instincts to fortify the fallible and feeble contrivances of our reason, we have derived several other, and those no small benefits, from considering our liberties in the light of an inheritance. always acting as if in the presence of canonized forefathers, the spirit of freedom, leading in itself to misrule and excess, is tempered with an awful gravity. this idea of a liberal descent inspires us with a sense of habitual native dignity, which prevents that upstart insolence almost inevitably adhering to and disgracing those who are the first acquirers of any distinction. by this means our liberty becomes a noble freedom. it carries an imposing and majestic aspect. it has a pedigree and illustrating ancestors. it has its bearings and its ensigns armorial. it has its gallery of portraits; its monumental inscriptions; its records, evidences, and titles. we procure reverence to our civil institutions on the principle upon which nature teaches us to revere individual men; on account of their age, and on account of those from whom they are descended. all your sophisters cannot produce anything better adapted to preserve a rational and manly freedom than the course that we have pursued, who have chosen our nature rather than our speculations, our breasts rather than our inventions, for the great conservatories and magazines of our rights and privileges. conservation and correction. a state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation. without such means it might even risk the loss of that part of the constitution which it wished the most religiously to preserve. the two principles of conservation and correction operated strongly at the two critical periods of the restoration and revolution, when england found itself without a king. at both those periods the nation had lost the bond of union in their ancient edifice; they did not, however, dissolve the whole fabric. on the contrary, in both cases they regenerated the deficient part of the old constitution through the parts which were not impaired. they kept these old parts exactly as they were, that the part recovered might be suited to them. they acted by the ancient organized states in the shape of their old organization, and not by the organic moleculae of a disbanded people. at no time, perhaps, did the sovereign legislature manifest a more tender regard to that fundamental principle of british constitutional policy than at the time of the revolution, when it deviated from the direct line of hereditary succession. the crown was carried somewhat out of the line in which it had before moved; but the new line was derived from the same stock. it was still a line of hereditary descent; still an hereditary descent in the same blood, though an hereditary descent qualified with protestantism. when the legislature altered the direction, but kept the principle, they showed that they held it inviolable. hereditary succession of english crown. unquestionably there was at the revolution, in the person of king william, a small and a temporary deviation from the strict order of a regular hereditary succession; but it is against all genuine principles of jurisprudence to draw a principle from a law made in a special case, and regarding an individual person. privilegium non transit in exemplum. if ever there was a time favourable for establishing the principle, that a king of popular choice was the only legal king, without all doubt it was at the revolution. its not being done at that time is a proof that the nation was of opinion it ought not to be done at any time. there is no person so completely ignorant of our history as not to know that the majority in parliament of both parties were so little disposed to anything resembling that principle, that at first they were determined to place the vacant crown, not on the head of the prince of orange, but on that of his wife mary, daughter of king james, the eldest born of the issue of that king, which they acknowledged as undoubtedly his. it would be to repeat a very trite story, to recall to your memory all those circumstances which demonstrated that their accepting king william was not properly a choice; but to all those who did not wish, in effect, to recall king james, or to deluge their country in blood, and again to bring their religion, laws, and liberties into the peril they had just escaped, it was an act of necessity, in the strictest moral sense in which necessity can be taken. so far is it from being true, that we acquired a right by the revolution to elect our kings, that if we had possessed it before, the english nation did at that time most solemnly renounce and abdicate it, for themselves, and for all their posterity for ever. these gentlemen may value themselves as much as they please on their whig principles; but i never desire to be thought a better whig than lord somers; or to understand the principles of the revolution better than those by whom it was brought about; or to read in the declaration of right any mysteries unknown to those whose penetrating style has engraved in our ordinances, and in our hearts, the words and spirit of that immortal law. it is true that, aided with the powers derived from force and opportunity, the nation was at that time, in some sense, free to take what course it pleased for filling the throne; but only free to do so upon the same grounds on which they might have wholly abolished their monarchy, and every other part of their constitution. however, they did not think such bold changes within their commission. it is indeed difficult, perhaps impossible, to give limits to the mere abstract competence of the supreme power, such as was exercised by parliament at that time; but the limits of a moral competence, subjecting, even in powers more indisputably sovereign, occasional will to permanent reason, and to the steady maxims of faith, justice, and fixed fundamental policy, are perfectly intelligible, and perfectly binding upon those who exercise any authority, under any name, or under any title, in the state. the house of lords, for instance, is not morally competent to dissolve the house of commons; no, nor even to dissolve itself, nor to abdicate, if it would, its portion in the legislature of the kingdom. though a king may abdicate for his own person, he cannot abdicate for the monarchy. by as strong, or by a stronger reason, the house of commons cannot renounce its share of authority. the engagement and pact of society, which generally goes by the name of the constitution, forbids such invasion and such surrender. the constituent parts of a state are obliged to hold their public faith with each other, and with all those who derive any serious interest under their engagements, as much as the whole state is bound to keep its faith with separate communities. otherwise competence and power would soon be confounded, and no law be left but the will of a prevailing force. on this principle the succession of the crown has always been what it now is, an hereditary succession by law: in the old line it was a succession by the common law; in the new by the statute law, operating on the principles of the common law, not changing the substance, but regulating the mode and describing the persons. both these descriptions of law are of the same force, and are derived from an equal authority, emanating from the common agreement and original compact of the state, communi sponsione reipublicae, and as such are equally binding on king people too, as long as the terms are observed, and they continue the same body politic. limits of legislative capacity. if we were to know nothing of this assembly but by its title and function, no colours could paint to the imagination anything more venerable. in that light the mind of an inquirer, subdued by such an awful image as that of the virtue and wisdom of a whole people collected into one focus, would pause and hesitate in condemning things even of the very worst aspect. instead of blameable, they would appear only mysterious. but no name, no power, no function, no artificial institution whatsoever, can make the men of whom any system of authority is composed, any other than god, and nature, and education, and their habits of life have made them. capacities beyond these the people have not to give. virtue and wisdom may be the objects of their choice; but their choice confers neither the one nor the other on those upon whom they lay their ordaining hands. they have not the engagement of nature, they have not the promise of revelation, for any such power. our constitution, not fabricated, but inherited. the revolution was made to preserve our ancient, indisputable laws and liberties, and that ancient constitution of government which is our only security for law and liberty. if you are desirous of knowing the spirit of our constitution, and the policy which predominated in that great period which has secured it to this hour, pray look for both in our histories, in our records, in our acts of parliament, and journals of parliament, and not in the sermons of the old jewry, and the after-dinner toasts of the revolution society. in the former you will find other ideas and another language. such a claim is as ill suited to our temper and wishes as it is unsupported by any appearance of authority. the very idea of the fabrication of a new government is enough to fill us with disgust and horror. we wished at the period of the revolution, and do now wish, to derive all we possess as an inheritance from our forefathers. upon that body and stock of inheritance, we have taken care not to inoculate any scion alien to the nature of the original plant. all the reformations we have hitherto made have proceeded upon the principle of reverence to antiquity; and i hope, nay, i am persuaded, that all those which possibly may be made hereafter, will be carefully formed upon analogical precedent, authority, and example. our oldest reformation is that of magna charta. you will see that sir edward coke, that great oracle of our law, and indeed all the great men who follow him, to blackstone, are industrious to prove the pedigree of our liberties. they endeavour to prove, that the ancient charter, the magna charta of king john, was connected with another positive charter from henry i., and that both the one and the other were nothing more than a re-affirmance of the still more ancient standing law of the kingdom. in the matter of fact, for the greater part, these authors appear to be in the right; perhaps not always; but if the lawyers mistake in some particulars, it proves my position still the more strongly, because it demonstrates the powerful prepossession towards antiquity, with much the minds of all our lawyers and legislators, and of all the people whom they wish to influence, have been always filled; and the stationary policy of this kingdom in considering their most sacred rights and franchises as an inheritance. in the famous law of the rd of charles i., called the petition of right, the parliament says to the king, "your subjects have inherited this freedom," claiming their franchises not on abstract principles "as the rights of men," but as the rights of englishmen, and as a patrimony derived from their forefathers. selden, and the other profoundly learned men, who drew this petition of right, were as well acquainted, at least, with all the general theories concerning the "rights of men," as any of the discoursers in our pulpits, or on your tribune; full as well as dr. price, or as the abbe sieyes. but, for reasons worthy of that practical wisdom which superseded their theoretic science, they preferred this positive, recorded, hereditary title to all which can be dear to the man and the citizen, to that vague speculative right, which exposed their sure inheritance to be scrambled for and torn to pieces by every wild, litigious spirit. the same policy pervades all the laws which have since been made for the preservation of our liberties. in the st of william and mary, in the famous statute called the declaration of right, the two houses utter not a syllable of "a right to frame a government for themselves." you will see, that their whole care was to secure the religion, laws, and liberties, that had been long possessed, and had been lately endangered. "taking into their most serious consideration the best means for making such an establishment that their religion, laws, and liberties, might not be in danger of being again subverted," they auspicate all their proceedings, by stating as some of those best means, "in the first place" to do "as their ancestors in like cases have usually done for vindicating their ancient rights and liberties, to declare;"--and then they pray the king and queen, "that it may be declared and enacted, that all and singular the rights and liberties asserted and declared, are the true ancient and indubitable rights and liberties of the people of this kingdom." you will observe, that from magna charta to the declaration of right, it has been the uniform policy of our constitution to claim and assert our liberties, as an entailed inheritance derived to us from our forefathers, and to be transmitted to our posterity, as an estate specially belonging to the people of this kingdom, without any reference whatever to any other more general or prior right. by this means our constitution preserves a unity in so great a diversity of its parts. we have an inheritable crown; an inheritable peerage; and a house of commons and a people inheriting privileges, franchises, and liberties, from a long line of ancestors. low aims and low instruments. when men of rank sacrifice all ideas of dignity to an ambition without a distinct object, and work with low instruments and for low ends, the whole composition becomes low and base. does not something like this now appear in france? does it not produce something ignoble and inglorious? a kind of meanness in all the prevalent policy? a tendency in all that is done to lower along with individuals all the dignity and importance of the state? other revolutions have been conducted by persons, who, whilst they attempted or affected changes in the commonwealth, sanctified their ambition by advancing the dignity of the people whose peace they troubled. they had long views. they aimed at the rule, not at the destruction, of their country. they were men of great civil and great military talents, and if the terror, the ornament of their age. they were not like jew brokers, contending with each other who could best remedy with fraudulent circulation and depreciated paper the wretchedness and ruin brought on their country by their degenerate councils. the compliment made to one of the great bad men of the old stamp (cromwell) by his kinsman, a favourite poet of that time, shows what it was he proposed, and what indeed to a great degree he accomplished, in the success of his ambition:-- "still as you rise, the state exalted too, finds no distemper whilst 'tis changed by you: changed like the world's great scene, when without noise the rising sun night's vulgar lights destroys." these disturbers were not so much like men usurping power, as asserting their natural place in society. their rising was to illuminate and beautify the world. their conquest over their competitors was by outshining them. the hand that, like a destroying angel, smote the country, communicated to it the force and energy under which it suffered. i do not say (god forbid), i do not say, that the virtues of such men were to be taken as a balance to their crimes: but they were some corrective to their effects. such was, as i said, our cromwell. such were your whole race of guises, condes, and colignis. such the richelieus, who in more quite times acted in the spirit of a civil war. such, as better men, and in a less dubious cause, were your henry the fourth and your sully, though nursed in civil confusions, and not wholly without some of their taint. it is a thing to be wondered at, to see how very soon france, when she had a moment to respire, recovered and emerged from the longest and most dreadful civil war that ever was known in any nation. why? because among all their massacres, they had not slain the mind in their country. a conscious dignity, a noble pride, a generous sense of glory and emulation, was not extinguished. on the contrary, it was kindled and enflamed. the organs also of the state, however shattered, existed. all the prizes of honour and virtue, all the rewards, all the distinctions, remained. but your present confusion, like a palsy, has attacked the fountain of life itself. every person in your country, in a situation to be actuated by a principle of honour, is disgraced and degraded, and can entertain no sensation of life, except in a mortified and humiliated indignation. but this generation will quickly pass away. the next generation of the nobility will resemble the artificers and clowns, and money-jobbers, usurers, and jews, who will be always their fellows, sometimes their masters. believe me, sir, those who attempt to level, never equalise. in all societies, consisting of various descriptions of citizens, some description must be uppermost. the levellers therefore only change and pervert the natural order of things; they load the edifice of society, by setting up in the air what the solidity of the structure requires to be on the ground. the associations of tailors and carpenters, of which the republic (of paris, for instance), is composed, cannot be equal to the situation into which, by the worst of usurpations, a usurpation on the prerogatives of nature, you attempt to force them. the chancellor of france, at the opening of the states, said, in a tone of oratorical flourish, that all occupations were honourable. if he meant only, that no honest employment was disgraceful, he would not have gone beyond the truth. but in asserting that anything is honourable, we imply some distinction in its favour. the occupation of a hair-dresser, or of a working tallow-chandler, cannot be a matter of honour to any person--to say nothing of a number of other more servile employments. such descriptions of men ought not to suffer oppression from the state; but the state suffers oppression, if such as they, either individually or collectively, are permitted to rule. in this you think you are combating prejudice, but you are at war with nature. house of commons contrasted with national assembly. the british house of commons, without shutting its doors to any merit in any class, is, by the sure operation of adequate causes, filled with everything illustrious in rank, in descent, in hereditary and in acquired opulence, in cultivated talents, in military, civil, naval, and politic distinction, that the country can afford. but supposing, what hardly can be supposed as a case, that the house of commons should be composed in the same manner with the tiers-etat in france, would this dominion of chicane be borne with patience, or even conceived without horror? god forbid i should insinuate anything derogatory to that profession, which is another priesthood, administering the rights of sacred justice. but whilst i revere men in the functions which belong to them, and would do as much as one man can do to prevent their exclusion from any, i cannot, to flatter them, give the lie to nature. they are good and useful in the composition; they must be mischievous if they preponderate so as virtually to become the whole. their very excellence in their peculiar functions may be far from a qualification for others. it cannot escape observation, that when men are too much confined to professional and faculty habits, and as it were inveterate in the recurrent employment of that narrow circle, they are rather disabled than qualified for whatever depends on the knowledge of mankind, on experience in mixed affairs, on a comprehensive, connected view of the various, complicated, external, and internal interests, which go to the formation of that multifarious thing called a state. after all, if the house of commons were to have a wholly professional and faculty composition, what is the power of the house of commons, circumscribed and shut in by the immoveable barriers of law, usages, positive rules of doctrine and practice, counterpoised by the house of lords, and every moment of its existence at the discretion of the crown to continue, prorogue, or dissolve us? the power of the house of commons, direct or indirect, is indeed great; and long may it be able to preserve its greatness, and the spirit belonging to true greatness, at the full; and it will do so, as long as it can keep the breakers of law in india from becoming the makers of law for england. the power, however, of the house of commons, when least diminished, is as a drop of water in the ocean, compared to that residing in a settled majority of your national assembly. that assembly, since the destruction of the orders, has no fundamental law, no strict convention, no respected usage to restrain it. instead of finding themselves obliged to conform to a fixed constitution, they have a power to make a constitution which shall conform to their designs. nothing in heaven or upon earth can serve as a control on them. what ought to be the heads, the hearts, the dispositions, that are qualified, or that dare, not only to make laws under a fixed constitution, but at one heat to strike out a totally new constitution for a great kingdom, and every part of it, from the monarch on the throne to the vestry of a parish? but--"fools rush in where angels fear to tread." in such a state of unbounded power, for undefined and indefinable purposes, the evil of a moral and almost physical inaptitude of the man to the function, must be the greatest we can conceive to happen in the management of human affairs. property, more than ability, represented in parliament. nothing is a due and adequate representation of a state that does not represent its ability, as well as its property. but as ability is a vigorous and active principle, and as property is sluggish, inert, and timid, it never can be safe from the invasions of ability, unless it be, out of all proportion, predominant in the representation. it must be represented too in great masses of accumulation, or it is not rightly protected. the characteristic essence of property, formed out of the combined principles of its acquisition and conservation, is to be unequal. the great masses, therefore, which excite envy, and tempt rapacity, must be put out of the possibility of danger. then they form a natural rampart about the lesser properties in all their gradations. the same quantity of property, which is by the natural course of things divided among many, has not the same operation. its defensive power is weakened as it is diffused. in this diffusion each man's portion is less than what, in the eagerness of his desires, he may flatter himself to obtain by dissipating the accumulations of others. the plunder of the few would, indeed, give but a share inconceivably small in the distribution to the many. but the many are not capable of making this calculation; and those who lead them to rapine never intend this distribution. the power of perpetuating our property in our families is one of the most valuable and interesting circumstances belonging to it, and that which tends the most to the perpetuation of society itself. it makes our weakness subservient to our virtue; it grafts benevolence even upon avarice. the possessors of family wealth, and of the distinction which attends hereditary possession (as most concerned in it), are the natural securities for this transmission. with us the house of peers is formed upon this principle. it is wholly composed of hereditary property and hereditary distinction; and made, therefore, the third of the legislature; and, in the last event, the sole judge of all property in all its subdivisions. the house of commons, too, though not necessarily, yet in fact, is always so composed, in the far greater part. let those large proprietors be what they will, and they have their chance of being among the best, they are, at the very worst, the ballast in the vessel of the commonwealth. for though hereditary wealth, and the rank which goes with it, are too much idolized by creeping sycophants, and the blind, abject admirers of power, they are too rashly slighted in shallow speculations of the petulant, assuming, short-sighted coxcombs of philosophy. some decent, regulated pre-eminence, some preference (not exclusive appropriation) given to birth, is neither unnatural, nor unjust, nor impolitic. it is said, that twenty-four millions ought to prevail over two hundred thousand. true; if the constitution of a kingdom be a problem of arithmetic. this sort of discourse does well enough with the lamp-post for its second: to men who may reason calmly, it is ridiculous. the will of the many, and their interest, must very often differ; and great will be the difference when they make an evil choice. virtue and wisdom qualify for government. i do not, my dear sir, conceive you to be of that sophistical, captious spirit, or of that uncandid dulness, as to require, for every general observation or sentiment, an explicit detail of the correctives and exceptions which reason will presume to be included in all the general propositions which come from reasonable men. you do not imagine that i wish to confine power, authority, and distinction to blood, and names, and titles. no, sir. there is no qualification for government but virtue and wisdom, actual or presumptive. wherever they are actually found, they have, in whatever state, condition, profession, or trade, the passport of heaven to human place and honour. woe to that country which would madly and impiously reject the service of the talents and virtues, civil, military, or religious, that are given to grace and to serve it; and would condemn to obscurity everything formed to diffuse lustre and glory around a state. woe to that country, too, that, passing into the opposite extreme, considers a low education, a mean, contracted view of things, a sordid, mercenary occupation, as a preferable title to command. everything ought to be open; but not indifferently to every man. no rotation; no appointment by lot; no mode of election operating in the spirit of sortition, or rotation, can be generally good in a government conversant in extensive objects. because they have no tendency, direct or indirect, to select the man with a view to the duty, or to accommodate the one to the other. i do not hesitate to say, that the road to eminence and power, from obscure condition, ought not to be made too easy, nor a thing too much of course. if rare merit be the rarest of all rare things, in ought to pass through some sort of probation. the temple of honour ought to be seated on an eminence. if it be opened through virtue, let it be remembered, too, that virtue is never tried but by some difficulty and some struggle. natural and civil rights. far am i from denying in theory, full as far as is my heart from withholding in practice (if i were of power to give or to withhold), the real rights of men. in denying their false claims of right, i do not mean to injure those which are real, and are such as their pretended rights would totally destroy. if civil society be made for the advantage of man, all the advantages for which it is made become his right. it is an institution of beneficence; and law itself is only beneficence acting by a rule. men have a right to live by that rule; they have a right to do justice, as between their fellows, whether their fellows are in politic function, or in ordinary occupation. they have a right to the fruits of their industry, and to the means of making their industry fruitful. they have a right to the acquisitions of their parents; to the nourishment and improvement of their offspring; to instruction in life, and to consolation in death. whatever each man can separately do, without trespassing upon others, he has a right to do for himself; and he has a right to a fair portion of all which society, with all its combinations of skill and force, can do in his favour. in this partnership all men have equal rights; but not to equal things. he that has but five shillings in the partnership, has as good a right to it, as he that has five hundred pounds has to his larger proportion. but he has not a right to an equal dividend in the product of the joint-stock; and as to the share of power, authority, and direction which each individual ought to have in the management of the state, that i must deny to be amongst the direct original rights of man in civil society; for i have in my contemplation the civil social man, and no other. it is a thing to be settled by convention. if civil society be the offspring of convention, that convention must be its law. that convention must limit and modify all the descriptions of constitution which are formed under it. every sort of legislature, judicial, or executory power, are its creatures. they can have no being in any other state of things; and how can any man claim, under the conventions of civil society, rights which do not so much as suppose its existence? rights which are absolutely repugnant to it? one of the first motives to civil society, and which becomes one of its fundamental rules, is, that no man should be judge in his own cause. by this each person has at once divested himself of the first fundamental right of uncovenanted man, that is, to judge for himself, and to assert his own cause. he abdicates all right to be his own governor. he inclusively, in a great measure, abandons the right of self-defence, the first law of nature. men cannot enjoy the rights of an uncivil and of a civil state together. that he may obtain justice, he gives up his right of determining what it is in points the most essential to him. that he may secure some liberty, he makes a surrender in trust of the whole of it. government is not made in virtue of natural rights, which may and do exist in total independence of it; and exist in much greater clearness, and in a much greater degree of abstract perfection: but their abstract perfection is their practical defect. by having a right to everything they want everything. government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. men have a right that these wants should be provided for by this wisdom. among these wants is to be reckoned the want, out of civil society, of a sufficient restraint upon their passions. society requires not only that the passions of individuals should be subjected, but that even in the mass and body, as well as in the individuals, the inclinations of men should frequently be thwarted, their will controlled, and their passions brought into subjection. this can only be done by a power out of themselves, and not, in the exercise of its function, subject to that will and to those passions which it is its office to bridle and subdue. in this sense the restraints on men, as well as their liberties, are to be reckoned among their rights. but as the liberties and the restrictions vary with times and circumstances, and admit of infinite modifications, they cannot be settled upon any abstract rule; and nothing is so foolish as to discuss them upon that principle. the moment you abate anything from the full rights of men, each to govern himself, and suffer any artificial, positive limitation upon those rights, from that moment the whole organization of government becomes a consideration of convenience. this it is which makes the constitution of a state, and the due distribution of its powers, a matter of the most delicate and complicated skill. it requires a deep knowledge of human nature and human necessities, and of the things which facilitate or obstruct the various ends, which are to be pursued by the mechanism of civil institutions. the state is to have recruits to its strength, and remedies to its distempers. what is the use of discussing a man's abstract right to food or medicine? the question is upon the method of procuring and administering them. in that deliberation i shall always advise to call in the aid of the farmer and the physician, rather than the professor of metaphysics. the science of constructing a commonwealth, or renovating it, or reforming it, is, like every other experimental science, not to be taught a priori. nor is it a short experience that can instruct us in that practical science, because the real effects of moral causes are not always immediate; but that which in the first instance is prejudicial may be excellent in its remoter operation; and its excellence may arise even from the ill effects it produces in the beginning. the reverse also happens; and very plausible schemes, with very pleasing commencements, have often shameful and lamentable conclusions. in states there are often some obscure and almost latent causes, things which appear at first view of little moment, on which a very great part of its prosperity or adversity may most essentially depend. the science of government being therefore so practical in itself, and intended for such practical purposes, a matter which requires experience, and even more experience than any person can gain in his whole life, however sagacious and observing he may be, it is with infinite caution that any man ought to venture upon pulling down an edifice, which has answered in any tolerable degree for ages the common purposes of society, or on building it up again, without having models and patterns of approved utility before his eyes. these metaphysic rights entering into common life, like rays of light which pierce into a dense medium, are, by the laws of nature, refracted from their straight line. indeed in the gross and complicated mass of human passions and concerns, the primitive rights of men undergo such a variety of refractions and reflections, that it becomes absurd to talk of them as if they continued in the simplicity of their original direction. the nature of man is intricate; the objects of society are of the greatest possible complexity: and therefore no simple disposition or direction of power can be suitable either to man's nature, or to the quality of his affairs. when i hear the simplicity of contrivance aimed at and boasted of in any new political constitutions, i am at no loss to decide that the artificers are grossly ignorant of their trade, or totally negligent of their duty. the simple governments are fundamentally defective, to say no worse of them. if you were to contemplate society in but one point of view, all these simple modes of polity are infinitely captivating. in effect each would answer its single end much more perfectly than the more complex is able to attain all its complex purposes. but it is better that the whole should be imperfectly and anomalously answered, than that, while some parts are provided for with great exactness, others might be totally neglected, or perhaps materially injured, by the over-care of a favourite member. the pretended rights of these theorists are all extremes: and in proportion as they are metaphysically true, they are morally and politically false. the rights of men are in a sort of middle, incapable of definition, but not impossible to be discerned. the rights of men in governments are their advantages, and these are often in balances between differences of good; in compromises sometimes between good and evil, and sometimes between evil and evil. political reason is a computing principle, adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing, morally and not metaphysically or mathematically, true moral denominations. by these theorists the right of the people is almost always sophistically confounded with their power. the body of the community, whenever it can come to act, can meet with no effectual resistance; but till power and right are the same, the whole body of them has no right inconsistent with virtue, and the first of all virtues--prudence. marie antoinette. it is now sixteen or seventeen years since i saw the queen of france, then the dauphiness, at versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. i saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in,--glittering like the morning-star, full of life, and splendour, and joy. oh! what a revolution! and what a heart must i have, to contemplate without emotion that elevation and that fall! little did i dream when she added titles of veneration to those of enthusiastic, distant, respectful love, that she should ever be obliged to carry the sharp antidote against disgrace concealed in that bosom; little did i dream that i should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honour and of cavaliers. i thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. but the age of chivalry is gone. that of sophisters, economists, and calculators, has succeeded; and the glory of europe is extinguished for ever. never, never more shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom. the unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise, is gone! it is gone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honour, which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired courage whilst it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil, by losing all its grossness. spirit of a gentleman and the spirit of religion. how much of that prosperous state was owing to the spirit of our old manners and opinions is not easy to say; but as such causes cannot be indifferent in their operation, we must presume that, on the whole, their operation was beneficial. we are but too apt to consider things in the state in which we find them, without sufficiently adverting to the causes by which they have been produced, and possibly may be upheld. nothing is more certain, than that our manners, our civilization, and all the good things which are connected with manners and with civilization, have, in this european world of ours, depended for ages upon two principles, and were indeed the result of both combined; i mean the spirit of a gentleman and the spirit of religion. the nobility and the clergy, the one by profession, the other by patronage, kept learning in existence, even in the midst of arms and confusions, and whilst governments were rather in their causes, than formed. learning paid back what it received to nobility and to priesthood; and paid it with usury, by enlarging their ideas, and by furnishing their minds. happy if they had all continued to know their indissoluble union, and their proper place! happy if learning, not debauched by ambition, had been satisfied to continue the instructor, and not aspired to be the master! along with its natural protectors and guardians, learning will be cast into the mire, and trodden down under the hoofs of a swinish multitude. if, as i suspect, modern letters owe more than they are always willing to own to ancient manners, so do other interests which we value full as much as they are worth. even commerce, and trade, and manufacture, the gods of our economical politicians, are themselves, perhaps, but creatures; are themselves but effects, which, as first causes, we choose to worship. they certainly grew under the same shade in which learning flourished. they too may decay with their natural protecting principles. with you, for the present at least, they all threaten to disappear together. where trade and manufactures are wanting to a people, and the spirit of nobility and religion remains, sentiment supplies, and not always ill supplies, their place; but if commerce and the arts should be lost in an experiment to try how well a state may stand without these old fundamental principles, what sort of a thing must be a nation of gross, stupid, ferocious, and, at the same time, poor and sordid barbarians, destitute of religion, honour, or manly pride, possessing nothing at present, and hoping for nothing hereafter? power survives opinion. but power, of some kind or other, will survive the shock in which manners and opinions perish! and it will find other and worse means for its support. the usurpation which, in order to subvert ancient institutions, has destroyed ancient principles, will hold power by arts similar to those by which it has acquired it. when the old feudal and chivalrous spirit of fealty, which, by freeing kings from fear, freed both kings and subjects from the precaution of tyranny, shall be extinct in the minds of men, plots and assassinations will be anticipated by preventive murder and preventive confiscation, and that long roll of grim and bloody maxims, which form the political code of all power, not standing on its own honour, and the honour of those who are to obey it. kings will be tyrants from policy, when subjects are rebels from principle. chivalry a moralizing charm. this mixed system of opinion and sentiment had its origin in the ancient chivalry; and the principle, though varied in its appearance by the varying state of human affairs, subsisted and influenced through a long succession of generations, even to the time we live in. if it should ever be totally extinguished, the loss i fear will be great. it is this which has given its character to modern europe. it is this which has distinguished it under all its forms of government, and distinguished it, to its advantage, from the states of asia, and possibly from those states which flourished in the most brilliant periods of the antique world. it was this which, without confounding ranks, had produced a noble equality, and handed it down through all the gradations of social life. it was this opinion which mitigated kings into companions, and raised private men to be fellows with kings. without force or opposition, it subdued the fierceness of pride and power; it obliged sovereigns to submit to the soft collar of social esteem, compelled stern authority to submit to elegance, and gave a dominating vanquisher of laws to be subdued by manners. but now all is to be changed. all the pleasing illusions, which made power gentle, and obedience liberal, which harmonized the different shades of life, and which, by a bland assimilation, incorporated into politics the sentiments which beautify and soften private society, are to be dissolved by this new conquering empire of light and reason. all the decent drapery of life is to be rudely torn off. all the superadded ideas, furnished from the wardrobe of a moral imagination, which the heart owns and the understanding ratifies as necessary to cover the defects of our naked, shivering nature, and to raise it to dignity in our own estimation, are to be exploded as a ridiculous, absurd, and antiquated fashion. on this scheme of things, a king is but a man, a queen is but a woman; a woman is but an animal,--and an animal not of the highest order. all homage paid to the sex in general as such, and without distinct views, is to be regarded as romance and folly. regicide, and parricide, and sacrilege are but fictions of superstition, corrupting jurisprudence by destroying its simplicity. the murder of a king, or a queen, or a bishop, or a father, are only common homicide; and if the people are by any chance, or in any way, gainers by it, a sort of homicide much the most pardonable, and into which we ought not to make too severe a scrutiny. on the scheme of this barbarous philosophy, which is the offspring of cold hearts and muddy understandings, and which is as void of solid wisdom as it is destitute of all taste and elegance, laws are to be supported only by their own terrors, and by the concern which each individual may find in them from his own private speculations, or can spare to them from his own private interests. in the groves of their academy, at the end of every vista, you see nothing but the gallows. nothing is left which engages the affections on the part of the commonwealth. on the principles of this mechanic philosophy, our institutions can never be embodied, if i may use the expression, in persons, so as to create in us love, veneration, admiration, or attachment. but that sort of reason which banishes the affections is incapable of filling their place. these public affections, combined with manners, are required sometimes as supplements, sometimes as correctives, always as aids to law. the precept given by a wise man, as well as a great critic, for the construction of poems, is equally true as to states:--non satis est pulchra esse poemata, dulcia sunto. there ought to be a system of manners in every nation which a well-formed mind would be disposed to relish. to make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely. sacredness of moral instincts. why do i feel so differently from the reverend dr. price, and those of his lay flock, who will choose to adopt the sentiments of his discourse? for this plain reason--because it is natural i should; because we are so made, as to be affected at such spectacles with melancholy sentiments upon the unstable condition of mortal prosperity and the tremendous uncertainty of human greatness; because in those natural feelings we learn great lessons; because in events like these our passions instruct our reason; because when kings are hurled from their thrones by the supreme director of this great drama, and become the objects of insult to the base, and of pity to the good, we behold such disasters in the moral, as we should behold a miracle in the physical, order of things. we are alarmed into reflection; our minds (as it has long since been observed) are purified by terror and pity; our weak, unthinking pride is humbled under the dispensations of a mysterious wisdom. some tears might be drawn from me, if such a spectacle were exhibited on the stage. i should be truly ashamed of finding in myself that superficial, theatric sense of painted distress, whilst i could exult over it in real life. with such a perverted mind, i could never venture to show my face at a tragedy. people would think the tears that garrick formerly, or that siddons not long since, have extorted from me, were the tears of hypocrisy; i should know them to be the tears of folly. indeed the theatre is a better school of moral sentiments than churches, where the feelings of humanity are thus outraged. poets who have to deal with an audience not yet graduated in the school of the rights of men, and who must apply themselves to the moral constitution of the heart, would not dare to produce such a triumph as a matter of exultation. there, where men follow their natural impulses, they would not bear the odious maxims of a machiavelian policy, whether applied to the attainment of monarchical or democratic tyranny. they would reject them on the modern, as they once did on the ancient stage, where they could not bear even the hypothetical proposition of such wickedness in the mouth of a personated tyrant, though suitable to the character he sustained. no theatric audience in athens would bear what has been borne, in the midst of the real tragedy of this triumphal day; a principal actor weighing, as it were in scales hung in a shop of horrors, so much actual crime against so much contingent advantage, and after putting in and out weights, declaring that the balance was on the side of the advantages. they would not bear to see the crimes of new democracy posted as in a ledger against the crimes of old despotism, and the book-keepers of politics finding democracy still in debt, but by no means unable or unwilling to pay the balance. in the theatre, the first intuitive glance, without any elaborate process of reasoning, will show, that this method of political computation would justify every extent of crime. they would see, that on these principles, even where the very worst acts were not perpetrated, it was owing rather to the fortune of the conspirators, than to their parsimony in the expenditure of treachery and blood. they would soon see, that criminal means once tolerated are soon preferred. they present a shorter cut to the object than through the highway of the moral virtues. justifying perfidy and murder for public benefit, public benefit would soon become the pretext, and perfidy and murder the end; until rapacity, malice, revenge, and fear more dreadful than revenge, could satiate their insatiable appetites. such must be the consequences of losing, in the splendour of these triumphs of the rights of men, all natural sense of wrong and right. parental experience. had it pleased god to continue to me the hopes of succession, i should have been, according to my mediocrity, and the mediocrity of the age i live in, a sort of founder of a family: i should have left a son, who, in all the points in which personal merit can be viewed,--in science, in erudition, in genius, in taste, in honour, in generosity, in humanity, in every liberal sentiment, and every liberal accomplishment,--would not have shown himself inferior to the duke of bedford, or to any of those whom he traces in his line. his grace very soon would have wanted all plausibility in his attack upon that provision which belonged more to mine than to me. he would soon have supplied every deficiency, and symmetrized every disproportion. it would not have been for that successor to resort to any stagnant wasting reservoir of merit in me, or in any ancestry. he had in himself a salient, living spring of generous and manly action. every day he lived he would have re-purchased the bounty of the crown, and ten times more, if ten times more he had received. he was made a public creature, and had no enjoyment whatever but in the performance of some duty. at this exigent moment, the loss of a finished man is not easily supplied. but a disposer whose power we are little able to resist, and whose wisdom it behoves us not at all to dispute, has ordained it in another manner, and (whatever my querulous weakness might suggest) a far better. the storm has gone over me, and i lie like one of those old oaks which the late hurricane has scattered about me. i am stripped of all my honours, i am torn up by the roots, and lie prostrate on the earth! there, and prostrate there, i most unfeignedly recognise the divine justice, and in some degree submit to it. but whilst i humble myself before god, i do not know that it is forbidden to repel the attacks of unjust and inconsiderate men. the patience of job is proverbial. after some of the convulsive struggles of our irritable nature, he submitted himself, and repented in dust and ashes. but even so, i do not find him blamed for reprehending, and with a considerable degree of verbal asperity, those ill-natured neighbours of his, who visited his dunghill to read moral, political, and economical lectures on his misery. i am alone. i have none to meet my enemies in the gate. indeed, my lord, i greatly deceive myself, if in this hard season i would give a peck of refuse wheat for all that is called fame and honour in the world. this is the appetite but of a few. it is a luxury, it is a privilege, it is an indulgence for those who are at their ease. but we are all of us made to shun disgrace, as we are made to shrink from pain, and poverty, and disease. it is an instinct; and under the direction of reason, instinct is always in the right. i live in an inverted order. they who ought to have succeeded me have gone before me. they who should have been to me as posterity are in the place of ancestors. i owe to the dearest relation (which ever must subsist in memory) that act of piety which he would have performed to me; i owe it to him to show that he was not descended, as the duke of bedford would have it, from an unworthy parent. revolutionary scene. history, who keeps a durable record of all our acts, and exercises her awful censure over the proceedings of all sorts of sovereigns, will not forget either those events or the era of this liberal refinement in the intercourse of mankind. history will record, that on the morning of the th of october, , the king and queen of france, after a day of confusion, alarm, dismay, and slaughter, lay down, under the pledged security of public faith, to indulge nature in a few hours of respite, and troubled, melancholy repose. from this sleep the queen was first startled by the voice of the sentinel at her door, who cried out to her to save herself by flight--that this was the last proof of fidelity he could give--that they were upon him, and he was dead. instantly he was cut down. a band of cruel ruffians and assassins, reeking with his blood, rushed into the chamber of the queen, and pierced with a hundred strokes of bayonets and poniards the bed from whence this persecuted woman had but just time to fly almost naked, and, through ways unknown to the murderers, had escaped to seek refuge at the feet of a king and husband, not secure of his own life for a moment. this king, to say no more of him, and this queen, and their infant children (who once would have been the pride and hope of a great and generous people), were then forced to abandon the sanctuary of the most splendid palace in the world, which they left swimming in blood, polluted by massacre, and strewed with scattered limbs and mutilated carcases. thence they were conducted into the capital of their kingdom. two had been selected from the unprovoked, unresisted, promiscuous slaughter, which was made of the gentlemen of birth and family who composed the king's body-guard. these two gentlemen, with all the parade of an execution of justice, were cruelly and publicly dragged to the block, and beheaded in the great court of the palace. their heads were stuck upon spears, and led the procession; whilst the royal captives who followed in the train were slowly moved along, amidst the horrid yells, and shrilling screams, and frantic dances, and infamous contumelies, and all the unutterable abominations of the furies of hell, in the abused shape of the vilest of women. after they had been made to taste, drop by drop, more than the bitterness of death, in the slow torture of a journey of twelve miles, protracted to six hours, they were, under a guard composed of those very soldiers who had thus conducted them through this famous triumph, lodged in one of the old palaces of paris, now converted into a bastille for kings. is this a triumph to be consecrated at altars? to be commemorated with grateful thanksgiving? to be offered to the divine humanity with fervent prayer and enthusiastic ejaculation?--these theban and thracian orgies, acted in france, and applauded only in the old jewry, i assure you, kindle prophetic enthusiasm in the minds but of very few people in this kingdom: although a saint and apostle, who may have revelations of his own, and who has so completely vanquished all the mean superstitions of the heart, may incline to think it pious and decorous to compare it with the entrance into the world of the prince of peace, proclaimed in a holy temple by a venerable sage, and not long before not worse announced by the voice of angels to quiet the innocence of shepherds. economy on state principles. economy in my plans was, as it ought to be, secondary, subordinate, instrumental. i acted on state principles. i found a great distemper in the commonwealth; and, according to the nature of the evil and of the object, i treated it. the malady was deep; it was complicated, in the causes and in the symptoms. throughout it was full of contra-indicants. on one hand government, daily growing more invidious from an apparent increase of the means of strength, was every day growing more contemptible by real weakness. nor was this dissolution confined to government commonly so called. it extended to parliament; which was losing not a little in its dignity and estimation, by an opinion of its not acting on worthy motives. on the other hand, the desires of the people (partly natural and partly infused into them by art) appeared in so wild and inconsiderate a manner, with regard to the economical object (for i set aside for a moment the dreadful tampering with the body of the constitution itself), that, if their petitions had literally been complied with, the state would have been convulsed, and a gate would have been opened through which all property might be sacked and ravaged. nothing could have saved the public from the mischiefs of the false reform but its absurdity, which would soon have brought itself, and with it all real reform, into discredit. this would have left a rankling wound in the hearts of the people, who would know they had failed in the accomplishment of their wishes, but who, like the rest of mankind in all ages, would impute the blame to anything rather than to their own proceedings. but there were then persons in the world who nourished complaint, and would have been thoroughly disappointed if the people were ever satisfied. i was not of that humour. i wished that they should be satisfied. it was my aim to give to the people the substance of what i knew they desired, and what i thought was right, whether they desired or not, before it had been modified for them into senseless petitions. i knew that there is a manifest, marked distinction, which ill men with ill designs, or weak men incapable of any design, will constantly be confounding, that is a marked distinction between change and reformation. the former alters the substance of the objects themselves, and gets rid of all their essential good, as well as of all the accidental evil, annexed to them. change is novelty; and whether it is to operate any one of the effects of reformation at all, or whether it may not contradict the very principle upon which reformation is desired, cannot be certainly known beforehand. reform is not a change in the substance, or in the primary modification of the object, but a direct application of a remedy to the grievance complained of. so far as that is removed, all is sure. it stops there; and if it fails, the substance which underwent the operation, at the very worst, is but where it was. all this, in effect, i think, but am not sure, i have said elsewhere. it cannot at this time be too often repeated; line upon line; precept upon precept; until it comes into the currency of a proverb, to innovate is not to reform. the french revolutionists complained of everything; they refused to reform anything; and they left nothing, no, nothing at all, unchanged. the consequences are before us,--not in remote history; not in future prognostication: they are about us; they are upon us. they shake the public security; they menace private enjoyment. they dwarf the growth of the young; they break the quiet of the old. if we travel, they stop our way. they infest us in town; they pursue us to the country. our business is interrupted; our repose is troubled; our pleasures are saddened; our very studies are poisoned and perverted, and knowledge is rendered worse than ignorance by the enormous evils of this dreadful innovation. the revolution harpies of france, sprung from night and hell, or from that chaotic anarchy which generates equivocally "all monstrous, all prodigious things," cuckoo-like, adulterously lay their eggs, and brood over, and hatch them in the nest of every neighbouring state. these obscene harpies, who deck themselves in i know not what divine attributes, but who in reality are foul and ravenous birds of prey (both mothers and daughters), flutter over our heads, and souse down upon our tables, and leave nothing unrent, unrifled, unravaged, or unpolluted with the slime of their filthy offal. philosophical vanity; its maxims, and effects. the assembly recommends to its youth a study of the bold experimenters in morality. everybody knows that there is a great dispute amongst their leaders, which of them is the best resemblance of rousseau. in truth, they all resemble him. his blood they transfuse into their minds and into their manners. him they study; him they meditate; him they turn over in all the time they can spare from the laborious mischief of the day, or the debauches of the night. rousseau is their canon of holy writ; in his life he is their canon of polycletus; he is their standard figure of perfection. to this man and this writer, as a pattern to authors and to frenchmen, the foundries of paris are now running for statues, with the kettles of their poor and the bells of their churches. if an author had written like a great genius on geometry, though its practical and speculative morals were vicious in the extreme, it might appear, that in voting the statue, they honoured only the geometrician. but rousseau is a moralist, or he is nothing. it is impossible, therefore, putting the circumstances together, to mistake their design in choosing the author, with whom they have begun to recommend a courses studies. their great problem is to find a substitute for all the principles which hitherto have been employed to regulate the human will and action. they find dispositions in the mind of such force and quality as may fit men, far better than the old morality, for the purposes of such a state as theirs, and may go much further in supporting their power and destroying their enemies. they have therefore chosen a selfish, flattering, seductive, ostentatious vice, in the place of plain duty. true humility, the basis of the christian system, is the low, but deep and firm, foundation of all real virtue. but this, as very painful in the practice, and little imposing in the appearance, they have totally discarded. their object is to merge all natural and all social sentiment in inordinate vanity. in a small degree, and conversant in little things, vanity is of little moment. when full grown, it is the worst of vices, and the occasional mimic of them all. it makes the whole man false. it leaves nothing sincere or trustworthy about him. his best qualities are poisoned and perverted by it, and operate exactly as the worst. when your lords had many writers as immoral as the object of their statue (such as voltaire and others) they chose rousseau, because in him that peculiar vice, which they wished to erect into ruling virtue, was by far the most conspicuous. we have had the great professor and founder of the philosophy of vanity in england. as i had good opportunities of knowing his proceedings almost from day to day, he left no doubt on my mind that he entertained no principle either to influence his heart, or to guide his understanding, but vanity. with this vice he was possessed to a degree little short of madness. it is from the same deranged, eccentric vanity, that this, the insane socrates of the national assembly, was impelled to publish a mad confession of his mad faults, and to attempt a new sort of glory from bringing hardily to light the obscure and vulgar vices which we know may sometimes be blended with eminent talents. he has not observed on the nature of vanity who does not know that it is omnivorous; that it has no choice in its food; that it is fond to talk even of its own faults and vices, as what will excite surprise and draw attention, and what will pass at worst for openness and candour. it was this abuse and perversion, which vanity makes even of hypocrisy, that has driven rousseau to record a life not so much as chequered, or spotted here and there, with virtues, or even distinguished by a single good action. it is such a life he chooses to offer to the attention of mankind. it is such a life that, with a wild defiance, he flings in the face of his creator, whom he acknowledges only to brave. your assembly, knowing how much more powerful example is found than precept, has chosen this man (by his own account without a single virtue) for a model. to him they erect their first statue. from him they commence their series of honours and distinctions. it is that new-invented virtue, which your masters canonize, that led their model hero constantly to exhaust the stores of his powerful rhetoric in the expression of universal benevolence; whilst his heart was incapable of harbouring one spark of common parental affection. benevolence to the whole species, and want of feeling for every individual with whom the professors come in contact, form the character of the new philosophy. setting up for an unsocial independence, this their hero of vanity refuses the just price of common labour, as well as the tribute which opulence owes to genius, and which, when paid, honours the giver and the receiver: and then he pleads his beggary as an excuse for his crimes. he melts with tenderness for those only who touch him by the remotest relation, and then, without one natural pang, casts away, as a sort of offal and excrement, the spawn of his disgustful amours, and sends his children to the hospital of foundlings. the bear loves, licks, and forms her young; but bears are not philosophers. vanity, however, finds its account in reversing the train of our natural feelings. thousands admire the sentimental writer; the affectionate father is hardly known in his parish. under this philosophic instructor in the ethics of vanity, they have attempted in france a regeneration of the moral constitution of man. statesmen, like your present rulers, exist by everything which is spurious, fictitious, and false; by everything which takes the man from his house, and sets him on a stage; which makes him up an artificial creature, with painted theatric sentiments, fit to be seen by the glare of candlelight, and formed to be contemplated at a due distance. vanity is too apt to prevail in all of us, and in all countries. to the improvement of frenchmen it seems not absolutely necessary that it should be taught upon system. but it is plain that the present rebellion was its legitimate offspring, and it is piously fed by that rebellion with a daily dole. if the system of institution recommended by the assembly be false and theatric, it is because their system of government is of the same character. to that, and to that alone, it is strictly conformable. to understand either, we must connect the morals with the politics of the legislators. your practical philosophers, systematic in everything, have wisely begun at the source. as the relation between parents and children is the first amongst the elements of vulgar, natural morality (filiola tua te delectari laetor et probari tibi phusiken esse ten pros ta tekna: etenim, si haec non est, nulla potest homini esse ad hominem naturae adjunctio: qua sublata vitae societas tollitur. valete patron (rousseau) et tui condiscipuli (l'assemblee national).--cic. ep. ad atticum.), they erect statues to a wild, ferocious, low-minded, hard-hearted father, of fine general feelings; a lover of his kind, but a hater of his kindred. your masters reject the duties of his vulgar relation, as contrary to liberty; as not founded in the social compact; and not binding according to the rights of men; because the relation is not, of course, the result of free election; never so on the side of the children, not always on the part of the parents. the next relation which they regenerate by their statues to rousseau is that which is next in sanctity to that of a father. they differ from those old-fashioned thinkers, who considered pedagogues as sober and venerable characters, and allied to the parental. the moralists of the dark times, preceptorum sancti voluere parentis esse loco. in this age of light, they teach the people that preceptors ought to be in the place of gallants. they systematically corrupt a very corruptible race (for some time a growing nuisance amongst you), a set of pert, petulant literators, to whom, instead of their proper, but severe, unostentatious duties, they assign the brilliant part of men of wit and pleasure, of gay, young, military sparks, and danglers at toilets. they call on the rising generation in france to take a sympathy in the adventures and fortunes, and they endeavour to engage their sensibility on the side of pedagogues who betray the most awful family trusts, and vitiate their female pupils. they teach the people that the debauchers of virgins, almost in the arms of their parents, may be safe inmates in the houses, and even fit guardians of the honour of those husbands who succeed legally to the office which the young literators had preoccupied, without asking leave of law or conscience. thus they dispose of all the family relations of parents and children, husbands and wives. through this same instructor, by whom they corrupt the morals, they corrupt the taste. taste and elegance, though they are reckoned only among the smaller and secondary morals, yet are of no mean importance in the regulation of life. a moral taste is not of force to turn vice into virtue; but it recommends virtue with something like the blandishments of pleasure; and it infinitely abates the evils of vice. rousseau, a writer of great force and vivacity, is totally destitute of taste in any sense of the word. your masters, who are his scholars, conceive that all refinement has an aristocratic character. the last age had exhausted all its powers in giving a grace and nobleness to our mutual appetites, and in raising them into a higher class and order than seemed justly to belong to them. through rousseau, your masters are resolved to destroy these aristocratic prejudices. the passion called love has so general and powerful an influence; it makes so much of the entertainment, and indeed so much of the occupation of that part of life which decides the character for ever, that the mode and the principles on which it engages the sympathy, and strikes the imagination, become of the utmost importance to the morals and manners of every society. your rulers were well aware of this; and in their system of changing your manners to accommodate them to their politics, they found nothing so convenient as rousseau. through him they teach men to love after the fashion of philosophers; that is, they teach to men, to frenchmen, a love without gallantry; a love without anything of that fine flower of youthfulness and gentility, which places it, if not among the virtues, among the ornaments of life. instead of this passion, naturally allied to grace and manners, they infuse into their youth an unfashioned, indelicate, sour, gloomy, ferocious medly of pedantry and lewdness; of metaphysical speculations blended with the coarsest sensuality. such is the general morality of the passions to be found in their famous philosopher, in his famous work of philosophic gallantry the "nouvelle eloise." when the fence from the gallantry of preceptors is broken down, and your families are no longer protected by decent pride, and salutary domestic prejudice, there is but one step to a frightful corruption. the rulers in the national assembly are in good hopes that the females of the first families in france may become an easy prey to dancing-masters, fiddlers, pattern-drawers, friseurs, and valets de chambre, and other active citizens of that description, who having the entry into your houses, and being half domesticated by their situation, may be blended with you by regular and irregular relations. by a law they have made these people their equals. by adopting the sentiments of rousseau they have made them your rivals. in this manner these great legislators complete their plan of levelling, and establish their rights of men on a sure foundation. i am certain that the writings of rousseau lead directly to this kind of shameful evil. i have often wondered how he comes to be so much more admired and followed on the continent than he is here. perhaps a secret charm in the language may have its share in this extraordinary difference. we certainly perceive, and to a degree we feel, in this writer, a style glowing, animated, enthusiastic; at the same time that we find it lax, diffuse, and not in the best taste of composition; all the members of the piece being pretty equally laboured and expanded, without any due selection or subordination of parts. he is generally too much on the stretch, and his manner has little variety. we cannot rest upon any of his works, though they contain observations which occasionally discover a considerable insight into human nature. but his doctrines, on the whole, are so inapplicable to real life and manners, that we never dream of drawing from them any rule for laws or conduct, or for fortifying or illustrating anything by a reference to his opinions. they have with us the fate of older paradoxes. "cum ventum ad verum est, sensus moresque repugnant, atque ipsa utilitas, justi prope mater et aequi." perhaps bold speculations are more acceptable because more new to you than to us, who have been long since satiated with them. we continue, as in the two last ages, to read, more generally than i believe is now done on the continent, the authors of sound antiquity. these occupy our minds. they give us another taste and turn, and will not suffer us to be more than transiently amused with paradoxical morality. it is not that i consider this writer as wholly destitute of just notions. amongst his irregularities, it must be reckoned that he is sometimes moral, and moral in a very sublime strain. but the general spirit and tendency of his works is mischievous; and the more mischievous for this mixture: for perfect depravity of sentiment is not reconcileable with eloquence; and the mind (though corruptible, not complexionally vicious) would reject, and throw off with disgust, a lesson of pure and unmixed evil. these writers make even virtue a pander to vice. however, i less consider the author than the system of the assembly in perverting morality through his means. this i confess makes me nearly despair of any attempt upon the minds of their followers, through reason, honour, or conscience. the great object of your tyrants is to destroy the gentlemen of france; and for that purpose they destroy, to the best of their power, all the effect of those relations which may render considerable men powerful or even safe. to destroy that order, they vitiate the whole community. that no means may exist of confederating against their tyranny, by the false sympathies of this "nouvelle eloise" they endeavour to subvert those principles of domestic trust and fidelity, which form the discipline of social life. they propagate principles by which every servant may think it, if not his duty, at least his privilege, to betray his master. by these principles, every considerable father of a family loses the sanctuary of his house. debet sua cuique domus esse perfugium tutissimum, says the law, which your legislators have taken so much pains first to decry, then to repeal. they destroy all the tranquillity and security of domestic life; turning the asylum of the house into a gloomy prison, where the father of the family must drag out a miserable existence, endangered in proportion to the apparent means of his safety; where he is worse than solitary in a crowd of domestics, and more apprehensive from his servants and inmates, than from the hired, bloodthirsty mob without doors, who are ready to pull him to the lanterne. it is thus, and for the same end, that they endeavour to destroy that tribunal of conscience which exists independently of edicts and decrees. your despots govern by terror. they know that he who fears god fears nothing else: and therefore they eradicate from the mind, through their voltaire, their helvetius, and the rest of that infamous gang, that only sort of fear which generates true courage. their object is, that their fellow-citizens may be under the dominion of no awe, but that of their committee of research, and of their lanterne. having found the advantage of assassination in the formation of their tyranny, it is the grand resource in which they trust for the support of it. whoever opposes any of their proceedings, or is suspected of a design to oppose them, is to answer it with his life, or the lives of his wife and children. this infamous, cruel, and cowardly practice of assassination they have the imprudence to call merciful. they boast that they operated their usurpation rather by terror than by force; and that a few seasonable murders have prevented the bloodshed of many battles. there is no doubt they will extend these acts of mercy whenever they see an occasion. dreadful, however, will be the consequences of their attempt to avoid the evils of war by the merciful policy of murder. if, by effectual punishment of the guilty, they do not wholly disavow that practice, and the threat of it too, as any part of their policy; if ever a foreign prince enters into france, he must enter it as into a country of assassins. the mode of civilized war will not be practised; nor are the french who act on the present system entitled to expect it. they, whose known policy is to assassinate every citizen whom they suspect to be discontented by their tyranny, and to corrupt the soldiery of every open enemy, must look for no modified hostility. all war, which is not battle, will be military execution. this will beget acts of retaliation from you; and every retaliation will beget a new revenge. the hell-hounds of war, on all sides, will be uncoupled and unmuzzled. the new school of murder and barbarism, set up in paris, having destroyed (so far as in it lies) all the other manners and principles which have hitherto civilized europe, will destroy also the mode of civilized war, which, more than anything else, has distinguished the christian world. such is the approaching golden age, which the virgil of your assembly has sung to his pollios! (mirabeau's speech concerning universal peace.) unity between church and state. they take this tenet of the head and heart, not from the great name which it immediately bears, nor from the greater from whence it is derived; but from that which alone can give true weight and sanction to any learned opinion, the common nature and common relation of men. persuaded that all things ought to be done with reference, and referring all to the point of reference to which all should be directed, they think themselves bound, not only as individuals in the sanctuary of the heart, or as congregated in that personal capacity, to renew the memory of their high origin and caste; but also in their corporate character to perform their national homage to the institutor, and author, and protector of civil society; without which civil society man could not by any possibility arrive at the perfection of which his nature is capable, nor even make a remote and faint approach to it. they conceive that he who gave our nature to be perfected by our virtue, willed also the necessary means of its perfection.--he willed therefore the state--he willed its connection with the source and original archetype of all perfection. they who are convinced of this his will, what is the law of laws, and the sovereign of sovereigns, cannot think it reprehensible that this our corporate fealty and homage, that this our recognition of a signiory paramount, i had almost said this oblation of the state itself, as a worthy offering on the high altar of universal praise, should be performed as all public, solemn acts are performed, in buildings, in music, in decoration, in speech, in the dignity of persons, according to the customs of mankind, taught by their nature; that is, with modest splendour and unassuming state, with mild majesty and sober pomp. for those purposes they think some part of the wealth of the country is as usefully employed as it can be, in fomenting the luxury of individuals. it is the public ornament. it is the public consolation. it nourishes the public hope. the poorest man finds his own importance and dignity in it, whilst the wealth and pride of individuals at every moment makes the man of humble rank and fortune sensible of his inferiority, and degrades and vilifies his condition. it is for the man in humble life, and to raise his nature, and to put him in mind of a state in which the privileges of opulence will cease, when he will be equal by nature, and may be more than equal by virtue, that this portion of the general wealth of his country is employed and sanctified. i assure you i do not aim at singularity. i give you opinions which have been accepted amongst us, from very early times to this moment, with a continued and general approbation, and which indeed are so worked into my mind, that i am unable to distinguish what i have learned from others from the results of my own meditation. it is on some such principles that the majority of the people of england, far from thinking a religious national establishment unlawful, hardly think it lawful to be without one. in france you are wholly mistaken if you do not believe us above all other things attached to it, and beyond all other nations; and when this people has acted unwisely and unjustifiably in its favour (as in some instances they have done most certainly) in their very errors you will at least discover their zeal. this principle runs through the whole system of their polity. they do not consider their church establishment as convenient, but as essential to their state; not as a thing heterogeneous and inseparable; something added for accommodation; what they may either keep or lay aside, according to their temporary ideas of convenience. they consider it as the foundation of their whole constitution, with which, and with every part of which, it holds an indissoluble union. church and state are ideas inseparable in their minds, and scarcely is the one ever mentioned without mentioning the other. (in preparing these pages for publication, the selector has discovered how unconsciously he was indebted to the intellectual inspiration of burke, in the following extract:-- "founded in christ, and by apostles form'd, glory of england! oh, my mother church, hoary with time, but all untouched in creed, firm to thy master, by as fond a grasp of faith as luther, with his free-born mind clung to emmanuel,--doth thy soul remain. but yet around thee scowls a fierce array of foes and falsehoods; must'ring each their powers, triumphantly. and well may thoughtful hearts heave with foreboding swell and heavy fears, to mark, how mad opinion doth infect thy children; how thine apostolic claims and love maternal are regarded now, by creedless vanity, or careless vice. for time there was, when peerless hooker wrote, and deep-soul'd bacon taught the world to think, when thou wert paramount,--thy cause sublime! and in thy life, all polity and powers the throne securing, or in law enshrined, with all estates our balanced realm contains, in thee supreme, a master-virtue own'd and honour'd. church and state could then co-work, like soul and body in one breathing form distinct, but undivided; each with rule essential to the kingdom's healthful frame, yet both, in unity august and good together, under christ their living head, a hallow'd commonwealth of powers achieved. but now, in evil times, sectarian will would split the body, and to sects reduce our sainted mother of th'imperial isles, which have for ages from her bosom drank those truths immortal, life and conscience need. but never may the rude assault of hearts self-blinded, or the autocratic pride of reason, by no hallowing faith subdued, one lock of glory from her rev'rend head succeed in tearing: love, and awe, and truth her doctrines preach, with apostolic force: her creed is unity, her head is christ, her forms primeval, and her creed divine, and catholic, that crowning name she wears." "luther," th edition .) triple basis of french revolution. instead of the religion and the law by which they were in a great politic communion with the christian world, they have constructed their republic on three bases, all fundamentally opposite to those on which the communities of europe are built. its foundation is laid in regicide, in jacobinism, and in atheism; and it has joined to those principles a body of systematic manners, which secures their operation. if i am asked, how i would be understood in the use of these terms, regicide, jacobinism, atheism, and a system of corresponding manners, and their establishment? i will tell you:-- i.--regicide. i call a commonwealth regicide, which lays it down as a fixed law of nature, and a fundamental right of man, that all government, not being a democracy, is a usurpation. that all kings, as such, are usurpers; and for being kings may and ought to be put to death, with their wives, families, and adherents. the commonwealth which acts uniformly upon those principles, and which, after abolishing every festival of religion, chooses the most flagrant act of a murderous regicide treason for a feast of eternal commemoration, and which forces all her people to observe it--this i call regicide by establishment. ii.--jacobinism. jacobinism is the revolt of the enterprising talents of a country against its property. when private men form themselves into associations for the purpose of destroying the pre-existing laws and institutions of their country; when they secure to themselves an army, by dividing amongst the people of no property the estates of the ancient and lawful proprietors; when a state recognises those acts; when it does not make confiscations for crimes, but makes crimes for confiscations; when it has its principal strength, and all its resources, in such a violation of property; when it stands chiefly upon such a violation, massacring by judgments, or otherwise, those who make any struggle for their old legal government, and their legal, hereditary, or acquired possessions--i call this jacobinism by establishment. iii.--atheism. i call it atheism by establishment, when any state, as such, shall not acknowledge the existence of god as a moral governor of the world; when it shall offer to him no religious or moral worship;--when it shall abolish the christian religion by a regular decree;--when it shall persecute with a cold, unrelenting, steady cruelty, by every mode of confiscation, imprisonment, exile, and death, all its ministers;--when it shall generally shut up or pull down churches; when the few buildings which remain of this kind shall be opened only for the purpose of making a profane apotheosis of monsters, whose vices and crimes have no parallel amongst men, and whom all other men consider as objects of general detestation, and the severest animadversion of law. when, in the place of that religion of social benevolence, and of individual self-denial, in mockery of all religion, they institute impious, blasphemous, indecent theatric rites, in honour of their vitiated, perverted reason, and erect altars to the personification of their own corrupted and bloody republic;--when schools and seminaries are founded at the public expense to poison mankind, from generation to generation, with the horrible maxims of this impiety;--when wearied out with incessant martyrdom, and the cries of a people hungering and thirsting for religion, they permit it only as a tolerated evil--i call this atheism by establishment. correspondent system of manners and morals. when to these establishments of regicide, of jacobinism, and of atheism, you add the correspondent system of manners, no doubt can be left on the mind of a thinking man concerning their determined hostility to the human race. manners are of more importance than laws. upon them, in a great measure, the laws depend. the law touches us but here and there, and now and then. manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation, like that of the air we breathe in. they give their whole form and colour to our lives. according to their quality, they aid morals, they supply them, or they totally destroy them. of this the new french legislators were aware; therefore, with the same method, and under the same authority, they settled a system of manners, the most licentious, prostitute, and abandoned that ever has been known, and at the same time the most coarse, rude, savage, and ferocious. nothing in the revolution, no, not to a phrase or gesture, not to the fashion of a hat or a shoe, was left to accident. all has been the result of design; all has been matter of institution. no mechanical means could be devised in favour of this incredible system of wickedness and vice, that has not been employed. the noblest passions, the love of glory, the love of country, have been debauched into means of its preservation and its propagation. all sorts of shows and exhibitions, calculated to inflame and vitiate the imagination, and pervert the moral sense, have been contrived. they have sometimes brought forth five or six hundred drunken women, calling at the bar of the assembly for the blood of their own children, as being royalists or constitutionalists. sometimes they have got a body of wretches, calling themselves fathers, to demand the murder of their sons, boasting that rome had but one brutus, but that they could show five hundred. there were instances in which they inverted, and retaliated the impiety, and produced sons, who called for the execution of their parents. the foundation of their republic is laid in moral paradoxes. their patriotism is always prodigy. all those instances to be found in history, whether real or fabulous, of a doubtful public spirit, at which morality is perplexed, reason is staggered, and from which affrighted nature recoils, are their chosen, and almost sole examples for the instruction of their youth. the whole drift of their institution is contrary to that of the wise legislators of all countries, who aimed at improving instincts into morals, and at grafting the virtues on the stock of the natural affections. they, on the contrary, have omitted no pains to eradicate every benevolent and noble propensity in the mind of men. in their culture it is a rule always to graft virtues on vices. they think everything unworthy of the name of public virtue, unless it indicates violence on the private. all their new institutions (and with them everything is new) strike at the root of our social nature. other legislators, knowing that marriage is the origin of all relations, and consequently the first element of all duties, have endeavoured, by every art, to make it sacred. the christian religion, by confining it to the pairs, and by rendering that relation indissoluble, has by these two things done more towards the peace, happiness, settlement, and civilization of the world, than by any other part in this whole scheme of divine wisdom. the direct contrary course has been taken in the synagogue of antichrist, i mean in that forge and manufactury of all evil, the sect which predominated in the constituent assembly of . those monsters employed the same, or greater industry, to desecrate and degrade that state, which other legislators have used to render it holy and honourable. ferocity of jacobinism. as to those whom they suffer to die a natural death, they do not permit them to enjoy the last consolations of mankind, or those rights of sepulture, which indicate hope, and which mere nature has taught to mankind, in all countries, to soothe the afflictions, and to cover the infirmity, of mortal condition. they disgrace men in the entry into life, they vitiate and enslave them through the whole course of it, and they deprive them of all comfort at the conclusion of their dishonoured and depraved existence. endeavouring to persuade the people that they are no better than beasts, the whole body of their institution tends to make them beasts of prey, furious and savage. for this purpose the active part of them is disciplined into a ferocity which has no parallel. to this ferocity there is joined not one of the rude, unfashioned virtues, which accompany the vices, where the whole are left to grow up together in the rankness of uncultivated nature. but nothing is left to nature in their systems. the same discipline which hardens their hearts relaxes their morals. whilst courts of justice were thrust out by revolutionary tribunals, and silent churches were only the funeral monuments of departed religion, there were no fewer than nineteen or twenty theatres, great and small, most of them kept open at the public expense, and all of them crowded every night. among the gaunt, haggard forms of famine and nakedness, amidst the yells of murder, the tears of affliction, and the cries of despair, the song, the dance, the mimic scene, the buffoon laughter, went on as regularly as in the gay hour of festive peace. i have it from good authority, that under the scaffold of judicial murder, and the gaping planks that poured down blood on the spectators, the space was hired out for a show of dancing dogs. i think, without concert, we have made the very same remark on reading some of their pieces, which being written for other purposes, let us into a view of their social life. it struck us that the habits of paris had no resemblance to the finished virtues, or to the polished vice, and elegant, though not blameless, luxury, of the capital of a great empire. their society was more like that of a den of outlaws upon a doubtful frontier; of a lewd tavern for the revels and debauches of banditti, assassins, bravos, smugglers, and their more desperate paramours, mixed with bombastic players, the refuse and rejected offal of strolling theatres, puffing out ill-sorted verses about virtue, mixed with the licentious and blasphemous songs, proper to the brutal and hardened course of life belonging to that sort of wretches. this system of manners in itself is at war with all orderly and moral society, and is in its neighbourhood unsafe. if great bodies of that kind were anywhere established in a bordering territory, we should have a right to demand of their governments the suppression of such a nuisance. voice of oppression. should we not obtest heaven, and whatever justice there is yet on earth? oppression makes wise men mad; but the distemper is still the madness of the wise, which is better than the sobriety of fools. the cry is the voice of sacred misery, exalted not into wild raving, but into the sanctified frenzy of prophecy and inspiration--in that bitterness of soul, in that indignation of suffering virtue, in that exaltation of despair, would not persecuted english loyalty cry out, with an awful warning voice, and denounce the destruction that waits on monarchs, who consider fidelity to them as the most degrading of all vices; who suffer it to be punished as the most abominable of all crimes; and who have no respect but for rebels, traitors, regicides, and furious negro slaves, whose crimes have broken their chains? would not this warm language of high indignation have more of sound reason in it, more of real affection, more of true attachment, than all the lullabies of flatterers, who would hush monarchs to sleep in the arms of death. britain vindicated in her war with france. there is one thing in this business which appears to be wholly unaccountable, or accountable on a supposition i dare not entertain for a moment. i cannot help asking, why all this pains, to clear the british nation of ambition, perfidy, and the insatiate thirst of war? at what period of time was it that our country has deserved that load of infamy, of which nothing but preternatural humiliation in language and conduct can serve to clear us? if we have deserved this kind of evil fame from anything we have done in a state of prosperity, i am sure that it is not an abject conduct in adversity than can clear our reputation. well is it known that ambition can creep as well as soar. the pride of no person in a flourishing condition is more justly to be dreaded, than that of him who is mean and cringing under a doubtful and unprosperous fortune. but it seems it was thought necessary to give some out-of-the-way proofs of our sincerity, as well as of our freedom from ambition. is then fraud and falsehood become the distinctive character of englishmen? whenever your enemy chooses to accuse you of perfidy and ill faith, will you put it into his power to throw you into the purgatory of self-humiliation? is his charge equal to the finding of the grand jury of europe, and sufficient to put you upon your trial? but on that trial i will defend the english ministry. i am sorry that on some points i have, on the principles i have always opposed, so good a defence to make. they were not the first to begin the war. they did not excite the general confederacy in europe, which was so properly formed on the alarm given by the jacobinism of france. they did not begin with an hostile aggression on the regicides, are any of their allies. these parricides of their own country, disciplining themselves for foreign by domestic violence, were the first to attack a power that was our ally by nature, by habit, and by the sanction of multiplied treaties. (the editor has ventured to print these lines in italics, because it appears, while this selection from burke is preparing for the press, an inflated demagogue has not only dared to deny the claims of the duke of wellington to be the hero of a nation's heart, but has also accused the illustrious burke of misrepresenting historical facts connected with our war in the french revolution. on which side both the truth and integrity of history are to be found, may safely be left to the moral decision of men who do not look at history through the exclusive medium of the market, and in listening to the voice of instruction are, at least, enabled to distinguish the bray of an ass from the peal of a trumpet.) is it not true, that they were the first to declare war upon this kingdom? is every word in the declaration from downing-street, concerning their conduct, and concerning ours and that of our allies, so obviously false, that it is necessary to give some new-invented proofs of our good faith in order to expunge the memory of all this perfidy? polish and french revolution. a king without authority; nobles without union or subordination; a people without arts, industry, commerce, or liberty; no order within, no defence without; no effective public force, but a foreign force, which entered a naked country at will, and disposed of everything at pleasure. here was a state of things which seemed to invite, and might perhaps justify, bold enterprise and desperate experiment. but in what manner was this chaos brought into order? the means were as striking to the imagination, as satisfactory to the reason, and soothing to the moral sentiments. in contemplating that change, humanity has everything to rejoice and to glory in; nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to suffer. so far as it has gone, it probably is the most pure and defecated public good which ever has been conferred on mankind. we have seen anarchy and servitude at once removed; a throne strengthened for the protection of the people, without trenching on their liberties; all foreign cabal banished, by changing the crown from elective to hereditary; and what was a matter of pleasing wonder, we have seen a reigning king, from an heroic love to his country, exerting himself with all the toil, the dexterity, the management, the intrigue, in favour of a family of strangers, with which ambitious men labour for the aggrandizement of their own. ten millions of men in a way of being freed gradually, and therefore safely to themselves and the state, not from civil or political chains, which, bad as they are, only fetter the mind, but from substantial personal bondage. inhabitants of cities, before without privileges, placed in the consideration which belongs to that improved and connecting situation of social life. one of the most proud, numerous, and fierce bodies of nobility and gentry ever known in the world, arranged only in the foremost rank of free and generous citizens. not one man incurred loss, or suffered degradation. all, from the king to the day-labourer, were improved in their condition. everything was kept in its place and order; but in that place and order everything was betterd. to add to this happy wonder (this unheard-of conjunction of wisdom and fortune), not one drop of blood was spilled; no treachery; no outrage; no system of slander more cruel than the sword; no studied insults on religion, morals, or manners; no spoil; no confiscation; no citizen beggared; none imprisoned; none exiled: the whole was effected with a policy, a discretion, a unanimity and secrecy, such as have never been before known on any occasion; but such wonderful conduct was reserved for this glorious conspiracy in favour of the true and genuine rights and interests of men. happy people, if they know how to proceed as they have begun! happy prince, worthy to begin with splendour, or to close with glory, a race of patriots and of kings: and to leave "a name, which ev'ry wind to heav'n would bear, which men to speak, and angels joy to hear." to finish all--this great good, as in the instant it is, contains in it the seeds of all further improvement, and may be considered as in a regular progress, because founded on similar principles, towards the stable excellency of a british constitution. here was a matter for congratulation and for festive remembrance through ages. here moralists and divines might indeed relax in their temperance, to exhilarate their humanity. but mark the character of our faction. all their enthusiasm is kept for the french revolution. they cannot pretend that france had stood so much in need of a change as poland. they cannot pretend that poland has not obtained a better system of liberty, or of government, than it enjoyed before. they cannot assert, that the polish revolution cost more dearly than that of france to the interests and feelings of multitudes of men. but the cold and subordinate light in which they look upon the one, and the pains they take to preach up the other of these revolutions, leave us no choice in fixing on their motives. both revolutions profess liberty as their object; but in obtaining this object the one proceeds from anarchy to order; the other from order to anarchy. the first secures its liberty by establishing its throne; the other builds its freedom on the subversion of its monarchy. in the one their means are unstained by crimes, and their settlement favours morality. in the other, vice and confusion are in the very essence of their pursuit, and of their enjoyment. the circumstances in which these two events differ, must cause the difference we make in their comparative estimation. these turn the scale with the societies in favour of france. ferrum est quod amant. the frauds, the violences, the sacrileges, the havoc and ruin of families, the dispersion and exile of the pride and flower of a great country, the disorder, the confusion, the anarchy, the violation of property, the cruel murders, the inhuman confiscations, and in the end the insolent domination of bloody, ferocious, and senseless clubs--these are the things which they love and admire. what men admire and love, they would surely act. let us see what is done in france; and then let us undervalue any the slightest danger of falling into the hands of such a merciless and savage faction! europe in . in the long series of ages which have furnished the matter of history, never was so beautiful and so august a spectacle presented to the moral eye, as europe afforded the day before the revolution in france. i knew indeed that this prosperity contained in itself the seeds of its own danger. in one part of the society it caused laxity and debility; in the other it produced bold spirits and dark designs. a false philosophy passed from academies into courts; and the great themselves were infected with the theories which conducted to their ruin. knowledge, which in the two last centuries either did not exist at all, or existed solidly on right principles and in chosen hands, was now diffused, weakened, and perverted. general wealth loosened morals, relaxed vigilance, and increased presumption. men of talent began to compare, in the partition of the common stock of public prosperity, the proportions of the dividends with the merits of the claimants. as usual, they found their portion not equal to their estimate (or perhaps to the public estimate) of their own worth. when it was once discovered by the revolution in france, that a struggle between establishment and rapacity could be maintained, though but for one year, and in one place, i was sure that a practicable breach was made in the whole order of things and in every country. religion, that held the materials of the fabric together, was first systematically loosened. all other opinions, under the name of prejudices, must fall along with it; and property, left undefended by principles, became a repository of spoils to tempt cupidity, and not a magazine to furnish arms for defence. i knew that, attacked on all sides by the infernal energies of talents set in action by vice and disorder, authority could not stand upon authority alone. it wanted some other support than the poise of its own gravity. situations formerly supported persons. it now became necessary that personal qualities should support situations. formerly, where authority was found, wisdom and virtue were presumed. but now the veil was torn, and, to keep off sacrilegious intrusion, it was necessary that in the sanctuary of government something should be disclosed not only venerable, but dreadful. government was at once to show itself full of virtue and full of force. it was to invite partisans, by making it appear to the world that a generous cause was to be asserted; one fit for a generous people to engage in. from passive submission was it to expect resolute defence? no! it must have warm advocates and passionate defenders, which a heavy, discontented acquiescence never could produce. what a base and foolish thing is it for any consolidated body of authority to say, or to act as if it said, "i will put my trust not in my own virtue, but in your patience; i will indulge in effeminacy, in indolence, in corruption; i will give way to all my perverse and vicious humours, because you cannot punish me without the hazard of ruining yourselves?" atheism cannot repent. disappointment and mortification undoubtedly they feel; but to them, repentance is a thing impossible. they are atheists. this wretched opinion, by which they are possessed even to the height of fanaticism, leading them to exclude from their ideas of a commonwealth the vital principle of the physical, the moral, and the political world, engages them in a thousand absurd contrivances to fill up this dreadful void. incapable of innoxious repose, or honourable action, or wise speculation, in the lurking-holes of a foreign land, into which (in a common ruin) they are driven to hide their heads amongst the innocent victims of their madness, they are at this very hour as busy in the confection of the dirt-pies of their imaginary constitutions, as if they had not been quite fresh from destroying, by their impious and desperate vagaries, the finest country upon earth. outward dignity of the church defended. the english people are satisfied, that to the great the consolations of religion are as necessary as its instructions. they too are among the unhappy. they feel personal pain, and domestic sorrow. in these they have no privilege, but are subject to pay their full contingent to the contributions levied on mortality. they want this sovereign balm under their gnawing cares and anxieties, which, being less conversant about the limited wants of animal life, range without limit, and are diversified by infinite combinations in the wild and unbounded regions of imagination. some charitable dole is wanting to these, our often very unhappy brethren, to fill the gloomy void that reigns in minds which have nothing on earth to hope or fear; something to relieve in the killing languor and over-laboured lassitude of those who have nothing to do; something to excite an appetite to existence in the palled satiety which attends on all pleasures which may be bought, where nature is not left to her own process, where even desire is anticipated, and therefore fruition defeated by meditated schemes and contrivances of delight; and no interval, no obstacle, is interposed between the wish and the accomplishment. the people of england know how little influence the teachers of religion are likely to have with the wealthy and powerful of long standing, and how much less with the newly fortunate, if they appear in a manner no way assorted to those with whom they must associate, and over whom they must even exercise, in some cases, something like an authority. what must they think of that body of teachers, if they see it in no part above the establishment of their domestic servants? if the poverty were voluntary, there might be some difference. strong instances of self-denial operate powerfully on our minds; and a man who has no wants has obtained great freedom, and firmness, and even dignity. but as the mass of any description of men are but men, and their poverty cannot be voluntary, that disrespect, which attends upon all lay property, will not depart from the ecclesiastical. our provident constitution has therefore taken care that those who are to instruct presumptuous ignorance, those who are to be censors over insolent vice, should neither incur their contempt, nor live upon their alms; nor will it tempt the rich to a neglect of the true medicine of their minds. for these reasons, whilst we provide first for the poor, and with a parental solicitude, we have not relegated religion (like something we were ashamed to show) to obscure municipalities, or rustic villages. no! we will have her to exalt her mitred front in courts and parliaments. we will have her mixed throughout the whole mass of life, and blended with all the classes of society. the people of england will show to the haughty potentates of the world, and to their talking sophisters, that a free, a generous, an informed nation honours the high magistrates of its church; that it will not suffer the insolence of wealth and titles, or any other species of proud pretension, to look down with scorn upon what they look up to with reverence; nor presume to trample on that acquired personal nobility, which they intend always to be, and which often is, the fruit, not the reward (for what can be the reward), of learning, piety, and virtue. they can see, without pain or grudging, an archbishop precede a duke. they can see a bishop of durham, or a bishop of winchester, in possession of ten thousand pounds a year; and cannot conceive why it is in worse hands than estates to the like amount in the hands of this earl, or that squire; although it may be true, that so many dogs and horses are not kept by the former, and fed with the victuals which ought to nourish the children of the people. it is true, the whole church revenue is not always employed, and to every shilling, in charity; nor perhaps ought it; but something is generally so employed. it is better to cherish virtue and humanity by leaving much to free will, even with some loss to the object, than to attempt to make men mere machines and instruments of a political benevolence. the world on the whole will gain by a liberty, without which virtue cannot exist. when once the commonwealth has established the estates of the church as property, it can, consistently, hear nothing of the more or the less. too much and too little are treason against property. what evil can arise from the quantity in any hand, whilst the supreme authority has the full, sovereign superintendence over this, as over any property, to prevent every species of abuse; and, whenever it notably deviates, to give to it a direction agreeable to the purposes of its institution. in england most of us conceive that it is envy and malignity towards those who are often the beginners of their own fortune, and not a love of the self-denial and mortification of the ancient church, that makes some look askance at the distinctions, and honours, and revenues, which, taken from no person, are set apart for virtue. the ears of the people of england are distinguishing. they hear these men speak broad. their tongue betrays them. their language is in the patois of fraud; in the cant and gibberish of hypocrisy. the people of england must think so, when these praters affect to carry back the clergy to that primitive, evangelic poverty, which, in the spirit, ought always to exist in them (and in us too, however we may like it), but in the thing must be varied, when the relation of that body to the state is altered; when manners, when modes of life, when indeed the whole order of human affairs, has undergone a total revolution. we shall believe those reformers then to be honest enthusiasts, not, as now we think them, cheats and deceivers, when we see them throwing their own goods into common, and submitting their own persons to the austere discipline of the early church. danger of abstract views. it is not worth our while to discuss, like sophisters, whether, in no case, some evil, for the sake of some benefit, is to be tolerated. nothing universal can be rationally affirmed on any moral or any political subject. pure metaphysical abstraction does not belong to these matters. the lines of morality are not like ideal lines of mathematics. they are broad and deep as well as long. they admit of exceptions; they demand modifications. these exceptions and modifications are not made by the process of logic, but by the rules of prudence. prudence is not only the first in rank of the virtues political and moral, but she is the director, the regulator, the standard of them all. metaphysics cannot live without definition; but prudence is cautious how she defines. our courts cannot be more fearful in suffering fictitious cases to be brought before them for eliciting their determination on a point of law, than prudent moralists are in putting extreme and hazardous cases of conscience upon emergencies not existing. without attempting therefore to define, what never can be defined, the case of a revolution in government, this, i think, may be safely affirmed, that a sore and pressing evil is to be removed, and that a good, great in its amount, and unequivocal in its nature, must be probable almost to certainty, before the inestimable price of our own morals, and the well-being of a number of our fellow-citizens, is paid for a revolution. if ever we ought to be economists even to parsimony, it is in the voluntary production of evil. every revolution contains in it something of evil. appeal to impartiality. the quality of the sentence does not however decide on the justice of it. angry friendship is sometimes as bad as calm enmity. for this reason the cold neutrality of abstract justice is, to a good and clear cause, a more desirable thing than an affection liable to be any way disturbed. when the trial is by friends, if the decision should happen to be favourable, the honour of the acquittal is lessened; if adverse, the condemnation is exceedingly embittered. it is aggravated by coming from lips professing friendship, and pronouncing judgment with sorrow and reluctance. taking in the whole view of life, it is more safe to live under the jurisdiction of severe but steady reason, than under the empire of indulgent but capricious passion. it is certainly well for mr. burke that there are impartial men in the world. to them i address myself, pending the appeal which on his part is made from the living to the dead, from the modern whigs to the ancient. historical estimate of louis xvi. the unhappy louis xvi. was a man of the best intentions that probably ever reigned. he was by no means deficient in talents. he had a most laudable desire to supply by general reading, and even by the acquisition of elemental knowledge, an education in all points originally defective; but nobody told him (and it was no wonder he should not himself divine it) that the world of which he read, and the world in which he lived, were no longer the same. desirous of doing everything for the best, fearful of cabal, distrusting his own judgment, he sought his ministers of all kinds upon public testimony. but as courts are the field for caballers, the public is the theatre for mountebanks and imposters. the cure for both those evils is in the discernment of the prince. but an accurate and penetrating discernment is what in a young prince could not be looked for. his conduct in its principle was not unwise; but, like most other of his well-meant designs, it failed in his hands. it failed partly from mere ill fortune, to which speculators are rarely pleased to assign that very large share to which she is justly entitled in human affairs. the failure, perhaps, in part was owing to his suffering his system to be vitiated and disturbed by those intrigues, which it is, humanly speaking, impossible wholly to prevent in courts, or indeed under any form of government. however, with these aberrations, he gave himself over to a succession of the statesmen of public opinion. in other things he thought that he might be a king on the terms of his predecessors. he was conscious of the purity of his heart, and the general good tendency of his government. he flattered himself, as most men in his situation will, that he might consult his ease without danger to his safety. it is not at all wonderful that both he and his ministers, giving way abundantly in other respects to innovation, should take up in policy with the tradition of their monarchy. under his ancestors the monarchy had subsisted, and even been strengthened, by the generation or support of republics. first, the swiss republics grew under the guardianship of the french monarchy. the dutch republics were hatched and cherished under the same incubation. afterwards, a republican constitution was, under the influence of france, established in the empire against the pretensions of its chief. even whilst the monarchy of france, by a series of wars and negociations, and lastly, by the treaties of westphalia, had obtained the establishment of the protestants in germany as a law of the empire, the same monarchy under louis the thirteenth, had force enough to destroy the republican system of the protestants at home. louis the sixteenth was a diligent reader of history. but the very lamp of prudence blinded him. the guide of human life led him astray. a silent revolution in the moral world preceded the political, and prepared it. it became of more importance than ever what examples were given, and what measures were adopted. their causes no longer lurked in the recesses of cabinets, or in the private conspiracies of the factious. they were no longer to be controlled by the force and influence of the grandees, who formerly had been able to stir up troubles by their discontents, and to quiet them by their corruption. the chain of subordination, even in cabal and sedition, was broken in its most important links. it was no longer the great and the populace. other interests were formed, other dependencies, other connections, other communications. the middle classes had swelled far beyond their former proportion. like whatever is the most effectively rich and great in society, these classes became the seat of all the active politics; and the preponderating weight to decide on them. there were all the energies by which fortune is acquired; there the consequence of their success. there were all the talents which assert their pretensions, and are impatient of the place which settled society prescribes to them. these descriptions had got between the great and the populace; and the influence on the lower classes was with them. the spirit of ambition had taken possession of this class as violent as ever it had done of any other. they felt the importance of this situation. the correspondence of the monied and the mercantile world, the literary intercourse of academies, but, above all, the press, of which they had in a manner entire possession, made a kind of electric communication everywhere. the press in reality has made every government, in its spirit, almost democratic. without it the great, the first movements in this revolution could not, perhaps, have been given. but the spirit of ambition, now for the first time connected with the spirit of speculation, was not to be restrained at will. there was no longer any means of arresting a principle in its course. when louis the sixteenth, under the influence of the enemies to monarchy, meant to found but one republic, he set up two. when he meant to take away half the crown of his neighbour, he lost the whole of his own. louis the sixteenth could not with impunity countenance a new republic: yet between his throne and that dangerous lodgment for an enemy, which he had erected, he had the whole atlantic for a ditch. he had for an outwork the english nation itself, friendly to liberty, adverse to that mode of it. he was surrounded by a rampart of monarchies, most of them allied to him, and generally under his influence. yet even thus secured, a republic erected under his auspices, and dependent on his power, became fatal to his throne. the very money which he had lent to support this republic, by a good faith, which to him operated as perfidy, was punctually paid to his enemies, and became a resource in the hands of his assassins. negative religion a nullity. if mere dissent from the church of rome be a merit, he that dissents the most perfectly is the most meritorious. in many points we hold strongly with that church. he that dissents throughout with that church will dissent with the church of england, and then it will be a part of his merit that he dissents with ourselves:--a whimsical species of merit for any set of men to establish. we quarrel to extremity with those who we know agree with us in many things, but we are to be so malicious even in the principle of our friendships, that we are to cherish in our bosom those who accord with us in nothing, because whilst they despise ourselves, they abhor, even more than we do, those with whom we have some disagreement. a man is certainly the most perfect protestant who protests against the whole christian religion. whether a person's having no christian religion be a title to favour, in exclusion to the largest description of christians who hold all the doctrines of christianity, though holding along with them some errors and some superfluities, is rather more than any man, who has not become recreant and apostate from his baptism, will, i believe, choose to affirm. the countenance given from a spirit of controversy to that negative religion may, by degrees, encourage light and unthinking people to a total indifference to everything positive in matters of doctrine; and, in the end, of practice too. if continued, it would play the game of that sort of active, proselytizing, and persecuting atheism, which is the disgrace and calamity of our time, and which we see to be as capable of subverting a government, as any mode can be of misguided zeal for better things. antechamber of regicide. to those who do not love to contemplate the fall of human greatness, i do not know a more mortifying spectacle, than to see the assembled majesty of the crowned heads of europe waiting as patient suitors in the antechamber of regicide. they wait, it seems, until the sanguinary tyrant carnot shall have snorted away the fumes of the indigested blood of his sovereign. then, when, sunk on the down of usurped pomp, he shall have sufficiently indulged his meditations with what monarch he shall next glut his ravening maw, he may condescend to signify that it is his pleasure to be awake; and that he is at leisure to receive the proposals of his high and mighty clients for the terms on which he may respite the execution of the sentence he has passed upon them. at the opening of those doors, what a sight it must be to behold the plenipotentiaries of royal impotence, in the precedency which they will intrigue to obtain, and which will be granted to them according to the seniority of their degradation, sneaking into the regicide presence, and with the relics of the smile, which they had dressed up for the levee of their masters, still flickering on their curled lips, presenting the faded remains of their courtly graces, to meet the scornful, ferocious, sardonic grin of a bloody ruffian, who, whilst he is receiving their homage, is measuring them with his eye, and fitting to their size the slider of his guillotine! these ambassadors may easily return as good courtiers as they went; but can they ever return from that degrading residence, loyal and faithful subjects; or with any true affection to their master, or true attachment to the constitution, religion, or laws of their country? there is great danger that they, who enter smiling into this trophonian cave, will come out of it sad and serious conspirators; and such will continue as long as they live. they will become true conductors of contagion to every country which has had the misfortune to send them to the source of that electricity. at best they will become totally indifferent to good and evil, to one institution or another. this species of indifference is but too generally distinguishable in those who have been much employed in foreign courts; but in the present case the evil must be aggravated without measure; for they go from their country, not with the pride of the old character, but in a state of the lowest degradation, and what must happen in their place of residence can have no effect in raising them to the level of true dignity, or of chaste self-estimation, either as men, or as representatives of crowned heads. tremendousness of war. as if war was a matter of experiment! as if you could take it up or lay it down as an idle frolic! as if the dire goddess that presides over it, with her murderous spear in hand, and her gorgon at her breast, was a coquette to be flirted with! we ought with reverence to approach that tremendous divinity, that loves courage, but commands counsel. war never leaves where it found a nation. it is never to be entered into without mature deliberation; not a deliberation lengthened out into a perplexing indecision, but a deliberation leading to a sure and fixed judgment. when so taken up, it is not to be abandoned without reason as valid, as fully, and as extensively considered. peace may be made as unadvisedly as war. nothing is so rash as fear; and the councils of pusillanimity very rarely put off, whilst they are always sure to aggravate, the evils from which they would fly. english officers. there is no want of officers, that i have ever understood, for the new ships which we commission, or the new regiments which we raise. in the nature of things it is not with their persons, that the higher classes principally pay their contingent to the demands of war. there is another, and not less important part, which rests with almost exclusive weight upon them. they furnish the means, "how war may best upheld move by her two main nerves, iron and gold, in all her equipage." not that they are exempt from contributing also by their personal service in the fleets and armies of their country. they do contribute, and in their full and fair proportion, according to the relative proportion of their numbers in the community. they contribute all the mind that actuates the whole machine. the fortitude required of them is very different from the unthinking alacrity of the common soldier, or common sailor, in the face of danger and death; it is not a passion, it is not an impulse, it is not a sentiment; it is a cool, steady, deliberate principle, always present, always equable; having no connection with anger; tempering honour with prudence; incited, invigorated, and sustained, by a generous love of fame; informed, moderated, and directed by an enlarged knowledge of its own great public ends; flowing in one blended stream from the opposite sources of the heart and the head; carrying in itself its own commission, and proving its title to every other command, by the first and most difficult command, that of the bosom in which it resides: it is a fortitude, which unites with the courage of the field the more exalted and refined courage of the council; which knows as well to retreat, as to advance; which can conquer as well by delay, as by the rapidity of a march, or the impetuosity of an attack; which can be, with fabius, the black cloud that lowers on the tops of the mountains, or with scipio, the thunderbolt of war; which, undismayed by false shame, can patiently endure the severest trial that a gallant spirit can undergo, in the taunts and provocations of the enemy, the suspicions, the cold respect, and "mouth-honour" of those, from whom it should meet a cheerful obedience; which, undisturbed by false humanity, can calmly assume that most awful moral responsibility of deciding, when victory may be too dearly purchased by the loss of a single life, and when the safety and glory of their country may demand the certain sacrifice of thousands. different stations of command may call for different modifications of this fortitude; but the character ought to be the same in all. and never, in the most "palmy state" of our martial renown, did it shine with brighter lustre than in the present sanguinary and ferocious hostilities, wherever the british arms have been carried. diplomacy of humiliation. it happens frequently that pride may reject a public advance, while interest listens to a secret suggestion of advantage. the opportunity has been afforded. at a very early period in the diplomacy of humiliation, a gentleman was sent on an errand, of which, from the motive of it, whatever the event might be, we can never be ashamed. humanity cannot be degraded by humiliation. it is its very character to submit to such things. there is a consanguinity between benevolence and humility. they are virtues of the same stock. dignity is of as good a race; but it belongs to the family of fortitude. in the spirit of that benevolence we sent a gentleman to beseech the directory of regicide not to be quite so prodigal as their republic had been of judicial murder. we solicited them to spare the lives of some unhappy persons of the first distinction, whose safety at other times could not have been an object of solicitation. they had quitted france on the faith of the declaration of the rights of citizens. they never had been in the service of the regicides, nor at their hands had received any stipend. the very system and constitution of government that now prevails was settled subsequently to their emigration. they were under the protection of great britain, and in his majesty's pay and service. not an hostile invasion, but the disasters of the sea, had thrown them upon a shore more barbarous and inhospitable than the inclement ocean under the most pitiless of its storms. here was an opportunity to express a feeling for the miseries of war; and to open some sort of conversation, which (after our public overtures had glutted their pride), at a cautious and jealous distance, might lead to something like an accommodation. what was the event? a strange uncouth thing, a theatrical figure of the opera, his head shaded with three-coloured plumes, his body fantastically habited, strutted from the back scenes, and, after a short speech, in the mock heroic falsetto of stupid tragedy, delivered the gentleman who came to make the representation into the custody of a guard, with directions not to lose sight of him for a moment; and then ordered him to be sent from paris in two hours. relation of wealth to national dignity. we have a vast interest to preserve, and we possess great means of preserving it: but it is to be remembered that the artificer may be encumbered by his tools, and that resources may be among impediments. if wealth is the obedient and laborious slave of virtue and of public honour, then wealth is in its place, and has its use: but if this order is changed, and honour is to be sacrificed to the conservation of riches,--riches, which have neither eyes nor hands, nor anything truly vital in them, cannot long survive the being of their vivifying powers, their legitimate masters, and their potent protectors. if we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free: if our wealth command us, we are poor indeed. we are bought by the enemy with the treasure from our own coffers. too great a sense of the value of a subordinate interest may be the very source of its danger, as well as the certain ruin of interests of a superior order. often has a man lost his all because he would not submit to hazard all in defending it. a display of our wealth before robbers is not the way to restrain their boldness, or to lessen their rapacity. this display is made, i know, to persuade the people of england that thereby we shall awe the enemy, and improve the terms of our capitulation: it is made, not that we should fight with more animation, but that we should supplicate with better hopes. we are mistaken. we have an enemy to deal with who never regarded our contest as a measuring and weighing of purses. he is the gaul that puts his sword into the scale. he is more tempted with our wealth as booty, than terrified with it as power. but let us be rich or poor, let us be either in what proportion we may, nature is false or this is true, that where the essential public force (of which money is but a part) is in any degree upon a par in a conflict between nations, that state, which is resolved to hazard its existence rather than to abandon its objects, must have an infinite advantage over that which is resolved to yield rather than to carry its resistance beyond a certain point. humanly speaking, that people which bounds its efforts only with its being, must give the law to that nation which will not push its opposition beyond its convenience. ambassadors of infamy. on this their gaudy day the new regicide directory sent for their diplomatic rabble, as bad as themselves in principle, but infinitely worse in degradation. they called them out by a sort of roll of their nations, one after another, much in the manner in which they called wretches out of their prison to the guillotine. when these ambassadors of infamy appeared before them, the chief director, in the name of the rest, treated each of them with a short, affected, pedantic, insolent, theatric laconium: a sort of epigram of contempt. when they had thus insulted them in a style and language which never before was heard, and which no sovereign would for a moment endure from another, supposing any of them frantic enough to use it; to finish their outrage, they drummed and trumpeted the wretches out of their hall of audience. among the objects of this insolent buffoonery was a person supposed to represent the king of prussia. to this worthy representative they did not so much as condescend to mention his master; they did not seem to know that he had one; they addressed themselves solely to prussia in the abstract, notwithstanding the infinite obligation they owed to their early protector for their first recognition and alliance, and for the part of his territory he gave into their hands for the first-fruits of his homage. none but dead monarchs are so much as mentioned by them, and those only to insult the living by an invidious comparison. they told the prussians they ought to learn, after the example of frederick the great, a love for france. what a pity it is, that he, who loved france so well as to chastise it, was not now alive, by an unsparing use of the rod (which indeed he would have spared little) to give them another instance of his paternal affection. but the directory were mistaken. these are not days in which monarchs value themselves upon the title of great: they are grown philosophic: they are satisfied to be good. your lordship will pardon me for this no very long reflection on the short but excellent speech of the plumed director to the ambassador of cappadocia. the imperial ambassador was not in waiting, but they found for austria a good judean representation. with great judgment his highness the grand duke had sent the most atheistic coxcomb to be found in florence to represent, at the bar of impiety, the house of apostolic majesty, and the descendants of the pious, though high-minded, maria theresa. he was sent to humble the whole race of austria before those grim assassins, reeking with the blood of the daughter of maria theresa, whom they sent, half-dead, in a dung-cart, to a cruel execution; and this true-born son of apostasy and infidelity, this renegado from the faith, and from all honour and all humanity, drove an austrian coach over the stones which were yet wet with her blood;--with that blood which dropped every step through her tumbril, all the way she was drawn from the horrid prison, in which they had finished all the cruelty and horrors, not executed in the face of the sun! the hungarian subjects of maria theresa, when they drew their swords to defend her rights against france, called her, with correctness of truth, though not with the same correctness, perhaps, of grammar, a king: moriamur pro rege nostro maria theresa.--she lived and died a king, and others will have subjects ready to make the same vow, when, in either sex, they show themselves real kings. difficulty the path to glory. when you choose an arduous and slippery path, god forbid that any weak feelings of my declining age, which calls for soothings and supports, and which can have none but from you, should make me wish that you should abandon what you are about, or should trifle with it. in this house we submit, though with troubled minds, to that order which has connected all great duties with toils and with perils, which has conducted the road to glory through the regions of obloquy and reproach, and which will never suffer the disparaging alliance of spurious, false, and fugitive praise with genuine and permanent reputation. we know that the power which has settled that order, and subjected you to it by placing you in the situation you are in, is able to bring you out of it with credit and with safety. his will be done. all must come right. you may open the way with pain, and under reproach. others will pursue it with ease and with applause. robespierre and his counterparts. they have murdered one robespierre. this robespierre they tell us was a cruel tyrant, and now that he is put out of the way, all will go well in france. astraea will again return to that earth from which she has been an emigrant, and all nations will resort to her golden scales. it is very extraordinary, that the very instant the mode of paris is known here, it becomes all the fashion in london. this is their jargon. it is the old bon ton of robbers, who cast their common crimes on the wickedness of their departed associates. i care little about the memory of this same robespierre. i am sure he was an execrable villain. i rejoiced at his punishment neither more nor less than i should at the execution of the present directory, or any of its members. but who gave robespierre the power of being a tyrant? and who were the instruments of his tyranny? the present virtuous constitution-mongers. he was a tyrant, they were his satellites and his hangmen. their sole merit is in the murder of their colleague. they have expiated their other murders by a new murder. it has always been the case among this banditti. they have always had the knife at each other's throats, after they had almost blunted it at the throats of every honest man. these people thought that, in the commerce of murder, he was like to have the better of the bargain if any time was lost; they therefore took one of their short revolutionary methods, and massacred him in a manner so perfidious and cruel, as would shock all humanity, if the stroke was not struck by the present rulers on one of their own associates. but this last act of infidelity and murder is to expiate all the rest, and to qualify them for the amity of a humane and virtuous sovereign and civilized people. i have heard that a tartar believes, when he has killed a man, that all his estimable qualities pass with his clothes and arms to the murderer: but i have never heard that it was the opinion of any savage scythian, that, if he kills a brother villain, he is, ipso facto, absolved of all his own offences. the tartarian doctrine is the most tenable opinion. the murderers of robespierre, besides what they are entitled to by being engaged in the same tontine of infamy, are his representatives, have inherited all his murderous qualities in addition to their own private stock. but it seems we are always to be of a party with the last and victorious assassins. i confess i am of a different mind, and am rather inclined, of the two, to think and speak less hardly of a dead ruffian, than to associate with the living. i could better bear the stench of the gibbeted murderer than the society of the bloody felons who yet annoy the world. whilst they wait the recompense due to their ancient crimes, they merit new punishment by the new offences they commit. there is a period to the offences of robespierre. they survive in his assassins. better a living dog, says the old proverb, than a dead lion; not so here. murderers and hogs never look well till they are hanged. from villany no good can arise, but in the example of its fate. so i leave them their dead robespierre, either to gibbet his memory, or to deify him in their pantheon with their marat and their mirabeau. accumulation, a state principle. there must be some impulse besides public spirit to put private interest into motion along with it. monied men ought to be allowed to set a value on their money; if they did not, there could be no monied men. this desire of accumulation is a principle without which the means of their service to the state could not exist. the love of lucre, though sometimes carried to a ridiculous, sometimes to a vicious excess, is the grand cause of prosperity to all states. in this natural, this reasonable, this powerful, this prolific principle, it is for the satirist to expose the ridiculous: it is for the moralist to censure the vicious; it is for the sympathetic heart to reprobate the hard and cruel; it is for the judge to animadvert on the fraud, the extortion, and the oppression; but it is for the statesman to employ it as he finds it, with all its concomitant excellencies, with all its imperfections on its head. it is his part, in this case, as it is in all other cases where he is to make use of the general energies of nature, to take them as he finds them. warning for a nation. with all these causes of corruption, we may well judge what the general fashion of mind will be through both sexes and all conditions. such spectacles and such examples will overbear all the laws that ever blackened the cumbrous volumes of our statutes. when royalty shall have disavowed itself; when it shall have relaxed all the principles of its own support; when it has rendered the system of regicide fashionable, and received it as triumphant in the very persons who have consolidated that system by the perpetration of every crime; who have not only massacred the prince, but the very laws and magistrates which were the support of royalty, and slaughtered, with an indiscriminate proscription, without regard to either sex or age, every person that was suspected of an inclination to king, law, or magistracy,--i say, will any one dare to be loyal? will any one presume, against both authority and opinion, to hold up this unfashionable, antiquated, exploded constitution? the jacobin faction in england must grow in strength and audacity; it will be supported by other intrigues, and supplied by other resources than yet we have seen in action. confounded at its growth, the government may fly to parliament for its support. but who will answer for the temper of a house of commons elected under these circumstances? who will answer for the courage of a house of commons to arm the crown with the extraordinary powers that it may demand? but the ministers will not venture to ask half of what they know they want. they will lose half of that half in the contest: and when they have obtained their nothing, they will be driven by the cries of faction either to demolish the feeble works they have thrown up in a hurry, or, in effect, to abandon them. as to the house of lords, it is not worth mentioning. the peers ought naturally to be the pillars of the crown; but when their titles are rendered contemptible, and their property invidious, and a part of their weakness, and not of their strength, they will be found so many degraded and trembling individuals, who will seek by evasion to put off the evil day of their ruin. both houses will be in perpetual oscillation between abortive attempts at energy, and still more unsuccessful attempts at compromise. you will be impatient of your disease, and abhorrent of your remedy. a spirit of subterfuge and a tone of apology will enter into all your proceedings, whether of law or legislation. your judges, who now sustain so masculine an authority, will appear more on their trial than the culprits they have before them. the awful frown of criminal justice will be smoothed into the silly smile of seduction. judges will think to insinuate and soothe the accused into conviction and condemnation, and to wheedle to the gallows the most artful of all delinquents. but they will not be so wheedled. they will not submit even to the appearance of persons on their trial. their claim to this exception will be admitted. the place in which some of the greatest names which ever distinguished the history of this country have stood, will appear beneath their dignity. the criminal will climb from the dock to the side-bar, and take his place and his tea with the counsel. from the bar of the counsel, by a natural progress, he will ascend to the bench, which long before had been virtually abandoned. they who escape from justice will not suffer a question upon reputation. they will take the crown of the causeway: they will be revered as martyrs; they will triumph as conquerors. nobody will dare to censure that popular part of the tribunal, whose only restraint on misjudgment is the censure of the public. they who find fault with the decision will be represented as enemies to the institution. juries that convict for the crown will be loaded with obloquy. the juries who acquit will be held up as models of justice. if parliament orders a prosecution, and fails (as fail it will), it will be treated to its face as guilty of a conspiracy maliciously to prosecute. its care in discovering a conspiracy against the state will be treated as a forged plot to destroy the liberty of the subject; every such discovery, instead of strengthening government, will weaken its reputation. in this state things will be suffered to proceed, lest measures of vigour should precipitate a crisis. the timid will act thus from character; the wise from necessity. our laws had done all that the old condition of things dictated to render our judges erect and independent; but they will naturally fail on the side upon which they had taken no precautions. the judicial magistrates will find themselves safe as against the crown, whose will is not their tenure; the power of executing their office will be held at the pleasure of those who deal out fame or abuse as they think fit. they will begin rather to consult their own repose and their own popularity, than the critical and perilous trust that is in their hands. they will speculate on consequences when they see at court an ambassador whose robes are lined with a scarlet dyed in the blood of judges. it is no wonder, nor are they to blame, when they are to consider how they shall answer for their conduct to the criminal of to-day turned into the magistrate of to-morrow. santerre and tallien. is it only an oppressive nightmare with which we have been loaded? is it then all a frightful dream, and are there no regicides in the world? have we not heard of that prodigy of a ruffian, who would not suffer his benignant sovereign, with his hands tied behind him, and stripped for execution, to say one parting word to his deluded people;--of santerre, who commanded the drums and trumpets to strike up to stifle his voice, and dragged him backward to the machine of murder? this nefarious villain (for a few days i may call him so) stands high in france, as in a republic of robbers and murderers he ought. what hinders this monster from being sent as ambassador to convey to his majesty the first compliments of his brethren, the regicide directory? they have none that can represent them more properly. i anticipate the day of his arrival. he will make his public entry into london on one of the pale horses of his brewery. as he knows that we are pleased with the paris taste for the orders of knighthood, he will fling a bloody sash across his shoulders with the order of the holy guillotine, surmounting the crown, appendant to the riband. thus adorned, he will proceed from whitechapel to the further end of pall mall, all the music of london playing the marseillais hymn before him, and escorted by a chosen detachment of the legion de l'echaffaud. it were only to be wished, that no ill-fated loyalist for the imprudence of his zeal may stand in the pillory at charing cross, under the statue of king charles the first, at the time of this grand procession, lest some of the rotten eggs, which the constitutional society shall let fly at his indiscreet head, may hit the virtuous murderer of his king. they might soil the state dress, which the ministers of so many crowned heads have admired, and in which sir clement cotterel is to introduce him at st. james's. if santerre cannot be spared from the constitutional butcheries at home, tallien may supply his place, and, in point of figure, with advantage. he has been habituated to commissions; and he is as well qualified as santerre for this. nero wished the roman people had but one neck. the wish of the more exalted tallien, when he sat in judgment, was, that his sovereign had eighty-three heads, that he might send one to every one of the departments. tallien will make an excellent figure at guildhall at the next sheriff's feast. he may open the ball with my lady mayoress. but this will be after he has retired from the public table, and gone into the private room for the enjoyment of more social and unreserved conversation with the ministers of state and the judges of the bench. there these ministers and magistrates will hear him entertain the worthy aldermen with an instructing and pleasing narrative of the manner in which he made the rich citizens of bordeaux squeak, and gently led them by the public credit of the guillotine to disgorge their anti-revolutionary pelf. all this will be the display, and the town-talk, when our regicide is on a visit of ceremony. at home nothing will equal the pomp and splendour of the hotel de la republique. there another scene of gaudy grandeur will be opened. when his citizen excellency keeps the festival, which every citizen is ordered to observe, for the glorious execution of louis the sixteenth, and renews his oath of detestation of kings, a grand ball, of course, will be given on the occasion. then what a hurly-burly;--what a crowding;--what a glare of a thousand flambeaux in the square;--what a clamour of footmen contending at the door;--what a rattling of a thousand coaches of duchesses, countesses, and lady marys, choking the way, and overturning each other, in a struggle who should be first to pay her court to the citoyenne, the spouse of the twenty-first husband, he the husband of the thirty-first wife, and to hail her in the rank of honourable matrons, before the four days' duration of marriage is expired!--morals, as they were:--decorum, the great outguard of the sex, and the proud sentiment of honour, which makes virtue more respectable where it is, and conceals human frailty where virtue may not be, will be banished from this land of propriety, modesty, and reserve. sir sydney smith. this officer having attempted, with great gallantry, to cut out a vessel from one of the enemy's harbours, was taken after an obstinate resistance, such as obtained him the marked respect of those who were witnesses of his valour, and knew the circumstances in which it was displayed. upon his arrival at paris, he was instantly thrown into prison; where the nature of his situation will best be understood, by knowing, that amongst its mitigations, was the permission to walk occasionally in the court, and to enjoy the privilege of shaving himself. on the old system of feelings and principles, his sufferings might have been entitled to consideration, and even in a comparison with those of citizen la fayette, to a priority in the order of compassion. if the ministers had neglected to take any steps in his favour, a declaration of the sense of the house of commons would have stimulated them to their duty. if they had caused a representation to be made, such a proceeding would have added force to it. if reprisal should be thought advisable, the address of the house would have given an additional sanction to a measure which would have been, indeed, justifiable without any other sanction than its own reason. but, no. nothing at all like it. in fact, the merit of sir sydney smith, and his claim on british compassion, was of a kind altogether different from that which interested so deeply the authors of the motion in favour of citizen la fayette. in my humble opinion, captain sir sydney smith has another sort of merit with the british nation, and something of a higher claim on british humanity, than citizen la fayette. faithful, zealous, and ardent, in the service of his king and country; full of spirit; full of resources; going out of the beaten road, but going right, because his uncommon enterprise was not conducted by a vulgar judgment;--in his profession, sir sydney smith might be considered as a distinguished person, if any person could well be distinguished in a service in which scarcely a commander can be named without putting you in mind of some action of intrepidity, skill, and vigilance, that has given them a fair title to contend with any men, and in any age. but i will say nothing farther of the merits of sir sydney smith: the mortal animosity of the regicide enemy supersedes all other panegyric. their hatred is a judgment in his favour without appeal. at present he is lodged in the tower of the temple, the last prison of louis the sixteenth, and the last but one of maria antonietta of austria; the prison of louis the seventeenth; the prison of elizabeth of bourbon. there he lies, unpitied by the grand philanthropy, to meditate upon the fate of those who are faithful to their king and country. whilst this prisoner, secluded from intercourse, was indulging in these cheering reflections, he might possibly have had the further consolation of learning (by means of the insolent exultation of his guards), that there was an english ambassador at paris; he might have had the proud comfort of hearing, that this ambassador had the honour of passing his mornings in respectful attendance at the office of a regicide pettifogger; and that in the evening he relaxed in the amusements of the opera, and in the spectacle of an audience totally new; an audience in which he had the pleasure of seeing about him not a single face that he could formerly have known in paris; but in the place of that company, one indeed more than equal to it in display of gaiety, splendour, and luxury; a set of abandoned wretches, squandering in insolent riot the spoils of their bleeding country. a subject of profound reflection both to the prisoner and to the ambassador. a moral distinction. i think we might have found, before the rude hand of insolent office was on our shoulder, and the staff of usurped authority brandished over our heads, that contempt of the suppliant is not the best forwarder of a suit; that national disgrace is not the high road to security, much less to power and greatness. patience, indeed, strongly indicates the love of peace; but mere love does not always lead to enjoyment. it is the power of winning that palm which ensures our wearing it. virtues have their place; and out of their place they hardly deserve the name. they pass into the neighbouring vice. the patience of fortitude and the endurance of pusillanimity are things very different, as in their principle, so in their effects. infidels and their policy. in the revolution of france two sorts of men were principally concerned in giving a character and determination to its pursuits: the philosophers and the politicians. they took different ways, but they met in the same end. the philosophers had one predominant object, which they pursued with a fanatical fury; that is, the utter extirpation of religion. to that every question of empire was subordinate. they had rather domineer in a parish of atheists than rule over a christian world. their temporal ambition was wholly subservient to their proselytizing spirit, in which they were not exceeded by mahomet himself. they who have made but superficial studies in the natural history of the human mind, have been taught to look on religious opinions as the only cause of enthusiastic zeal and sectarian propagation. but there is no doctrine whatever, on which men can warm, that is not capable of the very same effect. the social nature of man impels him to propagate his principles, as much as physical impulses urge him to propagate his kind. the passions give zeal and vehemence. the understanding bestows design and system. the whole man moves under the discipline of his opinions. religion is among the most powerful causes of enthusiasm. when anything concerning it becomes an object of much meditation, it cannot be indifferent to the mind. they who do not love religion, hate it. the rebels to god perfectly abhor the author of their being. they hate him "with all their heart, with all their mind, with all their soul, and with all their strength." he never presents himself to their thoughts, but to menace and alarm them. they cannot strike the sun out of heaven, but they are able to raise a smouldering smoke that obscures him from their own eyes. not being able to revenge themselves on god, they have a delight in vicariously defacing, degrading, torturing, and tearing in pieces his image in man. let no one judge of them by what he has conceived of them, when they were not incorporated, and had no lead. they were then only passengers in a common vehicle. they were then carried along with the general motion of religion in the community, and, without being aware of it, partook of its influence. in that situation, at worst, their nature was left free to counter-work their principles. they despaired of giving any very general currency to their opinions. they considered them as a reserved privilege for the chosen few. but when the possibility of dominion, lead, and propagation, presented itself, and that the ambition, which before had so often made them hypocrites, might rather gain than lose by a daring avowal of their sentiments, then the nature of this infernal spirit, which has "evil for its good," appeared in its full perfection. nothing indeed but the possession of some power can with any certainty discover what at the bottom is the true character of any man. without reading the speeches of vergniaud, francian of nantes, isnard, and some others of that sort, it would not be easy to conceive the passion, rancour, and malice of their tongues and hearts. they worked themselves up to a perfect frenzy against religion and all its professors. they tore the reputation of the clergy to pieces by their infuriated declamations and invectives, before they lacerated their bodies by their massacres. this fanatical atheism left out, we omit the principal feature in the french revolution, and a principal consideration with regard to the effects to be expected from a peace with it. the other sort of men were the politicians. to them, who had little or not at all reflected on the subject, religion was in itself no object of love or hatred. they disbelieved it, and that was all. neutral with regard to that object, they took the side which in the present state of things might best answer their purposes. they soon found that they could not do without the philosophers; and the philosophers soon made them sensible that the destruction of religion was to supply them with means of conquest, first at home, and then abroad. the philosophers were the active internal agitators, and supplied the spirit and principles: the second gave the practical direction. sometimes the one predominated in the composition, sometimes the other. the only difference between them was in the necessity of concealing the general design for a time, and in their dealing with foreign nations; the fanatics going straightforward and openly, the politicians by the surer mode of zigzag. in the course of events, this, among other causes, produced fierce and bloody contentions between them. but at the bottom they thoroughly agreed in all the objects of ambition and irreligion, and substantially in all the means of promoting these ends. what a minister should attempt. after such an elaborate display had been made of the injustice and insolence of an enemy, who seems to have been irritated by every one of the means which had been commonly used with effect to soothe the rage of intemperate power, the natural result would be, that the scabbard, in which we in vain attempted to plunge our sword, should have been thrown away with scorn. it would have been natural that, rising in the fulness of their might, insulted majesty, despised dignity, violated justice, rejected supplication, patience goaded into fury, would have poured out all the length of the reins upon all the wrath which they had so long restrained. it might have been expected that, emulous of the glory of the youthful hero in alliance with him, touched by the example of what one man, well formed and well placed, may do in the most desperate state of affairs, convinced there is a courage of the cabinet full as powerful, and far less vulgar than that of the field, our minister would have changed the whole line of that useless, prosperous prudence, which had hitherto produced all the effects of the blindest temerity. if he found his situation full of danger (and i do not deny that it is perilous in the extreme), he must feel that it is also full of glory; and that he is placed on a stage, than which no muse of fire that had ascended the highest heaven of invention could imagine anything more awful and august. it was hoped that, in this swelling scene in which he moved with some of the first potentates of europe for his fellow-actors, and with so many of the rest for the anxious spectators of a part, which, as he plays it, determines for ever their destiny and his own, like ulysses in the unravelling point of the epic story, he would have thrown off his patience and his rags together; and, stripped of unworthy disguises, he would have stood forth in the form and in the attitude of a hero. on that day it was thought he would have assumed the port of mars; that he would bid to be brought forth from their hideous kennel (where his scrupulous tenderness had too long immured them) those impatient dogs of war, whose fierce regards affright even the minister of vengeance that feeds them; that he would let them loose, in famine, fever, plagues, and death, upon a guilty race, to whose frame, and to all whose habit, order, peace, religion, and virtue are alien and abhorrent. it was expected that he would at last have thought of active and effectual war; that he would no longer amuse the british lion in the chase of mice and rats; that he would no longer employ the whole naval power of great britain, once the terror of the world, to prey upon the miserable remains of a peddling commerce, which the enemy did not regard, and from which none could profit. it was expected that he would have re-asserted the justice of his cause; that he would have re-animated whatever remained to him of his allies, and endeavoured to recover those whom their fears had led astray; that he would have rekindled the martial ardour of his citizens; that he would have held out to them the example of their ancestry, the assertor of europe, and the scourge of french ambition; that he would have reminded them of a posterity, which, if this nefarious robbery under the fraudulent name and false colour of a government, should in full power be seated in the heart of europe, must for ever be consigned to vice, impiety, barbarism, and the most ignominious slavery of body and mind. in so holy a cause it was presumed that he would (as in the beginning of the war he did) have opened all the temples; and with prayer, with fasting, and with supplication (better directed than to the grim moloch of regicide in france), have called upon us to raise that united cry which has so often stormed heaven, and with a pious violence forced down blessings upon a repentant people. it was hoped that when he had invoked upon his endeavours the favourable regard of the protector of the human race, it would be seen that his menaces to the enemy, and his prayers to the almighty, were not followed, but accompanied, with correspondent action. it was hoped that his shrilling trumpet should be heard, not to announce a show, but to sound a charge. law of vicinity. this violent breach in the community of europe we must conclude to have been made (even if they had not expressly declared it over and over again) either to force mankind into an adoption of their system, or to live in perpetual enmity with a community the most potent we have ever known. can any person imagine, that, in offering to mankind this desperate alternative, there is no indication of a hostile mind, because men in possession of the ruling authority are supposed to have a right to act without coercion in their own territories. as to the right of men to act anywhere according to their pleasure, without any moral tie, no such right exists. men are never in a state of total independence of each other. it is not the condition of our nature: nor is it conceivable how any man can pursue a considerable course of action without its having some effect upon others; or, of course, without producing some degree of responsibility for his conduct. the situations in which men relatively stand produce the rules and principles of that responsibility, and afford directions to prudence in exacting it. distance of place does not extinguish the duties or the rights of men; but it often renders their exercise impracticable. the same circumstance of distance renders the noxious effects of an evil system in any community less pernicious. but there are situations where this difficulty does not occur; and in which, therefore, these duties are obligatory, and these rights are to be asserted. it has ever been the method of public jurists to draw a great part of the analogies, on which they form the law of nations, from the principles of law which prevail in civil community. civil laws are not all of them merely positive. those, which are rather conclusions of legal reason than matters of statutable provision, belong to universal equity, and are universally applicable. almost the whole praetorian law is such. there is a "law of neighbourhood" which does not leave a man perfectly master on his own ground. when a neighbour sees a new erection, in the nature of a nuisance, set up at his door, he has a right to represent it to the judge; who, on his part, has a right to order the work to be stayed; or, if established, to be removed. on this head the parent law is express and clear, and has made many wise provisions, which, without destroying, regulate and restrain the right of ownership, by the right of vicinage. no innovation is permitted that may redound, even secondarily, to the prejudice of a neighbour. the whole doctrine of that important head of praetorian law, "de novi operis nunciatione," is founded on the principle, that no new use should be made of a man's private liberty of operating upon his private property, from whence a detriment may be justly apprehended by his neighbour. this law of denunciation is prospective. it is to anticipate what is called damnum infectum, or damnum nondum factum, that is, a damage justly apprehended, but not actually done. even before it is clearly known whether the innovation be damageable or not, the judge is competent to issue a prohibition to innovate, until the point can be determined. this prompt interference is grounded on principles favourable to both parties. it is preventive of mischief difficult to be repaired, and of ill blood difficult to be softened. the rule of law, therefore, which comes before the evil, is amongst the very best parts of equity, and justifies the promptness of the remedy; because, as it is well observed, res damni infecti celeritatem desiderat, et periculosa est dilatio. this right of denunciation does not hold, when things continue, however inconveniently to the neighbourhood, according to the ancient mode. for there is a sort of presumption against novelty, drawn out of a deep consideration of human nature, and human affairs; and the maxim of jurisprudence is well laid down, vetustas pro lege semper habetur. such is the law of civil vicinity. now where there is no constituted judge, as between independent states there is not, the vicinage itself is the natural judge. it is, preventively, the assertor of its own rights, or remedially, their avenger. neighbours are presumed to take cognizance of each other's acts. "vicini vicinorum facta praesumuntur scire." this principle, which, like the rest, is as true of nations as of individual men, has bestowed on the grand vicinage of europe a duty to know, and a right to prevent, any capital innovation which may amount to the erection of a dangerous nuisance. european community. the operation of dangerous and delusive first principles obliges us to have recourse to the true ones. in the intercourse between nations, we are apt to rely too much on the instrumental part. we lay too much weight upon the formality of treaties and compacts. we do not act much more wisely when we trust to the interests of men as guarantees of their engagements. the interests frequently tear to pieces the engagements; and the passions trample upon both. entirely to trust to either, is to disregard our own safety, or not to know mankind. men are not tied to one another by papers and seals. they are led to associate by resemblances, by conformities, by sympathies. it is with nations as with individuals. nothing is so strong a tie of amity between nation and nation as correspondence in laws, customs, manners, and habits of life. they have more than the force of treaties in themselves. they are obligations written in the heart. they approximate men to men, without their knowledge, and sometimes against their intentions. the secret, unseen, but irrefragable bond of habitual intercourse holds them together, even when their perverse and litigious nature sets them to equivocate, scuffle, and fight, about the terms of their written obligations. as to war, if it be the means of wrong and violence, it is the sole means of justice amongst nations. nothing can banish it from the world. they who say otherwise, intending to impose upon us, do not impose upon themselves. but it is one of the greatest objects of human wisdom to mitigate those evils which we are unable to remove. the conformity and analogy of which i speak, incapable, like everything else, of preserving perfect trust and tranquillity among men, has a strong tendency to facilitate accommodation, and to produce a generous oblivion of the rancour of their quarrels. with this similitude, peace is more of peace, and war is less of war. i will go further. there have been periods of time in which communities, apparently in peace with each other, have been more perfectly separated than, in latter times, many nations in europe have been in the course of long and bloody wars. the cause must be sought in the similitude throughout europe of religion, laws, and manners. at bottom, these are all the same. the writers on public law have often called this aggregate of nations a commonwealth. they had reason. it is virtually one great state having the same basis of general law, with some diversity of provincial customs and local establishments. the nations of europe have had the very same christian religion, agreeing in the fundamental parts, varying a little in the ceremonies and in the subordinate doctrines. the whole of the polity and economy of every country in europe has been derived from the same sources. it was drawn from the old germanic or gothic custumary, from the feudal institutions which must be considered as an emanation from that custumary; and the whole has been improved and digested into system and discipline by the roman law. from hence arose the several orders, with or without a monarch (which are called states), in every european country; the strong traces of which, where monarchy predominated, were never wholly extinguished or merged in despotism. in the few places where monarchy was cast off, the spirit of european monarchy was still left. those countries still continued countries of states; that is, of classes, orders, and distinctions such as had before subsisted, or nearly so. indeed, the force and form of the institution called states continued in greater perfection in those republican communities than under monarchies. from all those sources arose a system of manners and of education which was nearly similar in all this quarter of the globe; and which softened, blended, and harmonized the colours of the whole. perils of jacobin peace. the same temper which brings us to solicit a jacobin peace, will induce us to temporize with all the evils of it. by degrees our minds will be made to our circumstances. the novelty of such things, which produces half the horror, and all the disgust, will be worn off. our ruin will be disguised in profit, and the sale of a few wretched baubles will bribe a degenerate people to barter away the most precious jewel of their souls. our constitution is not made for this kind of warfare. it provides greatly for our happiness,--it furnishes few means for our defence. it is formed, in a great measure, upon the principle of jealousy of the crown; and, as things stood when it took that turn, with very great reason. i go further; it must keep alive some part of that fire of jealousy eternally and chastely burning, or it cannot be the british constitution. at various periods we have had tyranny in this country, more than enough. we have had rebellions, with more or less justification. some of our kings have made adulterous connections abroad, and trucked away for foreign gold the interests and glory of their crown. but before this time our liberty has never been corrupted. i mean to say, that it has never been debauched from its domestic relations. to this time it has been english liberty, and english liberty only. our love of liberty and our love of our country were not distinct things. liberty is now, it seems, put upon a larger and more liberal bottom. we are men, and as men, undoubtedly nothing human is foreign to us. we cannot be too liberal in our general wishes for the happiness of our kind. but in all questions on the mode of procuring it for any particular community, we ought to be fearful of admitting those who have no interest in it, or who have, perhaps, an interest against it, into the consultation. above all, we cannot be too cautious in our communication with those who seek their happiness by other roads than those of humanity, morals, and religion, and whose liberty consists, and consists alone, in being free from those restraints which are imposed by the virtues upon the passions. when we invite danger from a confidence in defensive measures, we ought, first of all, to be sure that it is a species of danger against which any defensive measures that can be adopted will be sufficient. next we ought to know that the spirit of our laws, or that our own dispositions, which are stronger than laws, are susceptible of all those defensive measures which the occasion may require. a third consideration is, whether these measures will not bring more odium than strength to government; and the last, whether the authority that makes them, in a general corruption of manners and principles, can insure their execution? let no one argue from the state of things, as he sees them at present, concerning what will be the means and capacities of government, when the time arrives, which shall call for remedies commensurate to enormous evils. it is an obvious truth that no constitution can defend itself: it must be defended by the wisdom and fortitude of men. these are what no constitution can give: they are the gifts of god; and he alone knows whether we shall possess such gifts at the time when we stand in need of them. constitutions furnish the civil means of getting at the natural; it is all that in this case they can do. but our constitution has more impediments than helps. its excellencies, when they come to be put to this sort of proof, may be found among its defects. nothing looks more awful and imposing than an ancient fortification. its lofty, embattled walls, its bold, projecting, rounded towers, that pierce the sky, strike the imagination, and promise inexpugnable strength. but they are the very things that make its weakness. you may as well think of opposing one of these old fortresses to the mass of artillery brought by a french irruption into the field, as to think of resisting, by your old laws, and your old forms, the new destruction which the corps of jacobin engineers of to-day prepare for all such forms and all such laws. besides the debility and false principle of their construction to resist the present modes of attack, the fortress itself is in ruinous repair, and there is a practicable breach in every part of it. such is the work. but miserable works have been defended by the constancy of the garrison. weather-beaten ships have been brought safe to port by the spirit and alertness of the crew. but it is here that we shall eminently fail. the day that, by their consent, the seat of regicide has its place among the thrones of europe, there is no longer a motive for zeal in their favour; it will at best be cold, unimpassioned, dejected, melancholy duty. the glory will seem all on the other side. the friends of the crown will appear, not as champions, but as victims; discountenanced, mortified, lowered, defeated, they will fall into listlessness and indifference. they will leave things to take their course; enjoy the present hour, and submit to the common fate. parliamentary and regal prerogative. your throne cannot stand secure upon the principles of unconditional submission and passive obedience; on powers exercised without the concurrence of the people to be governed; on acts made in defiance of their prejudices and habits; on acquiescence procured by foreign mercenary troops, and secured by standing armies. these may possibly be the foundation of other thrones: they must be the subversion of yours. it was not to passive principles in our ancestors that we owe the honour of appearing before a sovereign, who cannot feel that he is a prince, without knowing that we ought to be free. the revolution is a departure from the ancient course of the descent of this monarchy. the people at that time re-entered into their original rights; and it was not because a positive law authorized what was then done, but because the freedom and safety of the subject, the origin and cause of all laws, required a proceeding paramount and superior to them. at that ever-memorable and instructive period, the letter of the law was superseded in favour of the substance of liberty. to the free choice, therefore, of the people, without either king or parliament, we owe that happy establishment, out of which both king and parliament were regenerated. from that great principle of liberty have originated the statutes, confirming and ratifying the establishment, from which your majesty derives your right to rule over us. those statutes have not given us our liberties; our liberties have produced them. every hour of your majesty's reign your title stands upon the very same foundation on which it was at first laid; and we do not know a better on which it can possibly be placed. convinced, sir, that you cannot have different rights and a different security in different parts of your dominions, we wish to lay an even platform for your throne; and to give it an unmovable stability, by laying it on the general freedom of your people; and by securing to your majesty that confidence and affection in all parts of your dominions, which makes your best security and dearest title in this the chief seat of your empire. such, sir, being amongst us the foundation of monarchy itself, much more clearly and much more peculiarly is it the ground of all parliamentary power. parliament is a security provided for the protection of freedom, and not a subtile fiction, contrived to amuse the people in its place. the authority of both houses can, still less than that of the crown, be supported upon different principles in different places, so as to be, for one part of your subjects, a protector of liberty, and for another a fund of despotism, through which prerogative is extended by occasional powers, whenever an arbitrary will finds itself straitened by the restrictions of law. had it seemed good to parliament to consider itself as the indulgent guardian and strong protector of the freedom of the subordinate popular assemblies, instead of exercising its power to their annihilation, there is no doubt that it never could have been their inclination, because not their interest, to raise questions on the extent of parliamentary rights, or to enfeeble privileges which were the security of their own. powers evident from necessity, and not suspicious from an alarming mode or purpose in the exertion, would, as formerly they were, be cheerfully submitted to; and these would have been fully sufficient for conservation of unity in the empire, and for directing its wealth to one common centre. another use has produced other consequences; and a power which refuses to be limited by moderation must either be lost, or find other more distinct and satisfactory limitations. burke's design in his greatest work. he had undertaken to demonstrate by arguments which he thought could not be refuted, and by documents which he was sure could not be denied, that no comparison was to be made between the british government and the french usurpation. that they who endeavoured madly to compare them, were by no means making the comparison of one good system with another good system, which varied only in local and circumstantial differences; much less, that they were holding out to us a superior pattern of legal liberty, which we might substitute in the place of our old, and, as they described it, superannuated constitution. he meant to demonstrate that the french scheme was not a comparative good, but a positive evil. that the question did not at all turn, as had been stated, on a parallel between a monarchy and a republic. he denied that the present scheme of things in france did at all deserve the respectable name of a republic: he had therefore no comparison between monarchies and republics to make. that what was done in france was a wild attempt to methodize anarchy; to perpetuate and fix disorder. that it was a foul, impious, monstrous thing, wholly out of the course of moral nature. he undertook to prove that it was generated in treachery, fraud, falsehood, hypocrisy, and unprovoked murder. he offered to make out that those who had led in that business had conducted themselves with the utmost perfidy to their colleagues in function, and with the most flagrant perjury both towards their king and their constituents; to the one of whom the assembly had sworn fealty, and to the other, when under no sort of violence or constraint, they had sworn a full obedience to instructions.--that, by the terror of assassination, they had driven away a very great number of the members, so as to produce a false appearance of a majority.--that this fictitious majority had fabricated a constitution, which, as now it stands, is a tyranny far beyond any example that can be found in the civilized european world of our age; that therefore the lovers of it must be lovers, not of liberty, but if they really understand its nature, of the lowest and basest of all servitude. he proposed to prove that the present state of things in france is not a transient evil, productive, as some have too favourably represented it, of a lasting good; but that the present evil is only the means of producing future and (if that were possible) worse evils.--that it is not an undigested, imperfect, and crude scheme of liberty, which may gradually be mellowed and ripened into an orderly and social freedom; but that it is so fundamentally wrong, as to be utterly incapable of correcting itself by any length of time, or of being formed into any mode of polity of which a member of the house of commons could publicly declare his approbation. lord keppel. i ever looked on lord keppel as one of the greatest and best men of his age; and i loved and cultivated him accordingly. he was much in my heart, and i believe i was in his to the very last beat. it was at his trial at portsmouth that he gave me this picture. with what zeal and anxious affection i attended him through that his agony of glory, what part my son took in the early flush and enthusiasm of his virtue, and the pious passion with which he attached himself to all my connections, with what prodigality we both squandered ourselves in courting almost every sort of enmity for his sake, i believe he felt, just as i should have felt such friendship on such an occasion. i partook indeed of this honour with several of the first, and best, and ablest in the kingdom, but i was behindhand with none of them; and i am sure, that if to the eternal disgrace of this nation, and to the total annihilation of every trace of honour and virtue in it, things had taken a different turn from what they did, i should have attended him to the quarter-deck with no less good-will and more pride, though with far other feelings, than i partook of the general flow of national joy that attended the justice that was done to his virtue. pardon, my lord, the feeble garrulity of age, which loves to diffuse itself in discourse of the departed great. at my years we live in retrospect alone; and, wholly unfitted for the society of vigorous life, we enjoy, the best balm to all wounds, the consolation of friendship in those only whom we have lost for ever. feeling the loss of lord keppel at all times, at no time did i feel it so much as on the first day when i was attacked in the house of lords. had he lived, that reverend form would have risen in its place, and, with a mild, parental reprehension to his nephew the duke of bedford, he would have told him that the favour of that gracious prince, who had honoured his virtues with the government of the navy of great britain, and with a seat in the hereditary great council of his kingdom, was not undeservedly shown to the friend of the best portion of his life, and his faithful companion and counsellor under his rudest trials. he would have told him, that to whomever else these reproaches might be becoming, they were not decorous in his near kindred. he would have told him that when men in that rank lose decorum they lose everything. on that day i had a loss in lord keppel; but the public loss of him in this awful crisis--! i speak from much knowledge of the person, he never would have listened to any compromise with the rabble rout of this sans-culotterie of france. his goodness of heart, his reason, his taste, his public duty, his principles, his prejudices, would have repelled him for ever from all connection with that horrid medley of madness, vice, impiety, and crime. lord keppel had two countries; one of descent, and one of birth. their interest and their glory are the same; and his mind was capacious of both. his family was noble, and it was dutch: that is, he was the oldest and purest nobility that europe can boast, among a people renowned above all others for love of their native land. though it was never shown in insult to any human being, lord keppel was something high. it was a wild stock of pride, on which the tenderest of all hearts had grafted the milder virtues. he valued ancient nobility; and he was not disinclined to augment it with new honours. he valued the old nobility and the new, not as an excuse for inglorious sloth, but as an incitement to virtuous activity. he considered it as a sort of cure for selfishness and a narrow mind; conceiving that a man born in an elevated place in himself was nothing, but everything in what went before, and what was to come after him. without much speculation, but by the sure instinct of ingenuous feelings, and by the dictates of plain, unsophisticated, natural understanding, he felt that no great commonwealth could by any possibility long subsist without a body of some kind or other of nobility, decorated with honour, and fortified by privilege. this nobility forms the chain that connects the ages of a nation, which otherwise (with mr. paine) would soon be taught that no one generation can bind another. he felt that no political fabric could be well made without some such order of things as might, through a series of time, afford a rational hope of securing unity, coherence, consistency, and stability to the state. he felt that nothing else can protect it against the levity of courts, and the greater levity of the multitude. that to talk of hereditary monarchy, without anything else of hereditary reverence in the commonwealth, was a low-minded absurdity, fit only for those detestable "fools aspiring to be knaves," who began to forge in the false money of the french constitution.--that it is one fatal objection to all new fancied and new fabricated republics (among a people who, once possessing such an advantage, have wickedly and insolently rejected it), that the prejudice of an old nobility is a thing that cannot be made. it may be improved, it may be corrected, it may be replenished: men may be taken from it or aggregated to it, but the thing itself is matter of inveterate opinion, and therefore cannot be matter of mere positive institution. he felt that this nobility in fact does not exist in wrong of other orders of the state, but by them, and for them. "labouring poor." let government protect and encourage industry, secure property, repress violence, and discountenance fraud, it is all that they have to do. in other respects, the less they meddle in these affairs the better; the rest is in the hands of our master and theirs. we are in a constitution of things wherein--"modo sol nimius, modo corripit imber." but i will push this matter no further. as i have said a good deal upon it at various times during my public service, and have lately written something on it which may yet see the light, i shall content myself now with observing, that the vigorous and laborious class of life has lately got, from the bon ton of the humanity of this day, the name of the "labouring poor." we have heard many plans for the relief of the "labouring poor." this puling jargon is not as innocent as it is foolish. in meddling with great affairs, weakness is never innoxious. hitherto the name of poor (in the sense in which it is used to excite compassion) has not been used for those who can, but for those who cannot, labour--for the sick and infirm, for orphan infancy, for languishing and decrepit age: but when we affect to pity, as poor, those who must labour, or the world cannot exist, we are trifling with the condition of mankind. it is the common doom of man that he must eat his bread by the sweat of his brow, that is, by the sweat of his body, or the sweat of his mind. if this toil was inflicted as a curse, it is, as might be expected from the curses of the father of all blessings--it is tempered with many alleviations, many comforts. every attempt to fly from it, and to refuse the very terms of our existence, becomes much more truly a curse; and heavier pains and penalties fall upon those who would elude the tasks which are put upon them by the great master workman of the world, who, in his dealings with his creatures, sympathizes with their weakness, and speaking of a creation wrought by mere will out of nothing, speaks of six days of labour and one of rest. i do not call a healthy young man, cheerful in his mind, and vigorous in his arms, i cannot call such a man poor; i cannot pity my kind as a kind, merely because they are men. this affected pity only tends to dissatisfy them with their condition, and to teach them to seek resources where no resources are to be found, in something else than their own industry, and frugality, and sobriety. whatever may be the intention (which, because i do not know, i cannot dispute) of those who would discontent mankind by this strange pity, they act towards us, in the consequences, as if they were our worst enemies. state consecrated by the church. i beg leave to speak of our church establishment, which is the first of our prejudices, not a prejudice destitute of reason, but involving in it profound and extensive wisdom. i speak of it first. it is first, and last, and midst in our minds. for, taking ground on that religious system, of which we are now in possession, we continue to act on the early received and uniformly continued sense of mankind. that sense not only, like a wise architect, hath built up the august fabric of states, but like a provident proprietor, to preserve the structure from profanation and ruin, as a sacred temple purged from all the impurities of fraud, and violence, and injustice, and tyranny, hath solemnly and for ever consecrated the commonwealth, and all that officiate in it. this consecration is made, that all who administer in the government of men, in which they stand in the person of god himself, should have high and worthy notions of their function and destination; that their hope should be full of immortality; that they should not look to the paltry pelf of the moment, nor to the temporary and transient praise of the vulgar, but to a solid, permanent existence, in the permanent part of their nature, and to a permanent fame and glory, in the example they leave as a rich inheritance to the world. such sublime principles ought to be infused into persons of exalted situations; and religious establishments provided, that may continually revive and enforce them. every sort of moral, every sort of civil, every sort of politic institution, aiding the rational and natural ties that connect the human understanding and affections to the divine, are not more than necessary, in order to build up that wonderful structure, man; whose prerogative it is, to be in a great degree a creature of his own making; and who, when made as he ought to be made, is destined to hold no trivial place in the creation. but whenever man is put over men, as the better nature ought ever to preside, in that case more particularly, he should as nearly as possible be approximated to his perfection. the consecration of the state, by a state religious establishment, is necessary also to operate with a wholesome awe upon free citizens; because in order to secure their freedom, they must enjoy some determinate portion of power. to them therefore a religion connected with the state, and with their duty towards it, becomes even more necessary than in such societies, where the people, by the terms of their subjection, are confined to private sentiments, and the management of their own family concerns. all persons possessing any portion of power ought to be strongly and awfully impressed with an idea that they act in trust; and that they are to account for their conduct in that trust to the one great master, author, and founder of society. this principle ought even to be more strongly impressed upon the minds of those who compose the collective sovereignty, than upon those of single princes. without instruments, these princes can do nothing. whoever uses instruments, in finding helps, finds also impediments. their power is therefore by no means complete; nor are they safe in extreme abuse. such persons, however elevated by flattery, arrogance, and self-opinion, must be sensible that whether covered or not by positive law, in some way or other they are accountable even here for the abuse of their trust. if they are not cut off by a rebellion of their people, they may be strangled by the very janissaries kept for their security against all other rebellion. thus we have seen the king of france sold by his soldiers for an increase of pay. but where popular authority is absolute and unrestrained, the people have an infinitely greater, because a far better founded, confidence in their own power. they are themselves, in a great measure, their own instruments. they are nearer to their objects. besides, they are less under responsibility to one of the greatest controlling powers on earth, the sense of fame and estimation. the share of infamy, that is likely to fall to the lot of each individual in public acts, is small indeed; the operation of opinion being in the inverse ratio to the number of those who abuse power. their own approbation of their own acts has to them the appearance of a public judgment in their favour. a perfect democracy is therefore the most shameless thing in the world. as it is the most shameless, it is also the most fearless. no man apprehends in his person that he can be made subject to punishment. certainly the people at large never ought: for as all punishments are for example towards the conservation of the people at large, the people at large can never become the subject of punishment by any human hand. (quicquid multis peccatur inultum.) it is therefore of infinite importance that they should not be suffered to imagine that their will, any more than that of kings, is the standard of right and wrong. they ought to be persuaded that they are full as little entitled, and far less qualified, with safety to themselves, to use any arbitrary power whatsoever; that therefore they are not, under a false show of liberty, but in truth, to exercise an unnatural, inverted domination, tyranically to exact from those who officiate in the state, not an entire devotion to their interest, which is their right, but an abject submission to their occasional will; extinguishing thereby, in all those who serve them, all moral principle, all sense of dignity, all use of judgment, and all consistency of character; whilst by the very same process they give themselves up a proper, a suitable, but a most contemptible prey to the servile ambition of popular sycophants, or courtly flatterers. fate of louis xviii. let those who have the trust of political or of natural authority ever keep watch against the desperate enterprises of innovation: let even their benevolence be fortified and armed. they have before their eyes the example of a monarch, insulted, degraded, confined, deposed; his family dispersed, scattered, imprisoned; his wife insulted to his face like the vilest of the sex, by the vilest of all populace; himself three times dragged by these wretches in an infamous triumph; his children torn from him, in violation of the first right of nature, and given into the tuition of the most desperate and impious of the leaders of desperate and impious clubs; his revenues dilapidated and plundered; his magistrates murdered; his clergy proscribed, persecuted, famished; his nobility degraded in their rank, undone in their fortunes, fugitives in their persons; his armies corrupted and ruined; his whole people impoverished, disunited, dissolved; whilst through the bars of his prison, and amidst the bayonets of his keepers, he hears the tumult of two conflicting factions, equally wicked and abandoned, who agree in principles, in dispositions, and in objects, but who tear each other to pieces about the most effectual means of obtaining their common end; the one contending to preserve for a while his name, and his person, the more easily to destroy the royal authority--the other clamouring to cut off the name, the person, and the monarchy together, by one sacrilegious execution. all this accumulation of calamity, the greatest that ever fell upon one man, has fallen upon his head, because he had left his virtues unguarded by caution; because he was not taught that, where power is concerned, he who will confer benefits must take security against ingratitude. nobility. all this violent cry against the nobility i take to be a mere work of art. to be honoured and even privileged by the laws, opinions, and inveterate usages of our country, growing out of the prejudice of ages, has nothing to provoke horror and indignation in any man. even to be too tenacious of those privileges is not absolutely a crime. the strong struggle in every individual to preserve possession of what he has found to belong to him, and to distinguish him, is one of the securities against injustice and despotism implanted in our nature. it operates as an instinct to secure property, and to preserve communities in a settled state. what is there to shock in this? nobility is a graceful ornament to the civil order. it is the corinthian capital of polished society. omnes boni nobilitati semper favemus, was the saying of a wise and good man. it is indeed one sign of a liberal and benevolent mind to incline to it with some sort of partial propensity. he feels no ennobling principle in his own heart who wishes to level all the artificial institutions which have been adopted for giving a body to opinion, and permanence to fugitive esteem. it is a sour, malignant, envious disposition, without taste for the reality, or for any image or representation of virtue, that sees with joy the unmerited fall of what had long flourished in splendour and in honour. i do not like to see anything destroyed; any void produced in society; any ruin on the face of the land. it was therefore with no disappointment or dissatisfaction that my inquiries and observations did not present to me any incorrigible vices in the noblesse of france, or any abuse which could not be removed by a reform very short of abolition. your noblesse did not deserve punishment: but to degrade is to punish. it was with the same satisfaction i found that the result of my inquiry concerning your clergy was not dissimilar. it is no soothing news to my ears, that great bodies of men are incurably corrupt. it is not with much credulity i listen to any when they speak evil of those whom they are going to plunder. i rather suspect that vices are feigned or exaggerated when profit is looked for in their punishment. an enemy is a bad witness; a robber is a worse. vices and abuses there were undoubtedly in that order, and must be. it was an old establishment, and not frequently revised. but i saw no crimes in the individuals that merited confiscation of their substance, nor those cruel insults and degradations, and that unnatural persecution, which have been substituted in the place of meliorating regulation. if there had been any just cause for this new religious persecution, the atheistic libellers, who act as trumpeters to animate the populace to plunder, do not love anybody so much as not to dwell with complacence on the vices of the existing clergy. this they have not done. they find themselves obliged to rake into the histories of former ages (which they have ransacked with a malignant and profligate industry) for every instance of oppression and persecution which has been made by that body or in its favour, in order to justify, upon very iniquitous, because very illogical, principles of retaliation, their own persecutions and their own cruelties. after destroying all other genealogies and family distinctions, they invent a sort of pedigree of crimes. it is not very just to chastise men for the offences of their natural ancestors: but to take the fiction of ancestry in a corporate succession as a ground for punishing men who have no relation to guilty acts, except in names and general descriptions, is a sort of refinement in injustice belonging to the philosophy of this enlightened age. the assembly punishes men, many, if not most, of whom abhor the violent conduct of ecclesiastics in former times as much as their present persecutors can do, and who would be as loud and as strong in the expression of that sense, if they were not well aware of the purposes for which all this declamation is employed. corporate bodies are immortal for the good of the members, but not for their punishment. nations themselves are such corporations. as well might we in england think of waging inexpiable war upon all frenchmen for the evils which they have brought upon us in the several periods of our mutual hostilities. you might, on your part, think yourselves justified in falling upon all englishmen on account of the unparalleled calamities brought upon the people of france by the unjust invasions of our henries and our edwards. indeed, we should be mutually justified in this exterminatory war upon each other, full as much as you are in the unprovoked persecution of your present countrymen, on account of the conduct of men of the same name in other times. legislation and republicans. the legislators who framed the ancient republics knew that their business was too arduous to be accomplished with no better apparatus than the metaphysics of an undergraduate, and the mathematics and arithmetic of an exciseman. they had to do with men, and they were obliged to study human nature. they had to do with citizens, and they were obliged to study the effects of those habits which are communicated by the circumstances of civil life. they were sensible that the operation of this second nature on the first produced a new combination; and thence arose many diversities amongst men, according to their birth, their education, their professions, the periods of their lives, their residence in towns or in the country, their several ways of acquiring and of fixing property, and according to the quality of the property itself, all which rendered them as it were so many different species of animals. from hence they thought themselves obliged to dispose their citizens into such classes, and to place them in such situations in the state as their peculiar habits might qualify them to fill, and to allot to them such appropriated privileges as might secure to them what their specific occasions required, and which might furnish to each description such force as might protect it in the conflict caused by the diversity of interests that must exist, and must contend, in all complex society; for the legislator would have been ashamed that the coarse husbandman should well know how to assort and to use his sheep, horses, and oxen, and should have enough of common sense not to abstract and equalize them all into animals, without providing for each kind an appropriate food, care, and employment; whilst he, the economist, disposer, and shepherd of his own kindred, subliming himself into an airy metaphysician, was resolved to know nothing of his flocks but as men in general. it is for this reason that montesquieu observed, very justly, that in their classification of the citizens, the great legislators of antiquity made the greatest display of their powers, and even soared above themselves. it is here that your modern legislators have gone deep into the negative series, and sunk even below their own nothing. as the first sort of legislators attended to the different kinds of citizens, and combined them into one commonwealth, the others, the metaphysical and alchemistical legislators, have taken the directly contrary course. they have attempted to confound all sorts of citizens, as well as they could, into one homogeneous mass; and then they divided this their amalgama into a number of incoherent republics. they reduce men to loose counters, merely for the sake of simple telling, and not to figures whose power is to arise from their place in the table. the elements of their own metaphysics might have taught them better lessons. the troll of their categorical table might have informed them that there was something else in the intellectual world besides substance and quantity. they might learn from the catechism of metaphysics that there were eight heads more, in every complex deliberation, which they have never thought of; though these, of all the ten, are the subjects on which the skill of man can operate anything at all. so far from this able disposition of some of the old republican legislators, which follows with a solicitous accuracy the moral conditions and propensities of men, they have leveled and crushed together all the orders which they found, even under the coarse, unartificial arrangement of the monarchy, in which mode of government the classing of the citizens is not of so much importance as in a republic. it is true, however, that every such classification, if properly ordered, is good in all forms of government; and composes a strong barrier against the excesses of despotism, as well as it is the necessary means of giving effect and permanence to a republic. for want of something of this kind, if the present project of a republic should fail, all securities to a moderated freedom fail along with it; all the indirect restraints which mitigate despotism are removed; insomuch that if monarchy should ever again obtain an entire ascendancy in france, under this or under any other dynasty, it will probably be, if not voluntarily tempered at setting out by the wise and virtuous counsels of the prince, the most completely arbitrary power that has ever appeared on earth. this is to play a most desperate game. principle of state-consecration. but one of the first and most leading principles on which the commonwealth and the laws are consecrated, is lest the temporary possessors and life-renters in it, unmindful of what they have received from their ancestors, or of what is due to their posterity, should act as if they were the entire masters; that they should not think it amongst their rights to cut off the entail, or commit waste on the inheritance, by destroying at their pleasure the whole original fabric of their society; hazarding to leave to those who come after them a ruin instead of an habitation--and teaching these successors as little to respect their contrivances, as they had themselves respected the institutions of their forefathers. by this unprincipled facility of changing the state as often, and as much, and in as many ways, as there are floating fancies or fashions, the whole chain and continuity of the commonwealth would be broken. no one generation could link with the other. men would become little better than the flies of a summer. and first of all, the science of jurisprudence, the pride of the human intellect, which, with all its defects, redundancies, and errors, is the collected reason of ages, combining the principles of original justice with the infinite variety of human concerns, as a heap of old exploded errors, would be no longer studied. personal self-sufficiency and arrogance (the certain attendants upon all those who have never experienced a wisdom greater than their own) would usurp the tribunal. of course no certain laws, establishing invariable grounds of hope and fear, would keep the actions of men in a certain course, or direct them to a certain end. nothing stable in the modes of holding property, or exercising function, could form a solid ground on which any parent could speculate in the education of his offspring, or in a choice for their future establishment in the world. no principles would be early worked into the habits. as soon as the most able instructor had completed his laborious course of institution, instead of sending forth his pupil, accomplished in a virtuous discipline, fitted to procure him attention and respect in his place in society, he would find everything altered; and that he had turned out a poor creature to the contempt and derision of the world, ignorant of the true grounds of estimation. who would insure a tender and delicate sense of honour to beat almost with the first pulses of the heart, when no man could know what would be the test of honour in a nation, continually varying the standard of its coin? no part of life would retain its acquisitions. barbarism with regard to science and literature, unskilfulness with regard to arts and manufactures, would infallibly succeed to the want of a steady education and settled principle; and thus the commonwealth itself would, in a few generations, crumble away, be disconnected into the dust and powder of individuality, and at length dispersed to all the winds of heaven. to avoid therefore the evils of inconstancy and versatility, ten thousand times worse than those of obstinacy and the blindest prejudice, we have consecrated the state, that no man should approach to look into its defects or corruptions but with due caution; that he should never dream of beginning its reformation by its subversion; that he should approach to the faults of the state as to the wounds of a father, with pious awe, and trembling solicitude. by this wise prejudice we are taught to look with horror on those children of their country, who are prompt rashly to hack that aged parent in pieces, and put him into the kettle of magicians, in hopes that by their poisonous weeds, and wild incantations, they may regenerate the paternal constitution, and renovate their father's life. british stability. four hundred years have gone over us; but i believe we are not materially changed since that period. thanks to our sullen resistance to innovation, thanks to the cold sluggishness of our national character, we still bear the stamp of our forefathers. we have not (as i conceive) lost the generosity and dignity of thinking of the fourteenth century; nor as yet have we subtilized ourselves into savages. we are not the converts of rousseau; we are not the disciples of voltaire; helvetius has made no progress amongst us. atheists are not our preachers; madmen are not our lawgivers. we know that we have made no discoveries; and we think that no discoveries are to be made in morality; nor many in the great principles of government, nor in the ideas of liberty; which were understood long before we were born, altogether as well as they will be after the grave has heaped its mould upon our presumption, and the silent tomb shall have imposed its law on our pert loquacity. in england we have not yet been completely embowelled of our natural entrails; we still feel within us, and we cherish and cultivate, those inbred sentiments which are the faithful guardians, the active monitors of our duty, the true supporters of all liberal and manly morals. we have not been drawn and trussed, in order that we may be filled, like stuffed birds in a museum, with chaff and rags and paltry blurred shreds of paper about the rights of man. we preserve the whole of our feelings still native and entire, unsophisticated by pedantry and infidelity. we have real hearts of flesh and blood beating in our bosoms. we fear god; we look up with awe to kings; with affection to parliaments; with duty to magistrates; with reverence to priests; and with respect to nobility. why? because when such ideas are brought before our minds, it is natural to be so affected; because all other feelings are false and spurious, and tend to corrupt our minds, to vitiate our primary morals, to render us unfit for rational liberty; and by teaching us a servile, licentious, and abandoned insolence, to be our low sport for a few holidays, to make us perfectly fit for, and justly deserving of, slavery, through the whole course of our lives. you see, sir, that in this enlightened age i am bold enough to confess, that we are generally men of untaught feelings; that instead of casting away all our old prejudices, we cherish them to a very considerable degree, and, to take more shame to ourselves, we cherish them because they are prejudices; and the longer they have lasted, and the more generally they have prevailed, the more we cherish them. we are afraid to put men to live and trade each on his own private stock of reason; because we suspect that the stock in each man is small, and that the individuals would do better to avail themselves of the general bank and capital of nations and of ages. many of our men of speculation, instead of exploding general prejudices, employ their sagacity to discover the latent wisdom which prevails in them. if they find what they seek, and they seldom fail, they think it more wise to continue the prejudice, with the reason involved, than to cast away the coat of prejudice, and to leave nothing but the naked reason; because prejudice, with its reason, has a motive to give action to that reason, and an affection which will give it permanence. prejudice is of ready application to the emergency; it previously engages the mind in a steady course of wisdom and virtue, and does not leave the man hesitating in the moment of decision, sceptical, puzzled, and unresolved. prejudice renders a man's virtue his habit; and not a series of unconnected acts. through just prejudice, his duty becomes a part of his nature. literary atheists. the literary cabal had some years ago formed something like a regular plan for the destruction of the christian religion. this object they pursued with a degree of zeal which hitherto had been discovered only in the propagators of some system of piety. they were possessed with a spirit of proselytism in the most fanatical degree; and from thence, by an easy progress, with the spirit of persecution according to their means. what was not to be done towards their great end by any direct or immediate act, might be wrought by a longer process through the medium of opinion. to command that opinion, the first step is to establish a dominion over those who direct it. they contrived to possess themselves, with great method and perseverance, of all the avenues to literary fame. many of them indeed stood high in the ranks of literature and science. the world had done them justice; and in favour of general talents forgave the evil tendency of their peculiar principles. this was true liberality; which they returned by endeavouring to confine the reputation of sense, learning, and taste to themselves or their followers. i will venture to say that this narrow, exclusive spirit has not been less prejudicial to literature and to taste, than to morals and true philosophy. those atheistical fathers have a bigotry of their own; and they have learnt to talk against monks with the spirit of a monk. but in some things they are men of the world. the resources of intrigue are called in to supply the defects of argument and wit. to this system of literary monopoly was joined an unremitting industry to blacken and discredit in every way, and by every means, all those who did not hold to their faction. to those who have observed the spirit of their conduct, it has long been clear that nothing was wanted but the power of carrying the intolerance of the tongue and of the pen into a persecution which would strike at property, liberty, and life. the desultory and faint persecution carried on against them, more from compliance with form and decency, than with serious resentment, neither weakened their strength, nor relaxed their efforts. the issue of the whole was, that, what with opposition, and what with success, a violent and malignant zeal, of a kind hitherto unknown in the world, had taken an entire possession of their minds, and rendered their whole conversation, which otherwise would have been pleasing and instructive, perfectly disgusting. a spirit of cabal, intrigue, and proselytism, pervaded all their thoughts, words, and actions. and, as controversial zeal soon turns its thoughts on force, they began to insinuate themselves into a correspondence with foreign princes; in hopes, through their authority, which at first they flattered, they might bring about the changes they had in view. to them it was indifferent whether these changes were to be accomplished by the thunderbolt of despotism, or by the earthquake of popular commotion. the correspondence between this cabal and the late king of prussia, will throw no small light upon the spirit of all their proceedings. for the same purpose for which they intrigued with princes, they cultivated, in a distinguished manner, the monied interest of france; and partly through the means furnished by those whose peculiar offices gave them the most extensive and certain means of communication, they carefully occupied all the avenues to opinion. writers, especially when they act in a body, and with one direction, have great influence on the public mind; the alliance, therefore, of these writers with the monied interest, had no small effect in removing the popular odium and envy which attended that species of wealth. these writers, like the propagators of all novelties, pretended to a great zeal for the poor, and the lower orders, whilst in their satires they rendered hateful, by every exaggeration, the faults of courts, of nobility, and of priesthood. they became a sort of demagogues. they served as a link to unite, in favour of one object, obnoxious wealth to restless and desperate poverty. city of paris. the second material of cement for their new republic is the superiority of the city of paris: and this i admit is strongly connected with the other cementing principle of paper circulation and confiscation. it is in this part of the project we must look for the cause of the destruction of all the old bounds of provinces and jurisdictions, ecclesiastical and secular, and the dissolution of all ancient combinations of things, as well as the formation of so many small unconnected republics. the power of the city of paris is evidently one great spring of all their politics. it is through the power of paris, now become the centre and focus of jobbing, that the leaders of this faction direct, or rather command, the whole legislative and the whole executive government. everything therefore must be done which can confirm the authority of that city over the other republics. paris is compact; she has an enormous strength, wholly disproportioned to the force of any of the square republics; and this strength is collected and condensed within a narrow compass. paris has a natural and easy connection of its parts, which will not be affected by any scheme of a geometrical constitution, nor does it much signify whether its proportion of representation be more or less, since it has the whole draft of fishes in its drag-net. the other divisions of the kingdom being hackled and torn to pieces, and separated from all their habitual means, and even principles of union, cannot, for some time at least, confederate against her. nothing was to be left in all the subordinate members, but weakness, disconnection, and confusion. to confirm this part of the plan, the assembly has lately come to a resolution, that no two of their republics shall have the same commander-in-chief. to a person who takes a view of the whole, the strength of paris, thus formed, will appear a system of general weakness. it is boasted that the geometrical policy has been adopted, that all local ideas should be sunk, and that the people should be no longer gascons, picards, bretons, normans; but frenchmen, with one country, one heart, and one assembly. but instead of being all frenchmen, the greater likelihood is, that the inhabitants of that region will shortly have no country. no man ever was attached by a sense of pride, partiality, or real affection, to a description of square measurements. he never will glory in belonging to the chequer no. , or to any other badge-ticket. we begin our public affections in our families. no cold relation is a zealous citizen. we pass on to our neighbourhoods, and our habitual provincial connections. these are inns and resting-places. such divisions of our country as have been formed by habit, and not by a sudden jerk of authority, were so many little images of the great country in which the heart found something which it could fill. the love to the whole is not extinguished by this subordinate partiality. perhaps it is a sort of elemental training to those higher and more large regards, by which alone men come to be affected, as with their own concern, in the prosperity of a kingdom so extensive as that of france. in that general territory itself, as in the old name of provinces, the citizens are interested from old prejudices and unreasoned habits, and not on account of the geometric properties of its figure. the power and pre-eminence of paris does certainly press down and hold these republics together as long as it lasts. but, for the reasons i have already given you, i think it cannot last very long. principle of church property. why should the expenditure of a great landed property, which is a dispersion of the surplus product of the soil, appear intolerable to you or to me, when it takes its course through the accumulation of vast libraries, which are the history of the force and weakness of the human mind; through great collections of ancient records, medals, and coins, which attest and explain laws and customs; through paintings and statues, that, by imitating nature, seem to extend the limits of creation; through grand monuments of the dead, which continue the regards and connections of life beyond the grave; through collections of the specimens of nature, which become a representative assembly of all the classes and families of the world, that by disposition facilitate, and, by exciting curiosity, open the avenues to science? if by great permanent establishments, all these objects of expense are better secured from the inconstant sport of personal caprice and personal extravagance, are they worse than if the same tastes prevailed in scattered individuals? does not the sweat of the mason and carpenter, who toil in order to partake the sweat of the peasant, flow as pleasantly and as salubriously, in the construction and repair of the majestic edifices of religion, as in the painted booths and sordid sties of vice and luxury; as honourably and as profitably in repairing those sacred works, which grow hoary with innumerable years, as on the momentary receptacles of transient voluptuousness; in opera-houses, and brothels, and gaming-houses, and club-houses, and obelisks in the champ de mars? is the surplus product of the olive and the vine worse employed in the frugal sustenance of persons, whom the fictions of a pious imagination raise to dignity by construing in the service of god, than in pampering the innumerable multitude of those who are degraded by being made useless domestics, subservient to the pride of man? are the decorations of temples an expenditure less worthy a wise man, than ribbons, and laces, and national cockades, and petites maisons, and petits soupers, and all the innumerable fopperies and follies, in which opulence sports away the burthen of its superfluity? we tolerate even these; not from love of them, but for fear of worse. we tolerate them, because property and liberty, to a degree, acquire that toleration. but why proscribe the other, and surely, in every point of view, the more laudable use of estates? why, through the violation of all property, through an outrage upon every principle of liberty, forcibly carry them from the better to the worse? this comparison between the new individuals and the old corps, is made upon a supposition that no reform could be made in the latter. but, in a question of reformation, i always consider corporate bodies, whether sole or consisting of many, to be much more susceptible of a public direction by the power of the state, in the use of their property, and in the regulation of modes and habits of life in their members, than private citizens ever can be, or perhaps ought to be: and this seems to me a very material consideration for those who undertake anything which merits the name of a politic enterprise. so far as to the estates of monasteries. with regard to the estates possessed by bishops and canons, and commendatory abbots, i cannot find out for what reason some landed estates may not be held otherwise than by inheritance. can any philosophic spoiler undertake to demonstrate the positive or the comparative evil of having a certain, and that too a large, portion of landed property, passing in succession through persons whose title to it is, always in theory, and often, in fact, an eminent degree of piety, morals, and learning; a property, which, by its destination, in their turn, and on the score of merit, gives to the noblest families renovation and support, to the lowest the means of dignity and elevation; a property the tenure to which is the performance of some duty (whatever value you may choose to set upon that duty), and the character of whose proprietors demands, at least, an exterior decorum, and gravity of manners; who are to exercise a generous but temperate hospitality; part of whose income they are to consider as a trust for charity; and who, even when they fail in their trust, when they slide from their character, and degenerate into a mere common secular nobleman or gentleman, are in no respect worse than those who may succeed them in their forfeited possessions? is it better that estates should be held by those who have no duty, than by those who have one?--by those whose character and destination point to virtues, than by those who have no rule and direction in the expenditure of their estates but their own will and appetite? nor are these estates held altogether in the character or with the evils supposed inherent in mortmain. they pass from hand to hand with a more rapid circulation than any other. no excess is good; and therefore too great a proportion of landed property may be held officially for life: but it does not seem to me of material injury to any commonwealth, that there should exist some estates that have a chance of being acquired by other means than the previous acquisition of money. parsimony not economy. i beg leave to tell him, that mere parsimony is not economy. it is separable in theory from it; and in fact it may, or it may not, be a part of economy, according to circumstances. expense, and great expense, may be an essential part in true economy. if parsimony were to be considered as one of the kinds of that virtue, there is, however, another and a higher economy. economy is a distributive virtue, and consists not in saving, but in selection. parsimony requires no providence, no sagacity, no powers of combination, no comparison, no judgment. mere instinct, and that not an instinct of the noblest kind, may produce this false economy in perfection. the other economy has larger views. it demands a discriminating judgment, and a firm, sagacious mind. it shuts one door to impudent importunity, only to open another, and a wider, to unpresuming merit. if none but meritorious service or real talent were to be rewarded, this nation has not wanted, and this nation will not want, the means of rewarding all the service it ever will receive, and encouraging all the merit it ever will produce. no state, since the foundation of society, has been impoverished by that species of profusion. had the economy of selection and proportion been at all times observed, we should not now have had an overgrown duke of bedford, to oppress the industry of humble men, and to limit, by the standard of his own conceptions, the justice, the bounty, or, if he pleases, the charity of the crown. majesty of the british constitution. i wish my countrymen rather to recommend to our neighbours the example of the british constitution, than to take models from them for the improvement of our own. in the former they have got an invaluable treasure. they are not, i think, without some causes of apprehension and complaint; but these they do not owe to their constitution, but to their own conduct. i think our happy situation owing to our constitution; but owing to the whole of it, and not to any part singly; owing, in a great measure, to what we have left standing in our several reviews and reformations, as well as to what we have altered or superadded. our people will find employment enough for a truly patriotic, free, and independent spirit, in guarding what they possess from violation. i would not exclude alteration neither; but even when i changed, it should be to preserve. i should be led to my remedy by a great grievance. in what i did, i should follow the example of our ancestors. i would make the reparation as nearly as possible in the style of the building. a politic caution, a guarded circumspection, a moral rather than a complexional timidity, were among the ruling principles of our forefathers in their most decided conduct. not being illuminated with the light of which the gentlemen of france tell us they have got so abundant a share, they acted under a strong impression of the ignorance and fallibility of mankind. he that had made them thus fallible, rewarded them for having in their conduct attended to their nature. let us imitate their caution, if we wish to deserve their fortune, or to retain their bequests. let us add, if we please, but let us preserve what they have left; and, standing on the firm ground of the british constitution, let us be satisfied to admire, rather than attempt to follow in their desperate flights the aeronauts of france. i have told you candidly my sentiments. i think they are not likely to alter yours. i do not know that they ought. you are young; you cannot guide, but must follow the fortune of your country. but hereafter they may be of some use to you, in some future form which your commonwealth may take. in the present it can hardly remain; but before its final settlement it may be obliged to pass, as one of our poets says, "through great varieties of untried being," and in all its transmigrations to be purified by fire and blood. duty not based on will. i cannot too often recommend it to the serious consideration of all men, who think civil society to be within the province of moral jurisdiction, that if we owe to it any duty, it is not subject to our will. duties are not voluntary. duty and will are even contradictory terms. now, though civil society might be at first a voluntary act (which in many cases it undoubtedly was), its continuance is under a permanent, standing covenant, co-existing with the society; and it attaches upon every individual of that society, without any formal act of his own. this is warranted by the general practice, arising out of the general sense of mankind. men without their choice derive benefits from that association; without their choice they are subjected to duties in consequence of these benefits; and without their choice they enter into a virtual obligation as binding as any that is actual. look through the whole of life and the whole system of duties. much the strongest moral obligations are such as were never the results of our option. i allow, that if no supreme ruler exists, wise to form, and potent to enforce, the moral law, there is no sanction to any contract, virtual or even actual, against the will of prevalent power. on that hypothesis, let any set of men be strong enough to set their duties at defiance, and they cease to be duties any longer. we have but this one appeal against irresistible power-- "si genus humanum et mortalia temnitis arma, at sperate deos memores fandi atque nefandi." taking it for granted that i do not write to the disciples of the parisian philosophy, i may assume, that the awful author of our being is the author of our place in the order of existence; and that, having disposed and marshalled us by a divine tactic, not according to our will, but according to his, he has, in and by that disposition, virtually subjected us to act the part which belongs to the place assigned us. we have obligations to mankind at large, which are not in consequence of any special voluntary pact. they arise from the relation of man to man, and the relation of man to god, which relations are not matters of choice. on the contrary, the force of all the pacts which we enter into with any particular person, or number of persons, amongst mankind, depends upon those prior obligations. in some cases the subordinate relations are voluntary, in others they are necessary--but the duties are all compulsive. when we marry, the choice is voluntary, but the duties are not matter of choice. they are dictated by the nature of the situation. dark and inscrutable are the ways by which we come into the world. the instincts which give rise to this mysterious process of nature are not of our making. but out of physical causes, unknown to us, perhaps unknowable, arise moral duties, which, as we are able perfectly to comprehend, we are bound indispensably to perform. parents may not be consenting to their moral relation; but consenting or not, they are bound to a long train of burthensome duties towards those with whom they have never made a convention of any sort. children are not consenting to their relation, but their relation, without their actual consent, binds them to its duties; or rather it implies their consent, because the presumed consent of every rational creature is in unison with the predisposed order of things. men come in that manner into a community with the social state of their parents, endowed with all the benefits, loaded with all the duties, of their situation. if the social ties and ligaments, spun out of those physical relations which are the elements of the commonwealth, in most cases begin, and alway continue, independently of our will, so, without any stipulation on our own part, are we bound by that relation called our country, which comprehends (as it has been well said) "all the charities of all." nor are we left without powerful instincts to make this duty as dear and grateful to us, as it is awful and coercive. it consists, in a great measure, in the ancient order into which we are born. we may have the same geographical situation, but another country; as we may have the same country in another soil. the place that determines our duty to our country is a social, civil relation. ecclesiastical confiscation. the confiscators truly have made some allowance to their victims from the scraps and fragments of their own tables, from which they have been so harshly driven, and which have been so bountifully spread for a feast to the harpies of usury. but to drive men from independence to live on alms is itself great cruelty. that which might be a tolerable condition to men in one state of life, and not habituated to other things, may, when all these circumstances are altered, be a dreadful revolution; and one to which a virtuous mind would feel pain in condemning any guilt, except that which would demand the life of the offender. but to many minds this punishment of degradation and infamy is worse than death. undoubtedly it is an infinite aggravation of this cruel suffering, that the persons who were taught a double prejudice in favour of religion, by education and by the place they held in the administration of its functions, are to receive the remnants of the property as alms from the profane and impious hands of those who had plundered them of all the rest; to receive (if they are at all to receive) not from the charitable contributions of the faithful, but from the insolent tenderness of known and avowed atheism, the maintenance of religion, measured out to them on the standard of the contempt in which it is held; and for the purpose of rendering those who receive the allowance vile, and of no estimation, in the eyes of mankind. but this act of seizure of property, it seems, is a judgment in law, and not a confiscation. they have, it seems, found out in the academies of the palais royal and the jacobins, that certain men had no right to the possessions which they held under law, usage, the decisions of courts, and the accumulated prescription of a thousand years. they say that ecclesiastics are fictitious persons, creatures of the state, whom at pleasure they may destroy, and of course limit and modify in every particular; that the goods they possess are not properly theirs, but belong to the state which created the fiction; and we are therefore not to trouble ourselves with what they may suffer in their natural feelings and natural persons, on account of what is done towards them in this their constructive character. of what import is it under what names you injure men, and deprive them of the just emoluments of a profession, in which they were not only permitted but encouraged by the state to engage; and upon the supposed certainty of which emoluments they had formed the plan of their lives, contracted debts, and led multitudes to an entire dependence upon them? you do not imagine, sir, that i am going to compliment this miserable distinction of persons with any long discussion. the arguments of tyranny are as contemptible as its force is dreadful. had not your confiscators, by their early crimes, obtained a power which secures indemnity to all the crimes of which they have since been guilty, or that they can commit, it is not the syllogism of the logician, but the lash of the executioner, that would have refuted a sophistry which becomes an accomplice of theft and murder. the sophistic tyrants of paris are loud in their declamations against the departed regal tyrants, who in former ages have vexed the world. they are thus bold, because they are safe from the dungeons and iron cages of their old masters. shall we be more tender of the tyrants of our own time, when we see them acting worse tragedies under our eyes? shall we not use the same liberty that they do, when we can use it with the same safety? when to speak honest truth only requires a contempt of the opinion of those whose actions we abhor? moral of history. we do not draw the moral lessons we might from history. on the contrary, without care it may be used to vitiate our minds and to destroy our happiness. in history a great volume is unrolled for our instruction, drawing the materials of future wisdom from the past errors and infirmities of mankind. it may, in the perversion, serve for a magazine, furnishing offensive and defensive weapons for parties in church and state, and supplying the means of keeping alive, or reviving, dissensions and animosities, and adding fuel to civil fury. history consists, for the greater part, of the miseries brought upon the world by pride, ambition, avarice, revenge, lust, sedition, hypocrisy, ungoverned zeal, and all the train of disorderly appetites which shake the public with the same --"troublous storms that toss the private state, and render life unsweet." these vices are the causes of those storms. religion, morals, laws, prerogatives, privileges, liberties, rights of men, are the pretexts. the pretexts are always found in some specious appearance of a real good. you would not secure men from tyranny and sedition, by rooting out of the mind the principles to which these fraudulent pretexts apply? if you did, you would root out everything that is valuable in the human breast. as these are the pretexts, so the ordinary actors and instruments in great public evils are kings, priests, magistrates, senates, parliaments, national assemblies, judges, and captains. you would not cure the evil by resolving that there should be no more monarchs, nor ministers of state, nor of the gospel; no interpreters of law; no general officers; no public councils. you might change the names. the things in some shape must remain. a certain quantum of power must always exist in the community, in some hands, and under some appellation. wise men will apply their remedies to vices, not to names; to the causes of evil which are permanent, not to the occasional organs by which they act, and the transitory modes in which they appear. otherwise you will be wise historically,--a fool in practice. seldom have two ages the same fashion in their pretexts and the same modes of mischief. wickedness is a little more inventive. whilst you are discussing fashion, the fashion is gone by. the very same vice assumes a new body. the spirit transmigrates; and, far from losing its principle of life by the change of its appearance, it is renovated in its new organs with the fresh vigour of a juvenile activity. it walks abroad, it continues its ravages, whilst you are gibbeting the carcase, or demolishing the tomb. you are terrifying yourselves with ghosts and apparitions, whilst your house is the haunt of robbers. it is thus with all those who, attending only to the shell and husk of history, think they are waging war with intolerance, pride, and cruelty, whilst, under colour of abhorring the ill principles of antiquated parties, they are authorizing and feeding the same odious vices in different factions, and perhaps in worse. use of defects in history. not that i derogate from the use of history. it is a great improver of the understanding, by showing both men and affairs in a great variety of views. from this source much political wisdom may be learned; that is, may be learned as habit, not as precept; and as an exercise to strengthen the mind, as furnishing materials to enlarge and enrich it, not as a repertory of cases and precedents for a lawyer: if it were, a thousand times better would it be that a statesman had never learned to read--vellem nescirent literas. this method turns their understanding from the object before them, and from the present exigencies of the world, to comparisons with former times, of which, after all, we can know very little, and very imperfectly; and our guides, the historians, who are to give us their true interpretation, are often prejudiced, often ignorant, often fonder of system than of truth. whereas, if a man with reasonably good parts and natural sagacity, and not in the leading-strings of any master, will look steadily on the business before him, without being diverted by retrospect and comparison, he may be capable of forming a reasonably good judgment of what is to be done. there are some fundamental points in which nature never changes--but they are few and obvious, and belong rather to morals than to politics. but so far as regards political matter, the human mind and human affairs are susceptible of infinite modifications, and of combinations wholly new and unlooked for. very few, for instance, could have imagined that property, which has been taken for natural dominion, should, through the whole of a vast kingdom, lose all its importance and even its influence. this is what history or books of speculation could hardly have taught us. how many could have thought, that the most complete and formidable revolution in a great empire should be made by men of letters, not as subordinate instruments and trumpeters of sedition, but as the chief contrivers and managers, and in a short time as the open administrators and sovereign rulers? who could have imagined that atheism could produce one of the most violently operative principles of fanaticism? who could have imagined that, in a commonwealth in a manner cradled in war, and in extensive and dreadful war, military commanders should be of little or no account? that the convention should not contain one military man of name? that administrative bodies in a state of the utmost confusion, and of but a momentary duration, and composed of men with not one imposing part of character, should be able to govern the country and its armies with an authority which the most settled senates, and the most respected monarchs, scarcely ever had in the same degree? this, for one, i confess i did not foresee, though all the rest was present to me very early, and not out of my apprehension even for several years. social contract. society is indeed a contract. subordinate contracts for objects of mere occasional interest may be dissolved at pleasure--but the state ought not to be considered nothing better than a partnership agreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico or tobacco, or some other such low concern, to be taken up for a little temporary interest, and to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties. it is to be looked on with other reverence; because it is not a partnership in things subservient only to the gross animal existence of a temporary and perishable nature. it is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection. as the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born. each contract of each particular state is but a clause in the great primeval contract of eternal society, linking the lower with the higher natures, connecting the visible and invisible world, according to a fixed compact sanctioned by the inviolable oath which holds all physical and all moral natures each in their appointed place. this law is not subject to the will of those, who by an obligation above them, and infinitely superior, are bound to submit their will to that law. the municipal corporations of that universal kingdom are not morally at liberty at their pleasure, and on their speculations of a contingent improvement, wholly to separate and tear asunder the bands of their subordinate community, and to dissolve it into an unsocial, uncivil, unconnected chaos of elementary principles. it is the first and supreme necessity only, a necessity that is not chosen, but chooses, a necessity paramount to deliberation, that admits no discussion, and demands no evidence, which alone can justify a resort to anarchy. this necessity is no exception to the rule; because this necessity itself is a part too of that moral and physical disposition of things to which man must be obedient by consent of force: but if that which is only submission to necessity should be made the object of choice, the law is broken, nature is disobeyed, and the rebellious are outlawed, cast forth, and exiled from this world of reason, and order, and peace, and virtue, and fruitful penitence, into the antagonist world of madness, discord, vice, confusion, and unavailing sorrow. prescriptive rights. the crown has considered me after long service; the crown has paid the duke of bedford by advance. he has had a long credit for any service which he may perform hereafter. he is secure, and long may he be secure, in his advance, whether he performs any services or not. but let him take care how he endangers the safety of that constitution which secures his own utility or his own insignificance; or how he discourages those who take up even puny arms to defend an order of things which, like the sun of heaven, shines alike on the useful and the worthless. his grants are engrafted on the public law of europe, covered with the awful hoar of innumerable ages. they are guarded by the sacred rules of prescription, found in that full treasury of jurisprudence from which the jejuneness and penury of our municipal law has, by degrees, been enriched and strengthened. this prescription i had my share (a very full share) in bringing to its perfection. the duke of bedford will stand as long as prescriptive law endures; as long as the great stable laws of property, common to us with all civilized nations, are kept in their integrity, and without the smallest intermixture of laws, maxims, principles, or precedents, of the grand revolution. they are secure against all changes but one. the whole revolutionary system, institutes, digest, code, novels, text, gloss, comment, are not only not the same, but they are the very reverse, and the reverse fundamentally, of all the laws, on which civil life has hitherto been upheld in all the governments of the world. the learned professors of the rights of man regard prescription not as a title to bar all claim, set up against all possession, but they look on prescription as itself a bar against the possessor and proprietor. they hold an immemorial possession to be no more than a long-continued, and therefore an aggravated injustice. such are their ideas, such their religion, and such their law. but as to our country and our race, as long as the well-compacted structure of our church and state, the sanctuary, the holy of holies of that ancient law, defended by reverence, defended by power, a fortress at once and a temple, shall stand inviolate on the brow of the british sion; as long as the british monarchy, not more limited than fenced by the orders of the state, shall, like the proud keep of windsor, rising in the majesty of proportion, and girt with the double belt of its kindred and coeval towers,--as long as this awful structure shall oversee and guard the subjected land--so long the mounds and dykes of the low, fat bedford level will have nothing to fear from all the pickaxes of all the levellers of france. as long as our sovereign lord the king, and his faithful subjects, the lords and commons of this realm,--the triple cord, which no man can break; the solemn, sworn, constitutional frank-pledge of this nation; the firm guarantees of each other's being, and each other's rights; the joint and several securities, each in its place and order, for every kind and every quality, of property and of dignity:--as long as these endure, so long the duke of bedford is safe: and we are all safe together--the high from the blights of envy and the spoliations of rapacity; the low from the iron hand of oppression and the insolent spurn of contempt. amen! and so be it: and so it will be,-- "dum domus aeneae capitoli immobile saxum accolet; imperiumque pater romanus habebit." madness of innovation. novelty is not the only source of zeal. why should not a maccabeus and his brethren arise to assert the honour of the ancient law, and to defend the temple of their forefathers, with as ardent a spirit as can inspire any innovator to destroy the monuments of the piety and the glory of ancient ages? it is not a hazarded assertion, it is a great truth, that when once things are gone out of their ordinary course, it is by acts out of the ordinary course they can alone be re-established. republican spirit can only be combated by a spirit of the same nature: of the same nature, but informed with another principle, and pointing to another end. i would persuade a resistance, both to the corruption and to the reformation that prevails. it will not be the weaker, but much the stronger, for combating both together. a victory over real corruptions would enable us to baffle the spurious and pretended reformations. i would not wish to excite, or even to tolerate, that kind of evil spirit which invokes the powers of hell to rectify the disorders of the earth. no! i would add my voice with better, and i trust, more potent charms, to draw down justice and wisdom and fortitude from heaven, for the correction of human vice, and the recalling of human error from the devious ways into which it has been betrayed. i would wish to call the impulses of individuals at once to the aid and to the control of authority. by this, which i call the true republican spirit, paradoxical as it may appear, monarchies alone can be rescued from the imbecility of courts and the madness of the crowd. this republican spirit would not suffer men in high place to bring ruin on their country and on themselves. it would reform, not by destroying, but by saving, the great, the rich, and the powerful. such a republican spirit, we perhaps fondly conceive to have animated the distinguished heroes and patriots of old, who knew no mode of policy but religion and virtue. these they would have paramount to all constitutions; they would not suffer monarchs, or senates, or popular assemblies, under pretences of dignity, or authority, or freedom, to shake off those moral riders which reason has appointed to govern every sort of rude power. these, in appearance loading them by their weight, do by that pressure augment their essential force. the momentum is increased by the extraneous weight. it is true in moral, as it is in mechanical science. it is true, not only in the draught, but in the race. these riders of the great, in effect, hold the reins which guide them in their course, and wear the spur that stimulates them to the goals of honour and of safety. the great must submit to the dominion of prudence and of virtue, or none will long submit to the dominion of the great. "dis te minorem quod geris imperas." this is the feudal tenure which they cannot alter. the state, its own revenue. the revenue of the state is the state. in effect all depends upon it, whether for support or for reformation. the dignity of every occupation wholly depends upon the quantity and the kind of virtue that may be exerted in it. as all great qualities of the mind which operate in public, and are not merely suffering and passive, require force for their display, i had almost said for their unequivocal existence, the revenue, which is the spring of all power, becomes in its administration the sphere of every active virtue. public virtue, being of a nature magnificent and splendid, instituted for great things, and conversant about great concerns, requires abundant scope and room, and cannot spread and grow under confinement, and in circumstances straitened, narrow, and sordid. through the revenue alone the body politic can act in its true genius and character, and therefore it will display just as much of its collective virtue, and as much of that virtue which may characterize those who move it, and are, as it were, its life and guiding principle, as it is possessed of a just revenue. for from hence not only magnanimity, and liberality, and beneficence, and fortitude, and providence, and the tutelary protection of all good arts, derive their food, and the growth of their organs, but continence, and self-denial, and labour, and vigilance, and frugality, and whatever else there is in which the mind shows itself above the appetite, are nowhere more in their proper element than in the provision and distribution of the public wealth. it is therefore not without reason that the science of speculative and practical finance, which must take to its aid so many auxiliary branches of knowledge, stands high in the estimation, not only of the ordinary sort, but of the wisest and best men; and as this science has grown with the progress of its object, the prosperity and improvement of nations has generally increased with the increase of their revenues; and they will both continue to grow and flourish, as long as the balance between what is left to strengthen the efforts of individuals, and what is collected for the common efforts of the state, bear to each other a due reciprocal proportion, and are kept in a close correspondence and communication. metaphysical depravity. these philosophers are fanatics; independent of any interest, which if it operated alone would make them much more tractable, they are carried with such a headlong rage towards every desperate trial, that they would sacrifice the whole human race to the slightest of their experiments. i am better able to enter into the character of this description of men than the noble duke can be. i have lived long and variously in the world. without any considerable pretensions to literature in myself, i have aspired to the love of letters. i have lived for a great many years in habitudes with those who professed them. i can form a tolerable estimate of what is likely to happen from a character chiefly dependent for fame and fortune on knowledge and talent, as well in its morbid and perverted state as in that which is sound and natural. naturally, men so formed and finished are the first gifts of providence to the world. but when they have once thrown off the fear of god, which was in all ages too often the case, and the fear of men, which is now the case, and when in that state they come to understand one another, and to act in corps, a more dreadful calamity cannot arise out of hell to scourge mankind. nothing can be conceived more hard than the heart of a thorough-bred metaphysician. it comes nearer to the cold malignity of a wicked spirit than to the frailty and passion of a man. it is like that of the principle of evil himself, incorporeal, pure, unmixed, dephlegmated, defecated evil. it is no easy operation to eradicate humanity from the human breast. what shakespeare calls "the compunctious visitings of nature," will sometimes knock at their hearts, and protest against their murderous speculations. but they have a means of compounding with their nature. their humanity is not dissolved. they only give it a long prorogation. they are ready to declare, that they do not think two thousand years too long a period for the good that they pursue. it is remarkable, that they never see any way to their projected good but by the road of some evil. their imagination is not fatigued with the contemplation of human suffering through the wild waste of centuries added to centuries of misery and desolation. their humanity is at their horizon--and, like the horizon, it always flies before them. the geometricians and the chemists bring the one from the dry bones of their diagrams, and the other from the soot of their furnaces, dispositions that make them worse than indifferent about those feelings and habitudes which are the supports of the moral world. ambition is come upon them suddenly; they are intoxicated with it, and it has rendered them fearless of the danger which may from thence arise to others or to themselves. these philosophers consider men in their experiments no more than they do mice in an air-pump, or in a recipient of mephitic gas. whatever his grace may think of himself, they look upon him, and everything that belongs to him, with no more regard than they do upon the whiskers of that little long-tailed animal, that has been long the game of the grave, demure, insidious, spring-nailed, velvet-pawed, green-eyed philosophers, whether going upon two legs or upon four. personal and ancestral claims. i really am at a loss to draw any sort of parallel between the public merits of his grace, by which he justifies the grants he holds, and these services of mine, on the favourable construction of which i have obtained what his grace so much disapproves. in private life, i have not at all the honour of acquaintance with the noble duke. but i ought to presume, and it costs me nothing to do so, that he abundantly deserves the esteem and love of all who live with him. but as to public service, why truly it would not be more ridiculous for me to compare myself in rank, in fortune, in splendid descent, in youth, strength, or figure, with the duke of bedford, than to make a parallel between his services and my attempts to be useful to my country. it would not be gross adulation, but uncivil irony, to say, that he has any public merit of his own to keep alive the idea of the services by which his vast landed pensions were obtained. my merits, whatever they are, are original and personal; his are derivative. it is his ancestor, the original pensioner, that has laid up this inexhaustible fund of merit, which makes his grace so very delicate and exceptious about the merit of all other grantees of the crown. had he permitted me to remain in quiet, i should have said, 'tis his estate; that's enough. it is his by law; what have i to do with it or its history? he would naturally have said on his side, 'tis this man's fortune. he is as good now as my ancestor was two hundred and fifty years ago. i am a young man with very old pensions: he is an old man with very young pensions,--that's all. why will his grace, by attacking me, force me reluctantly to compare my little merit with that which obtained from the crown those prodigies of profuse donation by which he tramples on the mediocrity of humble and laborious individuals? i would willingly leave him to the herald's college, which the philosophy of the sans culottes (prouder by far than all the garters, and norroys, and clarencieux, and rouge dragons, that ever pranced in a procession of what his friends call aristocrats and despots) will abolish with contumely and scorn. these historians, recorders, and blazoners of virtues and arms, differ wholly from that other description of historians, who never assign any act of politicians to a good motive. these gentle historians, on the contrary, dip their pens in nothing but the milk of human kindness. they seek no further for merit than the preamble of a patent, or the inscription of a tomb. with them every man created a peer is first a hero ready made. they judge of every man's capacity for office by the offices he has filled; and the more offices, the more ability. every general-officer with them is a marlborough; every statesman a burleigh; every judge a murray or a yorke. they who, alive, were laughed at or pitied by all their acquaintance, make as good a figure as the best of them in the pages of guillim, edmondson, and collins. monastic and philosophic superstition. but the institutions savour of superstition in their very principle; and they nourish it by a permanent and standing influence. this i do not mean to dispute; but this ought not to hinder you from deriving from superstition itself any resources which may thence be furnished for the public advantage. you derive benefits from many dispositions and many passions of the human mind, which are of as doubtful a colour, in the moral eye, as superstition itself. it was your business to correct and mitigate everything which was noxious in this passion, as in all the passions. but is superstition the greatest of all possible vices? in its possible excess i think it becomes a very great evil. it is, however, a moral subject; and of course admits of all degrees and all modifications. superstition is the religion of feeble minds; and they must be tolerated in an intermixture of it, in some trifling or some enthusiastic shape or other, else you will deprive weak minds of a resource found necessary to the strongest. the body of all true religion consists, to be sure, in obedience to the will of the sovereign of the world; in a confidence in his declarations, and in imitation of his perfections. the rest is our own. it may be prejudicial to the great end; it may be auxiliary. wise men, who as such are not admirers (not admirers at least of the munera terrae), are not violently attached to these things, nor do they violently hate them. wisdom is not the most severe corrector of folly. they are the rival follies, which mutually wage so unrelenting a war; and which make so cruel a use of their advantages, as they can happen to engage the immoderate vulgar, on the one side, or the other, in their quarrels. prudence would be neuter; but if, in the contention between fond attachment and fierce antipathy concerning things in their nature not made to produce such heats, a prudent man were obliged to make a choice of what errors and excesses of enthusiasm he would condemn or bear, perhaps he would think the superstition which builds, to be more tolerable than that which demolishes; that which adorns a country, than that which deforms it; that which endows, than that which plunders; that which disposes to mistaken beneficence, than that which stimulates to real injustice; that which leads a man to refuse to himself lawful pleasures, than that which snatches from others the scanty subsistence of their self-denial. such, i think, is very nearly the state of the question between the ancient founders of monkish superstition, and the superstition of the pretended philosophers of the hour. difficulty and wisdom of corporate reform. there are moments in the fortune of states when particular men are called to make improvements by great mental exertion. in those moments, even when they seem to enjoy the confidence of their prince and country, and to be invested with full authority, they have not always apt instruments. a politician, to do great things, looks for a power, what our workmen call a purchase; and if he finds that power, in politics as in mechanics, he cannot be at a loss to apply it. in the monastic institutions, in my opinion, was found a great power for the mechanism of politic benevolence. there were revenues with a public direction; there were men wholly set apart and dedicated to public purposes, without any other than public ties and public principles; men without the possibility of converting the estate of the community into a private fortune; men denied to self-interests, whose avarice is for some community; men to whom personal poverty is honour, and implicit obedience stands in the place of freedom. in vain shall a man look to the possibility of making such things when he wants them. the winds blow as they list. these institutions are the products of enthusiasm; they are the instruments of wisdom. wisdom cannot create materials; they are the gifts of nature or of chance; her pride is in the use. the perennial existence of bodies corporate and their fortunes are things particularly suited to a man who has long views; who meditates designs that require time in fashioning, and which propose duration when they are accomplished. he is not deserving to rank high, or even to be mentioned in the order of great statesmen, who, having obtained the command and direction of such a power as existed in the wealth, the discipline, and the habits of such corporations, as those which you have rashly destroyed, cannot find any way of converting it to the great and lasting benefit of his country. on the view of this subject, a thousand uses suggest themselves to a contriving mind. to destroy any power, growing wild from the rank productive force of the human mind, is almost tantamount, in the moral world, to the destruction of the apparently active properties of bodies in the material. it would be like the attempt to destroy (if it were in our competence to destroy) the expansive force of fixed air in nitre, or the power of steam, or of electricity, or of magnetism. these energies always existed in nature, and they were always discernible. they seemed, some of them unserviceable, some noxious, some no better than a sport to children; until contemplative ability, combining with practic skill, tamed their wild nature, subdued them to use, and rendered them at once the most powerful and the most tractable agents, in subservience to the great views and designs of men. did fifty thousand persons, whose mental and whose bodily labour you might direct, and so many hundred thousand a year of a revenue, which was neither lazy nor superstitious, appear too big for your abilities to wield? had you no way of using the men but by converting monks into pensioners? had you no way of turning the revenue to account but through the improvident resource of a spendthrift sale? if you were thus destitute of mental funds, the proceeding is in its natural course. your politicians do not understand their trade; and therefore they sell their tools. distinctive character of english protestantism. "protestantism of the english church," very indefinite, because the term protestant, which you apply, is too general for the conclusions which one of your accurate understanding would wish to draw from it; and because a great deal of argument will depend on the use that is made of that term. it is not a fundamental part of the settlement at the revolution, that the state should be protestant without any qualification of the term. with a qualification it is unquestionably true; not in all its latitude. with the qualification, it was true before the revolution. our predecessors in legislation were not so irrational (not to say impious) as to form an operose ecclesiastical establishment, and even to render the state itself in some degree subservient to it, when their religion (if such it might be called) was nothing but a mere negation of some other--without any positive idea either of doctrine, discipline, worship, or morals, in the scheme which they professed themselves, and which they imposed upon others, even under penalties and incapacities.--no! no! this never could have been done even by reasonable atheists. they who think religion of no importance to the state, have abandoned it to the conscience or caprice of the individual; they make no provision for it whatsoever, but leave every club to make, or not, a voluntary contribution towards its support, according to their fancies. this would be consistent. the other always appeared to me to be a monster of contradiction and absurdity. it was for that reason that, some years ago, i strenuously opposed the clergy who petitioned, to the number of about three hundred, to be freed from the subscription to the thirty-nine articles, without proposing to substitute any other in their place. there never has been a religion of the state (the few years of the parliament only excepted), but that of the espiscopal church of england; the episcopal church of england, before the reformation, connected with the see of rome, since then, disconnected and protesting against some of her doctrines, and against the whole of her authority, as binding in our national church: nor did the fundamental laws of this kingdom (in ireland it has been the same) ever know, at any period, any other church as an object of establishment; or in that light, any other protestant religion. nay, our protestant toleration itself at the revolution, and until within a few years, required a signature of thirty-six, and a part of the thirty-seventh, out of the thirty-nine articles. so little idea had they at the revolution of establishing protestantism indefinitely, that they did not indefinitely tolerate it under that name. i do not mean to praise that strictness, where nothing more than merely religious toleration is concerned. toleration, being a part of moral and political prudence, ought to be tender and large. a tolerant government ought not to be too scrupulous in its investigations; but may bear without blame, not only very ill-grounded doctrines, but even many things that are positively vices, where they are adulta et praevalida. the good of the commonwealth is the rule which rides over the rest; and to this every other must completely submit. fictitious liberty. a brave people will certainly prefer liberty accompanied with a virtuous poverty to a depraved and wealthy servitude. but before the price of comfort and opulence is paid, one ought to be pretty sure it is real liberty which is purchased, and that she is to be purchased at no other price. i shall always, however, consider that liberty as very equivocal in her appearance, which has not wisdom and justice for her companions, and does not lead prosperity and plenty in her train. french ignorance of english character. when i assert anything else, as concerning the people of england, i speak from observation, not from authority; but i speak from the experience i have had in a pretty extensive and mixed communication with the inhabitants of this kingdom, of all descriptions and ranks, and after a course of attentive observation, begun in early life, and continued for nearly forty years. i have often been astonished, considering that we are divided from you but by a slender dyke of about twenty-four miles, and that the mutual intercourse between the two countries has lately been very great, to find how little you seem to know of us. i suspect that this is owing to your forming a judgment of this nation from certain publications, which do, very erroneously, if they do at all, represent the opinions and dispositions generally prevalent in england. the vanity, restlessness, petulance, and spirit of intrigue, of several petty cabals, who attempt to hide their total want of consequence in bustle and noise, and puffing, and mutual quotation of each other, makes you imagine that our contemptuous neglect of their abilities is a general mark of acquiescence in their opinions. no such thing, i assure you. because half a dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow of the british oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field; that, of course, they are many in number; or that, after all, they are other than the little, shrivelled, meagre, hopping, though loud and troublesome insects of the hour. the "people," and "omnipotence" of parliament. when the supreme authority of the people is in question, before we attempt to extend or to confine it, we ought to fix in our minds, with some degree of distinctness, an idea of what it is we mean when we say the people. in a state of rude nature there is no such thing as a people. a number of men in themselves have no collective capacity. the idea of a people is the idea of a corporation. it is wholly artificial; and made like all other legal fictions by common agreement. what the particular nature of that agreement was, is collected from the form into which the particular society has been cast. any other is not their covenant. when men, therefore, break up the original compact or agreement, which gives its corporate form and capacity to a state, they are no longer a people; they have no longer a corporate existence; they have no longer a legal, coactive force to bind within, nor a claim to be recognised abroad. they are a number of vague, loose individuals, and nothing more. with them all is to begin again. alas! they little know how many a weary step is to be taken before they can form themselves into a mass, which has a true, politic personality. we hear much from men, who have not acquired their hardness of assertion from the profundity of their thinking, about the omnipotence of a majority, in such a dissolution of an ancient society as hath taken place in france. but amongst men so disbanded, there can be no such thing as majority or minority; or power in any one person to bind another. the power of acting by a majority, which the gentlemen theorists seem to assume so readily, after they have violated the contract out of which it has arisen (if at all it existed), must be grounded on two assumptions; first, that of an incorporation produced by unanimity; and, secondly, an unanimous agreement, that the act of a mere majority (say of one) shall pass with them and with others as the act of the whole. we are so little affected by things which are habitual, that we consider this idea of the decision of a majority as if it were a law of our original nature; but such constructive whole, residing in a part only, is one of the most violent fictions of positive law that ever has been or can be made on the principles of artificial incorporation. out of civil society nature knows nothing of it; nor are men, even when arranged according to civil order, otherwise than by very long training, brought at all to submit to it. the mind is brought far more easily to acquiesce in the proceedings of one man, or a few, who act under a general procuration for the state, than in the vote of a victorious majority in councils, in which every man has his share in the deliberation. for there the beaten party are exasperated and soured by the previous contention, and mortified by the conclusive defeat. this mode of decision, where wills may be so nearly equal, where, according to circumstances, the smaller number may be the stronger force, and where apparent reason may be all upon one side, and on the other little else than impetuous appetite; all this must be the result of a very particular and special convention, confirmed afterwards by long habits of obedience, by a sort of discipline in society, and by a strong hand, vested with stationary, permanent power, to enforce this sort of constructive general will. what organ it is that shall declare the corporate mind is so much a matter of positive arrangement, that several states, for the validity of several of their acts, have required a proportion of voices much greater than that of a mere majority. these proportions are so entirely governed by convention, that in some cases the minority decides. magnanimity of english people. i do not accuse the people of england. as to the great majority of the nation, they have done whatever in their several ranks, and conditions, and descriptions, was required of them by their relative situations in society; and from those the great mass of mankind cannot depart, without the subversion of all public order. they look up to that government which they obey that they may be protected. they ask to be led and directed by those rulers whom providence and the laws of their country have set over them, and under their guidance to walk in the ways of safety and honour. they have again delegated the greatest trust which they have to bestow to those faithful representatives who made their true voice heard against the disturbers and destroyers of europe. they suffered, with unapproving acquiescence, solicitations which they had in no shape desired, to an unjust and usurping power whom they had never provoked, and whose hostile menaces they did not dread. when the exigencies of the public service could only be met by their voluntary zeal, they started forth with an ardour which out-stripped the wishes of those who had injured them by doubting whether it might not be necessary to have recourse to compulsion. they have, in all things, reposed an enduring, but not an unreflecting, confidence. that confidence demands a full return, and fixes a responsibility on the ministers entire and undivided. the people stands acquitted, if the war is not carried on in a manner suited to its objects. if the public honour is tarnished, if the public safety suffers any detriment, the ministers, not the people, are to answer it, and they alone. its armies, its navies, are given to them without stint or restriction. its treasures are poured out at their feet. its constancy is ready to second all their efforts. they are not to fear a responsibility for acts of manly adventure. the responsibility which they are to dread is, lest they should show themselves unequal to the expectation of a brave people. the more doubtful may be the constitutional and economical questions upon which they have received so marked a support, the more loudly they are called upon to support this great war, for the success of which their country is willing to supersede considerations of no slight importance. where i speak of responsibility, i do not mean to exclude that species of it which the legal powers of the country have a right finally to exact from those who abuse a public trust; but high as this is, there is a responsibility which attaches on them, from which the whole legitimate power of this kingdom cannot absolve them: there is a responsibility to conscience and to glory; a responsibility to the existing world, and to that posterity which men of their eminence cannot avoid for glory or for shame; a responsibility to a tribunal at which not only ministers, but kings and parliaments, but even nations themselves, must one day answer. true basis of civil society. we know, and what is better, we feel inwardly, that religion is the basis of civil society, and the source of all good and of all comfort. in england we are so convinced of this, that there is no rust of superstition with which the accumulated absurdity of the human mind might have crusted it over in the course of ages, that ninety-nine in a hundred of the people of england would not prefer to impiety. we shall never be such fools as to call in an enemy to the substance of any system to remove its corruptions, to supply its defects, or to perfect its construction. if our religious tenets should ever want a further elucidation, we shall not call on atheism to explain them. we shall not light up our temple from that unhallowed fire. it will be illuminated with other lights. it will be perfumed with other incense than the infectious stuff which is imported by the smugglers of adulterated metaphysics. if our ecclesiastical establishment should want a revision, it is not avarice or rapacity, public or private, that we shall employ for the audit, or receipt, or application of its consecrated revenue. violently condemning neither the greek nor the armenian, nor, since heats are subsided, the roman system of religion, we prefer the protestant; not because we think it has less of the christian religion in it, but because, in our judgment, it has more. we are protestants, not from indifference, but from zeal. we know, and it is our pride to know, that man is by his constitution a religious animal; that atheism is against, not only our reason, but our instincts; and that it cannot prevail long. but if, in the moment of riot, and in a drunken delirium from the hot spirit drawn out of the alembic of hell, which in france is now so furiously boiling, we should uncover our nakedness, by throwing off that christian religion which has hitherto been our boast and comfort, and one great source of civilization amongst us, and among many other nations, we are apprehensive (being well aware that the mind will not endure a void) that some uncouth, pernicious, and degrading superstition might take place of it. rousseau. it is undoubtedly true, though it may seem paradoxical, but in general, those who are habitually employed in finding and displaying faults, are unqualified for the work of reformation; because their minds are not only unfurnished with patterns of the fair and good, but by habit they come to take no delight in the contemplation of those things. by hating vices too much, they come to love men too little. it is therefore not wonderful that they should be indisposed and unable to serve them. from hence arises the complexional disposition of some of your guides to pull everything in pieces. at this malicious game they display the whole of their quadrimanous activity. as to the rest, the paradoxes of eloquent writers, brought forth purely as a sport of fancy, to try their talents, to rouse attention and excite surprise, are taken up by these gentleman, not in the spirit of the original authors, as means of cultivating their taste and improving their style. these paradoxes become with them serious grounds of action, upon which they proceed in regulating the most important concerns of the state. cicero ludicrously describes cato as endeavouring to act, in the commonwealth, upon the school paradoxes, which exercised the wits of the junior students in the stoic philosophy. if this was true of cato, these gentlemen copy after him in the manner of some persons who lived about his time--pede nudo catonem. mr. hume told me that he had from rousseau himself the secret of his principles of composition. that acute, though eccentric observer, had perceived, that to strike and interest the public, the marvellous must be produced; that the marvellous of the heathen mythology had long since lost its effects; that giants, magicians, fairies, and heroes of romance which succeeded, had exhausted the portion of credulity which belonged to their age; that now nothing was left to a writer but that species of the marvellous which might still be produced, and with as great an effect as ever, though in another way; that is, the marvellous in life, in manners, in characters, and in extraordinary situations, giving rise to new and unlooked-for strokes in politics and morals. i believe, that were rousseau alive, and in one of his lucid intervals, he would be shocked at the practical frenzy of his scholars, who in their paradoxes are servile imitators, and even in their incredulity discover an implicit faith. moral heroes. mankind has no title to demand that we should be slaves to their guilt and insolence; or that we should serve them in spite of themselves. minds, sore with the poignant sense of insulted virtue, filled with high disdain against the pride of triumphant baseness, often have it not in their choice to stand their ground. their complexion (which might defy the rack) cannot go through such a trial. something very high must fortify men to that proof. but when i am driven to comparison, surely i cannot hesitate for a moment to prefer to such men as are common, those heroes who, in the midst of despair, perform all the tasks of hope; who subdue their feelings to their duties; who, in the cause of humanity, liberty, and honour, abandon all the satisfactions of life, and every day incur a fresh risk of life itself. do me the justice to believe that i never can prefer any fastidious virtue (virtue still) to the unconquered perseverance, to the affectionate patience of those who watch day and night by the bedside of their delirious country, who, for their love to that dear and venerable name, bear all the disgusts and all the buffets they receive from their frantic mother. sir, i do look on you as true martyrs; i regard you as soldiers who act far more in the spirit of our commander-in-chief and the captain of our salvation, than those who have left you; though i must first bolt myself very thoroughly, and know that i could do better, before i can censure them. i assure you, sir, that, when i consider your unconquerable fidelity to your sovereign, and to your country; the courage, fortitude, magnanimity, and long-suffering of yourself, and the abbe maury, and of mr. cazales, and of many worthy persons of all orders in your assembly, i forget, in the lustre of these great qualities, that on your side has been displayed an eloquence so rational, manly, and convincing, that no time or country, perhaps, has ever excelled. but your talents disappear in my admiration of your virtues. kingdom of france. when i consider the face of the kingdom of france; the multitude and opulence of her cities; the useful magnificence of her spacious high-roads and bridges; the opportunity of her artificial canals and navigations, opening the conveniences of maritime communication through a solid continent of so immense an extent; when i turn my eyes to the stupendous works of her ports and harbours, and to her whole naval apparatus, whether for war or trade; when i bring before my view the number of her fortifications, constructed with so bold and masterly a skill, and made and maintained at so prodigious a charge, presenting an armed front and impenetrable barrier to her enemies upon every side; when i recollect how very small a part of that extensive region is without cultivation, and to what complete perfection the culture of many of the best productions of the earth have been brought in france; when i reflect on the excellence of her manufactures and fabrics, second to none but ours, and in some particulars not second; when i contemplate the grand foundations of charity, public and private; when i survey the state of all the arts that beautify and polish life; when i reckon the men she has bred for extending her fame in war, her able statesmen, the multitude of her profound lawyers and theologians, her philosophers, her critics, her historians and antiquaries, her poets and her orators, sacred and profane; i behold in all this something which awes and commands the imagination, which checks the mind on the brink of precipitate and indiscriminate censure, and which demands that we should very seriously examine, what and how great are the latent vices that could authorize us at once to level so specious a fabric with the ground. i do not recognise in this view of things, the despotism of turkey. nor do i discern the character of a government that has been, on the whole, so oppressive, or so corrupt, or so negligent, as to be utterly unfit for all reformation. i must think such a government well deserved to have its excellences heightened, its faults corrected, and its capacities improved into a british constitution. grievance and opinion. this shows, in my opinion, how very quick and awakened all men ought to be who are looked up to by the public, and who deserve that confidence, to prevent a surprise on their opinions, when dogmas are spread, and projects pursued, by which the foundations of society may be affected. before they listen even to moderate alterations in the government of their country, they ought to take care that principles are not propagated for that purpose, which are too big for their object. doctrines limited in their present application, and wide in their general principles, are never meant to be confined to what they at first pretend. if i were to form a prognostic of the effect of the present machinations on the people, from their sense of any grievance they suffer under this constitution, my mind would be at ease. but there is a wide difference between the multitude, when they act against their government from a sense of grievance, or from zeal for some opinions. when men are thoroughly possessed with that zeal, it is difficult to calculate its force. it is certain that its power is by no means in exact proportion to its reasonableness. it must always have been discoverable by persons of reflection, but it is now obvious to the world, that a theory concerning government may become as much a cause of fanaticism as a dogma in religion. there is a boundary to men's passions when they act from feeling; none when they are under the influence of imagination. remove a grievance, and, when men act from feeling, you go a great way towards quieting a commotion. but the good or bad conduct of a government, the protection men have enjoyed, or the oppression they have suffered, under it, are of no sort of moment when a faction, proceeding upon speculative grounds, is thoroughly heated against its form. when a man is, from system, furious against monarchy or episcopacy, the good conduct of the monarch or the bishop has no other effect than further to irritate the adversary. he is provoked at it, as furnishing a plea for preserving the thing which he wishes to destroy. his mind will be heated as much by the sight of a sceptre, a mace, or a verge, as if he had been daily bruised and wounded by these symbols of authority. mere spectacles, mere names, will become sufficient causes to stimulate the people to war and tumult. perplexity and policy. let us not deceive ourselves: we are at the beginning of great troubles. i readily acknowledge that the state of public affairs is infinitely more unpromising than at the period i have just now alluded to; and the position of all the powers of europe, in relation to us, and in relation to each other, is more intricate and critical beyond all comparison. difficult indeed is our situation. in all situations of difficulty men will be influenced in the part they take, not only by the reason of the case, but by the peculiar turn of their own character. the same ways to safety do not present themselves to all men, nor to the same men in different tempers. there is a courageous wisdom; there is also a false, reptile prudence, the result not of caution, but of fear. under misfortunes it often happens that the nerves of the understanding are so relaxed, the pressing peril of the hour so completely confounds all the faculties, that no future danger can be properly provided for, can be justly estimated, can be so much as fully seen. the eye of the mind is dazzled and vanquished. an abject distrust of ourselves, an extravagant admiration of the enemy, present us with no hope but in a compromise with his pride, by a submission to his will. this short plan of policy is the only counsel which will obtain a hearing. we plunge into a dark gulf with all the rash precipitation of fear. the nature of courage is, without a question, to be conversant with danger: but in the palpable night of their terrors, men under consternation suppose, not that it is the danger, which, by a sure instinct, calls out the courage to resist it, but that it is the courage which produces the danger. they therefore seek for a refuge from their fears in the fears themselves, and consider a temporizing meanness as the only source of safety. the rules and definitions of prudence can rarely be exact; never universal. i do not deny, that, in small, truckling states, a timely compromise with power has often been the means, and the only means, of drawling out their puny existence: but a great state is too much envied, too much dreaded, to find safety in humiliation. to be secure, it must be respected. power, and eminence, and consideration, are things not to be begged. they must be commanded: and they who supplicate for mercy from others, can never hope for justice through themselves. what justice they are to obtain, as the alms of an enemy, depends upon his character; and that they ought well to know before they implicitly confide. historical instruction. such is the effect of the perversion of history, by those, who, for the same nefarious purposes, have perverted every other part of learning. but those who will stand upon that elevation of reason, which places centuries under our eye, and brings things to the true point of comparison, which obscures little names, and effaces the colours of little parties, and to which nothing can ascend but the spirit and moral quality of human actions, will say to the teachers of the palais royal,--the cardinal of lorraine was the murderer of the sixteenth century, you have the glory of being the murderers in the eighteenth; and this is the only difference between you. but history, in the nineteenth century, better understood, and better employed, will, i trust, teach a civilized posterity to abhor the misdeeds of both these barbarous ages. it will teach future priests and magistrates not to retaliate upon the speculative and inactive atheists of future times, the enormities committed by the present practical zealots and furious fanatics of that wretched error, which, in its quiescent state, is more than punished, whenever it is embraced. it will teach posterity not to make war upon either religion or philosophy, for the abuse which the hypocrites of both have made of the two most valuable blessings conferred upon us by the bounty of the universal patron, who in all things eminently favours and protects the race of man. montesquieu. place, for instance, before your eyes, such a man as montesquieu. think of a genius not born in every country, or every time; a man gifted by nature with a penetrating, aquiline eye; with a judgment prepared with the most extensive erudition; with an herculean robustness of mind, and nerves not to be broken with labour; a man who could spend twenty years in one pursuit. think of a man, like the universal patriarch in milton (who had drawn up before him in his prophetic vision the whole series of the generations which were to issue from his loins), a man capable of placing in review, after having brought together from the east, the west, the north, and the south, from the coarseness of the rudest barbarism to the most refined and subtle civilization, all the schemes of government which had ever prevailed amongst mankind, weighing, measuring, collating, and comparing them all, joining fact with theory, and calling into council, upon all this infinite assemblage of things, all the speculations which have fatigued the understandings of profound reasoners in all times! let us then consider, that all these were but so many preparatory steps to qualify a man, and such a man, tinctured with no national prejudice, with no domestic affection, to admire, and to hold out to the admiration of mankind, the constitution of england! and shall we englishmen revoke to such a suit? shall we, when so much more than he has produced remains still to be understood and admired, instead of keeping ourselves in the schools of real science, choose for our teachers men incapable of being taught, whose only claim to know is, that they have never doubted; from whom we can learn nothing but their own indocility; who would teach us to scorn what in the silence of our hearts we ought to adore? articles, and scripture. if you will have religion publicly practised and publicly taught, you must have a power to say what that religion will be, which you will protect and encourage; and to distinguish it by such marks and characteristics, as you in your wisdom shall think fit. as i said before, your determination may be unwise in this as in other matters; but it cannot be unjust, hard, or oppressive, or contrary to the liberty of any man, or in the least degree exceeding your province. it is therefore as a grievance fairly none at all, nothing but what is essential not only to the order, but to the liberty of the whole community. the petitioners are so sensible of the force of these arguments, that they do admit of one subscription, that is, to the scripture. i shall not consider how forcibly this argument militates with their whole principle against subscription as an usurpation on the rights of providence: i content myself with submitting to the consideration of the house, that, if that rule were once established, it must have some authority to enforce the obedience; because you well know, a law without a sanction will be ridiculous. somebody must sit in judgment on his conformity; he must judge on the charge; if he judges, he must ordain execution. these things are necessary consequences one of the other; and then this judgment is an equal and a superior violation of private judgment; the right of private judgment is violated in a much greater degree than it can be by any previous subscription. you come round again to subscription, as the best and easiest method; men must judge of his doctrine, and judge definitively; so that either his test is nugatory, or men must first or last prescribe his public interpretation of it. problem of legislation. it is one of the finest problems in legislation, and what has often engaged my thoughts whilst i followed that profession, "what the state ought to take upon itself to direct by the public wisdom, and what it ought to leave, with as little interference as possible, to individual discretion." nothing, certainly, can be laid down on the subject that will not admit of exceptions, many permanent, some occasional. but the clearest line of distinction which i could draw, whilst i had my chalk to draw any line, was this; that the state ought to confine itself to what regards the state, or the creatures of the state;--namely, the exterior establishment of its religion; its magistracy; its revenue; its military force by sea and land; the corporations that owe their existence to its fiat; in a word, to everything that is truly and properly public; to the public peace, to the public safety, to the public order, to the public prosperity. in its preventive police it ought to be sparing of its efforts, and to employ means, rather few, unfrequent, and strong, than many and frequent, and, of course, as they multiply their puny politic race, and dwindle, small and feeble. statesmen who know themselves will, with the dignity which belongs to wisdom, proceed only in this the superior orb and first mover of their duty steadily, vigilantly, severely, courageously: whatever remains will, in a manner, provide for itself. but as they descend from the state to a province, from a province to a parish, and from a parish to a private house, they go on accelerated in their fall. they cannot do the lower duty; and, in proportion as they try it, they will certainly fail in the higher. they ought to know the different departments of things; what belongs to laws, and what manners alone can regulate. to these, great politicians may give a leaning, but they cannot give a law. order, labour, and property. to tell the people that they are relieved by the dilapidation of their public estate, is a cruel and insolent imposition. statesmen, before they valued themselves on the relief given to the people by the destruction of their revenue, ought first to have carefully attended to the solution of this problem:--whether it be more advantageous to the people to pay considerably, and to gain in proportion; or to gain little or nothing, and to be disburthened of all contribution? my mind is made up to decide in favour of the first proposition. experience is with me, and, i believe, the best opinions also. to keep a balance between the power of acquisition on the part of the subject, and the demands he is to answer on the part of the state, is the fundamental part of the skill of a true politician. the means of acquisition are prior in time and in arrangement. good order is the foundation of all good things. to be enabled to acquire, the people, without being servile, must be tractable and obedient. the magistrate must have his reverence, the laws their authority. the body of the people must not find the principles of natural subordination by art rooted out of their minds. they must respect that property of which they cannot partake. they must labour to obtain what by labour can be obtained; and when they find, as they commonly do, the success disproportioned to the endeavour, they must be taught their consolation in the final proportions of eternal justice. of this consolation whoever deprives them, deadens their industry, and strikes at the root of all acquisition as of all conservation. he that does this is the cruel oppressor, the merciless enemy of the poor and wretched; at the same time that by his wicked speculations he exposes the fruits of successful industry, and the accumulations of fortune, to the plunder of the negligent, the disappointed, and the unprosperous. regicidal legislature. this strange law is not made for a trivial object, not for a single port, or for a single fortress, but for a great kingdom; for the religion, the morals, the laws, the liberties, the lives and fortunes of millions of human creatures, who without their consent, or that of their lawful government, are, by an arbitrary act of this regicide and homicide government, which they call a law, incorporated into their tyranny. in other words, their will is the law, not only at home, but as to the concerns of every nation. who has made that law but the regicide republic itself, whose laws, like those of the medes and persians, they cannot alter or abrogate, or even so much as take into consideration? without the least ceremony or compliment, they have sent out of the world whole sets of laws and lawgivers. they have swept away the very constitutions under which the legislators acted, and the laws were made. even the fundamental sacred rights of man they have not scrupled to profane. they have set this holy code at naught with ignominy and scorn. thus they treat all their domestic laws and constitutions, and even what they had considered as a law of nature; but whatever they have put their seal on for the purposes of their ambition, and the ruin of their neighbours, this alone is invulnerable, impassible, immortal. assuming to be masters of everything human and divine, here, and here alone, it seems they are limited, "cooped and cabined in;" and this omnipotent legislature finds itself wholly without the power of exercising its favourite attribute, the love of peace. in other words, they are powerful to usurp, impotent to restore; and equally by their power and their impotence they aggrandize themselves, and weaken and impoverish you and all other nations. government not to be rashly censured. the purpose for which the abuses of government are brought into view, forms a very material consideration in the mode of treating them. the complaints of a friend are things very different from the invectives of an enemy. the charge of abuses on the late monarchy of france was not intended to lead to its reformation, but to justify its destruction. they, who have raked into all history for the faults of kings, and who have aggravated every fault they have found, have acted consistently; because they acted as enemies. no man can be a friend to a tempered monarchy who bears a decided hatred to monarchy itself. he, who at the present time, is favourable, or even fair, to that system, must act towards it as towards a friend with frailties, who is under the prosecution of implacable foes. i think it a duty, in that case, not to inflame the public mind against the obnoxious person by any exaggeration of his faults. it is our duty rather to palliate his errors and defects, or to cast them into the shade, and industriously to bring forward any good qualities that he may happen to possess. but when the man is to be amended, and by amendment to be preserved, then the line of duty takes another direction. when his safety is effectually provided for, it then becomes the office of a friend to urge his faults and vices with all the energy of enlightened affection, to paint them in their most vivid colours, and to bring the moral patient to a better habit. thus i think with regard to individuals; thus i think with regard to ancient and respected governments and orders of men. a spirit of reformation is never more consistent with itself than when it refuses to be rendered the means of destruction. etiquette. etiquette, if i understand rightly the term, which in any extent is of modern usage, had its original application to those ceremonial and formal observances practised at courts, which had been established by long usage, in order to preserve the sovereign power from the rude intrusion of licentious familiarity, as well as to preserve majesty itself from a disposition to consult its ease at the expense of its dignity. the term came afterwards to have a greater latitude, and to be employed to signify certain formal methods used in the transactions between sovereign states. in the more limited, as well as in the larger sense of the term, without knowing what the etiquette is, it is impossible to determine whether it is a vain and captious punctilio, or a form necessary to preserve decorum in character and order in business. i readily admit, that nothing tends to facilitate the issue of all public transactions more than a mutual disposition in the parties treating to waive all ceremony. but the use of this temporary suspension of the recognised modes of respect consists in its being mutual, and in the spirit of conciliation, in which all ceremony is laid aside. on the contrary, when one of the parties to a treaty intrenches himself up to the chin in these ceremonies, and will not on his side abate a single punctilio, and that all the concessions are upon one side only, the party so conceding does by this act place himself in a relation of inferiority, and thereby fundamentally subverts that equality which is of the very essence of all treaty. ancient establishments. old establishments are tried by their effects. if the people are happy, united, wealthy, and powerful, we presume the rest. we conclude that to be good, from whence good is derived. in old establishments, various correctives have been found for their aberrations from theory. indeed, they are the results of various necessities and expediencies. they are not often constructed after any theory; theories are rather drawn from them. in them we often see the end best obtained, where the means seem not perfectly reconcilable to what we may fancy was the original scheme. the means taught by experience may be better suited to political ends than those contrived in the original project. they again re-act upon the primitive constitution; and sometimes improve the design itself, from which they seem to have departed. i think all this might be curiously exemplified in the british constitution. at worst, the errors and deviations of every kind in reckoning are found and computed, and the ship proceeds in her course. this is the case of old establishments; but in a new and merely theoretic system, it is expected that every contrivance shall appear, on the face of it, to answer its ends; especially where the projectors are no way embarrassed with an endeavour to accommodate the new building to an old one, either in the walls or on the foundations. sentiment and policy. never was there a jar or discord between genuine sentiment and sound policy. never, no never, did nature say one thing and wisdom say another. nor are sentiments of elevation in themselves turgid and unnatural. nature is never more truly herself than in her grandest form. the apollo of belvedere (if the universal robber has yet left him at belvedere) is as much in nature as any figure from the pencil of rembrandt, or any clown in the rustic revels of teniers. indeed, it is when a great nation is in great difficulties that minds must exalt themselves to the occasion, or all is lost. strong passion, under the direction of a feeble reason, feeds a low fever, which serves only to destroy the body that entertains it. but vehement passion does not always indicate an infirm judgment. it often accompanies, and actuates, and is even auxiliary to a powerful understanding; and when they both conspire and act harmoniously, their force is great to destroy disorder within, and to repel injury from abroad. if ever there was a time that calls on us for no vulgar conception of things, and for exertions in no vulgar strain, it is the awful hour that providence has now appointed to this nation. every little measure is a great error; and every great error will bring on no small ruin. nothing can be directed above the mark that we must aim at: everything below it is absolutely thrown away. patriotism. i have little to recommend my opinions but long observation and much impartiality. they come from one who has been no tool of power, no flatterer of greatness; and who in his last acts does not wish to belie the tenor of his life. they come from one, almost the whole of whose public exertions has been a struggle for the liberty of others; from one in whose breast no anger durable or vehement has ever been kindled, but by what he considered as tyranny; and who snatches from his share in the endeavours which are used by good men to discredit opulent oppression, the hours he has employed on your affairs; and who in so doing persuades himself he has not departed from his usual office: they come from one who desires honours, distinctions, and emoluments, but little, and who expects them not at all; who has no contempt for fame, and no fear of obloquy; who shuns contention, though he will hazard an opinion; who would preserve consistency by varying his means to secure the unity of his end; and, when the equipoise of the vessel in which he sails may be endangered by overloading it upon one side, is desirous of carrying the small weight of his reasons to that which may preserve its equipoise. necessity, a relative term. the only excuse to be made for all our mendicant diplomacy is the same as in the case of all other mendicancy;--namely, that it has been founded on absolute necessity. this deserves consideration. necessity, as it has no law, so it has no shame: but moral necessity is not like metaphysical, or even physical. in that category it is a word of loose signification, and conveys different ideas to different minds. to the low-minded, the slightest necessity becomes an invincible necessity. "the slothful man saith, there is a lion in the way, and i shall be devoured in the streets." but when the necessity pleaded is not in the nature of things, but in the vices of him who alleges it, the whining tones of commonplace beggarly rhetoric produce nothing but indignation; because they indicate a desire of keeping up a dishonourable existence, without utility to others, and without dignity to itself; because they aim at obtaining the dues of labour without industry; and by frauds would draw from the compassion of others what men ought to owe to their own spirit and their own exertions. king john and the pope. he began with exacting an oath from the king, by which, without showing the extent of his design, he engaged him to everything he could ask. john swore to submit to the legate in all things relating to his excommunication. and first he was obliged to accept langton as archbishop; then to restore the monks of canterbury, and other deprived ecclesiastics, and to make them a full indemnification for all their losses. and now, by these concessions, all things seemed to be perfectly settled. the cause of the quarrel was entirely removed. but when the king expected for so perfect a submission a full absolution, the legate began a laboured harangue on his rebellion, his tyranny, and the innumerable sins he had committed; and in conclusion declared, that there was no way left to appease god and the church but to resign his crown to the holy see, from whose hands he should receive it purified from all pollutions, and hold it for the future by homage, and an annual tribute. john was struck motionless at a demand so extravagant and unexpected. he knew not on which side to turn. if he cast his eyes toward the coast of france, he there saw his enemy philip, who considered him as a criminal as well as an enemy, and who aimed not only at his crown but his life, at the head of an innumerable multitude of fierce people, ready to rush in upon him. if he looked at his own army, he saw nothing there but coldness, disaffection, uncertainty, distrust, and a strength, in which he knew not whether he ought most to confide or fear. on the other hand, the papal thunders, from the wounds of which he was still sore, were leveled full at his head. he could not look steadily at these complicated difficulties; and truly it is hard to say what choice he had, if any choice were left to kings in what concerns the independence of their crown. surrounded, therefore, with these difficulties; and that all his late humiliations might not be rendered as ineffectual as they were ignominious, he took the last step; and, in the presence of a numerous assembly of his peers and prelates, who turned their eyes from this mortifying sight, formally resigned his crown to the pope's legate; to whom at the same time he did homage, and paid the first fruits of his tribute. nothing could be added to the humiliation of the king upon this occasion, but the insolence of the legate, who spurned the treasure with his foot, and let the crown remain a long time on the ground before he restored it to the degraded owner. in this proceeding the motives of the king may be easily discovered; but how the barons of the kingdom, who were deeply concerned, suffered, without any protestation, the independency of the crown to be thus forfeited, is mentioned by no historian of that time. in civil tumults it is astonishing how little regard is paid by all parties to the honour or safety of their country. the king's friends were probably induced to acquiesce by the same motives that had influenced the king. his enemies, who were the most numerous, perhaps saw his abasement with pleasure, as they knew this action might be one day employed against him with effect. to the bigots it was enough, that it aggrandized the pope. it is, perhaps, worthy of observation, that the conduct of pandulph towards king john bore a very great affinity to that of the roman consuls to the people of carthage in the last punic war; drawing them from concession to concession, and carefully concealing their design, until they made it impossible for the carthaginians to resist. such a strong resemblance did the same ambition produce in such distant times; and it is far from the sole instance, in which we may trace a similarity between the spirit and conduct of the former and latter rome in their common design on the liberties of mankind. consumption and produce. the balance between consumption and production makes price. the market settles, and alone can settle, that price. market is the meeting and conference of the consumer and producer, when they mutually discover each other's wants. nobody, i believe, has observed with any reflection what market is, without being astonished at the truth, the correctness, the celerity, the general equity, with which the balance of wants is settled. they, who wish the destruction of that balance, and would fain by arbitrary regulation decree, that defective production should not be compensated by increased price, directly lay their axe to the root of production itself. "priests of the rights of man." his grace, like an able orator, as he is, begins with giving me a great deal of praise for talents which i do not possess. he does this to entitle himself, on the credit of this gratuitous kindness, to exaggerate my abuse of the parts which his bounty, and not that of nature, has bestowed upon me. in this, too, he has condescended to copy mr. erskine. these priests (i hope they will excuse me; i mean priests of the rights of man) begin by crowning me with their flowers and their fillets, and bedewing me with their odours, as a preface to the knocking me on the head with their consecrated axes. i have injured, say they, the constitution; and i have abandoned the whig party and the whig principles that i professed. i do not mean, my dear sir, to defend myself against his grace. i have not much interest in what the world shall think or say of me; as little has the world an interest in what i shall think or say of any one in it; and i wish that his grace had suffered an unhappy man to enjoy, in his retreat, the melancholy privileges of obscurity and sorrow. at any rate, i have spoken, and i have written, on the subject. if i have written or spoken so poorly as to be quite forgot, a fresh apology will not make a more lasting impression. "i must let the tree lie as it falls." perhaps i must take some shame to myself. i confess that i have acted on my own principles of government, and not on those of his grace, which are, i dare say, profound and wise; but which i do not pretend to understand. as to the party to which he alludes, and which has long taken its leave of me, i believe the principles of the book which he condemns are very conformable to the opinions of many of the most considerable and most grave in that description of politicians. a few indeed, who, i admit, are equally respectable in all points, differ from me, and talk his grace's language. i am too feeble to contend with them. they have the field to themselves. there are others, very young and very ingenious persons, who form, probably, the largest part of what his grace, i believe, is pleased to consider as that party. some of them were not born into the world, and all of them were children, when i entered into that connection. i give due credit to the censorial brow, to the broad phylacteries, and to the imposing gravity, of those magisterial rabbins and doctors in the cabala of political science. i admit that "wisdom is as the gray hair to man, and that learning is like honourable old age." but, at a time when liberty is a good deal talked of, perhaps i might be excused, if i caught something of the general indocility. it might not be surprising, if i lengthened my chain a link or two, and in an age of relaxed discipline, gave a trifling indulgence to my own notions. if that could be allowed, perhaps i might sometimes (by accident, and without an unpardonable crime) trust as much to my own very careful, and very laborious, though, perhaps, somewhat purblind disquisitions, as to their soaring, intuitive, eagle-eyed authority. but the modern liberty is a precious thing. it must not be profaned by too vulgar an use. it belongs only to the chosen few, who are born to the hereditary representation of the whole democracy, and who leave nothing at all, no, not the offal, to us poor outcasts of the plebeian race. "his grace." amongst those gentlemen who came to authority, as soon, or sooner than they came of age, i do not mean to include his grace. with all those native titles to empire over our minds which distinguish the others, he has a large share of experience. he certainly ought to understand the british constitution better than i do. he has studied it in the fundamental part. for one election i have seen, he has been concerned in twenty. nobody is less of a visionary theorist; nobody has drawn his speculations more from practice. no peer has condescended to superintend with more vigilance the declining franchises of the poor commons. "with thrice great hermes he has outwatched the bear." often have his candles been burned to the snuff, and glimmered and stunk in the sockets, whilst he grew pale at his constitutional studies; long sleepless nights has he wasted; long, laborious, shiftless journeys has he made, and great sums has he expended in order to secure the purity, the independence, and the sobriety of elections, and to give a check, if possible, to the ruinous charges that go nearly to the destruction of the right of election itself. amidst these his labours, his grace will be pleased to forgive me, if my zeal, less enlightened to be sure than his by midnight lamps and studies, has presumed to talk too favourably of this constitution, and even to say something sounding like approbation of that body which has the honour to reckon his grace at the head of it. those, who dislike this partiality, or, if his grace pleases, this flattery of mine, have a comfort at hand. i may be refuted and brought to shame by the most convincing of all refutations--a practical refutation. every individual peer for himself may show that i was ridiculously wrong: the whole body of those noble persons may refute me for the whole corps. if they please, they are more powerful advocates against themselves, than a thousand scribblers like me can be in their favour. if i were even possessed of those powers which his grace, in order to heighten my offence, is pleased to attribute to me, there would be little difference. the eloquence of mr. erskine might save mr.-- from the gallows, but no eloquence could save mr. jackson from the effects of his own potion. speculation and history. i shall not live to behold the unravelling of the intricate plot which saddens and perplexes the awful drama of providence now acting on the moral theatre of the world. whether for thought or for action, i am at the end of my career. you are in the middle of yours. in what part of its orbit the nation, with which we are carried along, moves at this instant, it is not easy to conjecture. it may, perhaps, be far advanced in its aphelion.--but when to return? not to lose ourselves in the infinite void of the conjectural world, our business is with what is likely to be affected, for the better or the worse, by the wisdom or weakness of our plans. in all speculations upon men and human affairs, it is of no small moment to distinguish things of accident from permanent causes, and from effects that cannot be altered. it is not every irregularity in our movement that is a total deviation from our course. i am not quite of the mind of those speculators who seem assured that, necessarily, and by the constitution of things, all states have the same periods of infancy, manhood, and decrepitude that are found in the individuals who compose them. parallels of this sort rather furnish similitudes to illustrate or to adorn, than supply analogies from whence to reason. the objects which are attempted to be forced into an analogy are not found in the same classes of existence. individuals are physical beings subject to laws universal and invariable. the immediate cause acting in these laws may be obscure; the general results are subjects of certain calculation. but commonwealths are not physical but moral essences. they are artificial combinations, and, in their proximate efficient cause, the arbitrary productions of the human mind. we are not yet acquainted with the laws which necessarily influence the stability of that kind of work made by that kind of agent. there is not in the physical order (with which they do not appear to hold any assignable connection) a distinct cause by which any of those fabrics must necessarily grow, flourish, or decay; nor, in my opinion, does the moral world produce anything more determinate on that subject than what may serve as an amusement (liberal, indeed, and ingenious, but still only an amusement) for speculative men. i doubt whether the history of mankind is yet complete enough, if ever it can be so, to furnish grounds for a sure theory on the internal causes which necessarily affect the fortune of a state. i am far from denying the operation of such causes: but they are infinitely uncertain and much more obscure, and much more difficult to trace, than the foreign causes that tend to raise, to depress, and sometimes to overwhelm, a community. it is often impossible in these political inquiries to find any proportion between the apparent force of any moral causes we may assign and their known operation. we are therefore obliged to deliver up that operation to mere chance, or, more piously (perhaps, more rationally), to the occasional interposition and irresistible hand of the great disposer. we have seen states of considerable duration, which for ages have remained nearly as they have begun, and could hardly be said to ebb or flow. some appear to have spent their vigour at their commencement. some have blazed out in their glory a little before their extinction. the meridian of some has been the most splendid. others, and they the greatest number, have fluctuated, and experienced at different periods of their existence a great variety of fortune. at the very moment when some of them seemed plunged in unfathomable abysses of disgrace and disaster, they have suddenly emerged. they have begun a new course and opened a new reckoning; and, even in the depths of their calamity, and on the very ruins of their country, have laid the foundations of a towering and durable greatness. all this has happened without any apparent previous change in the general circumstances which had brought on their distress. the death of a man at a critical juncture, his disgust, his retreat, his disgrace, have brought innumerable calamities on a whole nation. a common soldier, a child, a girl at the door of an inn, have changed the face of fortune, and almost of nature. such, and often influenced by such causes, has commonly been the fate of monarchies of long duration. they have their ebbs and their flows. this has been eminently the fate of the monarchy of france. there have been times in which no power has ever been brought so low. few have ever flourished in greater glory. by turns elevated and depressed, that power had been, on the whole, rather on the increase; and it continued not only powerful but formidable to the hour of the total ruin of the monarchy. this fall of the monarchy was far from being preceded by any exterior symptoms of decline. the interior were not visible to every eye; and a thousand accidents might have prevented the operation of what the most clear-sighted were not able to discern, nor the most provident to divine. a very little time before its dreadful catastrophe there was a kind of exterior splendour in the situation of the crown, which usually adds to government strength and authority at home. the crown seemed then to have obtained some of the most splendid objects of state ambition. none of the continental powers of europe were the enemies of france. they were all either tacitly disposed to her, or publicly connected with her; and in those who kept the most aloof there was little appearance of jealousy; of animosity there was no appearance at all. the british nation, her great preponderating rival; she had humbled; to all appearance she had weakened; certainly had endangered, by cutting off a very large, and by far the most growing part of her empire. in that its acme of human prosperity and greatness, in the high and palmy state of the monarchy of france, it fell to the ground without a struggle. it fell without any of those vices in the monarch which have sometimes been the causes of the fall of kingdoms, but which existed, without any visible effect on the state, in the highest degree in many other princes; and, far from destroying their power, had only left some slight stains on their character. the financial difficulties were only pretexts and instruments of those who accomplished the ruin of that monarchy. they were not the causes of it. deprived of the old government, deprived in a manner of all government, france, fallen as a monarchy, to common speculators might have appeared more likely to be an object of pity or insult, according to the disposition of the circumjacent powers, than to be the scourge and terror of them all: but out of the tomb of the murdered monarchy in france has arisen a vast, tremendous unformed spectre, in a far more terrific guise than any which ever yet have overpowered the imagination and subdued the fortitude of man. going straight forward to its end, unappalled by peril, unchecked by remorse, despising all common maxims and all common means, that hideous phantom overpowered those who could not believe it was possible she could at all exist, except on the principles which habit rather than nature had persuaded them were necessary to their own particular welfare, and to their own ordinary modes of action. but the constitution of any political being, as well as that of any physical being, ought to be known, before one can venture to say what is fit for its conservation, or what is the proper means of its power. the poison of other states is the food of the new republic. that bankruptcy, the very apprehension of which is one of the causes assigned for the fall of the monarchy, was the capital on which she opened her traffic with the world. labour and wages. in the case of the farmer and the labourer, their interests are always the same, and it is absolutely impossible that their free contracts can be onerous to either party. it is the interest of the farmer, that his work should be done with effect and celerity: and that cannot be, unless the labourer is well fed, and otherwise found with such necessaries of animal life, according to his habitudes, as may keep the body in full force, and the mind gay and cheerful. for of all the instruments of his trade, the labour of man (what the ancient writers have called the instrumentum vocale) is that on which he is most to rely for the repayment of his capital. the other two, the semivocale in the ancient classification, that is, the working stock of cattle, and the instrumentum mutum, such as carts, ploughs, spades, and so forth, though not all inconsiderable in themselves, are very much inferior in utility or in expense; or, without a given portion of the first, are nothing at all. for, in all things whatever, the mind is the most valuable and the most important; and in this scale the whole of agriculture is in a natural and just order; the beast is as an informing principle to the plough and cart; the labourer is as reason to the beast; and the farmer is as a thinking and presiding principle to the labourer. an attempt to break this chain of subordination in any part is equally absurd; but the absurdity is the most mischievous in practical operation, where it is the most easy, that is, where it is the most subject to an erroneous judgment. it is plainly more the farmer's interest that his men should thrive, than that his horses should be well fed, sleek, plump, and fit for use, or than that his waggons and ploughs should be strong, in good repair, and fit for service. on the other hand, if the farmer cease to profit of the labourer, and that his capital is not continually manured and fructified, it is impossible that he should continue that abundant nutriment, and clothing, and lodging, proper for the protection of the instruments he employs. it is therefore the first and fundamental interest of the labourer, that the farmer should have a full incoming profit on the product of his labour. the proposition is self-evident, and nothing but the malignity, perverseness, and ill-governed passions of mankind, and particularly the envy they bear to each other's prosperity, could prevent their seeing and acknowledging it, with thankfulness to the benign and wise disposer of all things, who obliges men, whether they will or not, in pursuing their own selfish interests, to connect the general good with their own individual success. but who are to judge what that profit and advantage ought to be? certainly no authority on earth. it is a matter of convention dictated by the reciprocal conveniences of the parties, and indeed by their reciprocal necessities.--but, if the farmer is excessively avaricious?--why so much the better--the more he desires to increase his gains, the more interested is he in the good condition of those upon whose labour his gains must principally depend. i shall be told by the zealots of the sect of regulation, that this may be true, and may be safely committed to the convention of the farmer and the labourer, when the latter is in the prime of his youth, and at the time of his health and vigour, and in ordinary times of abundance. but in calamitous seasons, under accidental illness, in declining life, and with the pressure of a numerous offspring, the future nourishers of the community, but the present drains and blood-suckers of those who produce them, what is to be done? when a man cannot live and maintain his family by the natural hire of his labour, ought it not to be raised by authority? on this head i must be allowed to submit, what my opinions have ever been; and somewhat at large. and, first, i premise that labour is, as i have already intimated, a commodity, and, as such, an article of trade. if i am right in this notion, then labour must be subject to all the laws and principles of trade, and not to regulation foreign to them, and that may be totally inconsistent with those principles and those laws. when any commodity is carried to market, it is not the necessity of the vender, but the necessity of the purchaser, that raises the price. the extreme want of the seller has rather (by the nature of things with which we shall in vain contend) the direct contrary operation. if the goods at market are beyond the demand, they fall in their value; if below it, they rise. the impossibility of the subsistence of a man, who carries his labour to a market, is totally beside the question in his way of viewing it. the only question is, what is it worth to the buyer? but if the authority comes in and forces the buyer to a price, who is this in the case (say) of a farmer who buys the labour of ten or twelve labouring men, and three or four handicrafts, what is it, but to make an arbitrary division of his property among them? the whole of his gains, i say it with the most certain conviction, never do amount anything like in value to what he pays to his labourers and artificers, so that a very small advance upon what one man pays to many may absorb the whole of what he possesses, and amount to an actual partition of all his substance among them. a perfect equality will indeed be produced;--that is to say, equal want, equal wretchedness, equal beggary, and on the part of the petitioners, a woeful, helpless, and desperate disappointment. such is the event of all compulsory equalizations. they pull down what is above. they never raise what is below: and they depress high and low together beneath the level of what was originally the lowest. if a commodity is raised by authority above what it will yield with a profit to the buyer, that commodity will be the less dealt in. if a second blundering interposition be used to correct the blunder of the first, and an attempt is made to force the purchase of the commodity (of labour for instance), the one of these two things must happen, either that the forced buyer is ruined, or the price of the product of the labour, in that proportion, is raised. then the wheel turns round, and the evil complained of falls with aggravated weight on the complainant. the price of corn, which is the result of the expense of all the operations of husbandry taken together, and for some time continued, will rise on the labourer, considered as a consumer. the very best will be, that he remains where he was. but if the price of the corn should not compensate the price of labour, what is far more to be feared, the most serious evil, the very destruction of agriculture itself, is to be apprehended. nothing is such an enemy to accuracy of judgment as a coarse discrimination: a want of such classification and distribution as the subject admits of. increase the rate of wages to the labourer, say the regulators--as if labour was but one thing, and of one value. but this very broad, generic term, labour, admits, at least, of two or three specific descriptions: and these will suffice, at least, to let gentlemen discern a little the necessity of proceeding with caution in their coercive guidance of those whose existence depends upon the observance of still nicer distinctions and subdivisions than commonly they resort to in forming their judgments on this very enlarged part of economy. the labourers in husbandry may be divided: st, into those who are able to perform the full work of a man; that is, what can be done by a person from twenty-one years of age to fifty. i know no husbandry-work (mowing hardly excepted) that is not equally within the power of all persons within those ages, the more advanced fully compensating by knack and habit what they lose in activity. unquestionably, there is a good deal of difference between the value of one man's labour and that of another, from strength, dexterity, and honest application. but i am quite sure, from my best observation, that any given five men will, in their total, afford a proportion of labour equal to any other five within the periods of life i have stated; that is, that among such five men there will be one possessing all the qualifications of a good workman, one bad, and the other three middling, and approximating to the first and the last. so that in so small a platoon as that of even five, you will find the full complement of all that five men can earn. taking five and five throughout the kingdom, they are equal: therefore, an error with regard to the equalization of their wages by those who employ five, as farmers do at the very least, cannot be considerable. ndly. those who are able to work, but not the complete task of a day-labourer. this class is infinitely diversified, but will aptly enough fall into principal divisions. men, from the decline, which after fifty becomes every year more sensible to the period of debility and decrepitude, and the maladies that precede a final dissolution. women, whose employment on husbandry is but occasional, and who differ more in effective labour one from another, than men do, on account of gestation, nursing, and domestic management, over and above the difference they have in common with men in advancing, in stationary, and in declining life. children, who proceed on the reverse order, growing from less to greater utility, but with a still greater disproportion of nutriment to labour than is found in the second of these subdivisions: as is visible to those who will give themselves the trouble of examining into the interior economy of a poor-house. this inferior classification is introduced to show, that laws prescribing, or magistrates exercising, a very stiff and often inapplicable rule, or a blind and rash discretion, never can provide the just proportions between earning and salary on the one hand, and nutriment on the other: whereas interest, habit, and the tacit convention, that arise from a thousand nameless circumstances, produce a tact that regulates without difficulty, what laws and magistrates cannot regulate at all. the first class of labour wants nothing to equalize it; it equalizes itself. the second and third are not capable of any equalization. but what if the rate of hire to the labourer comes far short of his necessary subsistence, and the calamity of the time is so great as to threaten actual famine? is the poor labourer to be abandoned to the flinty heart and griping hand of base self-interest, supported by the sword of law, especially when there is reason to suppose that the very avarice of farmers themselves has concurred with the errors of government to bring famine on the land? a complete revolution. before this of france, the annals of all time have not furnished an instance of a complete revolution. that revolution seems to have extended even to the constitution of the mind of man. it has this of wonderful in it, that it resembles what lord verulam says of the operations of nature. it was perfect, not only in its elements and principles, but in all its members and its organs from the very beginning. the moral scheme of france furnishes the only pattern ever known, which they who admire will instantly resemble. it is indeed an inexhaustible repertory of one kind of examples. in my wretched condition, though hardly to be classed with the living, i am not safe from them. they have tigers to fall upon animated strength. they have hyaenas to prey upon carcasses. the national menagerie is collected by the first physiologists of the time; and it is defective in no description of savage nature. they pursue even such as me, into the obscurest retreats, and haul them before their revolutionary tribunals. neither sex, nor age,--nor the sanctuary of the tomb, is sacred to them. they have so determined a hatred to all privileged orders, that they deny even to the departed the sad immunities of the grave. they are not wholly without an object. their turpitude purveys to their malice; and they unplumb the dead for bullets to assassinate the living. if all revolutionists were not proof against all caution, i should recommend it to their consideration, that no persons were ever known in history, either sacred or profane, to vex the sepulchre, and, by their sorceries, to call up the prophetic dead, with any other event, than the prediction of their own disastrous fate.--"leave me, oh leave me to repose!" british government in india. the british government in india being a subordinate and delegated power, it ought to be considered as a fundamental principle in such a system, that it is to be preserved in the strictest obedience to the government at home. administration in india, at an immense distance from the seat of the supreme authority; intrusted with the most extensive powers; liable to the greatest temptations; possessing the amplest means of abuse; ruling over a people guarded by no distinct or well-ascertained privileges, whose language, manners, and radical prejudices render not only redress, but all complaint on their part, a matter of extreme difficulty; such an administration, it is evident, never can be made subservient to the interests of great britain, or even tolerable to the natives, but by the strictest rigour in exacting obedience to the commands of the authority lawfully set over it. money and science. my exertions, whatever they have been, were such as no hopes of pecuniary reward could possibly excite; and no pecuniary compensation can possibly reward them. between money and such services, if done by abler men than i am, there is no common principle of comparison: they are quantities incommensurable. money is made for the comfort and convenience of animal life. it cannot be a reward for what mere animal life must indeed sustain, but never can inspire. with submission to his grace, i have not had more than sufficient. as to any noble use, i trust i know how to employ, as well as he, a much greater fortune than he possesses. in a more confined application, i certainly stand in need of every kind of relief and easement much more than he does. when i say i have not received more than i deserve, is this the language i hold to majesty? no! far, very far, from it! before that presence, i claim no merit at all. everything towards me is favour, and bounty. one style to a gracious benefactor; another to a proud and insulting foe. his grace is pleased to aggravate my guilt, by charging my acceptance of his majesty's grant as a departure from my ideas, and the spirit of my conduct with regard to economy. if it be, my ideas of economy were false and ill-founded. but they are the duke of bedford's ideas of economy i have contradicted, and not my own. if he means to allude to certain bills brought in by me on a message from the throne in , i tell him, that there is nothing in my conduct that can contradict either the letter or the spirit of those acts. does he mean the pay-office act? i take it for granted he does not. the act to which he alludes, is, i suppose, the establishment act. i greatly doubt whether his grace has ever read the one or the other. the first of these systems cost me, with every assistance which my then situation gave me, pains incredible. i found an opinion common through all the offices, and general in the public at large, that it would prove impossible to reform and methodize the office of paymaster-general. i undertook it, however; and i succeeded in my undertaking. whether the military service, or whether the general economy of our finances, have profited by that act, i leave to those who are acquainted with the army, and with the treasury, to judge. political axioms. i. of all things, an indiscreet tampering with the trade of provisions is the most dangerous, and it is always worst in the time when men are most disposed to it: that is, in the time of scarcity. because there is nothing on which the passions of men are so violent, and their judgment so weak, and on which there exists such a multitude of ill-founded popular prejudices. ii. the great use of government is as a restraint; and there is no restraint which it ought to put upon others, and upon itself too, rather than that which is imposed on the fury of speculating under circumstances of irritation. the number of idle tales, spread about by the industry of faction, and by the zeal of foolish good-intention, and greedily devoured by the malignant credulity of mankind, tends infinitely to aggravate prejudices, which, in themselves, are more than sufficiently strong. in that state of affairs, and of the public with relation to them, the first thing that government owes to us, the people, is information; the next is timely coercion:--the one to guide our judgment; the other to regulate our tempers. iii. to provide for us in our necessities is not in the power of government. it would be a vain presumption in statesmen to think they can do it. the people maintain them, and not they the people. it is in the power of government to prevent much evil; it can do very little positive good in this, or perhaps in anything else. it is not only so of the state and statesmen, but of all the classes and descriptions of the rich--they are the pensioners of the poor, and are maintained by their superfluity. they are under an absolute, hereditary, and indefeasible dependence on those who labour, and are miscalled the poor. iv. the labouring people are only poor, because they are numerous. numbers in their nature imply poverty. in a fair distribution among a vast multitude none can have much. that class of dependent pensioners called the rich is so extremely small, that if all their throats were cut, and a distribution made of all they consume in a year, it would not give a bit of bread and cheese for one night's supper to those who labour, and who in reality feed both the pensioners and themselves. v. but the throats of the rich ought not to be cut, nor their magazines plundered; because in their persons they are trustees for those who labour, and their hoards are the banking-houses of these latter. whether they mean it or not, they do, in effect, execute their trust--some with more, some with less, fidelity and judgment. but, on the whole, the duty is performed, and everything returns, deducting some very trifling commission and discount, to the place from whence it arose. when the poor rise to destroy the rich, they act as wisely for their own purposes as when they burn mills, and throw corn into the river, to make bread cheap. vi. when i say, that we of the people ought to be informed, inclusively i say, we ought not to be flattered; flattery is the reverse of instruction. the poor in that case would be rendered as improvident as the rich, which would not be at all good for them. vii. nothing can be so base and so wicked as the political canting language, "the labouring poor." let compassion be shown in action, the more the better, according to every man's ability; but let there be no lamentation of their condition. it is no relief to their miserable circumstances; it is only an insult to their miserable understandings. it arises from a total want of charity, or a total want of thought. want of one kind was never relieved by want of any other kind. patience, labour, sobriety, frugality, and religion, should be recommended to them; all the rest is downright fraud. it is horrible to call them "the once happy labourer." viii. whether what may be called the moral or philosophical happiness of the laborious classes is increased or not, i cannot say. the seat of that species of happiness is in the mind; and there are few data to ascertain the comparative state of the mind at any two periods. philosophical happiness is to want little. civil or vulgar happiness is to want much, and to enjoy much. ix. if the happiness of the animal man (which certainly goes somewhere towards the happiness of the rational man) be the object of our estimate, then i assert without the least hesitation, that the condition of those who labour (in all descriptions of labour, and in all gradations of labour, from the highest to the lowest inclusively) is on the whole extremely meliorated, if more and better food is any standard of melioration. they work more, it is certain, but they have the advantage of their augmented labour; yet whether that increase of labour be on the whole a good or an evil, is a consideration that would lead us a great way, and is not for my present purpose. but as to the fact of the melioration of their diet, i shall enter into the detail of proof whenever i am called upon: in the mean time, the known difficulty of contenting them with anything but bread made of the finest flour, and meat of the first quality, is proof sufficient. x. i further assert, that even under all the hardships of the last year, the labouring people did, either out of their direct gains, or from charity (which it seems is now an insult to them), in fact, fare better than they did in seasons of common plenty, fifty or sixty years ago; or even at the period of my english observation, which is about forty-four years. i even assert, that full as many in that class as ever were known to do it before continued to save money; and this i can prove, so far as my own information and experience extend. xi. it is not true that the rate of wages has not increased with the nominal price of provisions. i allow it has not fluctuated with that price, nor ought it; and the squires of norfolk had dined when they gave it as their opinion, that it might or ought to rise and fall with the market of provisions. the rate of wages in truth has no direct relation to that price. labour is a commodity like every other, and rises or falls according to the demand. this is in the nature of things; however, the nature of things has provided for their necessities. wages have been twice raised in my time: and they bear a full proportion or even a greater than formerly, to the medium of provision during the last bad cycle of twenty years. they bear a full proportion to the result of their labour. if we were wildly to attempt to force them beyond it, the stone which we had forced up the hill would only fall back upon them in a diminished demand, or what indeed is the far lesser evil, an aggravated price, of all the provisions which are the result of their manual toil. xii. there is an implied contract, much stronger than any instrument or article of agreement between the labourer in any occupation and his employer--that the labour, so far as that labour is concerned, shall be sufficient to pay to the employer a profit on his capital, and a compensation for his risk; in a word, that the labour shall produce an advantage equal to the payment. whatever is above that, is a direct tax; and if the amount of that tax be left to the will and pleasure of another, it is an arbitrary tax. disappointed ambition. the true cause of his drawing so shocking a picture is no more than this, and it ought rather to claim our pity than excite our indignation;--he finds himself out of power; and this condition is intolerable to him. the same sun which gilds all nature, and exhilarates the whole creation, does not shine upon disappointed ambition. it is something that rays out of darkness, and inspires nothing but gloom and melancholy. men in this deplorable state of mind find a comfort in spreading the contagion of their spleen. they find an advantage too; for it is a general popular error to imagine the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare. if such persons can answer the ends of relief and profit to themselves, they are apt to be careless enough about either the means or the consequences. difficulty an instructor. their purpose everywhere seems to have been to evade and slip aside from difficulty. this it has been the glory of the great masters in all the arts to confront, and to overcome; and when they had overcome the first difficulty, to turn it into an instrument for new conquests over new difficulties; thus to enable them to extend the empire of their science; and even to push forward, beyond the reach of their original thoughts, the landmarks of the human understanding itself. difficulty is a severe instructor, set over us by the supreme ordinance of a parental guardian and legislator, who knows us better than we know ourselves, as he loves us better too. pater ipse colendi haud facilem esse viam voluit. he that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. our antagonist is our helper. this amicable conflict with difficulty obliges us to an intimate acquaintance with our object, and compels us to consider it in all its relations. it will not suffer us to be superficial. it is the want of nerves of understanding for such a task, it is the degenerate fondness for tricking short-cuts, and little fallacious facilities, that has in so many parts of the world created governments with arbitrary powers. they have created the late arbitrary monarchy of france; they have created the arbitrary republic of paris. with them defects in wisdom are to be supplied by the plenitude of force. they get nothing by it. commencing their labours on a principle of sloth, they have the common fortune of slothful men. the difficulties, which they rather had eluded than escaped, meet them again in their course; they multiply and thicken on them; they are involved, through a labyrinth of confused detail, in an industry without limit, and without direction; and, in conclusion, the whole of their work becomes feeble, vicious, and insecure. it is this inability to wrestle with difficulty which has obliged the arbitrary assembly of france to commence their schemes of reform with abolition and total destruction. but is it in destroying and pulling down that skill is displayed? your mob can do this as well at least as your assemblies. the shallowest understanding, the rudest hand, is more than equal to that task. rage and phrensy will pull down more in half an hour than prudence, deliberation, and foresight can build up in a hundred years. the errors and defects of old establishments are visible and palpable. it calls for little ability to point them out; and where absolute power is given, it requires but a word wholly to abolish the vice and the establishment together. the same lazy but restless disposition, which loves sloth and hates quiet, directs these politicians, when they come to work for supplying the place of what they have destroyed. to make everything the reverse of what they have seen, is quite as easy as to destroy. no difficulties occur in what has never been tried. criticism is almost baffled in discovering the defects of what has not existed; and eager enthusiasm and cheating hope have all the wide field of imagination, in which they may expatiate with little or no opposition. sovereign jurisdictions. with regard to the sovereign jurisdictions, i must observe, sir, that whoever takes a view of this kingdom in a cursory manner will imagine, that he beholds a solid, compacted, uniform system of monarchy; in which all inferior jurisdictions are but as rays diverging from one centre. but on examining it more nearly, you find much eccentricity and confusion. it is not a monarchy in strictness. but, as in the saxon times this country was an heptarchy, it is now a strange sort of pentarchy. it is divided into five several distinct principalities, besides the supreme. there is indeed this difference from the saxon times, that as in the itinerant exhibitions of the stage, for want of a complete company, they are obliged to throw a variety of parts on their chief performer; so our sovereign condescends himself to act not only the principal, but all the subordinate, parts in the play. he condescends to dissipate the royal character, and to trifle with those light, subordinate, lacquered sceptres in those hands that sustain the ball representing the world, or which wield the trident that commands the ocean. cross a brook, and you lose the king of england; but you have some comfort in coming again under his majesty, though "shorn of his beams," and no more than prince of wales. go to the north, and you find him dwindled to a duke of lancaster; turn to the west of that north, and he pops upon you in the humble character of earl of chester. travel a few miles on, the earl of chester disappears; and the king surprises you again as count palatine of lancaster. if you travel beyond mount edgecombe, you find him once more in his incognito, and he is duke of cornwall. so that, quite fatigued and satiated with this dull variety, you are infinitely refreshed when you return to the sphere of his proper splendour, and behold your amiable sovereign in his true, simple, undisguised, native character of majesty. prudery of false reform. every one must remember that the cabal set out with the most astonishing prudery, both moral and political. those, who in a few months after soused over head and ears into the deepest and dirtiest pits of corruption, cried out violently against the indirect practices in the electing and managing of parliaments, which had formerly prevailed. this marvellous abhorrence which the court had suddenly taken to all influence, was not only circulated in conversation through the kingdom, but pompously announced to the public, with many other extraordinary things, in a pamphlet which had all the appearance of a manifesto preparatory to some considerable enterprise. throughout it was a satire, though in terms managed and decent enough, on the politics of the former reign. it was indeed written with no small art and address. in this piece appeared the first dawning of the new system; there first appeared the idea (then only in speculation) of separating the court from the administration; of carrying everything from national connection to personal regards; and of forming a regular party for that purpose, under the name of king's men. to recommend this system to the people, a perspective view of the court, gorgeously painted, and finely illuminated from within, was exhibited to the gaping multitude. party was to be totally done away, with all its evil works. corruption was to be cast down from court, as ate was from heaven. power was thenceforward to be the chosen residence of public spirit; and no one was to be supposed under any sinister influence, except those who had the misfortune to be in disgrace at court, which was to stand in lieu of all vices and all corruptions. a scheme of perfection to be realized in a monarchy far beyond the visionary republic of plato. the whole scenery was exactly disposed to captivate those good souls, whose credulous morality is so invaluable a treasure to crafty politicians. indeed there was wherewithal to charm everybody, except those few who are not much pleased with professions of supernatural virtue, who know of what stuff such professions are made, for what purposes they are designed, and in what they are sure constantly to end. many innocent gentlemen, who had been talking prose all their lives without knowing anything of the matter, began at last to open their eyes upon their own merits, and to attribute their not having been lords of the treasury and lords of trade many years before, merely to the prevalence of party, and to the ministerial power, which had frustrated the good intentions of the court in favour of their abilities. now was the time to unlock the sealed fountain of royal bounty, which had been infamously monopolized and huckstered, and to let it flow at large upon the whole people. the time was come to restore royalty to its original splendour. exaggeration. if a few puny libellers, acting under a knot of factious politicians, without virtue, parts, or character (such they are constantly represented by these gentlemen), are sufficient to excite this disturbance, very perverse must be the disposition of that people amongst whom such a disturbance can be excited by such means. it is besides no small aggravation of the public misfortune, that the disease, on this hypothesis, appears to be without remedy. if the wealth of the nation be the cause of its turbulence, i imagine it is not proposed to introduce poverty, as a constable to keep the peace. if our dominions abroad are the roots which feed all this rank luxuriance of sedition, it is not intended to cut them off in order to famish the fruit. if our liberty has enfeebled the executive power, there is no design, i hope, to call in the aid of despotism, to fill up the deficiencies of law. whatever may be intended, these things are not yet professed. we seem therefore to be driven to absolute despair: for we have no other materials to work upon but those out of which god has been pleased to form the inhabitants of this island. if these be radically and essentially vicious, all that can be said is, that those men are very unhappy, to whose fortune or duty it falls to administer the affairs of this untoward people. i hear it indeed sometimes asserted, that a steady perseverance in the present measures, and a rigorous punishment of those who oppose them, will in course of time infallibly put an end to these disorders. but this, in my opinion, is said without much observation of our present disposition, and without any knowledge at all of the general nature of mankind. if the matter of which this nation is composed be so very fermentable as these gentlemen describe it, leaven never will be wanting to work it up, as long as discontent, revenge, and ambition, have existence in the world. particular punishments are the cure for accidental distempers in the state; they inflame rather than allay those heats which arise from the settled mismanagement of the government, or from a natural indisposition in the people. it is of the utmost moment not to make mistakes in the use of strong measures; and firmness is then only a virtue when it accompanies the most perfect wisdom. in truth, inconstancy is a sort of natural corrective of folly and ignorance. tactics of cabal. it is a law of nature, that whoever is necessary to what we have made our object, is sure, in some way, or in some time or other, to become our master. all this, however, is submitted to, in order to avoid that monstrous evil of governing in concurrence with the opinion of the people. for it seems to be laid down as a maxim, that a king has some sort of interest in giving uneasiness to his subjects: that all who are pleasing to them, are to be of course disagreeable to him: that as soon as the persons who are odious at court are known to be odious to the people, it is snatched at as a lucky occasion of showering down upon them all kinds of emoluments and honours. none are considered as well-wishers to the crown, but those who advised to some unpopular course of action; none capable of serving it, but those who are obliged to call at every instant upon all its power for the safety of their lives. none are supposed to be fit priests in the temple of government, but the persons who are compelled to fly into it for sanctuary. such is the effect of this refined project; such is ever the result of all the contrivances, which are used to free men from the servitude of their reason and from the necessity of ordering their affairs according to their evident interests. these contrivances oblige them to run into a real and ruinous servitude, in order to avoid a supposed restraint that might be attended with advantage. government, relative, not absolute. i never govern myself--no rational man ever did govern himself--by abstractions and universals. i do not put abstract ideas wholly out of any question, because i well know, that under that name i should dismiss principles; and that without the guide and light of sound, well-understood principles, all reasonings in politics, as in everything else, would be only a confused jumble of particular facts and details, without the means of drawing out any sort of theoretical or practical conclusion. a statesman differs from a professor in an university: the latter has only the general view of society; the former--the statesmen--has a number of circumstances to combine with those general ideas, and to take into his consideration. circumstances are infinite, are infinitely combined; are variable and transient; he who does not take them into consideration is not erroneous, but stark mad--dat operam ut cum ratione insaniat--he is metaphysically mad. a statesman, never losing sight of principles, is to be guided by circumstances; and judging contrary to the exigencies of the moment he may ruin his country for ever. i go on this ground, that government, representing the society, has a general superintending control over all the actions, and over all the publicly propagated doctrines of men, without which it never could provide adequately for all the wants of society; but then it is to use this power with an equitable discretion, the only bond of sovereign authority. for it is not, perhaps, so much by the assumption of unlawful powers, as by the unwise or unwarrantable use of those which are most legal, that governments oppose their true end and object; for there is such a thing as tyranny as well as usurpation. you can hardly state to me a case, to which legislature is the most confessedly competent, in which, if the rules of benignity and prudence are not observed, the most mischievous and oppressive things may not be done. so that after all, it is a moral and virtuous discretion, and not any abstract theory of right, which keeps governments faithful to their ends. crude, unconnected truths are in the world of practice what falsehoods are in theory. a reasonable, prudent, provident, and moderate coercion may be a means of preventing acts of extreme ferocity and rigour; for by propagating excessive and extravagant doctrines, such extravagant disorders take place, as require the most perilous and fierce corrections to oppose them. it is not morally true, that we are bound to establish in every country that form of religion which in our minds is most agreeable to truth, and conduces most to the eternal happiness of mankind. in the same manner it is not true that we are, against the conviction of our own judgment, to establish a system of opinions and practises directly contrary to those ends, only because some majority of the people, told by the head, may prefer it. no conscientious man would willingly establish what he knew to be false and mischievous in religion, or in anything else. no wise man, on the contrary, would tyrannically set up his own sense so as to reprobate that of the great prevailing body of the community, and pay no regard to the established opinions and prejudices of mankind or refuse to them the means of securing a religious instruction suitable to these prejudices. a great deal depends on the state in which you find men. general views. the foundations on which obedience to governments is founded, are not to be constantly discussed. that we are here, supposes the discussion already made and the dispute settled. we must assume the rights of what represents the public to control the individual, to make his will and his acts to submit to their will, until some intolerable grievance shall make us know that it does not answer its end, and will submit neither to reformation nor restraint. otherwise we should dispute all the points of morality before we can punish a murderer, robber, and adulterer; we should analyze all society. dangers by being despised grow great; so they do by absurd provision against them. stulti est dixisse non putaram. whether an early discovery of evil designs, an early declaration, and an early precaution against them, be more wise than to stifle all inquiry about them, for fear they should declare themselves more early than otherwise they would, and therefore precipitate the evil--all this depends on the reality of the danger. is it only an unbookish jealousy, as shakspeare calls it? it is a question of fact. does a design against the constitution of this country exist? if it does, and if it is carried on with increasing vigour and activity by a restless faction, and if it receives countenance by the most ardent and enthusiastic applauses of its object, in the great council of this kingdom, by men of the first parts, which this kingdom produces, perhaps by the first it has ever produced, can i think that there is no danger? if there be danger, must there be no precaution at all against it? if you ask whether i think the danger urgent and immediate, i answer, thank god, i do not. the body of the people is yet sound, the constitution is in their hearts, while wicked men are endeavouring to put another into their heads. but if i see the very same beginnings, which have commonly ended in great calamities, i ought to act as if they might produce the very same effects. early and provident fear is the mother of safety; because in that state of things the mind is firm and collected, and the judgment unembarrassed. but when the fear, and the evil feared, come on together, and press at once upon us, deliberation itself is ruinous, which saves upon all other occasions; because when perils are instant, it delays decision; the man is in a flutter, and in a hurry, and his judgment is gone, as the judgment of the deposed king of france and his ministers was gone, if the latter did not premeditately betray him. he was just come from his usual amusement of hunting, when the head of the column of treason and assassination was arrived at his house. let not the king, let not the prince of wales, be surprised in this manner. let not both houses of parliament be led in triumph along with him, and have law dictated to them by the constitutional, the revolution, and the unitarian societies. these insect reptiles, whilst they go on only caballing and toasting, only fill us with disgust; if they get above their natural size, and increase the quantity, whilst they keep the quality, of their venom, they become objects of the greatest terror. a spider in his natural size is only a spider, ugly and loathsome; and his flimsy net is only fit for catching flies. but, good god! suppose a spider as large as an ox, and that he spread cables about us, all the wilds of africa would not produce anything so dreadful-- "quale portentum neque militaris daunia in latis alit esculetis, nec jubae tellus generat leonum arida nutrix." think of them, who dare menace in the way they do in their present state, what would they do if they had power commensurate to their malice. god forbid i ever should have a despotic master; but if i must, my choice is made. i will have louis xvi. rather than monsieur bailly, or brissot, or chabot; rather george iii., or george iv., than dr. priestley or dr. kippis, persons who would not load a tyrannous power by the poisoned taunts of a vulgar, low-bred insolence. i hope we have still spirit enough to keep us from the one or the other. the contumelies of tyranny are the worst parts of it. magnitude in building. to the sublime in building, greatness of dimension seems requisite; for on a few parts, and those small, the imagination cannot rise to any idea of infinity. no greatness in the manner can effectually compensate for the want of proper dimensions. there is no danger of drawing men into extravagant designs by this rule; it carries its own caution along with it. because too great a length in buildings destroys the purpose of greatness, which it was intended to promote; the perspective will lessen it in height as it gains in length, and will bring it at last to a point; turning the whole figure into a sort of triangle, the poorest in its effect of almost any figure that can be presented to the eye. i have ever observed, that colonnades and avenues of trees of a moderate length were, without comparison, far grander than when they were suffered to run to immense distances. a true artist should put a generous deceit on the spectators, and effect the noblest designs by easy methods. designs that are vast only by their dimensions, are always the sign of a common and low imagination. no work of art can be great, but as it deceives; to be otherwise is the prerogative of nature only. a good eye will fix the medium betwixt an excessive length or height (for the same objection lies against both), and a short or broken quantity: and perhaps it might be ascertained to a tolerable degree of exactness, if it was my purpose to descend far into the particulars of any art. society and solitude. the second branch of the social passions is that which administers to society in general. with regard to this, i observe, that society, merely as society, without any particular heightenings, gives us no positive pleasure in the enjoyment; but absolute and entire solitude, that is, the total and perpetual exclusion from all society, is as great a positive pain as can almost be conceived. therefore in the balance between the pleasure of general society, and the pain of absolute solitude, pain is the predominant idea. but the pleasure of any particular social enjoyment outweighs very considerably the uneasiness caused by the want of that particular enjoyment; so that the strongest sensations relative to the habitudes of particular society are sensations of pleasure. good company, lively conversations, and the endearments of friendship, fill the mind with great pleasure; a temporary solitude, on the other hand, is itself agreeable. this may perhaps prove that we are creatures designed for contemplation as well as action; since solitude as well as society has its pleasures; as from the former observation we may discern, that an entire life of solitude contradicts the purposes of our being, since death itself is scarcely an idea of more terror. east-india bill and company. i therefore freely admit to the east-india their claim to exclude their fellow-subjects from the commerce of half the globe. i admit their claim to administer an annual territorial revenue of seven millions sterling; to command an army of sixty thousand men; and to dispose (under the control of a sovereign, imperial discretion, and with the due observance of the natural and local law) of the lives and fortunes of thirty millions of their fellow-creatures. all this they possess by charter, and by acts of parliament (in my opinion), without a shadow of controversy. those who carry the rights and claims of the company the furthest do not contend for more than this; and all this i freely grant. but granting all this, they must grant to me, in my turn, that all political power which is set over men, and that all privilege claimed or exercised in exclusion of them, being wholly artificial, and for so much a derogation from the natural quality of mankind at large, ought to be some way or other exercised ultimately for their benefit. if this is true with regard to every species of political dominion, and every description of commercial privilege, none of which can be original, self-derived rights, or grants for the mere private benefit of the holders, then such rights, or privileges, or whatever else you choose to call them, are all in the strictest sense a trust; and it is of the very essence of every trust to be rendered accountable; and even totally to cease, when it substantially varies from the purposes for which alone it could have a lawful existence. this i conceive, sir, to be true of trusts of power vested in the highest hands, and of such as seem to hold of no human creature. but about the application of this principle to subordinate, derivative trusts, i do not see how a controversy can be maintained. to whom then would i make the east-india company accountable? why, to parliament, to be sure; to parliament, from which their trust was derived; to parliament, which alone is capable of comprehending the magnitude of its object, and its abuse; and alone capable of an effectual legislative remedy. the very charter, which is held out to exclude parliament from correcting malversation with regard to the high trust vested in the company, is the very thing which at once gives a title and imposes on us a duty to interfere with effect, wherever power and authority originating from ourselves are perverted from their purposes, and become instruments of wrong and violence. if parliament, sir, had nothing to do with this charter, we might have some sort of epicurean excuse to stand aloof, indifferent spectators of what passes in the company's name in india and in london. but if we are the very cause of the evil, we are in a special manner engaged to the redress; and for us passively to bear with oppressions committed under the sanction of our own authority, is in truth and reason for this house to be an active accomplice in the abuse. that the power, notoriously, grossly abused, has been bought from us is very certain. but this circumstance, which is urged against the bill, becomes an additional motive for our interference; lest we should be thought to have sold the blood of millions of men, for the base consideration of money. we sold, i admit, all that we had to sell; that is, our authority, not our control. we had not a right to make a market of our duties. i ground myself therefore on this principle--that if the abuse is proved, the contract is broken, and we re-enter into all our rights; that is, into the exercise of all our duties. our own authority is indeed as much a trust originally, as the company's authority is a trust derivatively; and it is the use we make of the resumed power that must justify or condemn us in the resumption of it. when we have perfected the plan laid before us by the right honourable mover, the world will then see what it is we destroy, and what it is we create. by that test we stand or fall; and by that test i trust that it will be found in the issue, that we are going to supersede a charter abused to the full extent of all the powers which it could abuse, and exercised in the plenitude of despotism, tyranny, and corruption; and that in one and the same plan, we provide a real chartered security for the rights of men, cruelly violated under that charter. this bill, and those connected with it, are intended to form the magna charta of hindostan. whatever the treaty of westphalia is to the liberty of the princes and free cities of the empire, and to the three religions there professed; whatever the great charter, the statute of tallege, the petition of right, and the declaration of right, are to great britain, these bills are to the people of india. of this benefit, i am certain, their condition is capable; and when i know that they are capable of more, my vote shall most assuredly be for our giving to the full extent of their capacity of receiving; and no charter of dominion shall stand as a bar in my way to their charter of safety and protection. the strong admission i have made of the company's rights (i am conscious of it) binds me to do a great deal. i do not presume to condemn those who argue a priori, against the propriety of leaving such extensive political powers in the hands of a company of merchants. i know much is, and much more may be, said against such a system. but, with my particular ideas and sentiments, i cannot go that way to work. i feel an insuperable reluctance in giving my hand to destroy any established institution of government, upon a theory, however plausible it may be. my experience in life teaches me nothing clear upon the subject. i have known merchants with the sentiments and the abilities of great statesmen; and i have seen persons in the rank of statesmen, with the conceptions and characters of pedlars. indeed, my observation has furnished me with nothing that is to be found in any habits of life or education, which tends wholly to disqualify men for the functions of government, but that by which the power of exercising those functions is very frequently obtained, i mean a spirit and habits of low cabal and intrigue; which i have never, in one instance, seen united with a capacity for sound and manly policy. to justify us in taking the administration of their affairs out of the hands of the east-india company, on my principles, i must see several conditions. st. the object affected by the abuse should be great and important. nd. the abuse affecting this great object ought to be a great abuse. rd. it ought to be habitual, and not accidental. th. it ought to be utterly incurable in the body as it now stands constituted. all this ought to be made as visible to me as the light of the sun, before i should strike off an atom of their charter. parliaments and elections. all are agreed, that parliaments should not be perpetual; the only question is, what is the most convenient time for their duration? on which there are three opinions. we are agreed, too, that the term ought not to be chosen most likely in its operation to spread corruption, and to augment the already overgrown influence of the crown. on these principles i mean to debate the question. it is easy to pretend a zeal for liberty. those, who think themselves not likely to be encumbered with the performance of their promises, either from their known inability, or total indifference about the performance, never fail to entertain the most lofty ideas. they are certainly the most specious, and they cost them neither reflection to frame, nor pains to modify, nor management to support. the task is of another nature to those, who mean to promise nothing that it is not in their intention, or may possibly be in their power, to perform; to those, who are bound and principled no more to delude the understandings than to violate the liberty of their fellow-subjects. faithful watchmen we ought to be over the rights and privileges of the people. but our duty, if we are qualified for it as we ought, is to give them information, and not to receive it from them; we are not to go to school to them to learn the principles of law and government. in doing so, we should not dutifully serve, but we should basely and scandalously betray, the people, who are not capable of this service by nature, nor in any instance called to it by the constitution. i reverentially look up to the opinion of the people, and with an awe that is almost superstitious. i should be ashamed to show my face before them, if i changed my ground, as they cried up or cried down men, or things, or opinions; if i wavered and shifted about with every change, and joined in it, or opposed, as best answered any low interest or passion; if i held them up hopes, which i knew i never intended, or promised what i well knew i could not perform. of all these things they are perfect sovereign judges, without appeal; but as to the detail of particular measures, or to any general schemes of policy, they have neither enough of speculation in the closet, nor of experience in business, to decide upon it. they can well see whether we are tools of a court, or their honest servants. of that they can well judge; and i wish, that they always exercised their judgment; but of the particular merits of a measure i have other standards.**** that the frequency of elections proposed by this bill has a tendency to increase the power and consideration of the electors, not lessen corruptibility, i do most readily allow; so far it is desirable; this is what it has, i will tell you now what it has not: st. it has no sort of tendency to increase their integrity and public spirit, unless an increase of power has an operation upon voters in elections, that it has in no other situation in the world, and upon no other part of mankind. nd. this bill has no tendency to limit the quantity of influence in the crown, to render its operation more difficult, or to counteract that operation, which it cannot prevent, in any way whatsoever. it has its full weight, its full range, and its uncontrolled operation on the electors exactly as it had before. rd. nor, thirdly, does it abate the interest or inclination of ministers to apply that influence to the electors: on the contrary, it renders it much more necessary to them, if they seek to have a majority in parliament to increase the means of that influence, and redouble their diligence, and to sharpen dexterity in the application. the whole effect of the bill is therefore the removing the application of some part of the influence from the elected to the electors, and further to strengthen and extend a court interest already great and powerful in boroughs; here to fix their magazines and places of arms, and thus to make them the principal, not the secondary theatre of their manoeuvres for securing a determined majority in parliament. i believe nobody will deny, that the electors are corruptible. they are men; it is saying nothing worse of them; many of them are but ill informed in their minds, many feeble in their circumstances, easily over-reached, easily seduced. if they are many, the wages of corruption are the lower; and would to god it were not rather a contemptible and hypocritical adulation than a charitable sentiment to say, that there is already no debauchery, no corruption, no bribery, no perjury, no blind fury, and interested faction among the electors in many parts of this kingdom: nor is it surprising, or at all blamable, in that class of private men, when they see their neighbours aggrandised, and themselves poor and virtuous without that eclat or dignity, which attends men in higher situations. but admit it were true, that the great mass of the electors were too vast an object for court influence to grasp, or extend to, and that in despair they must abandon it; he must be very ignorant of the state of every popular interest, who does not know, that in all the corporations, all the open boroughs, indeed in every district of the kingdom, there is some leading man, some agitator, some wealthy merchant, or considerable manufacturer, some active attorney, some popular preacher, some money-lender, etc. etc. who is followed by the whole flock. this is the style of all free countries. "--multum in fabia valet hic, valet ille velina; cuilibet hic fasces dabit eripietque curule." these spirits, each of which informs and governs his own little orb, are neither so many, nor so little powerful, nor so incorruptible, but that a minister may, as he does frequently, find means of gaining them, and through them all their followers. to establish, therefore, a very general influence among electors will no more be found an impracticable project, than to gain an undue influence over members of parliament. therefore i am apprehensive, that this bill, though it shifts the place of the disorder, does by no means relieve the constitution. i went through almost every contested election in the beginning of this parliament, and acted as a manager in very many of them; by which, though as at a school of pretty severe and rugged discipline, i came to have some degree of instruction concerning the means, by which parliamentary interests are in general procured and supported. theory, i know, would suppose, that every general election is to the representative a day of judgment, in which he appears before his constituents to account for the use of the talent, with which they intrusted him, and for the improvement he has made of it for the public advantage. it would be so, if every corruptible representative were to find an enlightened and incorruptible constituent. but the practice and knowledge of the world will not suffer us to be ignorant, that the constitution on paper is one thing, and in fact and experience is another. we must know, that the candidate, instead of trusting at his election to the testimony of his behaviour in parliament, must bring the testimony of a large sum of money, the capacity of liberal expense in entertainments, the power of serving and obliging the rulers of corporations, of winning over the popular leaders of political clubs, associations, and neighbourhoods. it is ten thousand times more necessary to show himself a man of power, than a man of integrity, in almost all the elections with which i have been acquainted. elections, therefore, become a matter of heavy expense; and if contests are frequent, to many they will become a matter of an expense totally ruinous, which no fortunes can bear; but least of all the landed fortunes, encumbered as they often, indeed as they mostly, are with debts, with portions, with jointures; and tied up in the hands of the possessor by the limitations of settlement. it is a material, it is in my opinion a lasting, consideration in all the questions concerning election. let no one think the charges of elections a trivial matter. the charge therefore of elections ought never to be lost sight of in a question concerning their frequency; because the grand object you seek is independence. independence of mind will ever be more or less influenced by independence of fortune; and if, every three years, the exhausting sluices of entertainments, drinkings, open houses, to say nothing of bribery, are to be periodically drawn up and renewed;--if government-favours, for which now, in some shape or other, the whole race of men are candidates, are to be called for upon every occasion, i see that private fortunes will be washed away, and every, even to the least, trace of independence borne down by the torrent. i do not seriously think this constitution, even to the wrecks of it, could survive five triennial elections. if you are to fight the battle, you must put on the armour of the ministry; you must call in the public, to the aid of private, money. the expense of the last election has been computed (and i am persuaded that it has not been over-rated) at , , pounds;--three shillings in the pound more in the land tax. about the close of the last parliament, and the beginning of this, several agents for boroughs went about, and i remember well, that it was in every one of their mouths--"sir, your election will cost you three thousand pounds, if you are independent; but if the ministry supports you, it may be done for two, and perhaps for less;" and, indeed, the thing spoke itself. where a living was to be got for one, a commission in the army for another, a lift in the navy for a third, and custom-house offices scattered about without measure or number, who doubts but money may be saved? the treasury may even add money; but indeed it is superfluous. a gentleman of two thousand a year, who meets another of the same fortune, fights with equal arms; but if to one of the candidates you add a thousand a-year in places for himself, and a power of giving away as much among others, one must, or there is no truth in arithmetical demonstration, ruin his adversary, if he is to meet him and to fight with him every third year. it will be said, i do not allow for the operation of character; but i do; and i know it will have its weight in most elections; perhaps it may be decisive in some. but there are few in which it will be prevent great expenses. the destruction of independent fortunes will be the consequence on the part of the candidate. what will be the consequence of triennial corruption, triennial drunkenness, triennial idleness, triennial law-suits, litigations, prosecutions, triennial phrensy, of society dissolved, industry interrupted, ruined; of those personal hatreds, that will never be suffered to soften; those animosities and feuds, which will be rendered immortal; those quarrels, which are never to be appeased; morals vitiated and gangrened to the vitals? i think no stable and useful advantages were ever made by the money got at elections by the voter, but all he gets is doubly lost to the public; it is money given to diminish the general stock of the community, which is in the industry of the subject. i am sure, that it is a good while before he or his family settle again to their business. their heads will never cool; the temptations of elections will be for ever glittering before their eyes. they will all grow politicians; every one, quitting his business, will choose to enrich himself by his vote. they will all take the gauging-rod; new places will be made for them; they will run to the custom-house quay, their looms and ploughs will be deserted. so was rome destroyed by the disorders of continual elections, though those of rome were sober disorders. they had nothing but faction, bribery, bread, and stage plays, to debauch them. we have the inflammation of liquor superadded, a fury hotter than any of them. there the contest was only between citizen and citizen; here you have the contest of ambitious citizens on one side, supported by the crown, to oppose to the efforts (let it be so) of private and unsupported ambition on the other. yet rome was destroyed by the frequency and charge of elections, and the monstrous expense of an unremitted courtship to the people. i think, therefore, the independent candidate and elector may each be destroyed by it; the whole body of the community be an infinite sufferer; and a vitious ministry the only gainer. religion and magistracy. in a christian commonwealth the church and the state are one and the same thing, being different integral parts of the same whole. for the church has been always divided into two parts, the clergy and the laity; of which the laity is as much an essential integral part, and has as much its duties and privileges, as the clerical member; and in the rule, order, and government of the church has its share. religion is so far, in my opinion, from being out of the province of the duty of a christian magistrate, that it is, and it ought to be, not only his care, but the principal thing in his care; because it is one of the great bonds of human society; and its object the supreme good, the ultimate end and object of man himself. the magistrate, who is a man, and charged with the concerns of men, and to whom very specially nothing human is remote and indifferent, has a right and a duty to watch over it with an unceasing vigilance, to protect, to promote, to forward it by every rational, just, and prudent means. it is principally his duty to prevent the abuses, which grow out of every strong and efficient principle, that actuates the human mind. as religion is one of the bonds of society, he ought not to suffer it to be made the pretext of destroying its peace, order, liberty, and its security. above all, he ought strictly to look to it when men begin to form new combinations, to be distinguished by new names, and especially when they mingle a political system with their religious opinions, true or false, plausible or implausible. it is the interest, and it is the duty, and because it is the interest and the duty, it is the right of government to attend much to opinions; because, as opinions soon combine with passions, even when they do not produce them, they have much influence on actions. factions are formed upon opinions; which factions become in effect bodies corporate in the state;--nay, factions generate opinions in order to become a centre of union, and to furnish watch-words to parties; and this may make it expedient for government to forbid things in themselves innocent and neutral. i am not fond of defining with precision what the ultimate rights of the sovereign supreme power in providing for the safety of the commonwealth may be, or may not extend to. it will signify very little what my notions, or what their own notions, on the subject may be; because, according to the exigence, they will take, in fact, the steps which seem to them necessary for the preservation of the whole; for as self-preservation in individuals is the first law of nature, the same will prevail in societies, who will, right or wrong, make that an object paramount to all other rights whatsoever. persecution, false in theory. the bottom of this theory of persecution is false. it is not permitted to us to sacrifice the temporal good of any body of men to our own ideas of the truth and falsehood of any religious opinions. by making men miserable in this life, they counteract one of the great ends of charity; which is, inasmuch as in us lies, to make men happy in every period of their existence, and most in what most depends upon us. but give to these old persecutors their mistaken principle, in their reasoning they are consistent, and in their tempers they may be even kind and good-natured. but whenever a faction would render millions of mankind miserable, some millions of the race co-existent with themselves, and many millions in their succession, without knowing, or so much as pretending to ascertain, the doctrines of their own school (in which there is much of the lash and nothing of the lesson), the errors, which the persons in such a faction fall into, are not those that are natural to human imbecility, nor is the least mixture of mistaken kindness to mankind an ingredient in the severities they inflict. the whole is nothing but pure and perfect malice. it is, indeed, a perfection in that kind belonging to beings of a higher order than man, and to them we ought to leave it. this kind of persecutors, without zeal, without charity, know well enough, that religion, to pass by all questions of the truth or falsehood of any of its particular systems (a matter i abandon to the theologians on all sides), is a source of great comfort to us mortals in this our short but tedious journey through the world. they know, that to enjoy this consolation, men must believe their religion upon some principle or other, whether of education, habit, theory, or authority. when men are driven from any of those principles, on which they have received religion, without embracing with the same assurance and cordiality some other system, a dreadful void is left in their minds, and a terrible shock is given to their morals. they lose their guide, their comfort, their hope. none but the most cruel and hard-hearted of men, who had banished all natural tenderness from their minds, such as those beings of iron, the atheists, could bring themselves to any persecution like this. strange it is, but so it is, that men, driven by force from their habits in one mode of religion, have, by contrary habits, under the same force, often quietly settled in another. they suborn their reason to declare in favour of their necessity. man and his conscience cannot always be at war. if the first races have not been able to make a pacification between the conscience and the convenience, their descendants come generally to submit to the violence of the laws, without violence to their minds. irish legislation. the legislature of ireland, like all legislatures, ought to frame its laws to suit the people and the circumstances of the country, and not any longer to make it their whole business to force the nature, the temper, and the inveterate habits of a nation to a conformity to speculative systems concerning any kind of laws. ireland has an established government, and a religion legally established, which are to be preserved. it has a people, who are to be preserved too, and to be led by reason, principle, sentiment, and interest to acquiesce in that government. ireland is a country under peculiar circumstances. the people of ireland are a very mixed people; and the quantities of the several ingredients in the mixture are very much disproportioned to each other. are we to govern this mixed body as if it were composed of the most simple elements, comprehending the whole in one system of benevolent legislation; or are we not rather to provide for the several parts according to the various and diversified necessities of the heterogeneous nature of the mass? would not common reason and common honesty dictate to us the policy of regulating the people in the several descriptions of which they are composed, according to the natural ranks and classes of an orderly civil society, under a common protecting sovereign, and under a form of constitution favourable at once to authority and to freedom; such as the british constitution boasts to be, and such as it is, to those who enjoy it? henry of navarre. i have observed the affectation which, for many years past, has prevailed in paris even to a degree perfectly childish, of idolizing the memory of your henry the fourth. if anything could put any one out of humour with that ornament to the kingly character, it would be this overdone style of insidious panegyric. the persons who have worked this engine the most busily are those who have ended their panegyrics in dethroning his successor and descendant; a man, as good natured, at the least, as henry the fourth; altogether as fond of his people; and who has done infinitely more to correct the ancient vices of the state than that great monarch did, or we are sure he ever meant to do. well it is for his panegyrists that they have not him to deal with. for henry of navarre was a resolute, active, and politic prince. he possessed indeed great humanity and mildness; but a humanity and mildness that never stood in the way of his interests. he never sought to be loved without putting himself first in a condition to be feared. he used soft language with determined conduct. he asserted and maintained his authority in the gross, and distributed his acts of concession only in the detail. he spent the income of his prerogative nobly; but he took care not to break in upon the capital; never abandoning for a moment any of the claims which he made under the fundamental laws, nor sparing to shed the blood of those who opposed him, often in the field, sometimes upon the scaffold. because he knew how to make his virtues respected by the ungrateful, he has merited the praises of those, whom if they had lived in his time, he would have shut up in the bastile, and brought to punishment along with the regicides whom he hanged after he had famished paris into a surrender. test acts. in a discussion which took place in the year , mr. burke declared his intention, in case the motion for repealing the test acts had been agreed to, of proposing to substitute the following test in the room of what was intended to be repealed. "i, a.b. do, in the presence of god, sincerely profess and believe, that a religious establishment in this state is not contrary to the law of god, or disagreeable to the law of nature, or to the true principles of the christian religion, or that it is noxious to the community; and i do sincerely promise and engage, before god, that i never will, by any conspiracy, contrivance, or political device whatever, attempt, or abet others in any attempt, to subvert the constitution of the church of england, as the same is now by law established, and that i will not employ any power or influence, which i may derive from any office corporate, or any other office which i hold, or shall hold, under his majesty, his heirs and successors, to destroy and subvert the same; or, to cause members to be elected into any corporation, or into parliament, give my vote in the election of any member or members of parliament, or into any office, for or on account of their attachment to any other or different religious opinions or establishments, or with any hope, that they may promote the same to the prejudice of the established church; but will dutifully and peaceably content myself with my private liberty of conscience, as the same is allowed by law. "so help me god." what faction ought to teach. if, however, you could find out these pedigrees of guilt, i do not think the difference would be essential. history records many things, which ought to make us hate evil actions; but neither history, nor morals, nor policy, can teach us to punish innocent men on that account. what lesson does the iniquity of prevalent factions read to us? it ought to lesson us into an abhorrence of the abuse of our own power in our own day; when we hate its excesses so much in other persons and in other times. to that school true statesmen ought to be satisfied to leave mankind. they ought not to call from the dead all the discussions and litigations which formerly inflamed the furious factions, which had torn their country to pieces; they ought not to rake into the hideous and abominable things, which were done in the turbulent fury of an injured, robbed, and persecuted people, and which were afterwards cruelly revenged in the execution, and as outrageously and shamefully exaggerated in the representation, in order, a hundred and fifty years after, to find some colour for justifying them in the eternal proscription and civil excommunication of a whole people. grievances by law. this business appears in two points of view. . whether it is a matter of grievance. . whether it is within our province to redress it with propriety and prudence. whether it comes properly before us on a petition upon matter of grievance, i would not inquire too curiously. i know, technically speaking, that nothing agreeable to law can be considered as a grievance. but an over-attention to the rules of any act does sometimes defeat the ends of it, and i think it does so in this parliamentary act, as much at least as in any other. i know many gentlemen think, that the very essence of liberty consists in being governed according to law; as if grievances had nothing real and intrinsic; but i cannot be of that opinion. grievances may subsist by law. nay, i do not know whether any grievance can be considered as intolerable until it is established and sanctified by law. if the act of toleration were not perfect, if there were a complaint of it, i would gladly consent to amend it. but when i heard a complaint of a pressure on religious liberty, to my astonishment, i find that there was no complaint whatsoever of the insufficiency of the act of king william, nor any attempt to make it more sufficient. the matter therefore does not concern toleration, but establishment; and it is not the rights of private conscience that are in question, but the propriety of the terms, which are proposed by law as a title to public emoluments; so that the complaint is not, that there is not toleration of diversity in opinion, but that diversity in opinion is not rewarded by bishoprics, rectories, and collegiate stalls. when gentlemen complain of the subscription as matter of grievance, the complaint arises from confounding private judgment, whose rights are anterior to law, and the qualifications, which the law creates for its own magistracies, whether civil or religious. to take away from men their lives, their liberty, or their property, those things, for the protection of which society was introduced, is great hardship and intolerable tyranny; but to annex any condition you please to benefits, artificially created, is the most just, natural, and proper thing in the world. when e novo you form an arbitrary benefit, an advantage, pre-eminence, or emolument, not by nature, but institution, you order and modify it with all the power of a creator over his creature. such benefits of institution are royalty, nobility, priesthood; all of which you may limit to birth; you might prescribe even shape and stature. the jewish priesthood was hereditary. founders' kinsmen have a preference in the election of fellows in many colleges of our universities; the qualifications at all souls are, that they should be--optime nati, bene vestiti, mediocriter docti. by contending for liberty in the candidate for orders, you take away the liberty of the elector, which is the people; that is, the state. if they can choose, they may assign a reason for their choice; if they can assign a reason, they may do it in writing, and prescribe it as a condition; they may transfer their authority to their representatives, and enable them to exercise the same. in all human institutions a great part, almost all regulations, are made from the mere necessity of the case, let the theoretical merits of the question be what they will. for nothing happened at the reformation, but what will happen in all such revolutions. when tyranny is extreme, and abuses of government intolerable, men resort to the rights of nature to shake it off. when they have done so, the very same principle of necessity of human affairs, to establish some other authority, which shall preserve the order of this new institution, must be obeyed, until they grow intolerable; and you shall not be suffered to plead original liberty against such an institution. see holland, switzerland. if you will have religion publicly practised and publicly taught, you must have a power to say what that religion will be which you will protect and encourage; and to distinguish it by such marks and characteristics, as you in your wisdom shall think fit. as i said before, your determination may be unwise in this as in other matters, but it cannot be unjust, hard, or oppressive, or contrary to the liberty of any man, or in the least degree exceeding your province. it is therefore as a grievance fairly none at all, nothing but what is essential not only to the order, but to the liberty, of the whole community. revolutionary politics. in france you are now in the crisis of a revolution, and in the transit from one form of government to another--you cannot see that character of men exactly in the same situation in which we see it in this country. with us it is militant; with you it is triumphant; and you know how it can act when its power is commensurate to its will. i would not be supposed to confine those observations to any description of men, or to comprehend all men of any description within them--no! far from it. i am as incapable of that injustice, as i am of keeping terms with those who profess principles of extremes; and who, under the name of religion, teach little else than wild and dangerous politics. the worst of these politics of revolution is this: they temper and harden the breast, in order to prepare it for the desperate strokes which are sometimes used in extreme occasions. but as these occasions may never arrive, the mind receives a gratuitous taint; and the moral sentiments suffer not a little, when no political purpose is served by the depravation. this sort of people are so taken up with their theories about the rights of man, that they have totally forgotten his nature. without opening one new avenue to the understanding, they have succeeded in stopping up those that lead to the heart. they have perverted in themselves, and in those that attend to them, all the well-placed sympathies of the human breast. this famous sermon of the old jewry breathes nothing but this spirit through all the political part. plots, massacres, assassinations, seem to some people a trivial price for obtaining a revolution. a cheap, bloodless reformation, a guiltless liberty, appear flat and vapid to their taste. there must be a great change of scene; there must be a magnificent stage effect; there must be a grand spectacle to rouse the imagination, grown torpid with the lazy enjoyment of sixty years' security, and the still unanimating repose of public prosperity. the preacher found them all in the french revolution. this inspires a juvenile warmth through his whole frame. his enthusiasm kindles as he advances; and when he arrives at his peroration it is in a full blaze. then viewing, from the pisgah of his pulpit, the free, moral, happy, flourishing, and glorious state of france, as in a bird-eye landscape of a promised land, he breaks out into rapture. toleration become intolerant. when any dissenters, or any body of people, come here with a petition, it is not the number of people, but the reasonableness of the request, that should weigh with the house. a body of dissenters come to this house, and say, tolerate us--we desire neither the parochial advantage of tithes, nor dignities, nor the stalls of your cathedrals. no! let the venerable orders of the hierarchy exist with all their advantages. and shall i tell them, i reject your just and reasonable petition, not because it shakes the church, but because there are others, while you lie grovelling upon the earth, that will kick and bite you? judge which of these descriptions of men comes with a fair request--that, which says, sir, i desire liberty for my own, because i trespass on no man's conscience;--or the other, which says, i desire that these men should not be suffered to act according to their consciences, though i am tolerated to act according to mine. but i sign a body of articles, which is my title to toleration; i sign no more, because more are against my conscience. but i desire that you will not tolerate these men, because they will not go so far as i, though i desire to be tolerated, who will not go as far as you. no, imprison them, if they come within five miles of a corporate town, because they do not believe what i do in point of doctrines. shall i not say to these men, "arrangez-vous, canaille?" you, who are not the predominant power, will not give to others the relaxation, under which you are yourself suffered to live. i have as high an opinion of the doctrines of the church as you. i receive them implicitly, or i put my own explanation on them, or take that which seems to me to come best recommended by authority. there are those of the dissenters, who think more rigidly of the doctrine of the articles relative to predestination, than others do. they sign the article relative to it ex animo, and literally. others allow a latitude of construction. these two parties are in the church, as well as among the dissenters; yet in the church we live quietly under the same roof. i do not see why, as long as providence gives us no further light into this great mystery, we should not leave things as the divine wisdom has left them. but suppose all these things to me to be clear (which providence however seems to have left obscure), yet whilst dissenters claim a toleration in things which, seeming clear to me, are obscure to them, without entering into the merit of the articles, with what face can these men say, tolerate us, but do not tolerate them? toleration is good for all, or it is good for none. the discussion this day is not between establishment on one hand, and toleration on the other, but between those, who being tolerated themselves, refuse toleration to others. that power should be puffed up with pride, that authority should degenerate into rigour, if not laudable, is but too natural. but this proceeding of theirs is much beyond the usual allowance to human weakness; it not only is shocking to our reason, but it provokes our indignation. quid domini facient, audent cum talia fures? it is not the proud prelate thundering in his commission court, but a pack of manumitted slaves with the lash of the beadle flagrant on their backs, and their legs still galled with their fetters, that would drive their brethren into that prison-house from whence they have just been permitted to escape. if, instead of puzzling themselves in the depths of the divine counsels, they would turn to the mild morality of the gospel, they would read their own condemnation:--o thou wicked servant, i forgave thee all that debt because thou desiredst me: shouldest not thou also have compassion on thy fellow-servant, even as i had pity on thee? wilkes and right of election. in the last session, the corps called the "king's friends" made a hardy attempt, all at once, to alter the right of election itself; to put it into the power of the house of commons to disable any person disagreeable to them from sitting in parliament, without any other rule than their own pleasure; to make incapacities, either general for descriptions of men, or particular for individuals; and to take into their body, persons who avowedly never been chosen by the majority of legal electors, nor agreeably to any known rule of law. the arguments upon which this claim was founded and combated, are not my business here. never has a subject been more amply and more learnedly handled, nor upon one side, in my opinion, more satisfactorily; they who are not convinced by what is already written would not receive conviction though one arose from the dead. i too have thought on this subject: but my purpose here, is only to consider it as a part of the favourite project of government; to observe on the motives which led to it; and to trace its political consequences. a violent rage for the punishment of mr. wilkes was the pretence of the whole. this gentleman, by setting himself strongly in opposition to the court cabal, had become at once an object of their persecution, and of the popular favour. the hatred of the court party pursuing, and the countenance of the people protecting him, it very soon became not at all a question on the man, but a trial of strength between the two parties. the advantage of the victory in this particular contest was the present, but not the only, nor by any means the principal, object. its operation upon the character of the house of commons was the great point in view. the point to be gained by the cabal was this; that a precedent should be established, tending to show, that the favour of the people was not so sure a road as the favour of the court even to popular honours and popular trusts. a strenuous resistance to every appearance of lawless power; a spirit of independence carried to some degree of enthusiasm; an inquisitive character to discover, and a bold one to display, every corruption and every error of government; these are the qualities which recommend a man to a seat in the house of commons, in open and merely popular elections. an indolent and submissive disposition; a disposition to think charitably of all the actions of men in power, and to live in a mutual intercourse of favours with them; an inclination rather to countenance a strong use of authority, than to bear any sort of licentiousness on the part of the people; these are unfavourable qualities in an open election for members of parliament. the instinct which carries the people towards the choice of the former, is justified by reason; because a man of such a character, even in its exorbitances, does not directly contradict the purposes of a trust, the end of which is a control on power. the latter character, even when it is not in its extreme, will execute this trust but very imperfectly; and, if deviating to the least excess, will certainly frustrate instead of forwarding the purposes of a control on government. but when the house of commons was to be new modelled, is principle was not only to be changed but reversed. whilst any errors committed in support of power were left to the law, with every advantage of favourable construction, of mitigation, and finally of pardon: all excesses on the side of liberty, or in pursuit of popular favour, or in defence of popular rights and privileges, were not only to be punished by the rigour of the known law, but by a discretionary proceeding, which brought on the loss of the popular object itself. popularity was to be rendered, if not directly penal, at least highly dangerous. the favour of the people might lead even to a disqualification of representing them. their odium might become, strained through the medium of two or three constructions, the means of sitting as the trustee of all that was dear to them. this is punishing the offence in the offending part. until this time, the opinion of the people, through the power of an assembly, still in some sort popular, led to the greatest honours and emoluments in the gift of the crown. now the principle is reversed; and the favour of the court is the only sure way of obtaining and holding those honours which ought to be in the disposal of the people. it signifies very little how this matter may be quibbled away. example, the only argument of effect in civil life, demonstrates the truth of my proposition. nothing can alter my opinion concerning the pernicious tendency of this example, until i see some man for his indiscretion in the support of power, for his violent and intemperate servility, rendered incapable of sitting in parliament. for as it now stands, the fault of overstraining popular qualities, and, irregularly if you please, asserting popular privileges, has led to disqualification; the opposite fault never has produced the slightest punishment. resistance to power has shut the door of the house of commons to one man; obsequiousness and servility, to none. not that i would encourage popular disorder, or any disorder. but i would leave such offences to the law, to be punished in measure and proportion. the laws of this country are for the most part constituted, and wisely so, for the general ends of government, rather than for the preservation of our particular liberties. whatever, therefore, is done in support of liberty, by persons not in public trust, or not acting merely in that trust, is liable to be more or less out of the ordinary course of the law; and the law itself is sufficient to animadvert upon it with great severity. nothing indeed can hinder that severe letter from crushing us, except the temperaments it may receive from a trial by jury. but if the habit prevail of going beyond the law, and superseding this judicature, of carrying offences, real or supposed, into the legislative bodies, who shall establish themselves into courts of criminal equity (so the star chamber has been called by lord bacon), all the evils of the star chamber are revived. a large and liberal construction in ascertaining offences, and a discretionary power in punishing them, is the idea of criminal equity; which is in truth a monster in jurisprudence. it signifies nothing whether a court for this purpose be a committee of council, or a house of commons, or a house of lords; the liberty of the subject will be equally subverted by it. the true end and purpose of that house of parliament which entertains such a jurisdiction, will be destroyed by it. i will not believe, what no other man living believes, that mr. wilkes was punished for the indecency of his publications, or the impiety of his ransacked closet. if he had fallen in a common slaughter of libellers and blasphemers, i could well believe that nothing more was meant than was pretended. but when i see, that, for years together, full as impious, and perhaps more dangerous, writings to religion, and virtue, and order, have not been punished, nor their authors discountenanced; that the most audacious libels on royal majesty have passed without notice; that the most treasonable invectives against the laws, liberties, and constitution of the country, have not met with the slightest animadversion; i must consider this as a shocking and shameless pretence. never did an envenomed scurrility against everything sacred and civil, public and private, rage through the kingdom with such a furious and unbridled licence. all this while the peace of the nation must be shaken, to ruin one libeller, and to tear from the populace a single favourite. nor is it that vice merely skulks in an obscure and contemptible impunity. does not the public behold with indignation, persons not only generally scandalous in their lives, but the identical persons who, by their society, their instruction, their example, their encouragement, have drawn this man into the very faults which have furnished the cabal with a pretence for his persecution, loaded with every kind of favour, honour, and distinction, which a court can bestow? add but the crime of servility (the foedum crimen servitutis) to every other crime, and the whole mass is immediately transmuted into virtue, and becomes the just subject of reward and honour. when therefore i reflect upon this method pursued by the cabal in distributing rewards and punishments, i must conclude that mr. wilkes is the object of persecution, not on account of what he has done in common with others who are the objects of reward, but for that in which he differs from many of them: that he is pursued for the spirited dispositions which are blended with his vices; for his unconquerable firmness, for his resolute, indefatigable, strenuous resistance against oppression. in this case, therefore, it was not the man that was to be punished, nor his faults that were to be discountenanced. opposition to acts of power was to be marked by a kind of civil proscription. the popularity which should arise from such an opposition was to be shown unable to protect it. the qualities by which court is made to the people, were to render every fault inexpiable, and every error irretrievable. the qualities by which court is made to power, were to cover and to sanctify everything. he that will have a sure and honourable seat in the house of commons, must take care how he adventures to cultivate popular qualities; otherwise he may remember the old maxim, breves et infaustos populi romani amores. if, therefore, a pursuit of popularity expose a man to greater dangers than a disposition to servility, the principle which is the life and soul of popular elections will perish out of the constitution. rockingham and conway. it is now given out for the usual purposes, by the usual emissaries, that lord rockingham did not consent to the repeal of this act until he was bullied into it by lord chatham; and the reporters have gone so far as publicly to assert, in a hundred companies, that the honourable gentleman under the gallery, who proposed the repeal in the american committee, had another set of resolutions in his pocket directly the reverse of those he moved. these artifices of a desperate cause are at this time spread abroad, with incredible care, in every part of the town, from the highest to the lowest companies; as if the industry of the circulation were to make amends for the absurdity of the report. sir, whether the noble lord is of a complexion to be bullied by lord chatham, or by any man, i must submit to those who know him. i confess, when i look back to that time, i consider him as placed in one of the most trying situations in which, perhaps, any man ever stood. in the house of peers there were very few of the ministry, out of the noble lord's own particular connection (except lord egmont, who acted, as far as i could discern, an honourable and manly part), that did not look to some other future arrangement, which warped his politics. there were in both houses new and menacing appearances, that might very naturally drive any other, than a most resolute minister, from his measure or from his station. the household troops openly revolted. the allies of ministry (those, i mean, who supported some of their measures, but refused responsibility for any) endeavoured to undermine their credit, and to take ground that must be fatal to the success of the very cause which they would be thought to countenance. the question of the repeal was brought on by ministry in the committee of this house, in the very instant when it was known that more than one court negotiation was carrying on with the heads of the opposition. everything, upon every side, was full of traps and mines. earth below shook; heaven above menaced; all the elements of ministerial safety were dissolved. it was in the midst of this chaos of plots and counterplots; it was in the midst of this complicated warfare against public opposition and private treachery, that the firmness of that noble person was put to the proof. he never stirred from his ground: no, not an inch. he remained fixed and determined, in principle, in measure, and in conduct. he practised no managements. he secured no retreat. he sought no apology. i will likewise do justice, i ought to do it, to the honourable gentlemen who led us in this house. far from the duplicity wickedly charged on him, he acted his part with alacrity and resolution. we all felt inspired by the example he gave us, down even to myself, the weakest in that phalanx. i declare for one, i knew well enough (it could not be concealed from anybody) the true state of things; but, in my life, i never came with so much spirits into this house. it was a time for a man to act in. we had powerful enemies, but we had faithful and determined friends; and a glorious cause. we had a great battle to fight, but we had the means of fighting; not as now, when our arms are tied behind us. we did fight that day, and conquer. i remember, sir, with a melancholy pleasure, the situation of the honourable gentleman (general conway.) who made the motion for the repeal; in that crisis when the whole trading interest of this empire, crammed into your lobbies, with a trembling and anxious expectation, waited, almost to a winter's return of light, their fate from your resolutions. when, at length, you had determined in their favour, and your doors, thrown open, showed them the figure of their deliverer in the well-earned triumph of his important victory, from the whole of that grave multitude there arose an involuntary burst of gratitude and transport. they jumped upon him like children on a long-absent father. they clung about him as captives about their redeemer. all england, all america joined to his applause. nor did he seem insensible to the best of all earthly rewards, the love and admiration of his fellow-citizens. hope elevated, and joy brightened his crest. i stood near him; and his face, to use the expression of the scripture of the first martyr, "his face was as if it had been the face of an angel." i do not know how others feel; but if i had stood in that situation, i never would have exchanged it for all that kings in their profusion could bestow. i did hope that that day's danger and honour would have been a bond to hold us all together for ever. but, alas! that, with other pleasing visions, is long since vanished. sir, this act of supreme magnanimity has been represented, as if it had been a measure of an administration, that having no scheme of their own, took a middle line, pilfered a bit from one side and a bit from the other. sir, they took no middle lines. they differed fundamentally from the schemes of both parties; but they preserved the objects of both. they preserved the authority of great britain. they made the declaratory act; they repealed the stamp act. they did both fully; because the declaratory act was without qualification; and the repeal of the stamp act total. this they did in the situation i have described. politics in the pulpit. it is plain that the mind of this political preacher was at the time big with some extraordinary design; and it is very probable that the thoughts of his audience, who understood him better than i do, did all along run before him in his reflection, and in the whole train of consequences to which it led. before i read that sermon, i really thought i had lived in a free country; and it was an error i cherished, because it gave me a greater liking to the country i lived in. i was indeed aware, that a jealous, ever-waking vigilance, to guard the treasure of our liberty, not only from invasion, but from decay and corruption, was our best wisdom, and our first duty. however, i considered that treasure rather as a possession to be secured, than as a prize to be contended for. i did not discern how the present time came to be so very favourable to all exertions in the cause of freedom. the present time differs from any other only by the circumstance of what is doing in france. if the example of that nation is to have an influence on this, i can easily conceive why some of their proceedings which have an unpleasant aspect, and are not quite reconcilable to humanity, generosity, good faith, and justice, are palliated with so much milky good-nature towards the actors, and born with so much heroic fortitude towards the sufferers. it is certainly not prudent to discredit the authority of an example we mean to follow. but allowing this, we are led to a very natural question:--what is that cause of liberty, and what are those exertions in its favour, to which the example of france is so singularly auspicious? is our monarchy to be annihilated, with all the laws, all the tribunals, and all the ancient corporations of the kingdom? is every land-mark of the country to be done away in favour of a geometrical and arithmetical constitution? is the house of lords to be voted useless? is episcopacy to be abolished? are the church lands to be sold to jews and jobbers; or given to bribe new-invented municipal republics into a participation in sacrilege? are all the taxes to be voted grievances, and the revenue reduced to a patriotic contribution, or patriotic presents? are silver shoe-buckles to be substituted in the place of the land-tax and the malt-tax, for the support of the naval strength of this kingdom? are all orders, ranks, and distinctions to be confounded, that out of universal anarchy, joined to national bankruptcy, three or four thousand democracies should be formed into eighty-three, and that they may all, by some sort of unknown attractive power, be organized into one? for this great end is the army to be seduced from its discipline and its fidelity, first by every kind of debauchery, and then by the terrible precedent of a donative in the increase of pay? are the curates to be secluded from their bishops, by holding out to them the delusive hope of a dole out of the spoils of their own order? are the citizens of london to be drawn from their allegiance by feeding them at the expense of their fellow-subjects? is a compulsory paper currency to be substituted in the place of the legal coin of this kingdom? is what remains of the plundered stock of public revenue to be employed in the wild project of maintaining two armies to watch over and to fight with each other? if these are the ends and means of the revolution society, i admit they are well assorted; and france may furnish them for both with precedents in point. i see that your example is held out to shame us. i know that we are supposed a dull, sluggish race, rendered passive by finding our situation tolerable, and prevented by a mediocrity of freedom from ever attaining to its full perfection. your leaders in france began by affecting to admire, almost to adore, the british constitution; but, as they advanced, they came to look upon it with a sovereign contempt. the friends of your national assembly amongst us have full as mean an opinion of what was formerly thought the glory of their country. the revolution society has discovered that the english nation is not free. they are convinced that the inequality in our representation is a"defect in our constitution so gross and palpable, as to make it excellent chiefly in form and theory." (discourse on the love of our country, rd edition page .) that a representation in the legislature of a kingdom is not only the basis of all constitutional liberty in it, but of "all legitimate government; that without it a government is nothing but a usurpation;"--that "when the representation is partial, the kingdom possesses liberty only partially; and if extremely partial it gives only a semblance; and if not only extremely partial, but corruptly chosen, it becomes a nuisance." dr. price considers this inadequacy of representation as our fundamental grievance; and though, as to the corruption of this semblance of representation, he hopes it is not yet arrived to its full perfection of depravity, he fears that "nothing will be done towards gaining for us this essential blessing, until some great abuse of power again provokes our resentment, or some great calamity again alarms our fears, or perhaps till the acquisition of a pure and equal representation by other countries, whilst we are mocked with the shadow, kindles our shame." to this he subjoins a note in these words. "a representation chosen chiefly by the treasury, and a few thousands of the dregs of the people, who are generally paid for their votes." you will smile here at the consistency of those democratists, who, when they are not on their guard, treat the humbler part of the community with the greatest contempt, whilst, at the same time, they pretend to make them the depositories of all power. it would require a long discourse to point out to you the many fallacies that lurk in the generality and equivocal nature of the terms "inadequate representation." i shall only say here, in justice to that old-fashioned constitution, under which we have long prospered, that our representation has been found perfectly adequate to all the purposes for which a representation of the people can be desired or devised. i defy the enemies of our constitution to show the contrary. to detail the particulars in which it is found so well to promote its ends, would demand a treatise on our practical constitution. i state here the doctrine of the revolutionists, only that you and others may see, what an opinion these gentlemen entertain of the constitution of their country, and why they seem to think that some great abuse of power, or some great calamity, as giving a chance for the blessing of a constitution according to their ideas, would be much palliated to their feelings; you see why they are so much enamoured of your fair and equal representation, which being once obtained, the same effects might follow. you see they consider our house of commons as only "a semblance," "a form," "a theory," "a shadow," "a mockery," perhaps "a nuisance." william the conqueror. there is nothing more memorable in history than the actions, fortunes, and character of this great man; whether we consider the grandeur of the plans he formed, the courage and wisdom with which they were executed, or the splendour of that success, which, adorning his youth, continued without the smallest reserve to support his age even to the last moments of his life. he lived above seventy years, and reigned within ten years as long as he lived: sixty over his dukedom, above twenty over england; both of which he acquired or kept by his own magnanimity, with hardly any other title than he derived from his arms; so that he might be reputed, in all respects, as happy as the highest ambition, the most fully gratified, can make a man. the silent inward satisfactions of domestic happiness he neither had nor sought. he had a body suited to the character of his mind, erect, firm, large, and active; whilst to be active was a praise; a countenance stern, and which became command. magnificent in his living, reserved in his conversation, grave in his common deportment, but relaxing with a wise facetiousness, he knew how to relieve his mind and preserve his dignity; for he never forfeited by a personal acquaintance that esteem he had acquired by his great actions. unlearned in books, he formed his understanding by the rigid discipline of a large and complicated experience. he knew men much, and therefore generally trusted them but little; but when he knew any man to be good, he reposed in him an entire confidence, which prevented his prudence from degenerating into a vice. he had vices in his composition, and great ones; but they were the vices of a great mind: ambition, the malady of every extensive genius; and avarice, the madness of the wise: one chiefly actuated his youth; the other governed his age. the vices of young and light minds, the joys of wine, and the pleasures of love, never reached his aspiring nature. the general run of men he looked on with contempt, and treated with cruelty when they opposed him. nor was the rigour of his mind to be softened but with the appearance of extraordinary fortitude in his enemies, which, by a sympathy congenial to his own virtues, always excited his admiration, and insured his mercy. so that there were often seen in this one man, at the same time, the extremes of a savage cruelty, and a generosity, that does honour to human nature. religion, too, seemed to have a great influence on his mind from policy, or from better motives; but his religion was displayed in the regularity with which he performed his duties, not in the submission he showed to its ministers, which was never more than what good government required. yet his choice of a counsellor and favourite was not, according to the mode of the time, out of that order, and a choice that does honour to his memory. this was lanfranc, a man of great learning for the times, and extraordinary piety. he owed his elevation to william; but, though always inviolably faithful, he never was the tool or flatterer of the power which raised him; and the greater freedom he showed, the higher he rose in the confidence of his master. by mixing with the concerns of state he did not lose his religion and conscience, or make them the covers or instruments of ambition; but tempering the fierce policy of a new power by the mild lights of religion, he became a blessing to the country in which he was promoted. the english owed to the virtue of this stranger, and the influence he had on the king, the little remains of liberty they continued to enjoy; and at last such a degree of his confidence, as in some sort counterbalanced the severities of the former part of his reign. king alfred. when alfred had once more reunited the kingdoms of his ancestors, he found the whole face of things in the most desperate condition; there was no observance of law and order; religion had no force; there was no honest industry; the most squalid poverty, and the grossest ignorance, had overspread the whole kingdom. alfred at once enterprised the cure of all these evils. to remedy the disorders in the government, he revived, improved, and digested all the saxon institutions; insomuch that he is generally honoured as the founder of our laws and constitution. (historians, copying after one another, and examining little, have attributed to this monarch the institution of juries; an institution which certainly did never prevail amongst the saxons. they have likewise attributed to him the distribution of england into shires, hundreds, and tithings, and of appointing officers over these divisions. but it is very obvious that the shires were never settled upon any regular plan, nor are they the result of any single design. but these reports, however ill imagined, are a strong proof of the high veneration in which this excellent prince has always been held; as it has been thought that the attributing these regulations to him would endear them to the nation. he probably settled them in such an order, and made such reformations in his government, that some of the institutions themselves, which he improved, have been attributed to him; and indeed there was one work of his, which serves to furnish us with a higher idea of the political capacity of that great man than any of these fictions. he made a general survey and register of all the property in the kingdom, who held it, and what it was distinctly; a vast work for an age of ignorance and time of confusion, which has been neglected in more civilized nations and settled times. it was called the "roll of winton," and served as a model of a work of the same kind made by william the conqueror.) the shire he divided into hundreds; the hundreds into tithings; every freeman was obliged to be entered into some tithing, the members of which were mutually bound for each other for the preservation of the peace, and the avoiding theft and rapine. for securing the liberty of the subject, he introduced the method of giving bail, the most certain fence against the abuses of power. it has been observed, that the reigns of weak princes are times favourable to liberty; but the wisest and bravest of all the english princes is the father of their freedom. this great man was even jealous of the privileges of his subjects; and as his whole life was spent in protecting them, his last will breathes the same spirit, declaring, that he had left his people as free as their own thoughts. he not only collected with great care a complete body of laws, but he wrote comments on them for the instruction of his judges, who were in general by the misfortune of the time ignorant; and if he took care to correct their ignorance, he was rigorous towards their corruption. he inquired strictly into their conduct; he heard appeals in person; he held his wittena-gemotes, or parliaments, frequently, and kept every part of his government in health and vigour. nor was he less solicitous for the defence, than he had shown himself for the regulation, of his kingdom. he nourished with particular care the new naval strength, which he had established; he built forts and castles in the most important posts; he settled beacons to spread an alarm on the arrival of an enemy; and ordered his militia in such a manner, that there was always a great power in readiness to march, well appointed and well disciplined. but that a suitable revenue might not be wanting for the support of his fleets and fortifications, he gave great encouragement to trade; which by the piracies on the coasts, and the rapine and injustice exercised by the people within, had long become a stranger to this island. in the midst of these various and important cares, he gave a peculiar attention to learning, which by the rage of the late wars had been entirely extinguished in his kingdom. "very few there were (says this monarch) on this side the humber, that understood their ordinary prayers; or that were able to translate any latin book into english; so few, that i do not remember even one qualified to the southward of the thames when i began my reign." to cure this deplorable ignorance, he was indefatigable in his endeavours to bring into england men of learning in all branches from every part of europe; and unbounded in his liberality to them. he enacted by a law, that every person possessed of two hides of land should send their children to school until sixteen. wisely considering where to put a stop to his love even of the liberal arts, which are only suited to a liberal condition, he enterprised yet a greater design than that of forming the growing generation,--to instruct even the grown; enjoining all his earldormen and sheriffs immediately to apply themselves to learning or to quit their offices. to facilitate these great purposes, he made a regular foundation of a university, which with great reason is believed to have been at oxford. whatever trouble he took to extend the benefits of learning amongst his subjects, he showed the example himself, and applied to the cultivation of his mind with unparalleled diligence and success. he could neither read nor write at twelve years old; but he improved his time in such a manner that he became one of the most knowing men of his age, in geometry, in philosophy, in architecture, and in music. he applied himself to the improvement of his native language; he translated several valuable works from latin, and wrote a vast number of poems in the saxon tongue with a wonderful facility and happiness. he not only excelled in the theory of the arts and sciences, but possessed a great mechanical genius for the executive part; he improved the manner of ship-building, introduced a more beautiful and commodious architecture, and even taught his countrymen the art of making bricks, most of the buildings having been of wood before his time; in a word, he comprehended in the greatness of his mind the whole of government and all its parts at once; and what is most difficult to human frailty, was the same time sublime and minute. religion, which in alfred's father was so prejudicial to affairs, without being in him at all inferior in its zeal and fervour, was of a more enlarged and noble kind; far from being a prejudice to his government, it seems to have been the principle that supported him in so many fatigues, and fed like an abundant source his civil and military virtues. to his religious exercises and studies he devoted a full third part of his time. it is pleasant to trace a genius even in its smallest exertions; in measuring and allotting his time for the variety of business he was engaged in. according to his severe and methodical custom, he had a sort of wax candles, made of different colours, in different proportions, according to the time he allotted to each particular affair; as he carried these about with him wherever he went, to make them burn evenly, he invented horn lanthorns. one cannot help being amazed, that a prince, who lived in such turbulent times, who commanded personally in fifty-four pitched battles, who had so disordered a province to regulate, who was not only a legislator but a judge, and who was continually superintending his armies, his navies, the traffic of his kingdom, his revenues, and the conduct of all his officers, could have bestowed so much of his time on religious exercises and speculative knowledge; but the exertion of all his faculties and virtues seemed to have given a mutual strength to all of them. thus all historians speak of this prince, whose whole history was one panegyric; and whatever dark spots of human frailty may have adhered to such a character, they are entirely hid in the splendour of his many shining qualities and grand virtues, that throw a glory over the obscure period in which he lived, and which is for no other reason worthy of our knowledge. druids. the druids are said to be very expert in astronomy, in geography, and in all parts of mathematical knowledge. and authors speak, in a very exaggerated strain, of their excellence in these, and in many other sciences. some elemental knowledge i suppose they had; but i can scarcely be persuaded that their learning was either deep or extensive. in all countries where druidism was professed, the youth were generally instructed by that order; and yet was there little either in the manners of the people, in their way of life, or their works of art, that demonstrates profound science, or particularly mathematical skill. britain, where their discipline was in its highest perfection, and which was therefore resorted to by the people of gaul, as an oracle in druidical questions, was more barbarous in all other respects than gaul itself, or than any other country then known in europe. those piles of rude magnificence, stonehenge and abury, are in vain produced in proof of their mathematical abilities. these vast structures have nothing which can be admired, but the greatness of the work; and they are not the only instances of the great things, which the mere labour of many hands united, and persevering in their purpose, may accomplish with very little help from mechanics. this may be evinced by the immense buildings, and the low state of the sciences, among the original peruvians. the druids were eminent, above all the philosophic lawgivers of antiquity, for their care in impressing the doctrine of the soul's immortality on the minds of their people, as an operative and leading principle. this doctrine was inculcated on the scheme of transmigration, which some imagine them to have derived from pythagoras. but it is by no means necessary to resort to any particular teacher for an opinion which owes its birth to the weak struggles of unenlightened reason, and to mistakes natural to the human mind. the idea of the soul's immortality is indeed ancient, universal, and in a manner inherent in our nature; but it is not easy for a rude people to conceive any other mode of existence than one similar to what they had experienced in life; nor any other world as the scene of such an existence, but this we inhabit, beyond the bounds of which the mind extends itself with great difficulty. admiration, indeed, was able to exalt to heaven a few selected heroes; it did not seem absurd, that those, who in their mortal state had distinguished themselves as superior and overruling spirits, should after death ascend to that sphere, which influences and governs everything below; or that the proper abode of beings, at once so illustrious and permanent, should be in that part of nature, in which they had always observed the greatest splendour and the least mutation. but on ordinary occasions it was natural some should imagine, that the dead retired into a remote country, separated from the living by seas or mountains. it was natural, that some should follow their imagination with a simplicity still purer, and pursue the souls of men no further than the sepulchres, in which their bodies had been deposited; whilst others of deeper penetration, observing that bodies, worn out by age, or destroyed by accidents, still afforded the materials for generating new ones, concluded likewise, that a soul being dislodged did not wholly perish, but was destined, by a similar revolution in nature, to act again, and to animate some other body. this last principle gave rise to the doctrine of transmigration; but we must not presume of course, that where it prevailed it necessarily excluded the other opinions; for it is not remote from the usual procedure of the human mind, blending, in obscure matters, imagination and reasoning together, to unite ideas the most inconsistent. when homer represents the ghosts of his heroes appearing at the sacrifices of ulysses, he supposes them endued with life, sensation, and a capacity of moving, but he has joined to these powers of living existence uncomeliness, want of strength, want of distinction, the characteristics of a dead carcass. this is what the mind is apt to do; it is very apt to confound the ideas of the surviving soul and the dead body. the vulgar have always, and still do confound these very irreconcilable ideas. they lay the scene of apparitions in churchyards; they habit the ghost in a shroud; and it appears in all the ghastly paleness of a corpse. a contradiction of this kind has given rise to a doubt, whether the druids did in reality hold the doctrine of transmigration. there is positive testimony, that they did hold it. there is also testimony as positive, that they buried, or burned with the dead, utensils, arms, slaves, and whatever might be judged useful to them, as if they were to be removed into a separate state. they might have held both these opinions; and we ought not to be surprised to find error inconsistent. saxon conquest and conversion. but whatever was the condition of the other parts of europe, it is generally agreed that the state of britain was the worst of all. some writers have asserted, that except those who took refuge in the mountains of wales and cornwall, or fled into armorica, the british race was, in a manner, destroyed. what is extraordinary, we find england in a very tolerable state of population in less than two centuries after the first invasion of the saxons; and it is hard to imagine either the transplantation, or the increase, of that single people to have been, in so short a time, sufficient for the settlement of so great an extent of country. others speak of the britons, not as extirpated, but as reduced to a state of slavery; and here these writers fix the origin of personal and predial servitude in england. i shall lay fairly before the reader all i have been able to discover concerning the existence or condition of this unhappy people. that they were much more broken and reduced than any other nation which had fallen under the german power, i think may be inferred from two considerations: first, that in all other parts of europe the ancient language subsisted after the conquest, and at length incorporated with that of the conquerors; whereas in england, the saxon language received little or no tincture from the welsh; and it seems, even among the lowest people, to have continued a dialect of pure teutonic to the time in which it was itself blended with the norman. secondly, that on the continent, the christian religion, after the northern irruptions, not only remained, but flourished. it was very early and universally adopted by the ruling people. in england it was so entirely extinguished, that, when augustin undertook his mission, it does not appear that among all the saxons there was a single person professing christianity. the sudden extinction of the ancient religion and language appears sufficient to show that britain must have suffered more than any of the neighbouring nations on the continent. but it must not be concealed, that there are likewise proofs, that the british race, though much diminished, was not wholly extirpated; and that those who remained, were not merely as britons reduced to servitude; for they are mentioned as existing in some of the earlier saxon laws. in these laws they are allowed a compensation on the footing of the meaner kind of english; and they are even permitted, as well as the english, to emerge out of that low rank into a more liberal condition. this is degradation, but not slavery. (leges inae de cambrico homine agrum possidente. id. .) the affairs of that whole period are, however, covered with an obscurity not to be dissipated. the britons had little leisure or ability to write a just account of a war by which they were ruined; and the anglo-saxons, who succeeded them, attentive only to arms, were until their conversion, ignorant of the use of letters. it is on this darkened theatre that some old writers have introduced those characters and actions, which have afforded such ample matter to poets, and so much perplexity to historians. this is the fabulous and heroic age of our nation. after the natural and just representations of the roman scene, the stage is again crowded with enchanters, giants, and all the extravagant images of the wildest and most remote antiquity. no personage makes so conspicuous a figure in these stories as king arthur; a prince, whether of british or roman origin, whether born on this island or in armorica, is uncertain; but it appears that he opposed the saxons with remarkable virtue, and no small degree of success, which has rendered him and his exploits so large an argument of romance, that both are almost disclaimed by history. light scarce begins to dawn until the introduction of christianity, which, bringing with it the use of letters, and the arts of civil life, affords at once a juster account of things and facts that are more worthy of relation; nor is there, indeed, any revolution so remarkable in the english story. the bishops of rome had for sometime meditated the conversion of the anglo-saxons. pope gregory, who is surnamed the great, affected that pious design with an uncommon zeal; and he at length found a circumstance highly favourable to it in the marriage of a daughter of charibert, a king of the franks, to the reining monarch of kent. this opportunity induced pope gregory to commission augustin, a monk of rheims, and a man of distinguished piety, to undertake this arduous enterprise. it was in the year of christ , and years after the coming of the first saxon colonies into england, that ethelbert, king of kent, received intelligence of the arrival in his dominions of a number of men in a foreign garb, practising several strange and unusual ceremonies, who desired to be conducted to the king's presence, declaring that they had things to communicate to him and to his people of the utmost importance to their eternal welfare. this was augustin, with forty of the associates of his mission, who now landed in the isle of thanet, the same place by which the saxons had before entered, when they extirpated christianity. ministerial responsibility. it is no excuse at all for a minister, who at our desire takes a measure contrary to our safety, that it is our own act. he who does not stay the hand of suicide, is guilty of murder. on our part, i say, that to be instructed, is not to be degraded or enslaved. information is an advantage to us; and we have a right to demand it. he that is bound to act in the dark cannot be said to act freely. when it appears evident to our governors that our desires and our interests are at variance, they ought not to gratify the former at the expense of the latter. statesmen are placed on an eminence, that they may have a larger horizon than we can possibly command. they have a whole before them, which we can contemplate only in the parts, and often without the necessary relations. ministers are not only our natural rulers but our natural guides. reason clearly and manfully delivered, has in itself a mighty force: but reason in the mouth of legal authority, is, i may fairly say, irresistible. i admit that reason of state will not, in many circumstances, permit the disclosure of the true ground of a public proceeding. in that case silence is manly and it is wise. it is fair to call for trust when the principle of reason itself suspends its public use. i take the distinction to be this: the ground of a particular measure, making a part of a plan, it is rarely proper to divulge; all the broader grounds of policy, on which the general plan is to be adopted, ought as rarely to be concealed. they, who have not the whole cause before them, call them politicians, call them people, call them what you will, are no judges. the difficulties of the case, as well as its fair side, ought to be presented. this ought to be done; and it is all that can be done. when we have our true situation distinctly presented to us, if then we resolve, with a blind and headlong violence, to resist the admonitions of our friends, and to cast ourselves into the hands of our potent and irreconcilable foes, then, and not till then, the ministers stand acquitted before god and man, for whatever may come. monastic institutions and their results. in the change of religion, care was taken to render the transit from falsehood to truth as little violent as possible. though the first proselytes were kings, it does not appear that there was any persecution. it was a precept of pope gregory, under whose auspices this mission was conducted, that the heathen temples should not be destroyed, especially where they were well built; but that, first removing the idols, they should be consecrated anew by holier rites, and to better purposes (bed. hist. eccl. l. i. c. .), in order that the prejudices of the people might not be too rudely shocked by a declared profanation of what they had so long held sacred; and that everywhere beholding the same places, to which they had formerly resorted for religious comfort, they might be gradually reconciled to the new doctrines and ceremonies which were there introduced; and as the sacrifices used in the pagan worship were always attended with feasting, and consequently were highly grateful to the multitude, the pope ordered, that oxen should as usual be slaughtered near the church, and the people indulged in their ancient festivity. (id. c. eod.) whatever popular customs of heathenism were found to be absolutely not incompatible with christianity were retained; and some of them were continued to a very late period. deer were at a certain season brought into st. paul's church in london, and laid on the altar (dugdale's history of st. paul's.); and this custom subsisted until the reformation. the names of some of the church festivals were, with a similar design, taken from those of the heathen, which had been celebrated at the same time of the year. nothing could have been more prudent than these regulations; they were indeed formed from a perfect understanding of human nature. whilst the inferior people were thus insensibly led into a better order, the example and countenance of the great completed the work. for the saxon kings and ruling men embraced religion with so signal, and in their rank so unusual, a zeal, that in many instances they even sacrificed to its advancement the prime objects of their ambition. wulfere, king of the west saxons, bestowed the isle of wight on the king of sussex, to persuade him to embrace christianity. (bed. hist. eccl. l. iv. c. .) this zeal operated in the same manner in favour of their instructors. the greatest kings and conquerors frequently resigned their crowns, and shut themselves up in monasteries. when kings became monks, a high lustre was reflected upon the monastic state, and great credit accrued to the power of their doctrine, which was able to produce such extraordinary effects upon persons, over whom religion has commonly the slightest influence. the zeal of the missionaries was also much assisted by their superiority in the arts of civil life. at their first preaching in sussex, that country was reduced to the greatest distress from a drought, which had continued for three years. the barbarous inhabitants, destitute of any means to alleviate the famine, in an epidemic transport of despair frequently united forty and fifty in a body, and joining their hands, precipitated themselves from the cliffs, and were either drowned or dashed to pieces on the rocks. though a maritime people, they knew not how to fish; and this ignorance probably arose from a remnant of druidical superstition, which had forbidden the use of that sort of diet. in this calamity, bishop wilfred, their first preacher, collecting nets, at the head of his attendants, plunged into the sea; and having opened this great resource of food, he reconciled the desperate people to life, and their minds to the spiritual care of those who had shown themselves so attentive to their temporal preservation. (bed. hist. eccl. l. iv. c. .) the same regard to the welfare of the people appeared in all their actions. the christian kings sometimes made donations to the church of lands conquered from their heathen enemies. the clergy immediately baptized and manumitted their new vassals. thus they endeared to all sorts of men doctrines and teachers, which could mitigate the rigorous law of conquest; and they rejoiced to see religion and liberty advancing with an equal progress. nor were the monks in this time in anything more worthy of their praise than in their zeal for personal freedom. in the canon, wherein they provided against the alienation of their lands, among other charitable exceptions to this restraint, they particularize the purchase of liberty. (spelm. concil. page .) in their transactions with the great the same point was always strenuously laboured. when they imposed penance, they were remarkably indulgent to persons of that rank. but they always made them purchase the remission of corporal austerity by acts of beneficence. they urged their powerful penitents to the enfranchisement of their own slaves, and to the redemption of those which belonged to others; they directed them to the repair of highways, and to the construction of churches, bridges, and other works of general utility. (instauret etiam dei ecclesiam; et instauret vias publicas, pontibus super aquas profundas et super caenosas vias; et manumittat servos suos proprios, et redimat ab aliis hominibus servos suos ad libertatem.--l. eccl. edgari .) they extracted the fruits of virtue even from crimes, and whenever a great man expiated his private offences, he provided in the same act for the public happiness. the monasteries were then the only bodies corporate in the kingdom; and if any persons were desirous to perpetuate their charity by a fund for the relief of the sick or indigent, there was no other way than to confide this trust to some monastery. the monks were the sole channel, through which the bounty of the rich could pass in any continued stream to the poor; and the people turned their eyes towards them in all their distresses. we must observe, that the monks of that time, especially those from ireland (aidanus finam et colmanus mirae sanctitatis fuerunt et parsimoniae. adeo enim sacerdotes erant illius temporis ab avaritia immunes, ut nec territoria nisi coacti acciperent.--hen. hunting. apud decem. l. iii. page . bed. hist. eccl. l. iii. c. .), who had a considerable share in the conversion of all the northern parts, did not show that rapacious desire of riches, which long disgraced, and finally ruined, their successors. not only did they not seek, but seemed even to shun, such donations. this prevented that alarm, which might have arisen from an early and declared avarice. at this time the most fervent and holy anchorites retired to places the furthest that could be found from human concourse and help, to the most desolate and barren situations, which even from their horror seemed particularly adapted to men who had renounced the world. many persons followed them in order to partake of their instructions and prayers, or to form themselves upon their example. an opinion of their miracles after their death drew still greater numbers. establishments were gradually made. the monastic life was frugal, and the government moderate. these causes drew a constant concourse. sanctified deserts assumed a new face; the marshes were drained, and the lands cultivated. and as this revolution seemed rather the effect of the holiness of the place than of any natural causes, it increased their credit; and every improvement drew with it a new donation. in this manner the great abbeys of croyland and glastonbury, and many others, from the most obscure beginnings, were advanced to a degree of wealth and splendour little less than royal. in these rude ages, government was not yet fixed upon solid principles, and everything was full of tumult and distraction. as the monasteries were better secured from violence by their character, than any other places by laws, several great men, and even sovereign princes, were obliged to take refuge in convents, who, when by a more happy revolution in their fortunes they were reinstated in their former dignities, thought they could never make a sufficient return for the safety they had enjoyed under the sacred hospitality of these roofs. not content to enrich them with ample possessions, that others also might partake of the protection they had experienced, they formally erected into an asylum those monasteries, and their adjacent territory. so that all thronged to that refuge, who were rendered unquiet by their crimes, their misfortunes, or the severity of their lords; and content to live under a government, to which their minds were subject, they raised the importance of their masters by their numbers, their labour, and above all, by an inviolable attachment. the monastery was always the place of sepulture for the greatest lords and kings. this added to the other causes of reverence a sort of sanctity, which, in universal opinion, always attends the repositories of the dead; and they acquired also thereby a more particular protection against the great and powerful; for who would violate the tomb of his ancestors, or his own? it was not an unnatural weakness to think, that some advantage might be derived from lying in holy places, and amongst holy persons: and this superstition was fomented with the greatest industry and art. the monks of glastonbury spread a notion, that it was almost impossible any person should be damned, whose body lay in their cemetery. this must be considered as coming in aid of the amplest of their resources, prayer for the dead. but there was no part of their policy, of whatever nature, that procured to them a greater or juster credit, than their cultivation of learning and useful arts. for if the monks contributed to the fall of science in the roman empire, it is certain, that the introduction of learning and civility into this northern world is entirely owing to their labours. it is true, that they cultivated letters only in a secondary way, and as subsidiary to religion. but the scheme of christianity is such, that it almost necessitates an attention to many kinds of learning. for the scripture is by no means an irrelative system of moral and divine truths; but it stands connected with so many histories, and with the laws, opinions, and manners of so many various sorts of people, and in such different times, that it is altogether impossible to arrive to any tolerable knowledge of it, without having recourse to much exterior inquiry. for which reason the progress of this religion has always been marked by that of letters. there were two other circumstances at this time, that contributed no less to the revival of learning. the sacred writings had not been translated into any vernacular language, and even the ordinary service of the church was still continued in the latin tongue; all, therefore, who formed themselves for the ministry, and hoped to make any figure in it, were in a manner driven to the study of the writers of polite antiquity, in order to qualify themselves for their most ordinary functions. by this means a practice, liable in itself to great objections, had a considerable share in preserving the wrecks of literature; and was one means of conveying down to our times those inestimable monuments, which otherwise, in the tumult of barbarous confusion on one hand, and untaught piety on the other, must inevitably have perished. the second circumstance, the pilgrimages of that age, if considered in itself, was as liable to objection as the former; but it proved of equal advantage to the cause of literature. a principal object of these pious journeys was rome, which contained all the little that was left in the western world, of ancient learning and taste. the other great object of those pilgrimages was jerusalem; this led them into the grecian empire, which still subsisted in the east with great majesty and power. here the greeks had not only not discontinued the ancient studies, but they added to the stock of arts many inventions of curiosity and convenience that were unknown to antiquity. when, afterwards, the saracens prevailed in that part of the world, the pilgrims had also, by the same means, an opportunity of profiting from the improvements of that laborious people; and however little the majority of these pious travellers might have had such objects in their view, something useful must unavoidably have stuck to them; a few certainly saw with more discernment, and rendered their travels serviceable to their country by importing other things besides miracles and legends. thus a communication was opened between this remote island and countries, of which it otherwise could then scarcely have heard mention made; and pilgrimages thus preserved that intercourse amongst mankind, which is now formed by politics, commerce, and learned curiosity. it is not wholly unworthy of observation, that providence, which strongly appears to have intended the continual intermixture of mankind, never leaves the human mind destitute of a principle to effect it. this purpose is sometimes carried on by a sort of migratory instinct, sometimes by the spirit of conquest; at one time avarice drives men from their homes, at another they are actuated by a thirst of knowledge; where none of these causes can operate, the sanctity of particular places attracts men from the most distant quarters. it was this motive which sent thousands in those ages to jerusalem and rome; and now, in a full tide, impels half the world annually to mecca. by those voyages, the seeds of various kinds of knowledge and improvement were at different times imported into england. they were cultivated in the leisure and retirement of monasteries; otherwise they could not have been cultivated at all: for it was altogether necessary to draw certain men from the general rude and fierce society, and wholly to set a bar between them and the barbarous life of the rest of the world, in order to fit them for study, and the cultivation of arts and science. accordingly, we find everywhere, in the first institutions for the propagation of knowledge amongst any people, that those, who followed it, were set apart and secluded from the mass of the community. the great ecclesiastical chair of this kingdom, for near a century, was filled by foreigners; they were nominated by the popes, who were in that age just or politic enough to appoint persons of a merit in some degree adequate to that important charge. through this series of foreign and learned prelates, continual accessions were made to the originally slender stock of english literature. the greatest and most valuable of these accessions was made in the time and by the care of theodorus, the seventh archbishop of canterbury. he was a greek by birth; a man of a high ambitious spirit, and of a mind more liberal, and talents better cultivated, than generally fell to the lot of the western prelates. he first introduced the study of his native language into this island. he brought with him a number of valuable books in many faculties; and amongst them a magnificent copy of the works of homer; the most ancient and best of poets, and the best chosen to inspire a people, just initiated into letters, with an ardent love, and with a true taste for the sciences. under his influence a school was formed at canterbury; and thus the other great fountain of knowledge, the greek tongue, was opened in england in the year of our lord . common law and magna charta. the common law, as it then prevailed in england, was in a great measure composed of some remnants of the old saxon customs, joined to the feudal institutions brought in at the norman conquest. and it is here to be observed, that the constitutions of magna charta are by no means a renewal of the laws of st. edward, or the ancient saxon laws, as our historians and law-writers generally, though very groundlessly, assert. they bear no resemblance, in any particular, to the laws of st. edward, or to any other collection of these ancient institutions. indeed, how should they? the object of magna charta is the correction of the feudal policy, which was first introduced, at least in any regular form, at the conquest, and did not subsist before it. it may be further observed, that in the preamble to the great charter it is stipulated, that the barons shall hold the liberties, there granted to them and their heirs, from the king and his heirs; which shows, that the doctrine of an unalienable tenure was always uppermost in their minds. their idea even of liberty was not (if i may use the expression) perfectly free; and they did not claim to possess their privileges upon any natural principle or independent bottom, but, just as they held their lands, from the king. this is worthy of observation. by the feudal law all landed property is, by a feigned conclusion, supposed to be derived, and therefore to be mediately or immediately held, from the crown. if some estates were so derived, others were certainly procured by the same original title of conquest, by which the crown itself was acquired; and the derivation from the king could in reason only be considered as a fiction of law. but its consequent rights being once supposed, many real charges and burthens grew from a fiction made only for the preservation of subordination; and in consequence of this, a great power was exercised over the persons and estates of the tenants. the fines on the succession to an estate, called in the feudal language "reliefs," were not fixed to any certainty; and were therefore frequently made so excessive, that they might rather be considered as redemptions, or new purchases, than acknowledgments of superiority and tenure. with respect to that most important article of marriage, there was, in the very nature of the feudal holding, a great restraint laid upon it. it was of importance to the lord, that the person, who received the feud, should be submissive to him; he had therefore a right to interfere in the marriage of the heiress, who inherited the feud. this right was carried further than the necessity required; the male heir himself was obliged to marry according to the choice of his lord: and even widows, who had made one sacrifice to the feudal tyranny, were neither suffered to continue in the widowed state, nor to choose for themselves the partners of their second bed. in fact, marriage was publicly set up to sale. the ancient records of the exchequer afford many instances where some women purchased, by heavy fines, the privilege of a single life; some the free choice of a husband; others the liberty of rejecting some person particularly disagreeable. and, what may appear extraordinary, there are not wanting examples, where a woman has fined in a considerable sum, that she might not be compelled to marry a certain man; the suitor on the other hand has outbid her; and solely by offering more for the marriage than the heiress could to prevent it, he carried his point directly and avowedly against her inclinations. now, as the king claimed no right over his immediate tenants, that they did not exercise in the same, or in a more oppressive manner over their vassals, it is hard to conceive a more general and cruel grievance than this shameful market, which so universally outraged the most sacred relations among mankind. but the tyranny over women was not over with the marriage. as the king seized into his hands the estate of every deceased tenant in order to secure his relief, the widow was driven often by a heavy composition to purchase the admission to her dower, into which it should seem she could not enter without the king's consent. all these were marks of a real and grievous servitude. the great charter was made not to destroy the root, but to cut short the overgrown branches, of the feudal service; first, in moderating, and in reducing to a certainty, the reliefs, which the king's tenants paid on succeeding to their estate according to their rank; and secondly, in taking off some of the burthens, which had been laid on marriage, whether compulsory or restrictive, and thereby preventing that shameful market, which had been made in the persons of heirs, and the most sacred things amongst mankind. there were other provisions made in the great charter, that went deeper than the feudal tenure, and affected the whole body of the civil government. a great part of the king's revenue then consisted in the fines and amercements, which were imposed in his courts. a fine was paid there for liberty to commence, or to conclude a suit. the punishment of offences by fine was discretionary; and this discretionary power had been very much abused. but by magna charta things were so ordered, that a delinquent might be punished, but not ruined, by a fine or amercement, because the degree of his offence, and the rank he held, were to be taken into consideration. his freehold, his merchandise, and those instruments, by which he obtained his livelihood, were made sacred from such impositions. a more grand reform was made with regard to the administration of justice. the kings in those days seldom resided long in one place, and their courts followed their persons. this erratic justice must have been productive of infinite inconvenience to the litigants. it was now provided, that civil suits, called common pleas, should be fixed to some certain place. thus one branch of jurisdiction was separated from the king's court, and detached from his person. they had not yet come to that maturity of jurisprudence as to think this might be made to extend to criminal law also; and that the latter was an object of still greater importance. but even the former may be considered as a great revolution. a tribunal, a creature of mere law, independent of personal power, was established, and this separation of a king's authority from his person was a matter of vast consequence towards introducing ideas of freedom, and confirming the sacredness and majesty of laws. but the grand article, and that which cemented all the parts of the fabric of liberty, was this: "that no freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or disseized, or outlawed, or banished, or in any wise destroyed, but by judgment of his peers." there is another article of nearly as much consequence as the former, considering the state of the nation at that time, by which it is provided, that the barons shall grant to their tenants the same liberties which they had stipulated for themselves. this prevented the kingdom from degenerating into the worst imaginable government, a feudal aristocracy. the english barons were not in the condition of those great princes, who had made the french monarchy so low in the preceding century; or like those, who reduced the imperial power to a name. they had been brought to moderate bounds by the policy of the first and second henrys, and were not in a condition to set up for petty sovereigns by an usurpation equally detrimental to the crown and the people. they were able to act only in confederacy; and this common cause made it necessary to consult the common good, and to study popularity by the equity of their proceedings. this was a very happy circumstances to the growing liberty. europe and the norman invasion. before the period of which we are going to treat, england was little known or considered in europe. their situation, their domestic calamities, and their ignorance, circumscribed the views and politics of the english within the bounds of their own island. but the norman conqueror threw down all these barriers. the english laws, manners, and maxims, were suddenly changed; the scene was enlarged; and the communication with the rest of europe being thus opened, has been preserved ever since in a continued series of wars and negotiations. that we may therefore enter more fully into the matters which lie before us, it is necessary that we understand the state of the neighbouring continent at the time when this island first came to be interested in its affairs. the northern nations, who had overrun the roman empire, were at first rather actuated by avarice than ambition, and were more intent upon plunder than conquest; they were carried beyond their original purposes, when they began to form regular governments, for which they had been prepared by no just ideas of legislation. for a long time, therefore, there was little of order in their affairs, or foresight in their designs. the goths, the burgundians, the franks, the vandals, the suevi, after they had prevailed over the roman empire, by turns prevailed over each other in continual wars, which were carried on upon no principles of a determinate policy, entered into upon motives of brutality and caprice, and ended as fortune and rude violence chanced to prevail. tumult, anarchy, confusion, overspread the face of europe; and an obscurity rests upon the transactions of that time, which suffers us to discover nothing but its extreme barbarity. before this cloud could be dispersed, the saracens, another body of barbarians from the south, animated by a fury not unlike that, which gave strength to the northern irruptions, but heightened by enthusiasm, and regulated by subordination and uniform policy, began to carry their arms, their manners, and religion into every part of the universe. spain was entirely overwhelmed by the torrent of their armies; italy, and the islands, were harassed by their fleets, and all europe alarmed by their vigorous and frequent enterprises. italy, who had so long sat the mistress of the world, was by turns the slave of all nations. the possession of that fine country was hotly disputed between the greek emperor and the lombards, and it suffered infinitely by that contention. germany, the parent of so many nations, was exhausted by the swarms she had sent abroad. however, in the midst of this chaos there were principles at work, which reduced things to a certain form, and gradually unfolded a system, in which the chief movers and main springs were the papal and the imperial powers; the aggrandisement or diminution of which have been the drift of almost all the politics, intrigues, and wars, which have employed and distracted europe to this day. from rome the whole western world had received its christianity. she was the asylum of what learning had escaped the general desolation; and even in her ruins she preserved something of the majesty of her ancient greatness. on these accounts she had a respect and a weight, which increased every day amongst a simple religious people, who looked but a little way into the consequences of their actions. the rudeness of the world was very favourable for the establishment of an empire of opinion. the moderation with which the popes at first exerted this empire, made its growth unfelt until it could no longer be opposed. and the policy of later popes, building on the piety of the first, continually increased it; and they made use of every instrument but that of force. they employed equally the virtues and the crimes of the great; they favoured the lust of kings for absolute authority, and the desire of subjects for liberty; they provoked war, and mediated peace; and took advantage of every turn in the minds of men, whether of a public or private nature, to extend their influence, and push their power from ecclesiastical to civil; from subjection to independency; from independency to empire. france had many advantages over the other parts of europe. the saracens had no permanent success in that country. the same hand, which expelled those invaders, deposed the last of a race of heavy and degenerate princes, more like eastern monarchs than german leaders, and who had neither the force to repel the enemies of their kingdom, nor to assert their own sovereignty. this usurpation placed on the throne princes of another character; princes, who were obliged to supply their want of title by the vigour of their administration. the french monarch had need of some great and respected authority to throw a veil over his usurpation, and to sanctify his newly-acquired power by those names and appearances, which are necessary to make it respectable to the people. on the other hand, the pope, who hated the grecian empire, and equally feared the success of the lombards, saw with joy this new star arise in the north, and gave it the sanction of his authority. presently after he called it to his assistance. pepin passed the alps, relieved the pope, and invested him with the dominion of a large country in the best part of italy. charlemagne pursued the course which was marked out for him, and put an end to the lombard kingdom, weakened by the policy of his father, and the enmity of the popes, who never willingly saw a strong power in italy. then he received from the hand of the pope the imperial crown, sanctified by the authority of the holy see, and with it the title of emperor of the romans; a name venerable from the fame of the old empire, and which was supposed to carry great and unknown prerogatives; and thus the empire rose again out of its ruins in the west; and what is remarkable, by means of one of those nations which had helped to destroy it. if we take in the conquests of charlemagne, it was also very near as extensive as formerly; though its constitution was altogether different, as being entirely on the northern model of government. from charlemagne the pope received in return an enlargement and a confirmation of his new territory. thus the papal and imperial powers mutually gave birth to each other. they continued for some ages, and, in some measure, still continue closely connected, with a variety of pretensions upon each other, and on the rest of europe. though the imperial power had its origin in france, it was soon divided into two branches, the gallic and the german. the latter alone supported the title of empire; but the power being weakened by this division, the papal pretensions had the greater weight. the pope, because he first revived the imperial dignity, claimed a right of disposing of it, or at least of giving validity to the election of the emperor. the emperor, on the other hand, remembering the rights of those sovereigns, whose title he bore, and how lately the power, which insulted him with such demands, had arisen from the bounty of his predecessors, claimed the same privileges in the election of a pope. the claims of both were somewhat plausible; and they were supported, the one by force of arms, and the other by ecclesiastical influence, powers which in those days were very nearly balanced. italy was the theatre upon which this prize was disputed. in every city the parties in favour of each of the opponents were not far from an equality in their numbers and strength. whilst these parties disagreed in the choice of a master, by contending for a choice in their subjection, they grew imperceptibly into freedom, and passed through the medium of faction and anarchy into regular commonwealths. thus arose the republics of venice, of genoa, of florence, sienna, and pisa, and several others. these cities, established in this freedom, turned the frugal and ingenious spirit contracted in such communities to navigation and traffic; and pursuing them with skill and vigour, whilst commerce was neglected and despised by the rustic gentry of the martial governments, they grew to a considerable degree of wealth, power, and civility. the danes, who in this latter time preserved the spirit and the numbers of the ancient gothic people, had seated themselves in england, in the low countries, and in normandy. they passed from thence to the southern part of europe, and in this romantic age gave rise in sicily and naples to a new kingdom, and a new line of princes. all the kingdoms on the continent of europe were governed nearly in the same form; from whence arose a great similitude in the manners of their inhabitants. the feodal discipline extended itself everywhere, and influenced the conduct of the courts, and the manners of the people, with its own irregular martial spirit. subjects, under the complicated laws of a various and rigorous servitude, exercised all the prerogatives of sovereign power. they distributed justice, they made war and peace at pleasure. the sovereign, with great pretensions, had but little power; he was only a greater lord among great lords, who profited of the differences of his peers; therefore no steady plan could be well pursued, either in war or peace. this day a prince seemed irresistible at the head of his numerous vassals, because their duty obliged them to war, and they performed this duty with pleasure. the next day saw this formidable power vanish like a dream, because this fierce undisciplined people had no patience, and the time of the feudal service was contained within very narrow limits. it was therefore easy to find a number of persons at all times ready to follow any standard, but it was hard to complete a considerable design, which required a regular and continued movement. this enterprising disposition in the gentry was very general, because they had little occupation or pleasure but in war; and the greatest rewards did then attend personal valour and prowess. all that professed arms, became in some sort on an equality. a knight was the peer of a king; and men had been used to see the bravery of private persons opening a road to that dignity. the temerity of adventurers was much justified by the ill order of every state, which left it a prey to almost any who should attack it with sufficient vigour. thus, little checked by any superior power, full of fire, impetuosity, and ignorance, they longed to signalize themselves wherever an honourable danger called them; and wherever that invited, they did not weigh very deliberately the probability of success. the knowledge of this general disposition in the minds of men will naturally remove a great deal of our wonder at seeing an attempt, founded on such slender appearances of right, and supported by a power so little proportioned to the undertaking as that of william, so warmly embraced and so generally followed, not only by his own subjects, but by all the neighbouring potentates. the counts of anjou, bretagne, ponthieu, boulogne, and poictou, sovereign princes; adventurers from every quarter of france, the netherlands, and the remotest parts of germany, laying aside their jealousies and enmities to one another, as well as to william, ran with an inconceivable ardour into this enterprise; captivated with the splendour of the object, which obliterated all thoughts of the uncertainty of the event. william kept up this fervour by promises of large territories to all his allies and associates in the country to be reduced by their united efforts. but after all it became equally necessary to reconcile to his enterprise the three great powers, of whom we have just spoken, whose disposition must have had the most influence on his affairs. his feudal lord the king of france was bound by his most obvious interests to oppose the further aggrandisement of one already too potent for a vassal; but the king of france was then a minor; and baldwin, earl of flanders, whose daughter william had married, was regent of the kingdom. this circumstance rendered the remonstrance of the french council against his design of no effect; indeed the opposition of the council itself was faint; the idea of having a king under vassalage to their crown might have dazzled the more superficial courtiers; whilst those, who thought more deeply, were unwilling to discourage an enterprise, which they believed would probably end in the ruin of the undertaker. the emperor was in his minority, as well as the king of france; but by what arts the duke prevailed upon the imperial council to declare in his favour, whether or no by an idea of creating a balance to the power of france, if we can imagine that any such idea then subsisted, is altogether uncertain; but it is certain, that he obtained leave for the vassals of the empire to engage in his service, and that he made use of this permission. the pope's consent was obtained with still less difficulty. william had shown himself in many instances a friend to the church, and a favourer of the clergy. on this occasion he promised to improve those happy beginnings in proportion to the means he should acquire by the favour of the holy see. it is said that he even proposed to hold his new kingdom as a fief from rome. the pope, therefore, entered heartily into his interests; he excommunicated all those that should oppose his enterprise, and sent him, as a means of ensuring success, a consecrated banner. ancient inhabitants of britain. that britain was first peopled from gaul, we are assured by the best proofs: proximity of situation, and resemblance in language and manners. of the time in which this event happened, we must be contented to remain in ignorance, for we have no monuments. but we may conclude that it was a very ancient settlement, since the carthaginians found this island inhabited when they traded hither for tin; as the phoenicians, whose tracks they followed in this commerce, are said to have done long before them. it is true, that when we consider the short interval between the universal deluge and that period, and compare it with the first settlement of men at such a distance from this corner of the world, it may seem not easy to reconcile such a claim to antiquity with the only authentic account we have of the origin and progress of mankind; especially as in those early ages the whole face of nature was extremely rude and uncultivated; when the links of commerce, even in the countries first settled, were few and weak; navigation imperfect; geography unknown; and the hardships of travelling excessive. but the spirit of migration, of which we have now only some faint ideas, was then strong and universal; and it fully compensated all these disadvantages. many writers indeed imagine, that these migrations, so common in the primitive times, were caused by the prodigious increase of people beyond what their several territories could maintain. but this opinion, far from being supported, is rather contradicted by the general appearance of things in that early time, when in every country vast tracts of land were suffered to lie almost useless in morasses and forests. nor is it, indeed, more countenanced by the ancient modes of life, no way favourable to population. i apprehend that these first settled countries, so far from being overstocked with inhabitants, were rather thinly peopled; and that the same causes, which occasioned that thinness, occasioned also those frequent migrations, which make so large a part of the first history of almost all nations. for in these ages men subsisted chiefly by pasturage or hunting. these are occupations which spread the people without multiplying them in proportion; they teach them an extensive knowledge of the country, they carry them frequently and far from their homes, and weaken those ties which might attach them to any particular habitation. it was in a great degree from this manner of life, that mankind became scattered in the earliest times over the whole globe. but their peaceful occupations did not contribute so much to that end, as their wars, which were not the less frequent and violent because the people were few, and the interests for which they contended of but small importance. ancient history has furnished us with many instances of whole nations, expelled by invasion, falling in upon others, which they have entirely overwhelmed; more irresistible in their defeat and ruin than in their fullest prosperity. the rights of war were then exercised with great inhumanity. a cruel death, or a servitude scarcely less cruel, was the certain fate of all conquered people; the terror of which hurried men from habitations to which they were but little attached, to seek security and repose under any climate, that however in other respects undesirable, might afford them refuge from the fury of their enemies. thus the bleak and barren regions of the north, not being peopled by choice, were peopled as early, in all probability, as many of the milder and more inviting climates of the southern world, and thus, by a wonderful disposition of the divine providence, a life of hunting, which does not contribute to increase, and war, which is the great instrument in the destruction of men, were the two principal causes of their being spread so early and so universally over the whole earth. from what is very commonly known of the state of north america, it need not be said, how often, and to what distance, several of the nations on that continent are used to migrate; who, though thinly scattered, occupy an immense extent of country. nor are the causes of it less obvious--their hunting life, and their inhuman wars. such migrations, sometimes by choice, more frequently from necessity, were common in the ancient world. frequent necessities introduced a fashion, which subsisted after the original causes. for how could it happen, but from some universally established public prejudice, which always overrules and stifles the private sense of men, that a whole nation should deliberately think it a wise measure to quit their country in a body, that they might obtain in a foreign land a settlement, which must wholly depend upon the chance of war? yet this resolution was taken, and actually pursued by the entire nation of the helvetii, as it is minutely related by caesar. the method of reasoning which led them to it, must appear to us at this day utterly inconceivable; they were far from being compelled to this extraordinary migration by any want of subsistence at home; for it appears that they raised without difficulty as much corn in one year as supported them for two; they could not complain of the barrenness of such a soil. this spirit of migration, which grew out of the ancient manners and necessities, and sometimes operated like a blind instinct, such as actuates birds of passage, is very sufficient to account for the early habitation of the remotest parts of the earth; and in some sort also justifies that claim which has been so fondly made by almost all nations to great antiquity. gaul, from whence britain was originally peopled, consisted of three nations; the belgae towards the north; the celtae in the middle countries; and the aquitani to the south. britain appears to have received its people only from the two former. from the celtae were derived the most ancient tribes of the britons, of which the most considerable were called brigantes. the belgae, who did not even settle in gaul until after britain had been peopled by colonies from the former, forcibly drove the brigantes into the inland countries, and possessed the greatest part of the coast, especially to the south and west. these latter, as they entered the island in a more improved age, brought with them the knowledge and practice of agriculture, which however only prevailed in their own countries; the brigantes still continued their ancient way of life by pasturage and hunting. in this respect alone they differed; so that what we shall say in treating of their manners is equally applicable to both. and though the britons were further divided into an innumerable multitude of lesser tribes and nations, yet all being the branches of these two stocks, it is not to our purpose to consider them more minutely. britain was in the time of julius caesar, what it is at this day in climate and natural advantages, temperate, and reasonably fertile. but destitute of all those improvements, which in a succession of ages it has received from ingenuity, from commerce, from riches and luxury, it then wore a very rough and savage appearance. the country, forest or marsh; the habitations, cottages; the cities, hiding-places in woods; the people, naked, or only covered with skins; their sole employment, pasturage and hunting. they painted their bodies for ornament or terror, by a custom general among all savage nations; who being passionately fond of show and finery, and having no object but their naked bodies on which to exercise this disposition, have in all times painted or cut their skins, according to their ideas of ornament. they shaved the beard on the chin; that on the upper lip was suffered to remain, and grow to an extraordinary length, to favour the martial appearance, in which they placed their glory. they were in their natural temper not unlike the gauls; impatient, fiery, inconstant, ostentatious, boastful, fond of novelty; and like all barbarians, fierce, treacherous, and cruel. their arms were short javelins, small shields of a slight texture, and great cutting swords with a blunt point, after the gaulish fashion. their chiefs went to battle in chariots, not unartfully contrived, nor unskilfully managed. i cannot help thinking it something extraordinary, and not easily to be accounted for, that the britons should have been so expert in the fabric of those chariots, when they seem utterly ignorant in all other mechanic arts: but thus it is delivered to us. they had also horse, though of no great reputation in their armies. their foot was without heavy armour; it was no firm body; nor instructed to preserve their ranks, to make their evolutions, or to obey their commanders; but in tolerating hardships, in dexterity of forming ambuscades (the art military of savages), they are said to have excelled. a natural ferocity, and an impetuous onset, stood them in the place of discipline. public prosecutions. public prosecutions are become little better than schools for treason; of no use but to improve the dexterity of criminals in the mystery of evasion; or to show with what complete impunity men may conspire against the commonwealth; with what safety assassins may attempt its awful head. everything is secure, except what the laws have made sacred; everything is tameness and languor that is not fury and faction. whilst the distempers of a relaxed fibre prognosticate and prepare all the morbid force of convulsion in the body of the state, the steadiness of the physician is overpowered by the very aspect of the disease. the doctor of the constitution, pretending to underrate what he is not able to contend with, shrinks from his own operation. he doubts and questions the salutary but critical terrors of the cautery and the knife. he takes a poor credit even from his defeat, and covers impotence under the mask of lenity. he praises the moderation of the laws, as, in his hands, he sees them baffled and despised. is all this, because in our day the statutes of the kingdom are not engrossed in as firm a character, and imprinted in as black and legible a type as ever? no! the law is a clear, but it is a dead letter. dead and putrid, it is insufficient to save the state, but potent to infect and to kill. living law, full of reason, and of equity and justice (as it is, or it should not exist), ought to be severe and awful too; or the words of menace, whether written on the parchment roll of england, or cut into the brazen tablet of rome, will excite nothing but contempt. how comes it, that in all the state prosecutions of magnitude, from the revolution to within these two or three years, the crown has scarcely ever retired disgraced and defeated from its courts? whence this alarming change? by a connection easily felt, and not impossible to be traced to its cause, all the parts of the state have their correspondence and consent. they who bow to the enemy abroad, will not be of power to subdue the conspirator at home. it is impossible not to observe, that, in proportion as we approximate to the poisonous jaws of anarchy, the fascination grows irresistible. in proportion as we are attracted towards the focus of illegality, irreligion, and desperate enterprise, all the venomous and blighting insects of the state are awakened into life. the promise of the year is blasted, and shrivelled and burned up before them. our most salutary and most beautiful institutions yield nothing but dust and smut; the harvest of our law is no more than stubble. it is in the nature of these eruptive diseases in the state to sink in by fits, and re-appear. but the fuel of the malady remains; and in my opinion is not in the smallest degree mitigated in its malignity, though it waits the favourable moment of a freer communication with the source of regicide to exert and to increase its force. is it that the people are changed, that the commonwealth cannot be protected by its laws? i hardly think it. on the contrary, i conceive that these things happen because men are not changed, but remain always what they always were; they remain what the bulk of us ever must be, when abandoned to our vulgar propensities, without guide, leader, or control; that is, made to be full of a blind elevation in prosperity; to despise untried dangers; to be overpowered with unexpected reverses; to find no clue in a labyrinth of difficulties, to get out of a present inconvenience with any risk of future ruin; to follow and to bow to fortune; to admire successful though wicked enterprise, and to imitate what we admire; to contemn the government which announces danger from sacrilege and regicide, whilst they are only in their infancy and their struggle, but which finds nothing that can alarm in their adult state, and in the power and triumph of those destructive principles. in a mass we cannot be left to ourselves. we must have leaders. if none will undertake to lead us right, we shall find guides who will contrive to conduct us to shame and ruin. true nature of a jacobin war. as to me, i was always steadily of opinion, that this disorder was not in its nature intermittent. i conceived that the contest, once begun, could not be laid down again, to be resumed at our discretion; but that our first struggle with this evil would also be our last. i never thought we could make peace with the system; because it was not for the sake of an object we pursued in rivalry with each other, but with the system itself, that we were at war. as i understood the matter, we were at war not with its conduct, but with its existence; convinced that its existence and its hostility were the same. the faction is not local or territorial. it is a general evil. where it least appears in action, it is still full of life. in its sleep it recruits its strength, and prepares its exertion. its spirit lies deep in the corruption of our common nature. the social order which restrains it, feeds it. it exists in every country in europe; and among all orders of men in every country, who look up to france as to a common head. the centre is there. the circumference is the world of europe wherever the race of europe may be settled. everywhere else the faction is militant; in france it is triumphant. in france is the bank of deposit, and the bank of circulation, of all the pernicious principles that are forming in every state. it will be a folly scarcely deserving of pity, and too mischievous for contempt, to think of restraining it in any other country whilst it is predominant there. war, instead of being the cause of its force, has suspended its operation. it has given a reprieve, at least, to the christian world. the true nature of a jacobin war, in the beginning, was, by most of the christian powers, felt, acknowledged, and even in the most precise manner declared. in the joint manifesto, published by the emperor and the king of prussia, on the th of august, , it is expressed in the clearest terms, and on principles which could not fail, if they had adhered to them, of classing those monarchs with the first benefactors of mankind. this manifesto was published, as they themselves express it, "to lay open to the present generation, as well as to posterity, their motives, their intentions, and the disinterestedness of their personal views; taking up arms for the purpose of preserving social and political order amongst all civilized nations, and to secure to each state its religion, happiness, independence, territories, and real constitution."--"on this ground, they hoped that all empires and all states would be unanimous; and becoming the firm guardians of the happiness of mankind, that they could not fail to unite their efforts to rescue a numerous nation from its own fury, to preserve europe from the return of barbarism, and the universe from the subversion and anarchy with which it was threatened." the whole of that noble performance ought to be read at the first meeting of any congress, which may assemble for the purpose of pacification. in that peace "these powers expressly renounce all views of personal aggrandisement," and confine themselves to objects worthy of so generous, so heroic, and so perfectly wise and politic an enterprise. it was to the principles of this confederation, and to no other, that we wished our sovereign and our country to accede, as a part of the commonwealth of europe. to these principles, with some trifling exceptions and limitations, they did fully accede. (see declaration, whitehall, october , .) and all our friends who took office acceded to the ministry (whether wisely or not), as i always understood the matter, on the faith and on the principles of that declaration. as long as these powers flattered themselves that the menace of force would produce the effect of force, they acted on those declarations: but when their menaces failed of success, their efforts took a new direction. it did not appear to them that virtue and heroism ought to be purchased by millions of rix-dollars. it is a dreadful truth, but it is a truth that cannot be concealed; in ability, in dexterity, in the distinctness of their views, the jacobins are our superiors. they saw the thing right from the very beginning. whatever were the first motives to the war among politicians, they saw that in its spirit, and for its objects, it was a civil war; and as such they pursued it. it is a war between the partisans of the ancient, civil, moral, and political order of europe, against a sect of fanatical and ambitious atheists which means to change them all. it is not france extending a foreign empire over other nations: it is a sect aiming at universal empire, and beginning with the conquest of france. the leaders of that sect secured the centre of europe; and that secured, they knew, that whatever might be the event of battles and sieges, their cause was victorious. whether its territory had a little more or a little less peeled from its surface, or whether an island or two was detached from its commerce, to them was of little moment. the conquest of france was a glorious acquisition. that once well laid as a basis of empire, opportunities never could be wanting to regain or to replace what had been lost, and dreadfully to avenge themselves on the faction of their adversaries. they saw it was a civil war. it was their business to persuade their adversaries that it ought to be a foreign war. the jacobins everywhere set up a cry against the new crusade; and they intrigued with effect in the cabinet, in the field, and in every private society in europe. their task was not difficult. the condition of princes, and sometimes of first ministers too, is to be pitied. the creatures of the desk, and the creatures of favour, had no relish for the principles of the manifestoes. they promised no governments, no regiments, no revenues from whence emoluments might arise by perquisite or by grant. in truth, the tribe of vulgar politicians are the lowest of our species. there is no trade so vile and mechanical as government in their hands. virtue is not their habit. they are out of themselves in any course of conduct recommended only by conscience and glory. a large, liberal, and prospective view of the interests of states passes with them for romance; and the principles that recommend it, for the wanderings of a disordered imagination. the calculators compute them out of their senses. the jesters and buffoons shame them out of everything grand and elevated. littleness in object and in means, to them appears soundness and sobriety. they think there is nothing worth pursuit, but that which they can handle; which they can measure with a two-foot rule; which they can tell upon ten fingers. without the principles of the jacobins, perhaps without any principles at all, they played the game of that faction. there was a beaten road before them. the powers of europe were armed; france had always appeared dangerous; the war was easily diverted from france as a faction, to france as a state. the princes were easily taught to slide back into their old, habitual course of politics. they were easily led to consider the flames that were consuming france, not as a warning to protect their own buildings (which were without any party-wall, and linked by a contignation into the edifice of france), but as a happy occasion for pillaging the goods, and for carrying off the materials, of their neighbour's house. their provident fears were changed into avaricious hopes. they carried on their new designs without seeming to abandon the principles of their old policy. they pretended to seek, or they flattered themselves that they sought, in the accession of new fortresses, and new territories, a defensive security. but the security wanted was against a kind of power, which was not so truly dangerous in its fortresses nor in its territories, as in its spirit and its principles. they aimed, or pretended to aim, at defending themselves against a danger from which there can be no security in any defensive plan. if armies and fortresses were a defence against jacobinism, louis the sixteenth would this day reign a powerful monarch over a happy people. this error obliged them, even in their offensive operations, to adopt a plan of war, against the success of which there was something little short of mathematical demonstration. they refused to take any step which might strike at the heart of affairs. they seemed unwilling to wound the enemy in any vital part. they acted through the whole, as if they really wished the conservation of the jacobin power, as what might be more favourable than the lawful government to the attainment of the petty objects they looked for. they always kept on the circumference; and the wider and remoter the circle was, the more eagerly they chose it as their sphere of action in this centrifugal war. the plan they pursued, in its nature demanded great length of time. in its execution, they, who went the nearest way to work, were obliged to cover an incredible extent of country. it left to the enemy every means of destroying this extended line of weakness. ill success in any part was sure to defeat the effect of the whole. this is true of austria. it is still more true of england. on this false plan, even good fortune, by further weakening the victor, put him but the further off from his object. as long as there was any appearance of success, the spirit of aggrandisement, and consequently the spirit of mutual jealousy, seized upon all the coalesced powers. some sought an accession of territory at the expense of france, some at the expense of each other, some at the expense of third parties; and when the vicissitude of disaster took its turn, they found common distress a treacherous bond of faith and friendship. the greatest skill conducting the greatest military apparatus has been employed; but it has been worse than uselessly employed, through the false policy of the war. the operations of the field suffered by the errors of the cabinet. if the same spirit continues when peace is made, the peace will fix and perpetuate all the errors of the war; because it will be made upon the same false principle. what has been lost in the field, in the field may be regained. an arrangement of peace in its nature is a permanent settlement; it is the effect of counsel and deliberation, and not of fortuitous events. if built upon a basis fundamentally erroneous, it can only be retrieved by some of those unforeseen dispensations, which the all-wise but mysterious governor of the world sometimes interposes, to snatch nations from ruin. it would not be pious error, but mad and impious presumption, for any one to trust in an unknown order of dispensations, in defiance of the rules of prudence, which are formed upon the known march of the ordinary providence of god. national dignity. national dignity in all treaties i do admit is an important consideration. they have given us a useful hint on that subject: but dignity, hitherto, has belonged to the mode of proceeding, not to the matter of a treaty. never before has it been mentioned as the standard for rating the conditions of peace; no, never by the most violent of conquerors. indemnification is capable of some estimate: dignity has no standard. it is impossible to guess what acquisitions pride and ambition may think fit for their dignity. principles of government not absolute, but relative. i reprobate no form of government merely upon abstract principles. there may be situations in which the purely democratic form will become necessary. there may be some (very few, and very particularly circumstanced) where it would be clearly desirable. this i do not take to be the case of france, or of any other great country. until now, we have seen no examples of considerable democracies. the ancients were better acquainted with them. not being wholly unread in the authors, who had seen the most of those constitutions, and who best understood them, i cannot help concurring with their opinion, that an absolute democracy, no more than absolute monarchy, is to be reckoned among the legitimate forms of government. they think it rather the corruption and degeneracy, than the sound constitution of a republic. if i recollect rightly, aristotle observes, that a democracy has many striking points of resemblance with a tyranny. (when i wrote this, i quoted from memory, after many years had elapsed from my reading the passage. a learned friend has found it, and it is as follows:-- to ethos to auto, kai ampho despotika ton beltionon, kai ta psephismata, osper ekei ta epitagmata kai o demagogos kai o kolax, oi autoi kai analogoi kai malista ekateroi par ekaterois ischuousin, oi men kolakes para turannois, oi de demagogoi para tois demois tois toioutois.-- "the ethical character is the same; both exercise despotism over the better class of citizens; and decrees are in the one, what ordinances and arrets are in the other: the demagogue too, and the court favourite, are not unfrequently the same identical men, and always bear a close analogy; and these have the principal power, each in their respective forms of government, favourites with the absolute monarch, and demagogues with a people such as i have described."--arist. politic. lib. iv. cap .) of this i am certain, that in a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority, whenever strong divisions prevail in that kind of polity, as they often must; and that oppression of the minority will extend to far greater numbers, and will be carried on with much greater fury, than can almost ever be apprehended from the dominion of a single sceptre. in such a popular persecution, individual sufferers are in a much more deplorable condition than in any other. under a cruel prince they have the balmy compassion of mankind to assuage the smart of their wounds; they have the plaudits of the people to animate their generous constancy under their sufferings: but those who are subjected to wrong under multitudes, are deprived of all external consolation. they seem deserted by mankind, overpowered by a conspiracy of their whole species. but admitting democracy not to have that inevitable tendency to party tyranny, which i suppose it to have, and admitting it to possess as much good in it when unmixed, as i am sure it possesses when compounded with other forms; does monarchy, on its part, contain nothing at all to recommend it? i do not often quote bolingbroke, nor have his works in general left any permanent impression on my mind. he is a presumptuous and a superficial writer. but he has one observation, which, in my opinion, is not without depth and solidity. he says, that he prefers a monarchy to other governments, because you can better ingraft any description of republic on a monarchy, than anything of monarchy upon the republican forms. i think him perfectly in the right. the fact is so historically; and it agrees well with the speculation. i know how easy a topic it is to dwell on the faults of departed greatness. by a revolution in the state, the fawning sycophant of yesterday is converted into the austere critic of the present hour. but steady, independent minds, when they have an object of so serious a concern to mankind as government under their contemplation, will disdain to assume the part of satirists and declaimers. they will judge of human institutions as they do of human characters. they will sort out the good from the evil, which is mixed in mortal institutions, as it is in mortal men. declaration of . it is not difficult to discern what sort of humanity our government is to learn from these syren singers. our government also, i admit with some reason, as a step towards the proposed fraternity, is required to abjure the unjust hatred which it bears to this body, of honour and virtue. i thank god i am neither a minister nor a leader of opposition. i protest i cannot do what they desire. i could not do it if i were under the guillotine; or as they ingeniously and pleasantly express it, "looking out of the little national window." even at that opening i could receive none of their light. i am fortified against all such affections by the declaration of the government, which i must yet consider as lawful, made on the th of october, , and still ringing in my ears. ("in their place has succeeded a system destructive of all public order, maintained by proscriptions, exiles, and confiscations without number; by arbitrary imprisonment; by massacres which cannot be remembered without horror; and at length by the execrable murder of a just and beneficent sovereign, and of the illustrious princess, who, with an unshaken firmness, has shared all the misfortunes of her royal consort, his protracted sufferings, his cruel captivity, and ignominious death." they (the allies) have had to encounter acts of aggression without pretext, open violation of all treaties, unprovoked declarations of war; in a word, whatever corruption, intrigue, or violence, could effect for the purpose, openly avowed, of subverting all the institutions of society, and of extending over all the nations of europe that confusion, which has produced the misery of france."--"this state of things cannot exist in france without involving all the surrounding powers in one common danger, without giving them the right, without imposing it upon them as a duty, to stop the progress of an evil, which exists only by the successive violation of all law and all property, and which attacks the fundamental principles by which mankind is united in the bonds of civil society."--"the king would impose none other than equitable and moderate conditions, not such as the expense, the risks, and the sacrifices of the war might justify; but such as his majesty thinks himself under the indispensable necessity of requiring, with a view to these considerations, and still more to that of his own security and of the future tranquillity of europe. his majesty desires nothing more sincerely than thus to terminate a war, which he in vain endeavoured to avoid, and all the calamities of which, as now experienced by france, are to be attributed only to the ambition, the perfidy, and the violence of those, whose crimes have involved their own country in misery, and disgraced all civilized nations."--"the king promises, on his part, the suspension of hostilities, friendship, and (as far as the course of events will allow, of which the will of man cannot dispose) security and protection to all those who, by declaring for a monarchical form of government, shall shake off the yoke of sanguinary anarchy; of that anarchy which has broken all the most sacred bonds of society, dissolved all the relations of civil life, violated every right, confounded every duty; which uses the name of liberty to exercise the most cruel tyranny, to annihilate all property, to seize on all possessions: which founds its power on the pretended consent of the people, and itself carries fire and sword through extensive provinces for having demanded their laws, their religion, and their lawful sovereign." declaration sent by his majesty's command to the commanders of his majesty's fleets and armies employed against france, and to his majesty's ministers employed at foreign courts.) this declaration was transmitted not only to our commanders by sea and land, but to our ministers in every court of europe. it is the most eloquent and highly-finished in the style, the most judicious in the choice of topics, the most orderly in the arrangement, and the most rich in the colouring, without employing the smallest degree of exaggeration, of any state paper that has ever yet appeared. an ancient writer, plutarch, i think it is, quotes some verses on the eloquence of pericles, who is called "the only orator that left stings in the minds of his hearers." like his, the eloquence of the declaration, not contradicting, but enforcing sentiments of the truest humanity, has left stings that have penetrated more than skin-deep into my mind; and never can they be extracted by all the surgery of murder, never can the throbbings they have created be assuaged by all the emolient cataplasms of robbery and confiscation. i cannot love the republic. moral diet. to diet a man into weakness and languor, afterwards to give him the greater strength, has more of the empiric than the rational physician. it is true that some persons have been kicked into courage; and this is no bad hint to give to those who are too forward and liberal in bestowing insults and outrages on their passive companions. but such a course does not at first view appear a well-chosen discipline to form men to a nice sense of honour, or a quick resentment of injuries. a long habit of humiliation does not seem a very good preparative to manly and vigorous sentiment. it may not leave, perhaps, enough of energy in the mind fairly to discern what are good terms or what are not. men low and dispirited may regard those terms as not at all amiss, which in another state of mind they would think intolerable: if they grow peevish in this state of mind, they may be roused, not against the enemy whom they have been taught to fear, but against the ministry, who are more within their reach, and who have refused conditions that are not unreasonable, from power that they have been taught to consider as irresistible. king william's policy. his majesty did determine; and did take and pursue his resolution. in all the tottering imbecility of a new government, and with parliament totally unmanageable, he persevered. he persevered to expel the fears of his people by his fortitude--to steady their fickleness by his constancy--to expand their narrow prudence by his enlarged wisdom--to sink their factious temper in his public spirit. in spite of his people he resolved to make them great and glorious; to make england, inclined to shrink into her narrow self, the arbitress of europe, the tutelary angel of the human race. in spite of the ministers, who staggered under the weight that his mind imposed upon theirs, unsupported as they felt themselves by the popular spirit, he infused into them his own soul, he renewed in them their ancient heart, he rallied them in the same cause. it required some time to accomplish this work. the people were first gained, and through them their distracted representatives. under the influence of king william, holland had rejected the allurements of every seduction, and had resisted the terrors of every menace. with hannibal at her gates, she had nobly and magnanimously refused all separate treaty, or anything which might for a moment appear to divide her affection or her interest, or even to distinguish her in identity from england. having settled the great point of the consolidation (which he hoped would be eternal) of the countries made for a common interest, and common sentiment, the king, in his message to both houses, calls their attention to the affairs of the states-general. the house of lords was perfectly sound, and entirely impressed with the wisdom and dignity of the king's proceedings. in answer to the message, which you will observe was narrowed to a single point (the danger of the states-general), after the usual professions of zeal for his service, the lords opened themselves at large. they go far beyond the demands of the message. they express themselves as follows: "we take this occasion further to assure your majesty, that we are sensible of the great and imminent danger to which the states-general are exposed. and we perfectly agree with them in believing that their safety and ours are so inseparably united, that whatsoever is ruin to the one must be fatal to the other. "we humbly desire your majesty will be pleased not only to made good all the articles of any former treaties to the states-general, but that you will enter into a strict league, offensive and defensive, with them, for their common preservation; and that you will invite into it all princes and states who are concerned in the present visible danger, arising from the union of france and spain. "and we further desire your majesty, that you will be pleased to enter into such alliances with the emperor as your majesty shall think fit, pursuant to the ends of the treaty of ; towards all which we assure your majesty of our hearty and sincere assistance; not doubting, but whenever your majesty shall be obliged to be engaged for the defence of your allies, and securing the liberty and quiet of europe, almighty god will protect your sacred person in so righteous a cause. and that the unanimity, wealth, and courage, of your subjects will carry your majesty with honour and success through all the difficulties of a just war." the house of commons was more reserved; the late popular disposition was still in a great degree prevalent in the representative, after it had been made to change in the constituent body. the principle of the grand alliance was not directly recognised in the resolution of the commons, nor the war announced, though they were well aware the alliance was formed for the war. however, compelled by the returning sense of the people, they went so far as to fix the three great immovable pillars of the safety and greatness of england, as they were then, as they are now, and as they must ever be to the end of time. they asserted in general terms the necessity of supporting holland, of keeping united with our allies, and maintaining the liberty of europe; though they restricted their vote to the succours stipulated by actual treaty. but now they were fairly embarked, they were obliged to go with the course of the vessel; and the whole nation, split before into a hundred adverse factions, with a king at its head evidently declining to his tomb, the whole nation, lords, commons, and people, proceeded as one body, informed by one soul. under the british union, the union of europe was consolidated; and it long held together with a degree of cohesion, firmness, and fidelity, not known before or since in any political combination of that extent. just as the last hand was given to this immense and complicated machine, the master workman died: but the work was formed on true mechanical principles, and it was as truly wrought. it went by the impulse it had received from the first mover. the man was dead; but the grand alliance survived in which king william lived and reigned. that heartless and dispirited people, whom lord somers had represented about two years before as dead in energy and operation, continued that war to which it was supposed they were unequal in mind, and in means, for nearly thirteen years. for what have i entered into all this detail? to what purpose have i recalled your view to the end of the last century? it has been done to show that the british nation was then a great people--to point out how and by what means they came to be exalted above the vulgar level, and to take that lead which they assumed among mankind. to qualify us for that pre-eminence, we had then a high mind and a constancy unconquerable; we were then inspired with no flashy passions, but such as were durable as well as warm, such as corresponded to the great interests we had at stake. this force of character was inspired, as all such spirit must ever be, from above. government gave the impulse. as well may we fancy, that of itself the sea will swell, and that without winds the billows will insult the adverse shore, as that the gross mass of the people will be moved, and elevated, and continue by a steady and permanent direction to bear upon one point, without the influence of superior authority, or superior mind. this impulse ought, in my opinion, to have been given in this war; and it ought to have been continued to it at every instant. it is made, if ever war was made, to touch all the great springs of action in the human breast. it ought not to have been a war of apology. the minister had, in this conflict, wherewithal to glory in success; to be consoled in adversity; to hold high his principle in all fortunes. if it were not given him to support the falling edifice, he ought to bury himself under the ruins of the civilized world. all the art of greece, and all the pride and power of eastern monarchs, never heaped upon their ashes so grand a monument. distemper of remedy. this distemper of remedy, grown habitual, relaxes and wears out, by a vulgar and prostituted use, the spring of that spirit which is to be exerted on great occasions. it was in the most patient period of roman servitude that themes of tyrannicide made the ordinary exercise of boys at school--cum perimit saevos classis numerosa tyrannos. in the ordinary state of things, it produces in a country like ours the worst effects, even on the cause of that liberty which it abuses with the dissoluteness of an extravagant speculation. almost all the high-bred republicans of my time have, after a short space, become the most decided, thorough-paced courtiers; they soon left the business of a tedious, moderate, but practical resistance, to those of us whom, in the pride and intoxication of their theories, they have slighted as not much better than tories. hypocrisy, of course, delights in the most sublime speculations; for, never intending to go beyond speculation, it costs nothing to have it magnificent. but even in cases where rather levity than fraud was to be suspected in these ranting speculations, the issue has been much the same. these professors, finding their extreme principles not applicable to cases which call only for a qualified, or, as i may say, civil, and legal resistance, in such cases employ no resistance at all. it is with them a war or a revolution, or it is nothing. finding their schemes of politics not adapted to the state of the world in which they live, they often come to think lightly of all public principle; and are ready, on their part, to abandon for a very trivial interest what they find of very trivial value. some indeed are of more steady and persevering natures; but these are eager politicians out of parliament, who have little to tempt them to abandon their favourite projects. they have some change in the church or state, or both, constantly in their view. when that is the case, they are always bad citizens, and perfectly unsure connections. for, considering their speculative designs as of infinite value, and the actual arrangement of the state as of no estimation, they are at best indifferent about it. they see no merit in the good, and no fault in the vicious management of public affairs; they rather rejoice in the latter, as more propitious to revolution. they see no merit or demerit in any man, or any action, or any political principle, any further than as they may forward or retard their design of change: they therefore take up, one day, the most violent and stretched prerogative, and another time the wildest democratic ideas of freedom, and pass from the one to the other without any sort of regard to cause, to person, or to party. war and will of the people. in matters of state, a constitutional competence to act is in many cases the smallest part of the question. without disputing (god forbid i should dispute) the sole competence of the king and the parliament, each in its province, to decide on war and peace, i venture to say, no war can be long carried on against the will of the people. this war, in particular, cannot be carried on unless they are enthusiastically in favour of it. acquiescence will not do. there must be zeal. universal zeal in such a cause, and at such a time as this is, cannot be looked for; neither is it necessary. zeal in the larger part carries the force of the whole. without this, no government, certainly not our government, is capable of a great war. none of the ancient regular governments have wherewithal to fight abroad with a foreign foe, and at home to overcome repining, reluctance, and chicane. it must be some portentous thing, like regicide france, that can exhibit such a prodigy. yet even she, the mother of monsters, more prolific than the country of old called ferax monstrorum, shows symptoms of being almost effete already; and she will be so, unless the fallow of a peace comes to recruit her fertility. but whatever may be represented concerning the meanness of the popular spirit, i, for one, do not think so desperately of the british nation. our minds, as i said, are light, but they are not depraved. we are dreadfully open to delusion and to dejection; but we are capable of being animated and undeceived. it cannot be concealed: we are a divided people. but in divisions, where a part is to be taken, we are to make a muster of our strength. i have often endeavoured to compute and to class those who, in any political view, are to be called the people. without doing something of this sort we must proceed absurdly. we should not be much wiser, if we pretended to very great accuracy in our estimate; but i think, in the calculation i have made, the error cannot be very material. in england and scotland, i compute that those of adult age, not declining in life, of tolerable leisure for such discussions, and of some means of information, more or less, and who are above menial dependence (or what virtually is such), may amount to about four hundred thousand. there is such a thing as a natural representative of the people. this body is that representative; and on this body, more than on the legal constituent, the artificial representative depends. this is the british public; and it is a public very numerous. the rest, when feeble, are the objects of protection; when strong, the means of force. they who affect to consider that part of us in any other light, insult while they cajole us; they do not want us for counsellors in deliberation, but to list us as soldiers for battle. of these four hundred thousand political citizens, i look upon one-fifth, or about eighty thousand, to be pure jacobins; utterly incapable of amendment; objects of eternal vigilance, and, when they break out, of legal constraint. on these, no reason, no argument, no example, no venerable authority, can have the slightest influence. they desire a change; and they will have it if they can. if they cannot have it by english cabal, they will make no sort of scruple of having it by the cabal of france, into which already they are virtually incorporated. it is only their assured and confident expectation of the advantages of french fraternity, and the approaching blessings of regicide intercourse, that skins over their mischievous dispositions with a momentary quiet. this minority is great and formidable. i do not know whether if i aimed at the total overthrow of a kingdom, i should wish to be encumbered with a larger body of partisans. they are more easily disciplined and directed than if the number were greater. these, by their spirit of intrigue, and by their restless agitating activity, are of a force far superior to their numbers; and, if times grew the least critical, have the means of debauching or intimidating many of those who are now sound, as well as of adding to their force large bodies of the more passive part of the nation. this minority is numerous enough to make a mighty cry for peace, or for war, or for any object they are led vehemently to desire. by passing from place to place with a velocity incredible, and diversifying their character and description, they are capable of mimicking the general voice. we must not always judge of the generality of the opinion by the noise of the acclamation. false policy in our french war. we have never put forth half the strength which we have exerted in ordinary wars. in the fatal battles which have drenched the continent with blood, and shaken the system of europe to pieces, we have never had any considerable army of a magnitude to be compared to the least of those by which, in former times, we so gloriously asserted our place as protectors, not oppressors, at the head of the great commonwealth of europe. we have never manfully met the danger in front: and when the enemy, resigning to us our natural dominion of the ocean, and abandoning the defence of his distant possessions to the infernal energy of the destroying principles which he had planted there for the subversion of the neighbouring colonies, drove forth, by one sweeping law of unprecedented despotism, his armed multitudes on every side, to overwhelm the countries and states which had for centuries stood the firm barriers against the ambition of france; we drew back the arm of our military force, which had never been more than half raised to oppose him. from that time we have been combating only with the other arm of our naval power; the right arm of england i admit; but which struck almost unresisted with blows that could never reach the heart of the hostile mischief. from that time, without a single effort to regain those outworks, which ever till now we so strenuously maintained, as the strong frontier of our own dignity and safety, no less than the liberties of europe; with but one feeble attempt to succour those brave, faithful, and numerous allies, whom, for the first time since the days of our edwards and henrys, we now have in the bosom of france itself; we have been intrenching, and fortifying, and garrisoning ourselves at home: we have been redoubling security on security, to protect ourselves from invasion, which has now become to us a serious object of alarm and terror. alas! the few of us who have protracted life in any measure near to the extreme limits of our short period, have been condemned to see strange things; new systems of policy, new principles, and not only new men, but what might appear a new species of men. i believe that any person who was of age to take a part in public affairs forty years ago (if the intermediate space of time were expunged from his memory) would hardly credit his senses, when he should hear from the highest authority, that an army of two hundred thousand men was kept up in this island, and that in the neighbouring island there were at least fourscore thousand more. but when he had recovered from his surprise on being told of this army, which has not its parallel, what must be his astonishment to be told again, that this mighty force was kept up for the mere purpose of an inert and passive defence, and that in its far greater part, it was disabled by its constitution and very essence from defending us against an enemy by any one preventive stroke, or any one operation of active hostility? what must his reflections be on learning further, that a fleet of five hundred men of war, the best appointed, and to the full as ably commanded as any this country ever had upon the sea, was for the greater part employed in carrying on the same system of unenterprising defence? what must be the sentiments and feelings of one who remembers the former energy of england, when he is given to understand that these two islands, with their extensive and everywhere vulnerable coast, should be considered as a garrisoned sea-town; what would such a man, what would any man think, if the garrison of so strange a fortress should be such, and so feebly commanded, as never to make a sally; and that, contrary to all which has hitherto been seen in war, an infinitely inferior army, with the shattered relics of an almost annihilated navy, ill found and ill manned, may with safety besiege this superior garrison, and, without hazarding the life of a man, ruin the place, merely by the menaces and false appearances of an attack? indeed, indeed, my dear friend, i look upon this matter of our defensive system as much the most important of all considerations at this moment. it has oppressed me with many anxious thoughts, which, more than any bodily distemper, have sunk me to the condition in which you know that i am. should it please providence to restore to me even the late weak remains of my strength, i propose to make this matter the subject of a particular discussion. i only mean here to argue, that the mode of conducting the war on our part, be it good or bad, has prevented even the common havoc of war in our population, and especially among that class whose duty and privilege of superiority it is to lead the way amidst the perils and slaughter of the field of battle. moral essence makes a nation. mere locality does not constitute a body politic. had cade and his gang got possession of london, they would not have been the lord mayor, aldermen, and common council. the body politic of france existed in the majesty of its throne, in the dignity of its nobility, in the honour of its gentry, in the sanctity of its clergy, in the reverence of its magistracy, in the weight and consideration due to its landed property in the several bailliages, in the respect due to its moveable substance represented by the corporations of the kingdom. all these particular moleculae united form the great mass of what is truly the body politic in all countries. they are so many deposits and receptacles of justice; because they can only exist by justice. nation is a moral essence, not a geographical arrangement, or a denomination of the nomenclator. france, though out of her territorial possession, exists; because the sole possible claimant, i mean the proprietary, and the government to which the proprietary adheres, exists, and claims. god forbid, that if you were expelled from your house by ruffians and assassins, that i should call the material walls, doors, and windows of--, the ancient and honourable family of--. am i to transfer to the intruders, who, not content to turn you out naked to the world, would rob you of your very name, all the esteem and respect i owe to you? the regicides in france are not france. france is out of her bounds, but the kingdom is the same. public spirit. other great states, having been without any regular, certain course of elevation or decline, we may hope that the british fortune may fluctuate also; because the public mind, which greatly influences that fortune, may have its changes. we are therefore never authorised to abandon our country to its fate, or to act or advise as if it had no resource. there is no reason to apprehend, because ordinary means threaten to fail, that no others can spring up. whilst our heart is whole, it will find means, or make them. the heart of the citizen is a perennial spring of energy to the state. because the pulse seems to intermit, we must not presume that it will cease instantly to beat. the public must never be regarded as incurable. i remember in the beginning of what has lately been called the seven years' war, that an eloquent writer and ingenious speculator, dr. brown, upon some reverses which happened in the beginning of that war, published an elaborate philosophical discourse to prove that the distinguishing features of the people of england have been totally changed, and that a frivolous effeminacy was become the national character. nothing could be more popular than that work. it was thought a great consolation to us, the light people of this country (who were and are light, but who were not and are not effeminate), that we had found the causes of our misfortunes in our vices. pythagoras could not be more pleased with his leading discovery. but whilst in that splenetic mood we amused ourselves in a sour, critical speculation, of which we were ourselves the objects, and in which every man lost his particular sense of the public disgrace in the epidemic nature of the distemper; whilst, as in the alps, goitre ["i" circumflex] kept goitre ["i" acute] in countenance; whilst we were thus abandoning ourselves to a direct confession of our inferiority to france, and whilst many, very many, were ready to act upon a sense of that inferiority, a few months effected a total change in our variable minds. we emerged from the gulf of that speculative despondency, and were buoyed up to the highest point of practical vigour. never did the masculine spirit of england display itself with more energy, nor ever did its genius soar with a prouder pre-eminence over france, than at the time when frivolity and effeminacy had been at least tacitly acknowledged as their national character by the good people of this kingdom. progressive growth of christian states. when i contemplate the scheme on which france is formed, and when i compare it with these systems, with which it is, and ever must be, in conflict, those things, which seem as defects in her polity, are the very things which make me tremble. the states of the christian world have grown up to their present magnitude in a great length of time, and by a great variety of accidents. they have been improved to what we see them with greater or less degrees of felicity and skill. not one of them has been formed upon a regular plan or with any unity of design. as their constitutions are not systematical, they have not been directed to any peculiar end, eminently distinguished, and superseding every other. the objects which they embrace are of the greatest possible variety, and have become in a manner infinite. in all these old countries, the state has been made to the people, and not the people conformed to the state. every state has pursued not only every sort of social advantage, but it has cultivated the welfare of every individual. his wants, his wishes, even his tastes, have been consulted. this comprehensive scheme virtually produced a degree of personal liberty in forms the most adverse to it. that liberty was found, under monarchies styled absolute, in a degree unknown to the ancient commonwealths. from hence the powers of all our modern states meet, in all their movements, with some obstruction. it is therefore no wonder, that, when these states are to be considered as machines to operate for some one great end, this dissipated and balanced force is not easily concentrated, or made to bear with the whole force of the nation upon one point. the british state is, without question, that which pursues the greatest variety of ends, and is the least disposed to sacrifice any one of them to another, or to the whole. it aims at taking in the entire circle of human desires, and securing for them their fair enjoyment. our legislature has been ever closely connected, in its most efficient part, with individual feeling, and individual interest. personal liberty, the most lively of these feelings and the most important of these interests, which in other european countries has rather arisen from the system of manners and the habitudes of life, than from the laws of the state (in which it flourished more from neglect than attention), in england, has been a direct object of government. on this principle england would be the weakest power in the whole system. fortunately, however, the great riches of this kingdom arising from a variety of causes, and the disposition of the people, which is as great to spend as to accumulate, has easily afforded a disposable surplus that gives a mighty momentum to the state. this difficulty, with these advantages to overcome it, has called forth the talents of the english financiers, who, by the surplus of industry poured out by prodigality, have outdone everything which has been accomplished in other nations. the present minister has outdone his predecessors; and, as a minister of revenue, is far above my power of praise. but still there are cases in which england feels more than several others (though they all feel) the perplexity of an immense body of balanced advantages, and of individual demands, and of some irregularity in the whole mass. france differs essentially from all those governments, which are formed without system, which exist by habit, and which are confused with the multitude, and with the perplexity of their pursuits. what now stands as government in france is struck out at a heat. the design is wicked, immoral, impious, oppressive; but it is spirited and daring; it is systematic; it is simple in its principle; it has unity and consistency in perfection. petty interests. it is undoubtedly the business of ministers very much to consult the inclinations of the people, but they ought to take great care that they do not receive that inclination from the few persons who may happen to approach them. the petty interests of such gentlemen, the low conceptions of things, their fears arising from the danger to which the very arduous and critical situation of public affairs may expose their places; their apprehensions from the hazards to which the discontents of a few popular men at elections may expose their seats in parliament; all these causes trouble and confuse the representations which they make to ministers of the real temper of the nation. if ministers, instead of following the great indications of the constitution, proceed on such reports, they will take the whispers of a cabal for the voice of the people, and the counsels of imprudent timidity for the wisdom of a nation. pius vii. it is not for his holiness we intend this consolatory declaration of our own weakness, and of the tyrannous temper of his grand enemy. that prince has known both the one and the other from the beginning. the artists of the french revolution had given their very first essays and sketches of robbery and desolation against his territories, in a far more cruel "murdering piece" than had ever entered into the imagination of painter or poet. without ceremony they tore from his cherishing arms the possessions which he held for five hundred years, undisturbed by all the ambition of all the ambitious monarchs who, during that period, have reigned in france. is it to him, in whose wrong we have in our late negotiation ceded his now unhappy countries near the rhone, lately amongst the most flourishing (perhaps the most flourishing for their extent) of all the countries upon earth, that we are to prove the sincerity of our resolution to make peace with the republic barbarism? that venerable potentate and pontiff is sunk deep into the vale of years; he is half disarmed by his peaceful character; his dominions are more than half disarmed by a peace of two hundred years, defended as they were, not by forces, but by reverence; yet in all these straits, we see him display, amidst the recent ruins and the new defacements of his plundered capital, along with the mild and decorated piety of the modern, all the spirit and magnanimity of ancient rome! does he, who, though himself unable to defend them, nobly refused to receive pecuniary compensations for the protection he owed to his people of avignon, carpentras, and the venaisin;--does he want proofs of our good disposition to deliver over that people without any security for them, or any compensation to their sovereign, to this cruel enemy? does he want to be satisfied of the sincerity of our humiliation to france, who has seen his free, fertile, and happy city and state of bologna, the cradle of regenerated law, the seat of sciences and of arts, so hideously metamorphosed, whilst he was crying to great britain for aid, and offering to purchase that aid at any price? is it him, who sees that chosen spot of plenty and delight converted into a jacobin ferocious republic, dependent on the homicides of france? is it him, who, from the miracles of his beneficent industry, has done a work which defied the power of the roman emperors, though with an enthralled world to labour for them; is it him, who has drained and cultivated the pontine marshes, that we are to satisfy of our cordial spirit of conciliation, with those who, in their equity, are restoring holland again to the seas, whose maxims poison more than the exhalations of the most deadly fens, and who turn all the fertilities of nature and of art into a howling desert? is it to him, that we are to demonstrate the good faith of our submissions to the cannibal republic; to him who is commanded to deliver into their hands ancona and civita vecchia, seats of commerce, raised by the wise and liberal labours and expenses of the present and late pontiffs; ports not more belonging to the ecclesiastical state than to the commerce of great britain; thus wresting from his hands the power of the keys of the centre of italy, as before they had taken possession of the keys of the northern part, from the hands of the unhappy king of sardinia, the natural ally of england? is it to him we are to prove our good faith in the peace which we are soliciting to receive from the hands of his and our robbers, the enemies of all arts, all sciences, all civilization, and all commerce? extinction of local patriotism. that day was, i fear, the fatal term of local patriotism. on that day, i fear, there was an end of that narrow scheme of relations called our country, with all its pride, its prejudices, and its partial affections. all the little quiet rivulets, that watered an humble, a contracted, but not an unfruitful field, are to be lost in the waste expanse, and boundless, barren ocean of the homicide philanthropy of france. it is no longer an object of terror, the aggrandizement of a new power, which teaches as a professor that philanthropy in their chair; whilst it propagates by arms, and establishes by conquest, the comprehensive system of universal fraternity. in what light is all this viewed in a great assembly? the party which takes the lead there has no longer any apprehensions, except those that arise from not being admitted to the closest and most confidential connections with the metropolis of that fraternity. that reigning party no longer touches on its favourite subject, the display of those horrors, that must attend the existence of a power, with such dispositions and principles, seated in the heart of europe. it is satisfied to find some loose, ambiguous expressions in its former declarations, which may set it free from its professions and engagements. it always speaks of peace with the regicides as a great and an undoubted blessing; and such a blessing as, if obtained, promises, as much as any human disposition of things can promise, security and permanence. it holds out nothing at all definite towards this security. it only seeks, by a restoration, to some of their former owners, of some fragments of the general wreck of europe, to find a plausible plea for a present retreat from an embarrassing position. as to the future, that party is content to leave it, covered in a night of the most palpable obscurity. it never once has entered into a particle of detail of what our own situation, or that of other powers, must be, under the blessings of the peace we seek. this defect, to my power, i mean to supply; that if any persons should still continue to think an attempt at foresight is any part of the duty of a statesman, i may contribute my trifle to the materials of his speculation. as to the other party, the minority of to-day, possibly the majority of to-morrow, small in number but full of talents and every species of energy, which, upon the avowed ground of being more acceptable to france, is a candidate for the helm of this kingdom, it has never changed from the beginning. it has preserved a perennial consistency. this would be a never-failing source of true glory, if springing from just and right; but it is truly dreadful if it be an arm of styx, which springs out of the profoundest depths of a poisoned soil. the french maxims were by these gentlemen at no time condemned. i speak of their language in the most moderate terms. there are many who think that they have gone much further; that they have always magnified and extolled the french maxims; that not in the least disgusted or discouraged by the monstrous evils, which have attended these maxims from the moment of their adoption both at home and abroad, they still continue to predict, that in due time they must produce the greatest good to the poor human race. they obstinately persist in stating those evils as matter of accident; as things wholly collateral to the system. it is observed, that this party has never spoken of an ally of great britain with the smallest degree of respect or regard; on the contrary, it has generally mentioned them under opprobrious appellations, and in such terms of contempt or execration, as never had been heard before, because no such would have formerly been permitted in our public assemblies. the moment, however, that any of those allies quitted this obnoxious connection, the party has instantly passed an act of indemnity and oblivion in their favour. after this, no sort of censure on their conduct; no imputation on their character! from that moment their pardon was sealed in a reverential and mysterious silence. with the gentlemen of this minority, there is no ally, from one end of europe to the other, with whom we ought not to be ashamed to act. the whole college of the states of europe is no better than a gang of tyrants. with them all our connexions were broken off at once. we ought to have cultivated france, and france alone, from the moment of her revolution. on that happy change, all our dread of that nation as a power was to cease. she became in an instant dear to our affections, and one with our interests. all other nations we ought to have commanded not to trouble her sacred throes, whilst in labour to bring into a happy birth her abundant litter of constitutions. walpole and his policy. there has not been in this century any foreign peace or war, in its origin, the fruit of popular desire; except the war that was made with spain in . sir robert walpole was forced into the war by the people, who were inflamed to this measure by the most leading politicians, by the first orators, and the greatest poets, of the time. for that war, pope sung his dying notes. for that war, johnson, in more energetic strains, employed the voice of his early genius. for that war, glover distinguished himself in the way in which his muse was the most natural and happy. the crowd readily followed the politicians in the cry for a war, which threatened little bloodshed, and which promised victories that were attended with something more solid than glory. a war with spain was a war of plunder. in the present conflict with regicide, mr. pitt has not hitherto had, nor will, perhaps, for a few days have, many prizes to hold out in the lottery of war, to attempt the lower part of our character. he can only maintain it by an appeal to the higher; and to those, in whom that higher part is the most predominant, he must look the most for his support. whilst he holds out no inducements to the wise, nor bribes to the avaricious, he may be forced by a vulgar cry into a peace ten times more ruinous than the most disastrous war. the weaker he is in the fund of motives which apply to our avarice, to our laziness, and to our lassitude, if he means to carry the war to any end at all, the stronger he ought to be in his addresses to our magnanimity and to our reason. in stating that walpole was driven by a popular clamour into a measure not to be justified, i do not mean wholly to excuse his conduct. my time of observation did not exactly coincide with that event: but i read much of the controversies then carried on. several years after the contests of parties had ceased, the people were amused, and in a degree warmed, with them. the events of that era seemed then of magnitude, which the revolutions of our time have reduced to parochial importance; and the debates, which then shook the nation, now appear of no higher moment than a discussion in a vestry. when i was very young, a general fashion told me i was to admire some of the writings against that minister; a little more maturity taught me as much to despise them. i observed one fault in his general proceeding. he never manfully put forward the entire strength of his cause. he temporised, he managed, and, adopting very nearly the sentiments of his adversaries, he opposed their inferences. this, for a political commander, is the choice of a weak post. his adversaries had the better of the argument, as he handled it, not as the reason and justice of his cause enabled him to manage it. i say this, after having seen, and with some care examined, the original documents concerning certain important transactions of those times. they perfectly satisfied me of the extreme injustice of that war, and of the falsehood of the colours which, to his own ruin, and guided by a mistaken policy, he suffered to be daubed over that measure. some years after, it was my fortune to converse with many of the principal actors against that minister, and with those who principally excited that clamour. none of them, no not one, did in the least defend the measure, or attempt to justify their conduct. they condemned it as freely as they would have done in commenting upon any proceeding in history, in which they were totally unconcerned. thus it will be. they who stir up the people to improper desires, whether of peace or war, will be condemned by themselves. they who weakly yield to them will be condemned by history. political peace. how a question of peace can be discussed without having them in view, i cannot imagine. if you or others see a way out of these difficulties, i am happy. i see, indeed, a fund from whence equivalents will be proposed. i see it, but i cannot just now touch it. it is a question of high moment. it opens another iliad of woes to europe. such is the time proposed for making a common political peace; to which no one circumstance is propitious. as to the grand principle of the peace, it is left, as if by common consent, wholly out of the question. viewing things in this light, i have frequently sunk into a degree of despondency and dejection hardly to be described; yet out of the profoundest depths of this despair, an impulse, which i have in vain endeavoured to resist, has urged me to raise one feeble cry against this unfortunate coalition which is formed at home, in order to make a coalition with france, subversive of the whole ancient order of the world. no disaster of war, no calamity of season, could ever strike me with half the horror which i felt from what is introduced to us by this junction of parties, under the soothing name of peace. we are apt to speak of a low and pusillanimous spirit as the ordinary cause by which dubious wars terminated in humiliating treaties. it is here the direct contrary. i am perfectly astonished at the boldness of character, at the intrepidity of mind, the firmness of nerve, in those who are able with deliberation to face the perils of jacobin fraternity. this fraternity is indeed so terrible in its nature, and in its manifest consequences, that there is no way of quieting our apprehensions about it, but by totally putting it out of sight, by substituting for it, through a sort of periphrasis, something of an ambiguous quality, and describing such a connection under the terms of "the usual relations of peace and amity." by this means the proposed fraternity is hustled in the crowd of those treaties, which imply no change in the public law of europe, and which do not upon system affect the interior condition of nations. it is confounded with those conventions in which matters of dispute among sovereign powers are compromised, by the taking off a duty more or less, by the surrender of a frontier town, or a disputed district, on the one side or the other; by pactions in which the pretensions of families are settled (as by a conveyancer, making family substitutions and successions), without any alterations in the laws, manners, religion, privileges, and customs, of the cities, or territories, which are the subject of such arrangements. all this body of old conventions, composing the vast and voluminous collection called the corps diplomatique, forms the code or statute law, as the methodised reasonings of the great publicists and jurists form the digest and jurisprudence of the christian world. in these treasures are to be found the usual relations of peace and amity in civilized europe; and there the relations of ancient france were to be found amongst the rest. the present system in france is not the ancient france. it is not the ancient france with ordinary ambition and ordinary means. it is not a new power of an old kind. it is a new power of a new species. when such a questionable shape is to be admitted for the first time into the brotherhood of christendom, it is not a mere matter of idle curiosity to consider how far it is in its nature alliable with the rest, or whether "the relations of peace and amity" with this new state are likely to be of the same nature with the usual relations of the states of europe. public loans. it is never, therefore, wise to quarrel with the interested views of men, whilst they are combined with the public interest and promote it: it is our business to tie the knot, if possible, closer. resources that are derived from extraordinary virtues, as such virtues are rare, so they must be unproductive. it is a good thing for a monied man to pledge his property on the welfare of his country; he shows that he places his treasure where his heart is; and, revolving in this circle, we know that "wherever a man's treasure is, there his heart will be also." for these reasons, and on these principles, i have been sorry to see the attempts which have been made, with more good meaning than foresight and consideration, towards raising the annual interest of this loan by private contributions. wherever a regular revenue is established, there voluntary contribution can answer no purpose, but to disorder and disturb it in its course. to recur to such aids is, for so much, to dissolve the community, and to return to a state of unconnected nature. and even if such a supply should be productive, in a degree commensurate to its object, it must also be productive of much vexation, and much oppression. either the citizens, by the proposed duties, pay their proportion according to some rate made by public authority, or they do not. if the law be well made, and the contributions founded on just proportions, everything superadded by something that is not as regular as law, and as uniform in its operation, will become more or less out of proportion. if, on the contrary, the law be not made upon proper calculation, it is a disgrace to the public wisdom, which fails in skill to assess the citizen in just measure, and according to his means. but the hand of authority is not always the most heavy hand. it is obvious, that men may be oppressed by many ways, besides those which take their course from the supreme power of the state. suppose the payment to be wholly discretionary. whatever has its origin in caprice, is sure not to improve in its progress, nor to end in reason. it is impossible for each private individual to have any measure conformable to the particular condition of each of his fellow-citizens, or to the general exigencies of his country. 'tis a random shot at best. when men proceed in this irregular mode, the first contributor is apt to grow peevish with his neighbours. he is but too well disposed to measure their means by his own envy, and not by the real state of their fortunes, which he can rarely know, and which it may in them be an act of the grossest imprudence to reveal. hence the odium and lassitude, with which people will look upon a provision for the public, which is bought by discord at the expense of social quiet. hence the bitter heart-burnings, and the war of tongues, which is so often the prelude to other wars. nor is it every contribution, called voluntary, which is according to the free will of the giver. a false shame, or a false glory, against his feelings and his judgment, may tax an individual to the detriment of his family, and in wrong of his creditors. a pretence of public spirit may disable him from the performance of his private duties. it may disable him even from paying the legitimate contributions which he is to furnish according to the prescript of the law; but what is the most dangerous of all is, that malignant disposition to which this mode of contribution evidently tends, and which at length leaves the comparatively indigent to judge of the wealth, and to prescribe to the opulent, or those whom they conceive to be such, the use they are to make of their fortunes. from thence it is but one step to the subversion of all property. historical strictures. the author does not confine the benefit of the regicide lesson to kings alone. he has a diffusive bounty. nobles, and men of property, will likewise be greatly reformed. they too will be led to a review of their social situation and duties; "and will reflect, that their large allotment of worldly advantages is for the aid and benefit of the whole." is it then from the fate of juignie, archbishop of paris, or of the cardinal de rochefoucault, and of so many others, who gave their fortunes, and, i may say, their very beings, to the poor, that the rich are to learn, that their "fortunes are for the aid and benefit of the whole?" i say nothing of the liberal persons of great rank and property, lay and ecclesiastic, men and women, to whom we have had the honour and happiness of affording an asylum,--i pass by these, lest i should never have done, or lest i should omit some as deserving as any i might mention. why will the author then suppose, that the nobles and men of property in france have been banished, confiscated, and murdered, on account of the savageness and ferocity of their character, and their being tainted with vices beyond those of the same order and description in other countries? no judge of a revolutionary tribunal, with his hands dipped in their blood, and his maw gorged with their property, has yet dared to assert what this author has been pleased, by way of a moral lesson, to insinuate. their nobility, and their men of property, in a mass, had the very same virtues and the very same vices, and in the very same proportions, with the same description of men in this and in other nations. i must do justice to suffering honour, generosity, and integrity. i do not know, that any time, or any country, has furnished more splendid examples of every virtue, domestic and public. i do not enter into the councils of providence: but, humanly speaking, many of these nobles and men of property, from whose disastrous fate we are, it seems, to learn a general softening of character, and a revision of our social situations and duties, appear to me full as little deserving of that fate, as the author, whoever he is, can be. many of them, i am sure, were such, as i should be proud indeed to be able to compare myself with, in knowledge, in integrity, and in every other virtue. my feeble nature might shrink, though theirs did not, from the proof; but my reason and my ambition tell me, that it would be a good bargain to purchase their merits with their fate. for which of his vices did that great magistrate, d'espremenil, lose his fortune and his head? what were the abominations of malesherbes, that other excellent magistrate, whose sixty years of uniform virtue was acknowledged, in the very act of his murder, by the judicial butchers, who condemned him? on account of what misdemeanors was he robbed of his property, and slaughtered with two generations of his offspring; and the remains of the third race, with a refinement of cruelty, and lest they should appear to reclaim the property forfeited by the virtues of their ancestor, confounded in an hospital with the thousands of those unhappy foundling infants, who are abandoned, without relation, and without name, by the wretchedness or by the profligacy of their parents? is the fate of the queen of france to produce this softening of character? was she a person so very ferocious and cruel as, by the example of her death, to frighten us into common humanity? is there no way to teach the emperor a softening of character, and a review of his social situation and duty, but his consent, by an infamous accord with regicide, to drive a second coach with the austrian arms through the streets of paris, along which, after a series of preparatory horrors, exceeding the atrocities of the bloody execution itself, the glory of the imperial race had been carried to an ignominious death? is this a lesson of moderation to a descendant of maria theresa, drawn from the fate of the daughter of that incomparable woman and sovereign? if he learns this lesson from such an object, and from such teachers, the man may remain, but the king is deposed. if he does not carry quite another memory of that transaction in the inmost recesses of his heart, he is unworthy to reign; he is unworthy to live. in the chronicle of disgrace he will have but this short tale told of him, "he was the first emperor of his house that embraced a regicide: he was the last that wore the imperial purple."--far am i from thinking so ill of this august sovereign, who is at the head of the monarchies of europe, and who is the trustee of their dignities and his own. what ferocity of character drew on the fate of elizabeth, the sister of king louis the sixteenth? for which of the vices of that pattern of benevolence, of piety, and of all the virtues, did they put her to death? for which of her vices did they put to death the mildest of all human creatures, the duchess of biron? what were the crimes of those crowds of matrons and virgins of condition, whom they massacred, with their juries of blood, in prisons and on scaffolds? what were the enormities of the infant king, whom they caused, by lingering tortures, to perish in their dungeon, and whom, if at last they despatched by poison, it was in that detestable crime the only act of mercy they have ever shown? what softening of character is to be had, what review of their social situations and duties is to be taught, by these examples, to kings, to nobles, to men of property, to women, and to infants? the royal family perished, because it was royal. the nobles perished, because they were noble. the men, women, and children, who had property, because they had property to be robbed of. the priests were punished, after they had been robbed of their all, not for their vices, but for their virtues and their piety, which made them an honour to their sacred profession, and to that nature, of which we ought to be proud, since they belong to it. my lord, nothing can be learned from such examples, except the danger of being kings, queens, nobles, priests, and children, to be butchered on account of their inheritance. these are things, at which not vice, not crime, not folly, but wisdom, goodness, learning, justice, probity, beneficence, stand aghast. by these examples our reason and our moral sense are not enlightened, but confounded; and there is no refuge for astonished and affrighted virtue, but being annihilated in humility and submission, sinking into a silent adoration of the inscrutable dispensations of providence, and flying, with trembling wings, from this world of daring crimes, and feeble, pusillanimous, half-bred, bastard justice, to the asylum of another order of things, in an unknown form, but in a better life. whatever the politician or preacher of september or of october may think of the matter, it is a most comfortless, disheartening, desolating example. dreadful is the example of ruined innocence and virtue, and the completest triumph of the completest villainy, that ever vexed and disgraced mankind! the example is ruinous in every point of view, religious, moral, civil, political. it establishes that dreadful maxim of machiavel, that in great affairs men are not to be wicked by halves. this maxim is not made for a middle sort of beings, who, because they cannot be angels, ought to thwart their ambition, and not endeavour to become infernal spirits. it is too well exemplified in the present time, where the faults and errors of humanity, checked by the imperfect timorous virtues, have been overpowered by those who have stopped at no crime. it is a dreadful part of the example, that infernal malevolence has had pious apologists, who read their lectures on frailties in favour of crimes; who abandon the weak, and court the friendship of the wicked. to root out these maxims, and the examples that support them, is a wise object of years of war. this is that war. this is that moral war. it was said by old trivulzio, that the battle of marignan was the battle of the giants, that all the rest of the many he had seen were those of the cranes and pigmies. this is true of the objects, at least, of the contest. for the greater part of those, which we have hitherto contended for, in comparison, were the toys of children. the october politician is so full of charity and good nature, that he supposes, that these very robbers and murderers themselves are in a course of melioration; on what ground i cannot conceive, except on the long practice of every crime, and by its complete success. he is an origenist, and believes in the conversion of the devil. all that runs in the place of blood in his veins is nothing but the milk of human kindness. he is as soft as a curd, though, as a politician, he might be supposed to be made of sterner stuff. he supposes (to use his own expression) "that the salutary truths, which he inculcates, are making their way into their bosoms." their bosom is a rock of granite, on which falsehood has long since built her stronghold. poor truth has had a hard work of it with her little pickaxe. nothing but gunpowder will do. as a proof, however, of the progress of this sap of truth, he gives us a confession they had made not long before he wrote. "their fraternity" (as was lately stated by themselves in a solemn report) "has been the brotherhood of cain and abel, and they have organized nothing but bankruptcy and famine." a very honest confession, truly; and much in the spirit of their oracle, rousseau. yet, what is still more marvellous than the confession, this is the very fraternity to which our author gives us such an obliging invitation to accede. there is, indeed, a vacancy in the fraternal corps; a brother and a partner is wanted. if we please, we may fill up the place of the butchered abel; and, whilst we wait the destiny of the departed brother, we may enjoy the advantages of the partnership, by entering, without delay, into a shop of ready-made bankruptcy and famine. these are the douceurs, by which we are invited to regicide fraternity and friendship. but still our author considers the confession as a proof, that "truth is making its way into their bosoms." no! it is not making its way into their bosoms. it has forced its way into their mouths! the evil spirit, by which they are possessed, though essentially a liar, is forced, by the tortures of conscience, to confess the truth: to confess enough for their condemnation, but not for their amendment. shakspeare very aptly expresses this kind of confession, devoid of repentance, from the mouth of a usurper, a murderer, and a regicide-- "we are ourselves compelled, even to the teeth and forehead of our faults, to give in evidence." whence is their amendment? why, the author writes, that, on their murderous insurrectionary system, their own lives are not sure for an hour; nor has their power a greater stability. true. they are convinced of it; and accordingly the wretches have done all they can to preserve their lives, and to secure their power; but not one step have they taken to amend the one, or to make a more just use of the other. constitution not the people's slave. there is one topic upon which i hope i shall be excused in going a little beyond my design. the factions, now so busy amongst us, in order to divest men of all love for their country, and to remove from their minds all duty with regard to the state, endeavour to propagate an opinion, that the people, in forming their commonwealth, have by no means parted with their power over it. this is an impregnable citadel, to which these gentlemen retreat whenever they are pushed by the battery of laws and usages, and positive conventions. indeed, it is such and of so great force, that all they have done, in defending their outworks, is so much time and labour thrown away. discuss any of their schemes--their answer is--it is the act of the people, and that is sufficient. are we to deny to a majority of the people the right of altering even the whole frame of their society, if such should be their pleasure? they may change it, say they, from a monarchy to a republic to-day, and to-morrow back again from a republic to a monarchy, and so backward and forward as often as they like. they are masters of the commonwealth; because in substance they are themselves the commonwealth. the french revolution, say they, was the act of the majority of the people; and if the majority of any other people, the people of england for instance, wish to make the same change, they have the same right. just the same, undoubtedly. that is, none at all. neither the few nor the many have a right to act merely by their will, in any matter connected with duty, trust, engagement, or obligation. the constitution of a country being once settled upon some compact, tacit or expressed, there is no power existing of force to alter it, without the breach of the covenant, or the consent of all the parties. such is the nature of a contract. and the votes of a majority of the people, whatever their infamous flatterers may teach in order to corrupt their minds, cannot alter the moral any more than they can alter the physical essence of things. the people are not to be taught to think lightly of their engagements to their governors; else they teach governors to think lightly of their engagements towards them. in that kind of game in the end the people are sure to be losers. to flatter them into a contempt of faith, truth, and justice, is to ruin them; for in these virtues consist their whole safety. to flatter any man, or any part of mankind, in any description, by asserting, that in engagements he or they are free whilst any other human creature is bound, is ultimately to vest the rule of morality in the pleasure of those who ought to be rigidly submitted to it; to subject the sovereign reason of the world to the caprices of weak and giddy men. but, as no one of us men can dispense with public or private faith, or with any other tie of moral obligation, so neither can any number of us. the number engaged in crimes, instead of turning them into laudable acts, only augments the quantity and intensity of the guilt. i am well aware that men love to hear of their power, but have an extreme disrelish to be told of their duty. this is of course, because every duty is a limitation of some power. indeed arbitrary power is so much to the depraved taste of the vulgar, of the vulgar of every description, that almost all the dissensions, which lacerate the commonwealth, are not concerning the manner in which it is to be exercised, but concerning the hands in which it is to be placed. somewhere they are resolved to have it. whether they desire it to be vested in the many or the few, depends with most men upon the chance which they imagine they themselves may have of partaking in the exercise of that arbitrary sway, in the one mode or in the other. it is not necessary to teach men to thirst after power. but it is very expedient that by moral instruction, they should be taught, and by their civil constitutions they should be compelled, to put many restrictions upon the immoderate exercise of it, and the inordinate desire. the best method of obtaining these two great points forms the important, but at the same time the difficult, problem to the true statesman. he thinks of the place in which political power is to be lodged, with no other attention, than as it may render the more or the less practicable, its salutary restraint, and its prudent direction. for this reason no legislator, at any period of the world, has willingly placed the seat of active power in the hands of the multitude: because there it admits of no control no regulation, no steady direction whatsoever. the people are the natural control on authority; but to exercise and to control together is contradictory and impossible. as the exorbitant exercise of power cannot, under popular sway, be effectually restrained, the other great object of political arrangement, the means of abating an excessive desire of it, is in such a state still worse provided for. the democratic commonwealth is the foodful nurse of ambition. under the other forms it meets with many restraints. whenever, in states which have had a democratic basis, the legislators have endeavoured to put restraints upon ambition, their methods were as violent, as in the end they were ineffectual: as violent indeed as any the most jealous despotism could invent. the ostracism could not very long save itself, and much less the state which it was meant to guard, from the attempts of ambition, one of the natural, inbred, incurable distempers of a powerful democracy. modern "lights." great lights they say are lately obtained in the world; and mr. burke, instead of shrouding himself in exploded ignorance, ought to have taken advantage of the blaze of illumination which has been spread about him. it may be so. the enthusiasts of this time, it seems, like their predecessors in another faction of fanaticism, deal in lights.--hudibras pleasantly says to them, they "have lights, where better eyes are blind, as pigs are said to see the wind." the author of the reflections has heard a great deal concerning the modern lights; but he has not yet had the good fortune to see much of them. he has read more than he can justify to anything but the spirit of curiosity, of the works of these illuminators of the world. he has learned nothing from the far greater number of them, than a full certainty of their shallowness, levity, pride, petulance, presumption, and ignorance. where the old authors whom he has read, and the old men whom he has conversed with, have left him in the dark, he is in the dark still. if others, however, have obtained any of this extraordinary light, they will use it to guide them in their researches and their conduct. i have only to wish, that the nation may be as happy and as prosperous under the influence of the new light, as it has been in the sober shade of the old obscurity. republics in the abstract. in the same debate, mr. burke was represented by mr. fox as arguing in a manner which implied that the british constitution could not be defended, but by abusing all republics ancient and modern. he said nothing to give the least ground for such a censure. he never abused all republics. he has never professed himself a friend or an enemy to republics or to monarchies in the abstract. he thought that the circumstances and habits of every country, which it is always perilous and productive of the greatest calamities to force, are to decide upon the form of its government. there is nothing in his nature, his temper, or his faculties, which should make him an enemy to any republic modern or ancient. far from it. he has studied the form and spirit of republics very early in life; he has studied them with great attention; and with a mind undisturbed by affection or prejudice. he is indeed convinced that the science of government would be poorly cultivated without that study. but the result in his mind from that investigation has been, and is, that neither england nor france, without infinite detriment to them, as well in the event as in the experiment, could be brought into a republican form; but that everything republican which can be introduced with safety into either of them, must be built upon a monarchy; built upon a real, not a nominal, monarchy, as its essential basis; that all such institutions, whether aristocratic or democratic, must originate from the crown, and in all their proceedings must refer to it; that by the energy of that main spring alone those republican parts must be set in action, and from thence must derive their whole legal effect (as amongst us they actually do), or the whole will fall into confusion. these republican members have no other point but the crown in which they can possibly unite. this is the opinion expressed in mr. burke's book. he has never varied in that opinion since he came to years of discretion. but surely, if it any time of his life he had entertained other notions (which however he has never held or professed to hold), the horrible calamities brought upon a great people, by the wild attempt to force their country into a republic, might be more than sufficient to undeceive his understanding, and to free it for ever from such destructive fancies. he is certain, that many, even in france, have been made sick of their theories by their very success in realizing them. an english monarch. he is a real king, and not an executive officer. if he will not trouble himself with contemptible details, nor wish to degrade himself by becoming a party in little squabbles, i am far from sure, that a king of great britain, in whatever concerns him as a king, or indeed as a rational man, who combines his public interest with his personal satisfaction, does not possess a more real, solid, extensive power, than the king of france was possessed of before this miserable revolution. the direct power of the king of england is considerable. his indirect, and far more certain power, is great indeed. he stands in need of nothing towards dignity; of nothing towards splendour; of nothing towards authority; of nothing at all towards consideration abroad. when was it that a king of england wanted wherewithal to make him respected, courted, or perhaps even feared, in every state of europe? physiognomy. the physiognomy has a considerable share in beauty, especially in that of our own species. the manners give a certain determination to the countenance; which, being observed to correspond pretty regularly with them, is capable of joining the effect of certain agreeable qualities of the mind to those of the body. so that to form a finished human beauty, and to give it its full influence, the face must be expressive of such gentle and amiable qualities, as correspond with the softness, smoothness, and delicacy of the outward form. the eye. i have hitherto purposely omitted to speak of the eye, which has so great a share in the beauty of the animal creation, as it did not fall so easily under the foregoing heads, though in fact it is reducible to the same principles. i think then, that the beauty of the eye consists, first, in its clearness; what coloured eye shall please most, depends a good deal on particular fancies; but none are pleased with an eye whose water (to use that term) is dull and muddy. we are pleased with the eye in this view, on the principle upon which we like diamonds, clear water, glass, and such-like transparent substances. secondly, the motion of the eye contributes to its beauty, by continually shifting its direction; but a slow and languid motion is more beautiful than a brisk one; the latter is enlivening; the former lovely. thirdly, with regard to the union of the eye with the neighbouring parts, it is to hold the same rule that is given of other beautiful ones; it is not to make a strong deviation from the line of the neighbouring parts; nor to verge into any exact geometrical figure. besides all this, the eye affects, as it is expressive of some qualities of the mind, and its principal power generally arises from this; so that what we have just said of the physiognomy is applicable here. abolition and use of parliaments. according to their invariable course, the framers of your constitution have begun with the outer abolition of the parliaments. these venerable bodies, like the rest of the old government, stood in need of reform, even though there should be no change made in the monarchy. they required several more alterations to adapt them to the system of a free constitution. but they had particulars in their constitution, and those not a few, which deserved approbation from the wise. they possessed one fundamental excellence,--they were independent. the most doubtful circumstance attendant on their office, that of its being vendible, contributed however to this independency of character. they held for life. indeed they may be said to have held by inheritance. appointed by the monarch, they were considered as nearly out of his power. the most determined exertions of that authority against them only showed their radical independence. they composed permanent bodies politic, constituted to resist arbitrary innovation; and from that corporate constitution, and from most of their forms, they were well calculated to afford both certainty and stability to the laws. they had been a safe asylum to secure these laws, in all the revolutions of humour and opinion. they had saved that sacred deposit of the country during the reigns of arbitrary princes, and the struggles of arbitrary factions. they kept alive the memory and record of the constitution. they were the great security to private property; which might be said (when personal liberty had no existence) to be, in fact, as well guarded in france as in any other country. whatever is supreme in a state, ought to have, as much as possible, its judicial authority so constituted as not only not to depend upon it, but in some sort to balance it. it ought to give a security to its justice against its power. it ought to make its judicature, as it were, something exterior to the state. these parliaments had furnished, not the best certainly, but some considerable corrective to the excesses and vices of the monarchy. such an independent judicature was ten times more necessary when a democracy became the absolute power of the country. in that constitution, elective, temporary, local judges, such as you have contrived, exercising their dependent functions in a narrow society, must be the worst of all tribunals. in them it will be vain to look for any appearance of justice towards strangers, towards the obnoxious rich, towards the minority of routed parties, towards all those who in the election have supported unsuccessful candidates. it will be impossible to keep the new tribunals clear of the worst spirit of faction. all contrivances by ballot we know experimentally to be vain and childish to prevent a discovery of inclinations. where they may the best answer the purposes of concealment, they answer to produce suspicion; and this is a still more mischievous cause of partiality. if the parliaments had been preserved, instead of being dissolved at so ruinous a change to the nation, they might have served in this new commonwealth, perhaps not precisely the same (i do not mean an exact parallel), but nearly the same, purposes as the court and senate of areopagus did in athens; that is, as one of the balances and correctives to the evils of a light and unjust democracy. every one knows that this tribunal was the great stay of that state; every one knows with what a care it was upheld, and with what a religious awe it was consecrated. the parliaments were not wholly free from faction, i admit; but this evil was exterior and accidental, and not so much the vice of their constitution itself, as it must be in your new contrivance of sexennial elective judicatories. several english commend the abolition of the old tribunals, as supposing that they determined everything by bribery and corruption. but they have stood the test of monarchic and republican scrutiny. the court was well disposed to prove corruption on those bodies when they were dissolved in .--those who have again dissolved them would have done the same if they could--but both inquisitions having failed, i conclude, that gross pecuniary corruption must have been rather rare amongst them. it would have been prudent, along with the parliaments, to preserve their ancient power of registering, and of remonstrating at least, upon all the decrees of the national assembly, as they did upon those which passed in the time of the monarchy. it would be a means of squaring the occasional decrees of a democracy to some principles of general jurisprudence. the vice of the ancient democracies, and one cause of their ruin, was, that they ruled, as you do, by occasional decrees,--psephismata. this practice soon broke in upon the tenor and consistency of the laws; it abated the respect of the people towards them; and totally destroyed them in the end. your vesting the power of remonstrance, which, in the time of the monarchy, existed in the parliament of paris, in your principal executive officer, whom, in spite of common sense, you persevere in calling king, is the height of absurdity. you ought never to suffer remonstrance from him who is to execute. this is to understand neither counsel nor execution; neither authority nor obedience. the person whom you call king, ought not to have this power, or he ought to have more. cromwell and his contrasts. cromwell, when he attempted to legalize his power, and to settle his conquered country in a state of order, did not look for dispensers of justice in the instruments of his usurpation. quite the contrary. he sought out, with great solicitude and selection, and even from the party most opposite to his designs, men of weight and decorum of character; men unstained with the violence of the times, and with hands not fouled with confiscation and sacrilege: for he chose an hale for his chief justice, though he absolutely refused to take his civic oaths, or to make any acknowledgment whatsoever of the legality of his government. cromwell told this great lawyer, that since he did not approve his title, all he required of him was, to administer, in a manner agreeable to his pure sentiments and unspotted character, that justice without which human society cannot subsist: that it was not his particular government, but civil order itself, which, as a judge, he wished him to support. cromwell knew how to separate the institutions expedient to his usurpation from the administration of the public justice of his country. for cromwell was a man in whom ambition had not wholly suppressed, but only suspended, the sentiments of religion, and the love (as far as it could consist with his designs) of fair and honourable reputation. accordingly, we are indebted to this act of his for the preservation of our laws, which some senseless assertors of the rights of men were then on the point of entirely erasing, as relics of feudality and barbarism. besides, he gave in the appointment of that man, to that age, and to all posterity, the most brilliant example of sincere and fervent piety, exact justice, and profound jurisprudence. (see burnet's life of hale.) but these are not the things in which your philosophic usurpers choose to follow cromwell. one would think, that after an honest and necessary revolution (if they had a mind that theirs should pass for such) your masters would have imitated the virtuous policy of those who have been at the head of revolutions of that glorious character. burnet tells us, that nothing tended to reconcile the english nation to the government of king william so much as the care he took to fill the vacant bishoprics with men who had attracted the public esteem by their learning, eloquence, and piety, and, above all, by their known moderation in the state. with you, in your purifying revolution, whom have you chosen to regulate the church? mr. mirabeau is a fine speaker--and a fine writer,--and a fine--a very fine man;--but really nothing gave more surprise to everybody here, than to find him the supreme head of your ecclesiastical affairs. the rest is of course. your assembly addresses a manifesto to france, in which they tell the people, with an insulting irony, that they have brought the church to its primitive condition. in one respect their declaration is undoubtedly true; for they have brought it to a state of poverty and persecution. what can be hoped for after this? have not men (if they deserve the name), under this new hope and head of the church, been made bishops for no other merit than having acted as instruments of atheists; for no other merit than having thrown the children's bread to dogs; and in order to gorge the whole gang of usurers, pedlars, and itinerant jew-discounters at the corners of streets, starved the poor of their christian flocks, and their own brother pastors? have not such men been made bishops to administer in temples, in which (if the patriotic donations have not already stripped them of their vessels) the churchwardens ought to take security for the altar-plate, and not so much as to trust the chalice in their sacrilegious hands, so long as jews have assignats on ecclesiastic plunder, to exchange for the silver stolen from churches? delicacy. an air of robustness and strength is very prejudicial to beauty. an appearance of delicacy, and even of fragility, is almost essential to it. whoever examines the vegetable or animal creation will find this observation to be founded in nature. it is not the oak, the ash, or the elm, or any of the robust trees of the forest, which we consider as beautiful; they are awful and majestic; their inspire a sort of reverence. it is the delicate myrtle, it is the orange, it is the almond, it is the jasmine, it is the vine, which we look on as vegetable beauties. it is the flowery species, so remarkable for its weakness and momentary duration, that gives us the liveliest idea of beauty and elegance. among animals, the greyhound is more beautiful than the mastiff; and the delicacy of a gennet, a barb, or an arabian horse, is much more amiable than the strength and stability of some horses of war or carriage. i need here say little of the fair sex, where i believe the point will be easily allowed me. the beauty of women is considerably owing to their weakness or delicacy, and is even enhanced by their timidity, a quality of mind analogous to it. i would not here be understood to say, that weakness betraying very bad health has any share in beauty; but the ill effect of this is not because it is weakness, but because the ill state of health, which produces such weakness, alters the other conditions of beauty; the parts in such a case collapse; the bright colour,--the lumen purpureum juventae, is gone; and the fine variation is lost in wrinkles, sudden breaks, and right lines. confiscation and currency. as to the operation of the first (the confiscation and paper currency) merely as a cement, i cannot deny that these, the one depending on the other, may for some time compose some sort of cement, if their madness and folly in the management, and in the tempering of the parts together, does not produce a repulsion in the very outset. but allowing to the scheme some coherence and some duration, it appears to me, that if, after a while, the confiscation should not be found sufficient to support the paper coinage (as i am morally certain it will not), then, instead of cementing, it will add infinitely to the dissociation, distraction, and confusion of these confederate republics, both with relation to each other, and to the several parts within themselves. but if the confiscation should so far succeed as to sink the paper currency, the cement is gone with the circulation. in the mean time its binding force will be very uncertain, and it will straiten or relax with every variation in the credit of the paper. one thing only is certain in this scheme, which is an effect seemingly collateral, but direct, i have no doubt, in the minds of those who conduct this business, that is, its effect in producing an oligarchy in every one of the republics. a paper circulation, not founded on any real money deposited or engaged for, amounting already to four-and-forty millions of english money, and this currency by force substituted in the place of the coin of the kingdom, becoming thereby the substance of its revenue, as well as the medium of all its commercial and civil intercourse, must put the whole of what power, authority, and influence, is left, in any form whatsoever it may assume, into the hands of the managers and conductors of this circulation. in england we feel the influence of the bank; though it is only the centre of a voluntary dealing. he knows little indeed of the influence of money upon mankind, who does not see the force of the management of a monied concern, which is so much more extensive, and in its nature so much more depending on the managers than any of ours. but this is not merely a money concern. there is another member in the system inseparably connected with this money management. it consists in the means of drawing out at discretion portions of the confiscated lands for sale; and carrying on a process of continual transmutation of paper into land, and of land into paper. when we follow this process in its effects, we may conceive something of the intensity of the force with which this system must operate. by this means the spirit of money-jobbing and speculation goes into the mass of land itself, and incorporates with it. by this kind of operation, that species of property becomes (as it were) volatilized; it assumes an unnatural and monstrous activity, and thereby throws into the hands of the several managers, principal and subordinate, parisian and provincial, all the representative of money, and perhaps a full tenth part of all the land in france, which has now acquired the worst and most pernicious part of the evil of a paper circulation,--the greatest possible uncertainty in its value. they have reversed the latonian kindness to the landed property of delos. they have sent theirs to be blown about, like the light fragments of a wreck, oras et littora circum. the new dealers, being all habitually adventurers, and without any fixed habits or local predilections, will purchase to job out again, as the market of paper, or of money, or of land, shall present an advantage. for though a holy bishop thinks that agriculture will derive great advantage from the "enlightened" usurers who are to purchase the church confiscations, i, who am not a good, but an old farmer, with great humility beg leave to tell his late lordship, that usury is not tutor of agriculture; and if the word "enlightened" be understood according to the new dictionary, as it always is in your new schools, i cannot conceive how a man's not believing in god can teach him to cultivate the earth with the least of any additional skill or encouragement. "diis immortalibus sero," said an old roman, when he held one handle of the plough, whilst death held the other. though you were to join in the commission all the directors of the two academies to the directors of the caisse d'escompte, an old experienced peasant is worth them all. i have got more information upon a curious and interesting branch of husbandry, in one short conversation with an old carthusian monk, than i have derived from all the bank directors that i have ever conversed with. however, there is no cause for apprehension from the meddling of money-dealers with rural economy. these gentlemen are too wise in their generation. at first, perhaps, their tender and susceptible imaginations may be captivated with the innocent and unprofitable delights of a pastoral life; but in a little time they will find that agriculture is a trade much more laborious, and much less lucrative, than that which they had left. after making its panegyric, they will turn their backs on it like their great precursor and prototype. they may, like him, begin by singing "beatus ille"--but what will be the end? "haec ubi locutus foenerator alphius, jamjam futurus rusticus omnem relegit idibus pecuniam; quaerit calendis ponere." they will cultivate the caisse d'eglise, under the sacred auspices of this prelate, with much more profit than its vineyards and its corn-fields. they will employ their talents according to their habits and their interests. they will not follow the plough whilst they can direct treasuries, and govern provinces. your legislators, in everything new, are the very first who have founded a commonwealth upon gaming, and infused this spirit into it, as its vital breath. the great object in these politics is to metamorphose france from a great kingdom into one great play-table: to turn its inhabitants into a nation of gamesters; to make speculation as extensive as life; to mix it with all its concerns; and to divert the whole of the hopes and fears of the people from their usual channels into the impulses, passions, and superstitions of those who live on chances. they loudly proclaim their opinion, that this their present system of a republic cannot possibly exist without this kind of gaming fund; and that the very thread of its life is spun out of the staple of these speculations. the old gaming in funds was mischievous enough undoubtedly; but it was so only to individuals. even when it had its greatest extent in the mississippi and south sea, it affected but few, comparatively; where it extends further, as in lotteries, the spirit has but a single object. but where the law, which in most circumstances forbids, and in none countenances, gaming, is itself debauched, so as to reverse its nature and policy, and expressly to force the subject to this destructive table, by bringing the spirit and symbols of gaming into the minutest matters, and engaging everybody in it, and in everything, a more dreadful epidemic distemper of that kind is spread than yet has appeared in the world. with you a man can neither earn nor buy his dinner without a speculation. what he receives in the morning will not have the same value at night. what he is compelled to take as pay for an old debt will not be received as the same when he comes to pay a debt contracted by himself; nor will it be the same when by prompt payment he would avoid contracting any debt at all. industry must wither away. economy must be driven from your country. careful provision will have no existence. who will labour without knowing the amount of his pay? who will study to increase what none can estimate? who will accumulate, when he does not know the value of what he saves? if you abstract it from its uses in gaming, to accumulate your paper wealth, would be not the providence of a man, but the distempered instinct of a jackdaw. "omnipotence of church plunder." their fanatical confidence in the omnipotence of church plunder has induced these philosophers to overlook all care of the public estate, just as the dream of the philosopher's stone induces dupes, under the more plausible delusion of the hermetic art, to neglect all rational means of improving their fortunes. with these philosophic financiers, this universal medicine made of church mummy is to cure all the evils of the state. these gentlemen, perhaps, do not believe a great deal in the miracles of piety; but it cannot be questioned, that they have an undoubting faith in the prodigies of sacrilege. is there a debt which presses them?--issue assignats. are compensations to be made, or a maintenance decreed to those whom they have robbed of their freehold in their office, or expelled from their profession?--assignats. is a fleet to be fitted out?--assignats. if sixteen millions sterling of these assignats, forced on the people, leave the wants of the state as urgent as ever--issue, says one, thirty millions sterling of assignats--says another, issue fourscore millions more of assignats. the only difference among their financial factions is on the greater or the lesser quantity of assignats to be imposed on the public sufferance. they are all professors of assignats. even those, whose natural good sense and knowledge of commerce, not obliterated by philosophy, furnish decisive arguments against this delusion conclude their arguments by proposing the emission of assignats. i suppose they must talk of assignats, as no other language would be understood. all experience of their inefficacy does not in the least discourage them. are the old assignats depreciated at market? what is the remedy? issue new assignats.--mais si maladia opiniatria, non vult se garire, quid illi facere? assignare--postea assignare; ensuita assignare. the word is a trifle altered. the latin of your present doctors may be better than that of your old comedy; their wisdom and the variety of their resources are the same. they have not more notes in their song than the cuckoo; though, far from the softness of that harbinger of summer and plenty, their voice is as harsh and as ominous as that of the raven. ugliness. it may, perhaps, appear like a sort of repetition of what we have before said, to insist here upon the nature of ugliness; as i imagine it to be in all respects the opposite to those qualities which we have laid down for the constituents of beauty. but though ugliness be the opposite to beauty, it is not the opposite to proportion and fitness. for it is possible that a thing may be very ugly with any proportions, and with a perfect fitness to any uses. ugliness i imagine likewise to be consistent enough with an idea of the sublime. but i would by no means insinuate that ugliness of itself is a sublime idea, unless united with such qualities as excite a strong terror. grace. gracefulness is an idea not very different from beauty; it consists in much the same things. gracefulness is an idea belonging to posture and motion. in both these, to be graceful, it is requisite that there be no appearance of difficulty; there is required a small inflection of the body; and a composure of the parts in such a manner, as not to encumber each other, not to appear divided by sharp and sudden angles. in this ease, this roundness, this delicacy of attitude and motion, it is that all the magic of grace consists, and what is called its je ne sais quoi; as will be obvious to any observer, who considers attentively the venus de medicis, the antinous, or any statue generally allowed to be graceful in a high degree. elegance and speciousness. when any body is composed of parts smooth and polished, without pressing upon each other, without showing any ruggedness or confusion, and at the same time affecting some regular shape, i call it elegant. it is closely allied to the beautiful, differing from it only in this regularity; which, however, as it makes a very material difference in the affection produced, may very well constitute another species. under this head i rank those delicate and regular works of art, that imitate no determinate object in nature, as elegant buildings, and pieces of furniture. when any object partakes of the above-mentioned qualities, are of those of beautiful bodies, and is withal of great dimensions, it is full as remote from the idea of mere beauty: i call it fine or specious. the beautiful in feeling. the foregoing description of beauty, so far as it is taken in by the eye, may be greatly illustrated by describing the nature of objects which produce a similar effect through the touch. this i call the beautiful in feeling. it corresponds wonderfully with what causes the same species of pleasure to the sight. there is a chain in all our sensations; they are all but different sorts of feelings calculated to be affected by various sorts of objects, but all to be affected after the same manner. all bodies that are pleasant to the touch, are so by the slightness of the resistance they make. resistance is either to motion along the surface, or to the pressure of the parts on one another: if the former be slight, we call the body smooth; if the latter, soft. the chief pleasure we receive by feeling, is in the one or the other of these qualities; and if there be a combination of both, our pleasure is greatly increased. this is so plain, that it is rather more fit to illustrate other things, than to be illustrated itself by an example. the next source of pleasure in this sense, as in every other, is the continually presenting somewhat new; and we find that bodies which continually vary their surface, are much the most pleasant or beautiful to the feeling, as any one that pleases may experience. the third property in such objects is, that though the surface continually varies its direction, it never varies it suddenly. the application of anything sudden, even though the impression itself have little or nothing of violence, is disagreeable. the quick application of a finger a little warmer or colder than usual, without notice, makes us start; a slight tap on the shoulder, not expected, has the same effect. hence it is that angular bodies, bodies that suddenly vary the direction of the outline, afford so little pleasure to the feeling. every such change is a sort of climbing or falling in miniature; so that squares, triangles, and other angular figures, are neither beautiful to the sight nor feeling. whoever compares his state of mind, on feeling soft, smooth, variated, unangular bodies, with that in which he finds himself on the view of a beautiful object, will perceive a very striking analogy in the effects of both; and which may go a good way towards discovering their common cause. feeling and sight, in this respect, differ in but a few points. the touch takes in the pleasure of softness, which is not primarily an object of sight; the sight, on the other hand, comprehends colour, which can hardly be made perceptible to the touch: the touch again has the advantage in a new idea of pleasure resulting from a moderate degree of warmth; but the eye triumphs in the infinite extent and multiplicity of its objects. but there is such a similitude in the pleasures of these senses, that i am apt to fancy, if it were possible that one might discern colour by feeling (as it is said some blind men have done), that the same colours, and the same disposition of colouring, which are found beautiful to the sight, would be found likewise most grateful to the touch. but, setting aside conjectures, let us pass to the other sense: of hearing. the beautiful in sounds. in this sense we find an equal aptitude to be affected in a soft and delicate manner; and how far sweet or beautiful sounds agree with our descriptions of beauty in other senses, the experience of every one must decide. milton has described this species of music in one of his juvenile poems. (l'allegro.) i need not say that milton was perfectly well versed in that art; and that no man had a finer ear, with a happier manner of expressing the affections of one sense by metaphors taken from another. the description is as follows:-- --"and ever against eating cares, lap me in soft lydian airs: in notes with many a winding bout of linked sweetness long drawn out; with wanton heed, and giddy cunning, the melting voice through mazes running; untwisting all the chains that tie the hidden soul of harmony." let us parallel this with the softness, the winding surface, the unbroken continuance, the easy gradation of the beautiful in other things; and all the diversities of the several senses, with all their several affections; will rather help to throw lights from one another to finish one clear, consistent idea of the whole, than to obscure it by their intricacy and variety. to the above-mentioned description i shall add one or two remarks. the first is; that the beautiful in music will not bear that loudness and strength of sounds, which may be used to raise other passions; nor notes which are shrill or harsh, or deep; it agrees best with such as are clear, even, smooth, and weak. the second is: that great variety, and quick transitions from one measure or tone to another, are contrary to the genius of the beautiful in music. such transitions often excite mirth, or other sudden or tumultuous passions; but not that sinking, that melting, that languor, which is the characteristical effect of the beautiful as it regards every sense. (i ne'er am merry when i hear sweet music.--shakspeare.) the passion excited by beauty is in fact nearer to a species of melancholy, than to jollity and mirth. i do not here mean to confine music to any one species of notes, or tones, neither is it an art in which i can say i have any great skill. my sole design in this remark is, to settle a consistent idea of beauty. the infinite variety of the affections of the soul will suggest to a good head, and skilful ear, a variety of such sounds as are fitted to raise them. it can be no prejudice to this, to clear and distinguish some few particulars, that belong to the same class, and are consistent with each other, from the immense crowd of different, and sometimes contradictory, ideas, that rank vulgarly under the standard of beauty. and of these it is my intention to mark such only of the leading points as show the conformity of the sense of hearing with the other senses, in the article of their pleasures. british church. it is something extraordinary, that the only symptom of alarm in the church of england should appear in the petition of some dissenters; with whom, i believe, very few in this house are yet acquainted; and of whom you know no more than that you are assured by the honourable gentleman, that they are not mahometans. of the church we know they are not, by the name that they assume. they are then dissenters. the first symptom of an alarm comes from some dissenters assembled round the lines of chatham; these lines become the security of the church of england! the honourable gentleman, in speaking of the lines of chatham, tells us that they serve not only for the security of the wooden walls of england, but for the defence of the church of england. i suspect the wooden walls of england secure the lines of chatham, rather than the lines of chatham secure the wooden walls of england. sir, the church of england, if only defended by this miserable petition upon your table, must, i am afraid, upon the principles of true fortification, be soon destroyed. but fortunately her walls, bulwarks, and bastions, are constructed of other materials than of stubble and straw; are built up with the strong and stable matter of the gospel of liberty, and founded on a true, constitutional, legal establishment. but, sir, she has other securities; she has the security of her own doctrines; she has the security of the piety, the sanctity of her own professors; their learning is a bulwark to defend her; she has the security of the two universities, not shook in any single battlement, in any single pinnacle. ... but if, after all, this danger is to be apprehended, if you are really fearful that christianity will indirectly suffer by this liberty, you have my free consent; go directly, and by the straight way, and not by a circuit, in which in your road you may destroy your friends, point your arms against these men who do the mischief you fear promoting; point your arms against men, who, not contented with endeavouring to turn your eyes from the blaze and effulgence of light, by which life and immortality is so gloriously demonstrated by the gospel, would even extinguish that faint glimmering of nature, that only comfort supplied to ignorant man before this great illumination--them who, by attacking even the possibility of all revelation, arraign all the dispensations of providence to man. these are the wicked dissenters you ought to fear; these are the people against whom you ought to aim the shafts of law; these are the men to whom, arrayed in all the terrors of government, i would say, you shall not degrade us into brutes; these men, these factious men, as the honourable gentleman properly called them, are the just objects of vengeance, not the conscientious dissenter; these men, who would take away whatever ennobles the rank or consoles the misfortunes of human nature, by breaking off that connection of observations, of affections, of hopes and fears, which bind us to the divinity, and constitute the glorious and distinguishing prerogative of humanity, that of being a religious creature; against these i would have the laws rise in all their majesty of terrors, to fulminate such vain and impious wretches, and to awe them into impotence by the only dread they can fear or believe, to learn that eternal lesson--discite justitiam moniti, et non temnere divos. at the same time that i would cut up the very root of atheism, i would respect all conscience; all conscience, that is really such, and which perhaps its very tenderness proves to be sincere. i wish to see the established church of england great and powerful; i wish to see her foundations laid low and deep, that she may crush the giant powers of rebellious darkness; i would have her head raised up to that heaven to which she conducts us. i would have her open wide her hospitable gates by a noble and liberal comprehension; but i would have no breaches in her wall; i would have her cherish all those who are within, and pity all those who are without; i would have her a common blessing to the world, an example, if not an instructor, to those who have not the happiness to belong to her; i would have her give a lesson of peace to mankind, that a vexed and wandering generation might be taught to seek for repose and toleration in the maternal bosom of christian charity, and not in the harlot lap of infidelity and indifference. index. abstract views, on the danger of. abstract words, effects of. accumulation a state principle. administration and legislation, on the due balance of. age, our own, on the injustice paid to. alfred the great, political genius of.--the promoter of learning.--his religious character. ambassadors of infamy, their tyranny. ambition, incentives of.--disappointed, picture of. america, great national progress of.--on her resistance to taxation.--on her early colonization, and the greatness of her future.--on the protestantism of.--on the embassy of england to. analogy, on the pleasures of. anarchy contrasted and compared with reformation. architecture, influence of. armed discipline, necessity of. art, on correct judgment in. "articles" of the church, necessity of the. atheism, atrocious principles of.--incapable of repentance. atheists, literary, their proselytism and bigotry. attraction, newton's discovery of the property of. authority, abuses of, dangerous. axioms, political. barons, english, on the restraints imposed upon the. bathurst, lord, on his recollections of american colonization. beautiful, what constitutes the.--in feeling, burke's ideas of.--in sounds, on our general ideas of. beauty, delicacy essential to.--female, on the influence of. bedford, duke of, on the royal grants to.--on his attacks on mr. burke.--reply to "his grace." bribery, objects and evils of. britain, her war with france vindicated.--state of, at the time of the saxon conquest.--the ancient inhabitants of. british dominion in the east indies, on the extent of. british stability, on the principles and duration of. building, on magnitude in, necessary to sublimity. burke, edmund, his defence of his political principles.--the design of, in his greatest work. cabal, on the tactics of. candid policy, on the advantages of, to a government. carnatic, dreadful scenes in the.--war and desolation of the. carnot, the sanguinary tyranny of. character, private, a basis for public confidence. charlemagne, on the conquests of. chatham, lord, his great qualities.--his political errors. chivalry, on the moralizing charm of. christian religion, the idea of divinity humanized by the. --state of, at the time of the saxon conquest. christianity, on the profession of.--means adopted for its early establishment. church of england, its outward dignity defended.--the state consecrated by the.--on the "articles" of the.--eulogy on the. church and state, on the unity between.--one and the same in a christian commonwealth. "church plunder, omnipotence of!" church property, on the existence and preservation of. circumstances, on the nature of. civil freedom a blessing, and not an abstract speculation. civil list, advantages of reform in the. civil rights, on the nature of. civil society, on the true basis of. claims, personal and ancestral. coalitions, false, instability of. colonies, on the art of cementing the ties of.--on their right to the advantages of the british constitution.--on their progress. combination, distinct from faction. commerce, one of the great sources of our power.--on the philosophy of. common law, on its ancient constitution. common pleas, on the early establishment of. commons. see "house of." commonwealth, on the science of constructing a. comparison, utility and advantages of. concession, on the wisdom of, on the part of a government. confidence of the people, necessity of the.--political, dangers of.--public, private character a basis for.--reciprocal, on the necessity of. confiscation, arising from the paper currency. conservation, progress and principles of. constituents, on the power and control of. constitution of england, liberty its distinguishing feature.--on the right of the colonies to its advantages.--not fabricated but inherited.--majesty of the.--not the slave of the people. consumption and produce, the balance between settles the price of. contact, on the assimilating power of. contracted views, on the pettiness of. conway, general, eulogy on. corporate reform, on the difficulty and wisdom of. correction, on the principle of, in connection with conservation. corruption, public, evil consequences of.--cannot be self-reformed. cowardice, political, contemptibility of. credit, national, on the advantages of. cromwell, the government of, contrasted with that of the french revolution. crown, its influence.--on pensions from the.--its prerogative.--on the hereditary succession of the. cruelty, political, reckless oppression of. curiosity, the most superficial of all the affections. danes, their early dominion. "declaration of ," against france. deity, contemplation of his attributes. delicacy essential to beauty. democracy, a perfect one the most shameless thing in the world.--its resemblance to tyranny. democrats, inconsistency of. despotism courts obscurity, and shuns the light.--on the defective policy of.--of the age of louis xiv., a mere gilded tyranny.--monarchical, preferable to republican. d'espremenil, sacrifice of. difficulty, on contentions with. directory of france, its insolent assumption. dissent, on dr. price's preaching the democracy of. dissenters, animadversions on the. distraction, on the evils of. divine power, its influences on the human idea. divinity, our idea of the, humanized by the christian religion. druids, their knowledge and influence. duty, not based on will. east-india company, on the bill for controlling the political power of.--see "india." ecclesiastical confiscation, on the injustice of. economy, on the state principles of.--does not consist of parsimony.--and public spirit, advantage of. election, on wilkes's right of. elections, frequent, on the evil tendency of.--expenses of. electors, on the conduct and duties of. elegance, burke's ideas of. elizabeth, princess, of france, sanguinary treatment of. england, on the magnanimity of her people. english character, on french ignorance of. establishments, ancient, on the advantages of. eternity little understood. etiquette, on its ancient and modern application. europe, on the state of, in .--at the time of the norman invasion. european community, on the principles of. exaggeration, evils of. extremes, on the fallacy of. eye, the, its characteristics of beauty. faction, combination distinct from.--what it ought to teach. falkland island, fisheries extended to. false regret, to be lamented. favouritism of government the cause of popular ferment. female beauty, on the influence of. feudal baronage, the root of our primitive constitution.--principles, their history and application to modern times.--changes effected in.--law, principles of the. fisheries of new england; on the hardy spirit with which they are conducted. flattery, the reverse of instruction. fox, right hon. charles, eulogy on.--burke's confidence in. france, on the dangers arising from.--her revolution of .--frightful scenes of the.--founded on regicide, jacobinism, and atheism.--war with, vindicated.--reflections on her revolution.--the existing state of things in, productive of the worst evils.--on the political and intellectual greatness of.--the great political changes of.--revolution of, a complete one.--early conquests and dominion of.--declaration of england against, in .--false policy in our war with.--historical strictures on.--atrocities perpetrated in. freedom, a blessing and not an abstract speculation.--character of just freedom.--on the conservative progress of. french, natural self-destruction of the. gaul, the ancient inhabitants of. gentleman, our civilization dependent on the spirit of a. glory, difficulty the path to. god, contemplations of his attributes;--on the adorable wisdom of. government, on the evils of weakness in.--on the influence of place in.--on the advantages of candid policy in.--virtue and wisdom qualify for.--not made in virtue of natural rights.--not to be rashly censured.--on the duties of.--principles of, not absolute but relative.--general views of the foundations of.--and legislation, matters of reason and judgment.--favouritism, the cause of popular ferment. gracefulness, on our ideas of. grant, on burke's acceptance of a. great men, the guide-posts and landmarks of the state. green cloth, origin of the ancient court of. grenville, right hon. mr., his great political qualities and character. grievance and opinion, on the different qualities of. grievances by law, on the different views of. henry iv. of france, sovereign qualities of. heroism, moral, on the virtues of. "his grace," burke's reply to. history, on the moral of.--on the use of defects in.--on the perversion of.--speculations on.--strictures on, as connected with france. house of commons, its nature and functions.--on the control of the constituency over.--mr. burke's preparation for the.--its constitution.--privilege of the.--contrasted with the national assembly of france. howard, the philanthropist, his genius and humanity. human ideas, on the influence of divine power on. human nature, on the libellers of. humiliation, on the diplomacy of. hyder ali, on his formidable military operations in the carnatic. ideal, definition of the. imagination, unity of. imitation an instructive law. impartiality, appeal to. imperial power, its establishment in western europe. impracticable, the, not to be desired. india, east, on the territorial extent of british dominion in.--on its opulence and importance.--necessity of reforming the government of.--hyder ali's formidable military resistance.--on the british government in. individual good and public benefit, a comparison of. induction, on the process of. infidels, on the policy of. infinity, little understood. injustice, economy of. innovation, on the madness of. investigation, the best method of teaching. ireland, on the legislation of. ireland and magna charta, historical notices of. jacobin peace, on the perils of. jacobin war, on the true nature of a. jacobinism, atrocious principles of.--ferocity of. jealousy, political, different under different circumstances. john, king, on his difficulties with the pope. jurisprudence, on the science of. justice, early reform in the administration of. keppel, lord, one of the greatest and best men of his age.--his exalted virtues. kings, the power of, not based on popular choice. labour, on the necessity of.--on the importance of.--rises or falls according to the demand. labouring classes poor, because they are numerous.--on the moral happiness of the. "labouring poor," on the puling jargon respecting the.--on the canting phraseology of.--on the melioration of their condition. language, on the moral effects of. laws, when bad, are productive of base subserviency. legislation, on the due balance of, with the administration.--on the problem of. legislation and government, matters of reason and judgment. legislative capacity, on the limits of. legislators of the ancient republics. legislature of france, regicidal character of the. levellers, moral, the representatives of a servile principle. libellers of human nature, falsity of the term. liberty, its preservation the duty of a member of the house of commons.--in what it consists;--character of just liberty.--on the abstract theory of.--on fictitious liberty. "lights," modern, on the petulance and ignorance of. loans, public, on the policy of. louis xvi., on his cruel treatment.--historical estimate of.--his mistaken views of society.--on the fate of. love, a mixed passion. love and dread, their union in religion. low aims and low instruments, the baseness of. magistracy, religious duties of the. magna charta, ireland a partaker of.--the oldest reformation of england.--on the early constitutions of. magnanimity, on its superiority. malesherbes, atrocious treatment of. man, nature anticipates the desires of. mankind, ancient state of. manners and morals, correspondent systems of.--more important than laws. maria antoinette, her beauty and misfortunes.--sanguinary treatment of. maria theresa, her high-minded principles. marriage, feudal restraints on. maxims, false, evils of, when assumed as first principles. measures of government, on judging of the. member of parliament, difficulties of becoming a good one. metaphysical depravity, on the dangers of. migrations of ancient history. minister of state, what he ought to attempt. ministers, on the responsibility of. missionaries, their early zeal in propagating christianity. monarch of england, on the sovereign power of the. monastic institutions, on the results of. money and science. monks, their early zeal in the cause of christianity. montesquieu, on the genius of. moral debasement, a progressive principle. moral diet, on the use of. moral distinctions defined. moral effects resulting from language. moral essence constitutes a nation. moral heroism, on the virtues of. moral instincts, on the sacredness of. moral levelling, a servile principle. nation, moral essence constitutes a. national assembly of france, the house of commons contrasted with. national assembly, on its philosophic vanity. national dignity, importance of, in all treaties. nature, sir i. newton's discoveries of the phenomena of.--anticipates the desires of man. necessity, a relative term. neighbourhood, on the law of. neutrality, on the uncertainty and contemptibility of. new england, fisheries of, on the hardy spirit of the. newton, sir isaac, his discoveries of the phenomena of nature. nobility a graceful ornament to the civil order. norman invasion, state of europe and of england at the time of the. "not so bad as we seem," justificatory remarks on. novelty, its effects on the mind. obscure, powerful influence of the. obscurity, courted by despotism and all false religions. office, on the emoluments of. officers, english, on the admirable qualifications of. opinion, on acting from, against the government. opinions, power survives the shock of. oppression, on the voice of. order, the foundation of all things. outcasts, political, on the usual treatment of. painting, influence of. paper currency, confiscation arising from. parental experience, reflections on. paris, on the boasted superiority of. parliament, difficulties of becoming a good member of.--mr. burke's preparation for.--a deliberative assembly.--on its identity with the people.--on the privilege of.--property more than ability represented in. --on the "omnipotence" of. parliamentary prerogative, on the principles of. parliamentary retrospect. parliaments, on the proper period of their duration.--on the abolition and use of. parsimony is not economy. party, on decorum in.--character and objects of.--political connections of. party divisions, inseparable from a free government. party man, character of a, vindicated. patriotic distinction. patriotic services, on the justice of public salary for. patriotism, the true source of public income.--on the true characteristics of.--local, on the extinction of. peace, political, on the difficulties of. peers, privileges of the. pensions from the crown the obligations of gratitude, and not the fetters of servility. people, on their disputes with their rulers.--voice of the, to be consulted.--necessity of securing their confidence.--on their identity with parliament.--kingly power not based on their choice.--on the true meaning of the term.--war, and will of the.--the constitution not the slave of the. perplexity, on the political state of. persecution, theory of, its falsity. petty interests, against being influenced by. philosophic vanity of the french national assembly. physiognomy, on the influence of. pictures represented by words. pilgrimages advantageous to the cause of literature. pius vii., territories of, assailed by france. place the object of party.--on the influence of, in government. poetry, its dominion over the passions. policy, genuine sentiment not discordant with.--national. polish revolution, reflections on the. political axioms. political charity, characteristics of. political connections, on the nature of. political empiricism, its character. political outcasts, on the usual treatment of. politicians, theorizing, on the follies of. politics, without principle.--remarks on.--on the state of feeling with regard to.--in connection with the pulpit. poor, on the folly of their overthrowing the rich. pope, his exactions from king john. popular discontent, on the general prevalence of, in all times. popular opinion, on the fallacy of, as a standard. power, on the tendencies of.--survives the shock of opinions. practice more certain than theory. prerogative of the crown.--parliamentary and regal. prescriptive rights, on the justice and necessity of. prevention, principle of, necessary for every political institution. price, dr., on his preaching the democracy of dissent. "priests of the rights of man." principle, on the absence of, in politics. privilege of parliament. proscription, the miserable invention of ungenerous ambition. prosecutions, public, little better than schools of treason. protestantism of america.--english, on the distinctive character of. provisions, danger of tampering with the trade of.--rate of wages no direct relation to. prudence of timely reform.--rules and definitions of. public benefit, as compared with individual good. public corruption, evil consequences of. public income, patriotism the true source of. public men, on the libellers of. public spirit united with economy, advantages of.--a part of our national character. pulpit, politics in the. real and ideal, definition of the. reason and taste, on the standard of. reform, timely, on the prudence of.--false, on the prudery of. reformation, english, a time of trouble and confusion.--contrasted and compared with anarchy. reformations in england, principles of the. reformers, on the difficulties of. refusal, productive of a revenue. regal prerogative, on the principles of. regicidal legislature of france. regicide, atrocious principles of.--the sanguinary ante-chamber of. reliefs, on the ancient customs of. religion, on the union of love and dread in.--our civilization dependent on the spirit of.--within the province of a christian magistrate.--false, courts obscurity.--negative, a nullity. remedy, on the distemper of. representatives, on the conduct and duty of. republicanism, on the jargon of. republicans, on the legislation of. republics, on the character of, in the abstract. resignation of the mind. restrictive virtues too high for humanity. retrospect of the memory.--parliamentary. revenue, refusal productive of a.--the state its own.--necessity of its payment.--on the best mode of raising the. revolution of france, horrors of the.--burke's idea of.--its frightful scenes.--founded on regicide, jacobinism, and atheism.--reflections on.--causes of the.--evils of.--on the politics of the.--specious justification of. revolution, the glorious, of england in .--its objects.--principles of the. revolution society, dangerous objects of the. revolutions of france and england compared. "right, declaration of," its objects. "right, petition of," on the famous law of. rights, natural and civil.--prescriptive, on the justice and necessity of. robespierre, on the instruments of his tyranny. rockingham, lord, vindication of his measures. rome, the great centre of early christianity in the western world.--assailed by france. rousseau, philosophic vanity of.--paradoxical writings of. rulers, on the disputes of the people with. salaries, public, on the justice of, for particular service. santerre, the regicide atrocity of. saracens, irruptions of the. saville, sir george, his intellectual and moral character. saxon conquests, state of britain at the time of.--religious conversion of the saxons. self-inspection tends to concentrate the forces of the soul. sentiment, genuine, not discordant with sound policy. silence, prudential advantages of. simon, the son of onias, scriptural panegyric on. smith, sir sidney, on his treatment as a french prisoner. social contract, definition of the. society and solitude, on the balance between. solitude a positive pain. sound of words, its effect. sovereign jurisdictions, on the advantage of. speciousness, ideas of. speculation and history, general disquisition on. state, the, on the union of the church with.--consecrated by the church.--the revenue of, its own. state-consecration, on the principles of. style, on clearness and strength in. sublime, sources of, and what constitutes the. subserviency, base, bad laws productive of. subsistence, means of, should be certain. superstition, monastic and philosophic. sympathy, on the bond of.--extensions of.--its influences. tallien, the regicide atrocity of. taste, philosophy of.--principles of.--standard of. taxation, on the principle involved in.--on the right of. test acts, burke's proposed oath on the. theodorus, archbishop of canterbury, the great promoter of english literature. theory, liability to error in. --on the proper use of. toleration, on the intolerancy of. townshend, right hon. charles, his character and great acquirements. truth, on the security of. ugliness, on the nature of. vanity, philosophic, ethics of. venality, dangers of. virtues, the restrictive, almost too high for humanity. visionary, character of the. voice of the people to be consulted. vulgar, conceptions of the. wages, on their connection with labour. walpole, sir robert, on the policy of. war, on the tremendous consequences of. war and will of the people. warning for a nation, founded on the state of public affairs. weakness in government, on the evils of. wealth, on the relation of, to national dignity. wilkes, john, on his right of election to parliament. william the conqueror, on the sovereign qualities of;--his policy. william iii., on his succession to the english crown.--his vigorous policy against france. words, their power and influence.--effect of.--various qualities of. none