3 1822019547546 
 
 
 )!HEOD( : ; i 
 ROOSEVELT
 
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 Social Sciences & Humanities Library 
 
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 IFORNIA SAN o EG 
 
 1822 ! 01 954 .7546 
 
 , 
 
 STRENUOUS 
 EPIGRAMSOF 
 THEODOR.E 
 ROOSEVELT 
 
 H-M-CALDWELL CO. 
 P V_B L IS H E R_, T 
 NEW YORK. 6" BOSTON 
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 Copyright, 1904 
 BY H. M. CALDWELL Co.
 
 Theodore Roosevelt was born in New 
 York City, October 27, 1858. On his 
 father's side he is from Dutch emigrant 
 stock, and most of his ancestors have been 
 successful merchants prominent in the com- 
 mercial life of New York. His grandfather 
 was an explorer of the Ohio and Mississippi 
 Rivers on the first steamboat that navi- 
 gated them. His mother, Martha Bullock, 
 was from the South, born near Atlanta, 
 Ga., and from which place she married the 
 President's father, Theodore Roosevelt, in 
 1853. 
 
 Roosevelt began his preparation for col- 
 lege in the autumn of 1873, when fourteen 
 years of age, under the direction of Mr. 
 Arthur H. Cutler, of the Cutler School,
 
 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 New York City. This was after the re- 
 turn from a long trip in Europe and 
 Egypt. His health was not good, but 
 Mr. Cutler, in a letter to the present writer, 
 says that while at school he then showed 
 " the alert mind, retentive memory, and 
 earnestness of purpose which has since 
 marked his public life and his private life." 
 He entered Harvard University in 1876, 
 graduating in 1880, and prepared for the 
 bar at Columbia University. 
 
 He was elected to the legislature of 
 New York in 1882, in which he served three 
 terms, and it is said that during that time 
 he introduced and carried through more 
 important city legislation than was ever 
 brought about by any one preceding him. 
 
 In 1884, through domestic troubles and 
 ill health, Roosevelt abandoned his political 
 work in New York and went to North 
 Dakota, where he had purchased a cattle- 
 ranch of considerable size. Here the con- 
 tinued out-of-door life brought him health 
 and strength. 
 
 vi
 
 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 In 1886 he returned to the East as a 
 candidate for mayor of New York, but 
 failed to secure election. The next three 
 years were devoted almost entirely to lit- 
 erary and historical work. 
 
 In 1889 Roosevelt was appointed a mem- 
 ber of the Civil Service Commission at 
 Washington, and soon became its president, 
 retaining that office until the spring of 
 1895. He had always been greatly inter- 
 ested in civil service reform, and during 
 his connection with the commission the 
 civil service rules were extended to more 
 than 50,000 government employees, who 
 before were not protected by them. 
 
 When W. L. Strong was elected mayor 
 of New York in 1894, Roosevelt accepted 
 under him the head of the police depart- 
 ment, although many of his friends in 
 Washington urged him not to, saying that 
 it was beneath his dignity. During the 
 two years that he held this office, however, 
 he placed the police department on a new 
 and thoroughly efficient basis, and success- 
 
 vii
 
 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 fully broke up the system of blackmail 
 which had prevailed so extensively in the 
 department, and likewise gained the ad- 
 miration and good will of all members of 
 the New York police force. 
 
 In 1897 President McKinley offered 
 Roosevelt the position of Assistant Secre- 
 tary of the Navy. The following year he 
 resigned this position to become the lieu- 
 tenant-colonel of the First U. S. Volun- 
 teer Cavalry, popularly known as the 
 " Rough Riders." It had been through 
 his efforts that the regiment had been 
 formed, consisting largely of men recruited 
 from the Southern and Western ranches, 
 though among the volunteers were many 
 college men. Dr. Leonard Wood, a friend 
 of Roosevelt's, an army surgeon who had 
 large experience in Indian fighting in Ari- 
 zona, was made colonel, though shortly 
 after the regiment's arrival in Cuba Wood 
 was promoted to brigadier-general, and 
 Roosevelt assumed command of the regi- 
 ment as colonel. 
 
 viii
 
 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 On September 27, 1898, Roosevelt was 
 nominated as governor of New York, and 
 was elected by 20,000 majority. During 
 his two years as governor he put through, 
 among other important bills, a new civil 
 service law, and the revision of the ten- 
 ement-house laws. 
 
 He refused a second term as governor 
 of New York to accept the nomination of 
 Vice-President in McKinley's second term. 
 On the assassination of McKinley in Sep- 
 tember, 1901, he assumed the duties of 
 President of the United States. 
 
 Besides his arduous duties as a politi- 
 cian he has found much time to write, and 
 several of his books are cited as authori- 
 ties, noteworthily his " History of the 
 Naval War of 1812," published in 1882. 
 His other works are : " Winning of the 
 West," 1889 - 96 ; " Hunting Trips of a 
 Ranchman," 1885 ; " Life of Thomas Hart 
 Benton," 1886; "Life of Gouverneur 
 Morris," 1887; "Ranch Life and Hunt- 
 ing Trail," 1888; "History of New 
 
 ix
 
 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 York," 1890 ; " American Ideals and Other 
 Essays," 1897 ; " The Wilderness Hunter," 
 1893; "The Rough Riders," 1899; 
 " Life of Oliver Cromwell," 1900 ; " The 
 Strenuous Life," 1900, and part author of 
 " The Deer Family," 1902. 
 
 Hereto are attached two estimates of 
 Roosevelt by personal friends, though in 
 different stations of life. The first by 
 Jacob A. Riis, and the second by Bill 
 Sewall, a guide in Maine, who also was his 
 foreman on the ranch in North Dakota. 
 
 " A man with red blood in his veins, a 
 healthy patriot with no clap-trap jingoism 
 about him, but a rugged belief in America 
 and its mission, an intense lover of country 
 and flag, a vigorous optimist and believer 
 in men, who looks for the good in them and 
 finds it. Practical in partisanship, loyal, 
 trusting, and gentle as a friend, unselfish, 
 modest as a woman, clean-handed and 
 clean-hearted, and honest to the core. In 
 the splendid vigour of his young manhood 
 
 x
 
 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 he is the knightliest figure in American 
 politics to-day, the fittest exponent of his 
 country's idea, and the model for its young 
 sons who are coming to take up the task 
 he set them. For their sake I am willing 
 to give him up and set him where they can 
 all see him and strive to be like him. So 
 we shall have little need of bothering about 
 boss rule and misrule hereafter. We shall 
 farm out the job of running the machine 
 no longer; we shall be able to run it 
 ourselves." JACOB A. Rns, in the 
 Review of Reviews. 
 
 *' If you want to ask me anything about 
 Colonel Roosevelt, you can just go ahead, 
 for I am never tired of praising him 
 my best friend, and the truest friend a 
 man ever had. Roosevelt is, first of all, 
 an honest man, and one of the plainest 
 men I ever met. He doesn't judge a man 
 by the clothes he wears, or by his position 
 in life. He takes a man at his true worth, 
 and he's been so ever since I can remember, 
 
 xi
 
 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 which was when I met him here, as a boy, 
 twenty-five years ago. 
 
 " No wonder his Rough Riders wor- 
 shipped him. I'm no hero-worshipper my- 
 self, but I take off my hat to Colonel 
 Roosevelt, the best and truest man I ever 
 met. I know him, for I have eaten with 
 him, and slept under the same blanket with 
 him. They say that to know much about 
 a man you must know him in that way. 
 
 " He'll never be a wealthy man. Why, 
 I've known him to financially aid his polit- 
 ical opponents when they got into a tight 
 place, and he often told me that the only 
 pleasure he got from money was in the good 
 that he could do with it. He was always 
 looking around for a chance to help some 
 poor, worthy fellow. 
 
 " He hates sham and hypocrisy, and 
 when he was a boy, hunting up here, he 
 used to pick out the good, square fellows 
 to chum with, no matter how they dressed 
 or what their financial condition might be. 
 
 " I always said that he'd be President 
 
 xii
 
 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 some day. I told him when he was only 
 eighteen years old that he'd sit in the White 
 House some day. Something told me that 
 he would, and you see it has turned out 
 true. He used to laugh at me. He never 
 wanted to be in public life, then. 
 
 " Why, he wanted to be a naturalist. 
 He loved to study trees and animals, and 
 expected to devote his life to that sort 
 of thing. One day, when we were out 
 hunting, he said to me in a sober way: 
 
 " ' Bill, I've been thinking about what 
 I shall do in life, and I feel that if I were 
 to follow my natural bent and be a natural- 
 ist I would be robbing my fellow men of 
 more useful service. Consequently I have 
 decided, much against my natural incli- 
 nation, to go into public life, and for that 
 I shall fit myself by study and training.' 
 
 " I am confident of one thing, and that 
 is that unless some of those tricksters get 
 him tangled up, they will never be able to 
 get the better of him, and they will find 
 him the hardest man to corrupt that they 
 
 xiii
 
 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 ever tackled. I know this as well as I 
 know that I'm alive ; I know his every trait, 
 for I spent the happiest years of my life 
 with him, both here and on his ranch in 
 Dakota, where for three years I was his 
 foreman. 
 
 " How did I come to meet Roosevelt ? 
 Well, it must be some twenty-five odd years 
 ago that his cousins, Dr. J. West Roosevelt 
 and W. E. Roosevelt, the latter a wealthy 
 banker of New York, used to come here 
 to hunt in the fall. Once they told me that 
 they were going to invite a young relative 
 of theirs up here. 
 
 " They said his name was ' Teddy ' 
 Roosevelt, and that he was a college 
 student. They cautioned me about him, 
 as I now recollect, saying that he was a 
 gritty, headstrong youngster who had more 
 sand in his crop than he had strength, and 
 they wanted me to take the best of care 
 of him. 
 
 " Well, he came. He was a pale, rather 
 delicate young man of about eighteen, but 
 
 xiv
 
 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 the toughest boy physically and the great- 
 est mentally that I ever met. I gave him 
 the room right over this one we're sitting 
 in, and we went out hunting. He took 
 the greatest interest in the woods, and never 
 complained of being tired, although I 
 knew many a time that he was hardly able 
 to drag himself home after a long tramp. 
 
 " That boy would never give up. He'd 
 always take the biggest end of the stick, 
 too, and many a time I was afraid he'd 
 collapse on me, but he would cheer right 
 up, and say he was as fresh as a daisy. 
 Talk about grit! He was all grit. 
 
 " He came year after year, and we went 
 out into the woods. Among others he met 
 Bill Dow, the fairest and squarest man that 
 ever lived, and the best shot in Aroostook 
 County. That's Bill's picture over there 
 on the wall. When he died I lost a good 
 friend. We were together on Roosevelt's 
 ranch out in the Bad Lands, and it was a 
 toss-up who was foreman Bill or myself. 
 When Roosevelt started out on his new 
 
 XV
 
 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 career, he didn't forget us, and asked Bill 
 and me to go out to his ranch in Dakota. 
 
 " This was along in '84, and Bill and 
 I went to New York to meet him. We 
 found him in the Fifth Avenue Hotel, sur- 
 rounded by politicians, and when he spied 
 us he rushed up with both hands held out. 
 He was glad to see us, for a fact. Well, 
 he engaged us to go out to Dakota. Neither 
 of us knew anything about ranches or 
 bucking bronchos, but Colonel Roosevelt 
 said that we were all right, and that he 
 wanted some Maine men to look out for his 
 interests. 
 
 " The ranch was located on the Little 
 Missouri, about thirty miles from Medora, 
 on the Northern Pacific. Medora was 
 named after the wife of the Marquis de 
 Mores, and the marquis owned the lands on 
 both sides of the Roosevelt ranch. He 
 had in his employ the toughest lot of 
 cowboys in that part of the country, and 
 there was trouble in the air all the time. 
 The marquis and his gang seemed to think 
 
 xvi
 
 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 they could run the whole country, and 
 threw a lot of big bluffs our way. 
 
 " Two men named Reilly and O'Donnell 
 were told by the marquis that they were 
 encroaching on his land, and notified by 
 him that if they didn't get out at once 
 they would be shot on sight. One day 
 these two men were fired upon from am- 
 bush, Reilly being killed and O'Donnell 
 crippled for life. The marquis was arrested 
 and tried for the murder of Reilly, but his 
 money saved him from the gallows he 
 was acquitted. 
 
 " Soon after this Bill and I were notified 
 that if we didn't get East where we be- 
 longed our bones would be found on the 
 ranch, and the life of Colonel Roosevelt 
 also was threatened. The De Mores crowd 
 claimed that we were on their land. 
 
 " A man named Paddock was De Mores' 
 right-hand man, and he made the open 
 threat that he would shoot Colonel Roose- 
 velt on sight. 
 
 " The colonel was in New York at the 
 
 xvii
 
 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 time, but the day he got back to the ranch 
 and heard what had been going on, he 
 mounted his horse and rode straight over 
 to the De Mores ranch. He hunted up 
 Paddock, and said: 
 
 " ' I understand that you have threat- 
 ened to kill me on sight. Now, I have come 
 over to see when you want to begin the 
 killing, and to inform you that if you have 
 anything to say against me now is the 
 time to say it.' 
 
 " Paddock turned pale, and stuttered 
 out something about it being all a mistake ; 
 that he had never made any such threats. 
 He made all sorts of apologies, and then 
 Colonel Roosevelt rode back to his ranch. 
 
 " Next came a challenge from the Mar- 
 quis de Mores to Colonel Roosevelt. The 
 marquis sent a letter saying that the colonel 
 had influenced one of the witnesses against 
 him in the murder trial, and declaring that 
 between gentlemen such differences could 
 be settled in but one way, meaning, of 
 
 xviii
 
 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 course, by a duel. Colonel Roosevelt said 
 to me: 
 
 " ' Bill, I don't want to disgrace my 
 family by fighting a duel; but I won't 
 be bullied by a Frenchman. Now, as I am 
 the challenged party, I have the privilege 
 of naming the weapons. I am no swords- 
 man, and pistols are too uncertain and 
 Frenchy for me; so what do you say if 
 I make it rifles? 
 
 " ' I'll just write to the marquis, saying 
 that I have not done anything to injure 
 him, but if his letter is meant as a chal- 
 lenge, and he insists upon having satisfac- 
 tion, I will meet him with rifles at ten paces 
 both to fire until one drops.' 
 
 " I was horrified, and said that such a 
 fight meant certain death for one or both, 
 but I couldn't stop it, and the colonel sat 
 down on a log and wrote to De Mores, 
 stating his terms of duelling. It must 
 have frightened the marquis half to death, 
 for the answer came by the very next post, 
 to the effect that he had no intention of 
 
 xix
 
 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 challenging Roosevelt that what he 
 meant by his letter was that ' differences 
 between gentlemen could be settled without 
 trouble.' 
 
 " The marquis and his wife came over to 
 our ranch the next day and called upon 
 Colonel Roosevelt, and always after that 
 were very friendly. 
 
 " I don't think Roosevelt ever made a 
 dollar out there, but, as I have said, he 
 didn't care much for money. He seemed 
 to enjoy the ranch life, and the cowboys 
 thought a lot of him. He was a pretty 
 good shot for a man who couldn't see a 
 foot without glasses, and we had a good 
 many hunting trips together. 
 
 " After three years of ranching we de- 
 cided to come back East. Roosevelt was 
 being constantly called to> New York, and 
 had very little time to devote to the cattle 
 business, anyway. 
 
 " I expect to see him soon, now, and I 
 know he'll be j ust the same he is the 
 same Teddy Roosevelt, whether sitting in 
 
 xx
 
 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 the White House, rounding up cattle in 
 the Bad Lands, or hunting deer on the 
 Aroostook River." BILL SEWALL, in the 
 Boston Globe, Aug. 28, 1902. 
 
 From his writings and speeches Roose- 
 velt, the Man, shows predominantly, and 
 we trust the readers of this little book will 
 find enjoyment in his terse, epigrammatic 
 thoughts. 
 
 xxi
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 SPEECH ON WILLIAM McKINLEY 
 
 Delivered at Canton, Ohio, January 
 27, 1903. 
 
 IT was given to President McKinley to 
 take the foremost place in our political life 
 at a time when our country was brought 
 face to face with problems more momen- 
 tous than any whose solution we have ever 
 attempted, save only in the Revolution and 
 in the Civil War; and it was under his 
 leadership that the nation solved these 
 mighty problems aright. Therefore, he 
 shall stand in the eyes of history, not 
 merely as the first man of his generation, 
 but as among the greatest figures in our 
 national life, coming second only to the 
 
 1
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 men of the two great crises in which the 
 Union was founded and preserved. 
 
 No man could carry through, success- 
 fully, such a task as President McKinley 
 undertook, unless trained by long years 
 of effort for its performance. Knowledge 
 of his fellow citizens, ability to understand 
 them, keen sympathy with even their inner- 
 most feelings, and yet power to lead them, 
 together with far-sighted sagacity and res- 
 olute belief both in the people and in their 
 future all these were needed in the man 
 who headed the march of our people dur- 
 ing the eventful years from 1896 to 1901. 
 These were the qualities possessed by 
 McKinley and developed by him throughout 
 his whole history previous to assuming the 
 presidency. 
 
 As a lad he had the inestimable privilege 
 of serving, first in the ranks, and then as 
 a commissioned officer, in the great war for 
 National Union, righteousness and gran- 
 deur; he was one of those whom a kindly 
 Providence permitted to take part in a 
 struggle which ennobled every man who 
 fought therein. He who when little more 
 
 2
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 than a boy had seen the grim steadfastness 
 which after four years of giant struggle 
 restored the Union and freed the slave, was 
 not thereafter to be daunted by danger 
 or frightened out of his belief in the great 
 destiny of our people. 
 
 President McKinley's rise to greatness 
 had in it nothing of the sudden, nothing of 
 the unexpected or seemingly accidental. 
 Throughout his long term of service in 
 Congress there was a steady increase alike 
 in his power of leadership and in the recog- 
 nition of that power both by his associates 
 in public life and by the public itself. Ses- 
 sion after session his influence in the House 
 grew greater; his party antagonists grew 
 to look upon him with constantly increas- 
 ing respect; his party friends with con- 
 stantly increasing faith and admiration. 
 
 Eight years before he was nominated 
 for President he was already considered 
 a presidential possibility. Four years be- 
 fore he was nominated only his own high 
 sense of honour prevented his being made 
 a formidable competitor of the chief upon 
 whom the choice of the convention then
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 actually fell. In 1896 he was chosen be- 
 cause the great mass of his party knew him 
 and believed in him and regarded him 
 as symbolizing their ideals, as representing 
 their aspirations. 
 
 But even as a candidate President 
 McKinley was far more than the candidate 
 of a party, and as President he was in the 
 broadest and fullest sense the President 
 of all the people of all sections of the 
 country. 
 
 His first nomination came to him be- 
 cause of the qualities he had shown in 
 healthy and open political leadership, the 
 leadership which by word and deed im- 
 presses itself as a virile force for good upon 
 the people at large, and which has noth- 
 ing in common with mere intrigue or ma- 
 nipulation. But in 1896 the issue was fairly 
 joined, chiefly upon a question which as a 
 party question was entirely new, so that 
 the old lines of political cleavage were in 
 large part abandoned. All other issues 
 sank in importance when compared with 
 the vital need of keeping our financial sys- 
 tem on the high and honourable plane im- 
 
 4
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 peratively demanded by our position as 
 a great civilized power. 
 
 As the champion of such a principle 
 President McKinley received the support 
 not only of his own party but of hundreds 
 of thousands of those to whom he had been 
 politically opposed. He triumphed, and 
 he made good with scrupulous fidelity the 
 promises upon which the campaign was 
 won. We were at the time in a period of 
 great industrial depression, and it was 
 promised for and on behalf of McKinley 
 that if he were elected our financial system 
 should not only be preserved unharmed, 
 but improved and our economic system 
 shaped in accordance with those theories 
 which have always marked our periods of 
 greatest prosperity. The promises were 
 kept, and following their keeping came 
 the prosperity which we now enjoy. All 
 that was foretold concerning the well-being 
 which would follow the election of McKinley 
 has been justified by the event. 
 
 But as so often happens in our history, 
 the President was forced to face questions 
 other than those at issue at the time of his 
 
 5
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 election. Within a year the situation in 
 Cuba had become literally intolerable. 
 President McKinley had fought too well 
 in his youth, he knew too well at first hand 
 what war really was, lightly to enter into 
 a struggle. He sought by every honour- 
 able means to preserve peace, to avert war. 
 Then, when it became evident that these 
 efforts were useless, that peace could not 
 be honourably entertained, he devoted his 
 strength to making the war as short and 
 as decisive as possible. It is needless to 
 tell the result in detail. 
 
 There followed a harder task. As a 
 result of the war we came into possession 
 of Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines. 
 In each island the conditions were such 
 that we had to face problems entirely new 
 to our national experience, and, moreover, 
 in each island or group of islands the 
 problems differed radically from those 
 presented in the others. In Porto Rico the 
 task was simple. The island could not be 
 independent. It became in all essentials 
 a part of the Union. It has been given all 
 the benefits of our economic and financial
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 system. Its inhabitants have been given the 
 highest individual liberty, while yet their 
 government has been kept under the 
 supervision of officials so well chosen that 
 the island can be appealed to as afford- 
 ing a model for all such experiments in 
 the future. 
 
 In Cuba, where we were pledged to give 
 the island independence, the pledge was 
 kept not merely in letter but in spirit. It 
 would have been a betrayal of our duty 
 to have given Cuba independence out of 
 hand. President McKinley, with his usual 
 singular sagacity in the choice of agents, 
 selected in General Leonard Wood the man 
 of all others best fit to bring the island 
 through its uncertain period of prepara- 
 tion for independence, and the result of his 
 wisdom was shown when last May the island 
 became in name and in fact a free republic, 
 for it started with a better equipment and 
 under more favourable conditions than 
 had ever previously been the case with any 
 Spanish-American commonwealth. 
 
 Finally, in the Philippines, the problem 
 was one of great complexity. There was 
 
 7
 
 an insurrectionary party claiming to rep- 
 resent the people of the islands and put- 
 ting forth their claims with a certain spe- 
 ciousness which deceived no small number 
 of excellent men here at home, and which 
 afforded to yet others a chance to arouse 
 a factious party spirit against the Presi- 
 dent. 
 
 A weaker and less far-sighted man than 
 President McKinley would have shrunk 
 from a task very difficult in itself, and 
 certain to furnish occasion for attack and 
 misrepresentation no less than for honest 
 misunderstanding. But President Mc- 
 Kinley never flinched. He refused to con- 
 sider the thought of abandoning our duty 
 in our new possessions. While sedulously 
 endeavouring to act with the utmost human- 
 ity toward the insurrectionists, he never 
 faltered in the determination to put them 
 down by force of arms, alike for the sake 
 of our own interest and honour, and for 
 the sake of the interest of the islanders, 
 and particularly of the great numbers of 
 friendly natives, including those most 
 highly civilized, for whom abandonment 
 
 8
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 by us would have meant ruin and death. 
 Again his policy was most amply vindi- 
 cated. 
 
 Peace has come to the islands, together 
 with a greater measure of individual liberty 
 and self-government than they have ever 
 before known. All the tasks set us as a 
 result of the war with Spain have so far 
 been well and honourably accomplished, 
 and as a result this nation stands higher 
 than ever before among the nations of 
 mankind. 
 
 President McKinley's second campaign 
 was fought mainly on the issue of approv- 
 ing what he had done in his first adminis- 
 tration, and specifically what he had done 
 as regards these problems springing out 
 of the war with Spain. The result was that 
 the popular verdict in his favour was more 
 overwhelming than it had been before. 
 
 We are gathered together to-night to 
 recall his memory, to pay our tribute of 
 respect to the great chief and leader who 
 fell in the harness, who was stricken down 
 while his eyes were bright with the " light 
 that tells of triumph tasted." We can 
 
 9
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 honour him best by the way we show in 
 actual deed that we have taken to heart 
 the lessons of his life. We must strive to 
 achieve, each in the measure that he can, 
 something of the qualities which made 
 President McKinley a leader of men, a 
 mighty power for good his strength, 
 his courage, his courtesy and dignity, his 
 sense of justice, his ever present kindness 
 and regard for the rights of others. He 
 won greatness by meeting and solving the 
 issues as they arose not by shirking 
 them meeting them with wisdom, with 
 the exercise of the most skilful and cau- 
 tious judgment, but with fearless resolu- 
 tion when the time of crisis came. 
 
 He met each crisis on its own merits; 
 he never sought excuse for shirking a task 
 in the fact that it was different from the 
 one he had expected to face. The long 
 public career, which opened when as a boy 
 he carried a musket in the ranks and closed 
 when as a man in the prime of his in- 
 tellectual strength he stood among the 
 world's chief statesmen, came to what it 
 was because he treated each triumph as 
 
 10
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 opening the road to fresh effort, not as an 
 excuse for ceasing from effort. 
 
 He undertook mighty tasks. Some of 
 them he finished completely ; others we 
 must finish; and there remain yet others 
 which he did not have to face, but which, 
 if we are worthy to be the inheritors of 
 his principles, we will in our turn face with 
 the same resolution, the same sanity, the 
 same unfaltering belief in the greatness 
 of this country, and unfaltering champion- 
 ship of the rights of each and all of our 
 people, which marked his high and splendid 
 career. 
 
 11
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 Now at the outset of the twentieth cen- 
 tury we are facing difficult and complex 
 problems, problems social and economical, 
 which will tax the best energies of all of us 
 to solve right, and which we can only solve 
 at all if we approach them in a spirit not 
 merely of common sense, but of generous 
 desire to act each for all and all for each. 
 
 When you take up science, art, and liter- 
 ature, remember that one first-class bit of 
 work is better than one thousand fairly 
 good bits of work ; that as the years roll on, 
 the man or the woman who has been able 
 
 13
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 to make a masterpiece with the pen, the 
 brush, the pencil, in any way, that that man, 
 that woman, has rendered a service to the 
 country such as not all his or her compeers 
 who merely do fairly good second-rate work 
 can ever accomplish. 
 
 In the long run, the most unpleasant 
 truth is a safer companion than a pleasant 
 falsehood. 
 
 The man or woman who seeks to bring 
 up children to secure happiness by avoid- 
 ing trouble; to bring them up so they 
 cannot stand tough knocks, is wronging 
 the children in a way and a degree that 
 no other human being could wrong them. 
 If you want your children to be successful 
 you should teach them that the life that 
 is worth living is worth working for. What 
 
 14
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 a wretched life is that of a man who seeks 
 to shirk the burden laid on us in this world ! 
 It is equally ignoble in either case, 
 whether it is a man of wealth or one who 
 earns his bread by the sweat of his brow. 
 
 The greatness of the fathers becomes 
 to the children a shameful thing if they 
 use it only as an excuse for inaction in- 
 stead of as a spur to effort for noble 
 aims. 
 
 All the time, gentlemen, we have 
 people often entirely well meaning 
 who will rise up and tell us that by some 
 patent device we can all be saved in citizen- 
 ship or in social life. Now, general, and 
 you, and you who wear the button, when you 
 came down to the root of things in war 
 time you had to depend upon the quali- 
 
 15
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 ties of manhood which had made good 
 soldiers from the days when the children 
 of Israel marched out of Egypt down. 
 
 Rifles now, instead of bows then, but 
 the man behind the rifle is more important 
 than the rifle is itself. 
 
 Now the great problem that we should 
 set before us is to keep prosperity, to render 
 its advantages less unequal, to try to se- 
 cure a greater equality of its benefits, but 
 above all, never under any circumstances 
 to lend ourselves to the leadership of any 
 who appeal to the baser passions of man- 
 kind, and who, because there is inequality 
 in prosperity, would seek to substitute for 
 that unequal prosperity community in 
 disaster. 
 
 Remember that always. Evils have come 
 through our very prosperity, but in warring 
 against evil let us be exceeding careful 
 not to war against the prosperity. As I 
 
 16
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 have said before to-day once, it is mighty 
 easy to destroy any disease if you are 
 willing to kill the patient, but it is not 
 good for the patient. 
 
 Let us face the fact that there are evils. 
 It is foolish to blink at those evils. Let 
 us set ourselves, but temperately and with 
 sanity, to strive to find out what the evils 
 are and to remedy them. 
 
 Brilliancy is a good thing. So is 
 genius. But normally what we want is not 
 genius, but the faculty of seeing that we 
 know how to apply the copy-book moral- 
 ities that we write down, and as long as 
 we think of them only as fit for the copy- 
 book there is not much use in us. 
 
 It is a very good thing, indeed, it is 
 an indispensable thing, to have material 
 IT
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 well-being. You have got to have that at 
 the base of our civilization, but if you do 
 not build something more on top of it you 
 have only got the foundation, and the foun- 
 dation is a mighty bad place in which to 
 live. It is essential to have it and you have 
 got to have it for the support of the super- 
 structure, but you have got to have the 
 superstructure put in in addition to the 
 material prosperity. 
 
 jfc Jk Jk 
 
 Poverty is a bitter thing, but it is 
 not as bitter as restless vacuity and phys- 
 ical, moral, and intellectual flabbiness to 
 which those doom themselves who elect to 
 spend all their years in that vainest of all 
 vain pursuits pursuit of mere pleasure 
 as a sufficient end in itself. 
 
 You are not going to do very much good 
 with human nature if you attempt to take 
 
 18
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 the bad out of it, by leaving a vacuum, 
 for that vacuum is going to be filled with 
 something, and if you do not fill it with 
 what is good it will be filled with what is 
 evil. 
 
 We must have honest, fearless, and able 
 administration, the enforcement of law, but 
 the law must be so framed and so admin- 
 istered as to secure justice for all alike 
 a square deal for every man, great or small, 
 rich or poor. 
 
 That we have got to have. It will then 
 still remain true that the chief factor in 
 any man's individual success must be the 
 sum of those qualities which we speak of 
 as character in any man his energy, his 
 perseverance, his intelligence, his business 
 thrift ; no laws, however good, could begin 
 to supply the lack of those qualities in any 
 man. 
 
 19
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 Prosperity by itself never made any 
 man happy. 
 
 The old pioneer days are gone, with 
 their roughness and their hardship, their 
 incredible toil and their wild half-savage 
 romance. But the need for the pioneer vir- 
 tues remains the same as ever. 
 
 The peculiar frontier conditions have 
 vanished, but the manliness and stalwart 
 hardihood of the frontiersmen can be given 
 even freer scope under the conditions sur- 
 rounding the complex industrialism of the 
 present day. 
 
 We must insist upon courage and reso- 
 lution, upon hardihood, tenacity and fer- 
 tility in resource; we must insist upon the 
 strong virile virtues, and we must insist no 
 less upon the virtues of self-restraint, self- 
 mastery, regard for the rights of others; 
 we must show our abhorrence of cruelty, 
 brutality, and corruption, in public and 
 in private life alike. 
 
 20
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 You have got to have morality first, but 
 if morality has not common sense with it, 
 the result is apt to be unhappy. 
 
 The law can do something, but the law 
 never yet made a fool wise or a coward 
 brave or a weakling strong. 
 
 If the man has not got in him the stuff 
 out of which he can work success, the state 
 cannot supply it. What can be done by 
 the state, by the nation, is to make the 
 conditions such that each man shall be 
 able under the best circumstances, with 
 everything most favourable to him, to work 
 out his fate for himself. 
 
 If under those circumstances he fails, 
 I am sorry for him. I will help him as far 
 as possible. I will lift him up if he stumbles 
 but I won't try to carry him, for that is 
 neither healthy for him nor for me. 
 
 21
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 If you don't know how to handle your 
 gun, you will be beaten by a man with a 
 club. 
 
 Education is not enough. The men of 
 thin intellects, the men who are only com- 
 petent to feel intellectual emotion, are not 
 the men who will make a great nation. 
 You have got to have in addition to the 
 intellect what counts for much more than 
 that character. And in character you 
 have got to have men good, and you have 
 got to have them strong. 
 
 In private life there are few things more 
 obnoxious than the man who is always 
 loudly boasting, and if the boaster is not 
 prepared to back up his words his position 
 becomes absolutely contemptible. So it is 
 with the nation. 
 
 22
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 Before we can do anything with the 
 higher life, before we can have the higher 
 thinking, there must be enough of material 
 comfort to allow for at least plain living. 
 We have got to have that first before we can 
 do the high thinking; but if we are to 
 count in the long run, we must have built 
 upon the material prosperity the power 
 and desire to give to our lives other than 
 a merely material side. 
 
 If there is one lesson which I think each 
 of us learns as he grows older, it is that it 
 is not what the man works at, provided, of 
 course, it is respectable and honourable in 
 character, that fixes his place ; it is the way 
 he works at it. 
 
 Envy is merely the meanest form of ad- 
 miration, and a man who envies another 
 admits thereby his own inferiority. 
 
 23
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 Now when we come to the question of 
 good citizenship, the first requisite is that 
 a man shall do the homely, every-day hum- 
 drum duties well. A man is not a good 
 citizen, I do not care how lofty his thoughts 
 are about citizenship in the abstract, if in 
 the concrete his actions do not bear them 
 out, and it does not make much difference 
 how high are his aspirations for mankind 
 at large if he does not behave well in his 
 own family, those aspirations are not going 
 to bear very visible fruit. 
 
 He has got to be a good breadwinner, 
 he has got to take care of his wife and 
 children, he has got to be a neighbour whom 
 his neighbours can trust. He has got to act 
 squarely in his business relations he has 
 got to do all those every-day and ordinary 
 things first or he is not a good citizen. 
 
 He has got to do more than that. In 
 this country of ours he has got to devote, 
 the average citizen has got to devote, a 
 good deal of thought and time to the 
 affairs of the state as a whole or those 
 
 24
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 affairs are going to go badly, and he has 
 got to devote that thought and that time 
 steadily and intelligently. 
 
 A nation must first take care to do well 
 its duties within its own borders, but must 
 not make of that fact an excuse for fail- 
 ing to do those of its duties the performance 
 of which lie without its own borders. 
 
 Publicity itself would cure many evils. 
 The light of day is a great deterrent to 
 wrong-doing. If the mere fact of being 
 able to put it nakedly and with the cer- 
 tainty that the statements were true a given 
 condition of things that was wrong would 
 go a long distance toward curing that 
 wrong. 
 
 25
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 It is easy for those who stay at home 
 in comfort, who never have to see humanity 
 in the raw, or to strive against the dread- 
 ful naked forces which appear clothed, 
 hidden and subdued in civilized life it is 
 easy for such to criticize the men who, in 
 rough fashion, and amid grim surround- 
 ings, make ready the way for the higher 
 life that is to come afterward ; but let us all 
 remember that the untempted and the 
 effortless should be cautious in passing too 
 heavy judgment upon their brethren who 
 may show hardness, who may be guilty of 
 shortcomings, but who nevertheless do the 
 great deeds by which mankind advances. 
 
 It is not enough to have mere aspiration 
 after righteousness ; it is not enough to 
 have the lofty ideal; with it must go the 
 power of in some sort practically realizing 
 it. 
 
 26
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 I do not care whether a man is a banker 
 or a bricklayer; if he is a good banker or 
 a good bricklayer he is a good citizen; if 
 he is dishonest, if he is tricky, if he shirks 
 his job or tries to cheat his neighbour, be 
 he great or small, be he the poor man cheat- 
 ing the rich man, or the rich man oppress- 
 ing the poor man, in either case he is a 
 bad citizen. 
 
 I see everywhere I stop in Maine, as 
 in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and 
 Connecticut men who, in the times that 
 tried the nation's worth, rose level to the 
 nation's need, and offered up life gladly 
 upon the nation's altar the men who 
 fought in the great Civil War from 
 '61 to '65. 
 
 They taught us much by their life in 
 war time, and they have taught us as much 
 by their life ever since. 
 
 They were soldiers when we needed sol- 
 
 27
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 diers, and they were of the very best kind, 
 and when the need was for citizenship in 
 civil life they showed us they could give the 
 highest kind of citizenship. Not merely 
 did they give us a reunited country; not 
 merely did they leave us the memory of 
 the great deeds they did to be for ever after 
 an inspiration to us, but they left us the 
 memory of the way the deed was done. 
 
 Let us resolutely refuse to use the knife 
 that will be less dangerous for the disease 
 than the sufferer. 
 
 While I hope that as the chance occurs 
 each man will get all the fun he can out 
 of life, remember that when it comes not 
 merely to looking back upon it, but to 
 living it, the kind of life that is worth liv- 
 ing is the kind of life that is embodied in 
 duty worth doing which is well done. 
 
 28
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 Nothing can make good citizenship in 
 men who have not got in them courage, 
 hardihood, decency, sanity, the spirit of 
 truth-telling and truth-seeking, the spirit 
 that dares and endures, the spirit that 
 knows what it is to have a lofty ideal, and 
 yet to endeavour to realize that ideal in 
 practical fashion. 
 
 Sometimes each of us has the feeling 
 that if he has to choose between the fool 
 and the knave he will take the knave, be- 
 cause he can reform him perhaps, and he 
 cannot reform the fool; and even hardness 
 of heart is not much more destructive in 
 the long run than softness of head. 
 
 The abler a man is in his business, in 
 politics, in social leadership, the worse he is 
 if he is a scoundrel, whether his scoundrel- 
 
 29
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 ism takes the form of corruption in busi- 
 ness, corruption in politics, or that most 
 sinister of all forms, the effort to rise by 
 inciting class hatred, by inciting lawless- 
 ness, by exciting the spirit of evil, the 
 spirit of jealousy and envy as between 
 man and man. 
 
 The man who makes up for ten days' 
 indifference to duty by an eleven-days' mor- 
 bid repentance about that indifference is 
 of scant use in the world. 
 
 We need strong bodies. More than that 
 we need strong minds, and finally we need 
 what counts for more than body, for more 
 than mind character character, into 
 which many elements enter, but three above 
 all. In the first place, morality, decency, 
 clean living, the faculty of treating fairly 
 
 30
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 those around about, the qualities that make 
 a man a decent husband, a decent father, 
 a good neighbour, a good man to deal with 
 or to work beside; the quality that makes 
 a man a good citizen of the state, careful 
 to wrong no one; we need that first as the 
 foundation, and if we have not got that, no 
 amount of strength or courage or ability 
 can take its place. No matter how able 
 a man is, how good a soldier naturally, if 
 the man were a traitor, then the abler he was 
 the more dangerous he was to the regi- 
 ment, to the army, to the nation. It is 
 so in business, in politics, in every rela- 
 tion of life. The abler a man is, if he is 
 a corrupt politician, an unscrupulous busi- 
 ness man, a demagogic agitator who seeks 
 to set one portion of his fellow men against 
 the other, his ability makes him but by so 
 much more a curse to the community at 
 large. In character we must have virtue, 
 morality, decency, square dealing as the 
 foundation ; and it is not enough. It is 
 only the foundation. In war you needed 
 31
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 to have the man decent, patriotic, but no 
 matter how patriotic he was, if he ran away 
 he was no good. So it is in citizenship; 
 the virtue that stays at home in its own 
 parlour and bemoans the wickedness of the 
 outside world is of scant use to the com- 
 munity. We are a vigorous, masterful 
 people, and the man who is to do good work 
 in our country must not only be a good 
 man, but also emphatically a man. We 
 must have the qualities of courage, of 
 hardihood, of power to hold one's own in 
 the hurly-burly of actual life. We must 
 have the manhood that shows on fought 
 fields and that shows in the work of the busi- 
 ness world and in the struggles of civic life. 
 We must have manliness, courage, strength, 
 resolution, joined to decency and morality, 
 or we shall make but poor work of it. 
 Finally, those two qualities by themselves 
 are not enough. In addition to decency, 
 and courage, we must have the saving grace 
 of common sense. We all of us have known 
 decent and valiant fools who have meant 
 
 32
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 so well that it made it all the more pathetic 
 that the effect of their actions was so ill. 
 
 In this country we have room for every 
 honest man who spends his life in honest 
 effort ; we have no room either for the man 
 of means who, in a spirit of arrogant base- 
 ness, looks down upon the man less well 
 off, or for the other man who envies his 
 neighbour because that neighbour happens 
 to be better off. Either feeling is a base 
 feeling, unworthy of a self-respecting man. 
 
 Every man of us needs help, needs 
 more and more to be given the chance to 
 show forth in himself the stuff that is in 
 him, and this kind of free library is doing in 
 the world of cultivation, the world of civi- 
 lization, what it should or may do for the 
 great world of political and social develop- 
 
 33
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 ment ; that is, it is, as far as may be, equal- 
 izing the opportunities and then leaving the 
 men themselves to show how able they are 
 to take advantage of those opportunities. 
 
 If you use envy in the ordinary sense 
 of the word, its existence implies a feeling 
 of inferiority in the man who feels it, a 
 feeling that a self-respecting man will be 
 ashamed to have. 
 
 In our life what we need is not so much 
 genius, not so much brilliancy as the or- 
 dinary common place every-day qualities 
 which a man needs in private life, and 
 which he needs just as much in public life. 
 
 It is rare, indeed, that a great work, a 
 work supremely worth doing, can be done 
 
 34
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 save at the cost not only of labour and 
 toil, but of much puzzling worry during 
 the time of the performance. 
 
 Any generation fit to do its work must 
 work for the future, for the people of the 
 future, as well as for itself. 
 
 Mankind goes ahead but slowly, and 
 it goes ahead mainly through each of us 
 trying to do, or at least through each of 
 the majority of us trying to do, the best 
 that is in him, and to do it in the most 
 intelligent and sanest way. 
 
 We have founded our republic on the 
 theory that the average man will as a rule 
 do the right thing, that in the long run the 
 majority is going to decide by what is sane 
 and wholesome. 
 
 If our fathers were mistaken in that 
 
 35
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 theory, if through events becoming such 
 that not occasionally but persistently the 
 mass of the people do what is unwhole- 
 some, what is wrong, then the republic 
 cannot stand, I care not how good its laws, 
 I care not in what marvellous mechanism 
 its constitution may be embodied. 
 
 Back of the laws, back of the adminis- 
 tration, back of our system of govern- 
 ment lies the man, lies the average man- 
 hood of our people, and in the long run 
 we are going to go up or are going to go 
 down, accordingly as the average stand- 
 ard of our citizenship does or does not wax 
 in growth and grace. 
 
 Neither you nor any one else can make 
 a man wise or cultivate him. All you can 
 do is to give him a chance to make himself, 
 to add to his own wisdom or his own cul- 
 tivation, and that is all you can do in any 
 kind of genuine philanthropic work. The 
 
 36
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 only philanthropic work is work that helps 
 a man to help himself. This is true in every 
 way, socially and sociologically. The man 
 who will submit or demand to be carried is 
 not worth carrying. 
 
 It is a good thing to be a good half- 
 back, but it is a mighty bad thing if at 
 forty all you can say of a man is that he 
 was a good half-back. 
 
 Exactly as infinitely the happiest 
 woman is she who has born and brought 
 up many healthy children, so infinitely the 
 happiest man is he who has toiled hard and 
 successfully in his life-work. 
 
 There are two attributes of which as a 
 people we need to beware more than of any 
 37
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 others the arrogance which looks down 
 on those not so well off, and treats them 
 with brutal and selfish disregard for their 
 interests, and the equally base spirit of 
 hatred and rancour for those that are better 
 off. 
 
 If you haven't got it in you to feel most 
 proud of the times when you work, I think 
 very little of you. 
 
 The millennium is a good way off yet. 
 
 We cannot be dragged up, we have got 
 to push ourselves up. No law that ever 
 was devised can give wisdom to the fool, 
 courage to the coward, strength to the 
 weakling. We must have those qualities 
 
 38
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 in us, for if they are not in us they cannot 
 be gotten out of us. 
 
 I wish to see the average American take 
 in reference to his fellows the attitude that 
 I wish to see America take among the na- 
 tions of the world : the attitude of one who 
 scorns equally to flinch from injustice by 
 the strong and to do injustice to the weak. 
 
 You fought for liberty under the law, 
 not liberty in spite of the law. Any man 
 who claims that there can be liberty in spite 
 "of and against the law is claiming that 
 anarchy is liberty. From the beginning 
 of time anarchy in all its forms has been the 
 handmaiden, the harbinger, of despotism 
 and tyranny. 
 
 Woe will beset this country if we draw 
 lines of distinction between class and class, 
 39
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 or creed and creed, or along any other 
 line save that which divides good citizen- 
 ship from bad citizenship. 
 
 I think that the average American is 
 a decent fellow, and that the prime thing 
 in getting him to get on well with the other 
 average American is to have each remember 
 that the other is a decent fellow, and try 
 to look at the problems a little from the 
 other's standpoint. 
 
 I would like to be President again, but I 
 would far rather be a whole President for 
 three years, than half a President for seven 
 years. Remember that! 
 
 I would plead with my countrymen to 
 show not any special brilliancy, or special 
 
 40
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 genius, but the ordinary humdrum, com- 
 monplace qualities which, in the aggregate, 
 spell success for the nation, and spell suc- 
 cess for the individual. 
 
 Far more important, by far, than any 
 question of mere political expediency or 
 wisdom, is the question of our success 
 as a nation of home-makers in the deepest 
 and truest sense of the word. 
 
 If the average American home is such in 
 fact as well as in name, if it contains plenty 
 of healthy children, who are being brought 
 up to be good citizens, we need have scant 
 fear about the future. 
 
 Courage and loyalty, the stern determi- 
 nation to do exact justice, the high pur- 
 pose to struggle for the right, and the 
 common sense to struggle for it in practical 
 
 41
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 fashion all these qualities we must show 
 now, in our civil and social and business 
 life, as you showed them when, in the days 
 of your youth and lusty strength, you 
 marched forth, an army with banners, and 
 brought back the peace that comes, not to 
 the weakling and the craven, but to those 
 whose proud eyes tell of triumph tasted. 
 
 To quote an expression that I am fond 
 of, this sort of gift (a public library) is 
 equally far from two prime vices of our 
 civilization, hardness of heart, and softness 
 of head. 
 
 I believe, not in brilliancy, not in genius, 
 I believe in the ordinary, humdrum, work- 
 aday virtues that make a man a good man 
 in his family, a good neighbour, a good 
 man to deal with in business, a good man to 
 
 42
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 deal with in the state, and when you have 
 got a man with those characteristics in 
 him, you have a man who, if the need comes, 
 will rise level to that need. 
 
 The well-being of the tiller of the soil 
 and the wage-worker is the well-being of 
 the state. 
 
 Get all the enjoyment you legitimately 
 can out of life, but remember that the only 
 sure way of getting, in the end, no enjoy- 
 ment out of life, is to start in to make it 
 the end of your existence. 
 
 It seems to me that the man has a right 
 to call himself thrice blessed who has in 
 him the combined power and purpose to use 
 
 43
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 his wealth for the benefit of all the people 
 at large, in a way that can do them real 
 benefit, and in no way can more benefit be 
 done, than through the gift of libraries, 
 such as this. 
 
 No prosperity and no glory can save the 
 nation that is rotten at heart. We must 
 keep the core of our national being sound, 
 and see to it that not only our citizens, but, 
 above all, our statesmen in public life, prac- 
 tise the old, commonplace virtues which, 
 from time immemorial, have lain at the 
 root of all true national well-being. 
 
 Now it is of no possible use to decline 
 to go through all the ordinary duties of 
 citizenship for a long space of time, and 
 then suddenly to get up and feel very angry 
 about something or somebody, not clearly 
 
 44
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 defined in one's mind, and demand reform, 
 as if it was a concrete substance that could 
 be handed out forthwith. 
 
 We must all either wear out or rust out, 
 every one of us. My choice is to wear out. 
 
 The best institutions are no good if they 
 won't work. I do not care how beautiful 
 a theory is. If it won't fit in with the facts, 
 it is no good. If you build the handsom- 
 est engine, and it won't go, its usefulness 
 would be limited. 
 
 Every father and mother here, if they 
 are wise, will bring up their children not 
 to shirk difficulties, but to meet them, and 
 overcome them, not to strive after a life of 
 
 45
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 ignoble ease, but to strive to do their duty, 
 first to themselves and their families, and 
 then to the whole state, and this duty must 
 inevitably take the shape of work in some 
 form or other. 
 
 Our country has been populated by pio- 
 neers, and, therefore, it has in it more 
 energy, more enterprise, more expansive 
 power than any other in the world. 
 
 Remember that the chance to do the great 
 heroic work may or may not come. If it 
 does not come, then all that there can be to 
 our credit is the faithful performance of 
 every-day duty. That is all that most of 
 us, throughout our lives, have the chance 
 to do, and it is enough, because it is the 
 beginning to do, because it means most for 
 the nation when done, and if the time for 
 
 46
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRA^ IS 
 
 the showing of heroism does corp iyidual man 
 guarantee that those who sh$ eight> to eam 
 likely to be the people who^ Qn the CQm _ 
 duty m average times, a dual who wantg to 
 doing the duty arose. flt in 1If e? but who wiu 
 
 _s his own way in life, is 
 ^ .nuch use in the world. He 
 
 se admirable creatures who, 
 I came fro* g5j were willing to begin as 
 
 proudest b, enerals We must have first 
 to the me; to do well in the day of small 
 sponded the day through which all of us 
 hour 03 asgj ^e day which lasts very long 
 t W1 ^most of us. 
 
 I do not care how moral a man is, and 
 how brave he is, if he is a natural-born fool, 
 you can do nothing with him. I ask, then, 
 for decency as the foundation, for cour- 
 age and manliness thereon, and finally, in 
 addition to both, I ask for common sense 
 as the moderator and guide of both. 
 
 49
 
 S-TRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 ignoble east/ j s no i ess true that there is 
 first to themsc n the world at large for the 
 then to the who^hty thews, that dares not 
 inevitably take thi 
 form or other. 
 
 iy one can live, 
 
 Our country has been popu..- ir e, is the life 
 neers, and, therefore, it has i its end and 
 energy, more enterprise, more 
 power than any other in the worl 
 
 Remember that the chance to do the grea 00 
 heroic work may or may not come. If it 
 does not come, then all that there can be to 
 our credit is the faithful performance of 
 every-day duty. That is all that most of 
 us, throughout our lives, have the chance 
 to do, and it is enough, because it is the 
 beginning to do, because it means most for 
 the nation when done, and if the time for 
 
 46
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 The first thing that the individual man 
 has to do is to pull his own weight, to earn 
 his own way, not to be a drag on the com- 
 munity. And the individual who wants to 
 do a tremendous amount in life, but who will 
 not start by earning his own way in life, is 
 not apt to be of much use in the world. He 
 is akin to those admirable creatures who, 
 from '61 to '65, were willing to begin as 
 brigadier- generals. We must have first 
 the desire to do well in the day of small 
 things, the day through which all of us 
 must pass, the day which lasts very long 
 with most of us. 
 
 I do not care how moral a man is, and 
 how brave he is, if he is a natural-born fool, 
 you can do nothing with him. I ask, then, 
 for decency as the foundation, for cour- 
 age and manliness thereon, and finally, in 
 addition to both, I ask for common sense 
 as the moderator and guide of both. 
 
 49
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 Character has two sides. It is composed 
 of two sets of traits ; in the first place, the 
 set of traits which we group together under 
 such names as clean living, decency, mo- 
 rality, virtue, the desire and power to deal 
 fairly each by his neighbour, each by 
 his friends, each toward the state; that 
 we have to have as fundamental. In addi- 
 tion, you must have hardihood, resolution, 
 courage, the power to do, the power to 
 dare, the power to endure, and when you 
 have that combination, then you get the 
 proper type of American citizenship. 
 
 The worth of a promise consists purely 
 in the way in which the performance squares 
 with it. That has got two sides to it. In 
 the first place, if the man is an honest man, 
 he will try just as hard to keep a promise 
 made on the stump as one made off the 
 stump. In the second place, if a people 
 keep their heads, they will not wish prom- 
 
 50
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 ises to be made which are impossible of 
 performance. 
 
 Sometimes we hear those who do not work 
 spoken of with envy; surely the wilfully 
 idle need arouse in the breast of a healthy 
 man no emotion stronger than that of con- 
 tempt at the outside no emotion stronger 
 than angry contempt. 
 
 I want to see a man take his own part. 
 If he will not, his part is not worth taking. 
 But, on the other hand, I have greatest 
 contempt for a man who is always walking 
 about wanting to pick a quarrel, or want- 
 ing to say something unpleasant about 
 some one else. 
 
 The fact that he talks loud does not 
 mean, necessarily, that he fights hard, 
 either. Sometimes you see a man that will 
 
 51
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 talk loud and fight hard, but he does not 
 fight hard because he talks loud, but in 
 spite of it. 
 
 Good, not harm, normally comes from the 
 piling up of wealth through business enter- 
 prises. Probably the most serious harm 
 resulting to us, the people of moderate 
 means, is when we harm ourselves by letting 
 the dark and evil vices of envy and hatred 
 toward our fellows eat into our natures. 
 
 Now, in the navy you have got to have 
 ships and good guns ; but if you have not 
 got anything else, the ships and the guns 
 are worthless. 
 
 You have got to have a man behind the 
 guns, the man in the engine-room. That 
 is what counts ; that is what made the dif- 
 ference at Manila and Santiago. There 
 
 52
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 was a difference in the ships, too; but the 
 great difference was in the men. And no 
 kind of patent device on board any ship 
 will take the place of cool, intelligent, and 
 hardy courage in the officers and enlisted 
 men. 
 
 So, exactly as you need in war the man 
 behind the gun, you need in peace the man 
 behind the plough, the man at the machine. 
 It is on him that our success ultimately 
 depends. 
 
 When vou make it evident that no man 
 
 v 
 
 shall be excused from violating the law, 
 you make it evident that every man will be 
 protected from violators of the law. 
 
 jf> &> &> 
 
 Remember that every man, at times, 
 stumbles, and must be helped up ; if he lies 
 down you cannot carry him. He has got 
 
 53
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 to be willing to walk. You can help him 
 in but one way, the only way in which any 
 man can be helped permanently help him 
 to help himself. 
 
 In the individual, nothing can take the 
 place of his own qualities; in the commu- 
 nity, nothing can take the place of the qual- 
 ities of the average citizen. 
 
 Brilliancy, genius, cleverness of all kinds, 
 do not count for anything like as much as 
 the sturdy traits that we group together 
 under the name of character. 
 
 The men who won in the Revolution, and 
 made this country take its place among the 
 nations of the earth, did it because they 
 
 54
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 had in them courage, resolution, integrity, 
 unbending will, and common sense. 
 
 Abraham Lincoln the spirit incarnate 
 of those who won victory in the Civil War 
 was the true representative of this peo- 
 ple, not only for his own generation, but for 
 all time, because he was a man among men, 
 a man who embodied the qualities of his 
 fellow men, but who embodied them to the 
 highest, and the most unusual degree of 
 perfection, who embodied all that there 
 was in the nation of courage, of wisdom, 
 of gentle, patient kindliness, and of com- 
 mon sense. 
 
 And great, sad, patient Lincoln led us 
 to victory from '61 to '65 because he did 
 not trust to any mere trick or device, be- 
 cause he drove deep down to the heart of 
 thousands, and based his reliance on the 
 fundamental virtues of mankind the old, 
 old virtues of mankind. 
 
 55
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 That is the spirit we have to show in fac- 
 ing the problems of to-day. If we ap- 
 proach those problems in a spirit of 
 hysteria, we will fail, as we well deserve 
 to fail ; if we approach them in a spirit of 
 envy and rancour and malice toward our 
 fellows, we will not only fail, but we will 
 drag them and us in a common ruin. 
 
 Shame to us if we blink the evils ! They 
 are there. Shame to us if we fear to 
 face the problem! It is there, and to 
 say that it is not there will not prove its 
 absence. 
 
 Face the problem; realize its gravity, 
 and then approach it in a spirit, not merely 
 of determination to solve it, but of hearty 
 desire to solve it with justice to all, with 
 malice to none; to solve it in a spirit of 
 broad kindliness and charity, in a spirit 
 that will keep us ever in mind that if we are 
 to succeed at all, it must be by each doing, 
 to the best of his capacity, his own business, 
 and yet by each remembering that in a 
 sense he is also his brother's keeper. 
 
 56
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 Success comes only to those who lead the 
 life of endeavour. The man who works, 
 the man who does great deeds, in the end 
 dies, as surely as the veriest idler who cum- 
 bers the earth's surface, but he leaves be- 
 hind him the great fact that he has done his 
 work well. 
 
 The able, fearless, unscrupulous man, 
 who is not guided by the law, is a curse, to 
 be hunted down like a civic wild beast, and 
 his ability and his courage, whether in busi- 
 ness, in politics, or anywhere else, only 
 serve to make him more dangerous and a 
 greater curse. 
 
 Timid people, people scant of faith and 
 hope, and good people, who are not ac- 
 customed to the roughness of the life of 
 effort, are almost sure to be disheartened 
 
 57
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 and dismayed by the work and the worry, 
 and overmuch cast down by the shortcom- 
 ings, actual or seeming, which, in real life, 
 always accompany the first stages even of 
 what eventually turn out to be the most 
 brilliant victories. 
 
 I want to see the average American citi- 
 zen be in the future, as he has been in the 
 past, a decent man, doing no wrong, and, 
 on the other hand, able to hold his own also. 
 
 If there is any one quality which is not 
 admirable, whether in a nation or in an 
 individual, it is hysterics, either in religion 
 or in anything else. 
 
 I would teach the young men that he 
 who has not wealth owes his first duty to 
 
 58
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 his family, while he who has means owes 
 his to the state. It is ignoble to go on 
 heaping money on money. I would preach 
 the doctrine of work to all, and to men of 
 wealth the doctrine of unremunerative 
 work. 
 
 j* Jt, jt 
 
 I do not believe in a bluff. I feel about 
 a nation as we all feel about a man; let 
 him not say anything that he cannot make 
 good, and having said it, let him make it 
 good. 
 
 It is pleasant to learn by an experience 
 which teaches us what to follow instead of 
 what to avoid. 
 
 When I address an audience like this, 
 which takes part itself in all the workings 
 of the government, I do not have to ex- 
 
 59
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 plain, as I have to explain to some other 
 audiences, that the government cannot do 
 everything. 
 
 You can do a good deal through the 
 town, but you can do a great deal more for 
 the town than the town can do for you. 
 And some of our people make the mistake 
 of thinking you can work that, but you 
 cannot. 
 
 We need in our public life, as in our 
 private life, the virtues that every one 
 could practise if he would. We need the 
 will to practise them. There are two kinds 
 of greatness that can be achieved. There 
 is the greatness that comes to the man who 
 can do what no one else can do. That is 
 a mighty rare kind, and, of course, it can 
 only be achieved by the man of special and 
 unusual qualities. 
 
 Then there is the other kind that comes 
 to the man who does the things that every 
 one could do, but that every one does not 
 
 60
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 do. Who goes ahead and does them him- 
 self. To do that, you first of all have got 
 to school yourself to do the ordinary, com- 
 monplace things. 
 
 There has never yet been a man in our 
 history who led a life of ease whose name 
 is worth remembering. 
 
 Now, understand me. Take holidays. I 
 believe in holidays. I believe in play, and 
 I believe in playing hard while you play, 
 but don't make a business of it. 
 
 Do your work, and do it up to the handle, 
 and then play when you have got time to 
 play, and, if you are worth anything, en- 
 joy that too. 
 
 Now what is true of the individual is 
 true of the nation. The heroic times in 
 this nation's career were when it had great 
 
 61
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 work to do, and, instead of flinching from 
 the work, did it, and it did that heroic 
 work in part because, at the hour of need, 
 it showed it possessed heroic virtues, the 
 heroic virtues that a great and generous 
 nation must show and will show in the crises 
 of its history ; and also because, in addition 
 to the heroic virtues, which can be used but 
 once in a generation, it had those common- 
 place, humdrum, every-day virtues which 
 save us year in and year out, and if we do 
 not have those virtues, if we do not have 
 those qualities, you can guarantee that when 
 the hour calls for heroism we won't have 
 that either. 
 
 There is need to do all the ordinary, 
 commonplace duties as they arise, or we 
 will be in no shape to meet the crisis that 
 calls for heroism when that crisis arises. 
 
 Now you, representatives of the great 
 war, who are here to-day, when you went 
 
 62
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 out from '61 to '65, the men by whose sides 
 you fought had to have certain traits. 
 
 No one trait was enough. They had 
 to be patriotic in the first place. They 
 had to be driven onward by a love for coun- 
 try that made them willing to spend the 
 best years of their youth and early man- 
 hood in the service of the nation to their 
 own detriment; that made them willing 
 to stake all life itself for the great prize 
 of death in battle, for the honour of the 
 flag. You had to have that spirit first. 
 
 You had to have more than that. I 
 do not care how patriotic a man was, if 
 he had a tendency to run away he was 
 no good. Besides the love of country you 
 had to have, to make a good soldier, a 
 strong, virile purpose in the man, eager- 
 ness to do his work as a man. He had to 
 have courage, strength, fixity of resolu- 
 tion. 
 
 It was not all victory. You met de- 
 feats, and the man who after defeat 
 thought he would go home was of no use. 
 
 63
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 You had to have the man who after defeat 
 would come up and try again, and if he 
 was defeated again, come up and try again 
 until he wrested from defeat the splendid 
 ultimate triumph. The men who are going 
 to do good work for citizenship in this 
 community are the men who approach its 
 duties in the spirit, sirs, that you ap- 
 proached yours in the time of the Civil 
 War, who are not going to expect every- 
 thing to be done for them, but who are 
 going to do their share of it ; who are not 
 going to expect the way to be easy and 
 smooth, for the path of national greatness 
 never is easy or smooth, but who are going 
 to face the rough work of the world with 
 the determination to do that work aright. 
 
 A government can do something; it 
 can do a good deal; but it can never be- 
 gin to do as much for the individual as 
 the individual can do for the government. 
 
 64
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 I think there is only one quality worse 
 than hardness of heart, and that is softness 
 of head. 
 
 Now let each man here look back in 
 his life and think what it is that he is 
 proud of in it what part of it he is glad 
 to hand on as a memory to his sons and 
 daughters. 
 
 Is it his hours of ease? No, not a bit. 
 It is the memory of his success, of his 
 triumph, and the triumph and the success 
 could only come through effort. 
 
 Is that not true? Let each one think 
 for himself. Look back in your career, 
 and if you have not got it in you to feel 
 most proud of the time when you worked, 
 I think but little of you. 
 
 In this life, as a rule, the j ob that is easy 
 to do is not very well worth while doing. 
 
 65
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 In life what counts as the chief factor 
 in the success of a man or a woman is 
 character, and character is partly inborn 
 and partly developed ; partly developed 
 by the man's individual will, the woman's 
 individual will, partly developed by the 
 wise training of those above the young 
 man or young woman, the boy or the girl, 
 partly developed by the myriad associa- 
 tions of life. 
 
 Speaking broadly, prosperity must, of 
 necessity, come to all of us or to none of 
 us ; of course there are sporadic excep- 
 tions, individual and local. 
 
 It is, in the long run, the man that 
 counts. Just exactly as in war, though 
 you have got to have the best weapons, 
 yet they are useless if the men behind them 
 
 66
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 don't handle them well ; so in peace, the 
 best constitution, the best legislation, the 
 greatest natural advantages will avail 
 nothing if you have not the right type 
 of citizenship to take advantage of them. 
 
 Above all, gentlemen, let us remember 
 that bad laws and bad administration can 
 completely nullify all efforts for good 
 upon the part of the private citizen. 
 
 About all we have a right to expect from 
 government is that it will see that the 
 cards are not stacked, and if it sees to 
 that, then we will abide by the deal. 
 
 Every one who thinks, knows that the 
 only way in which any problem of great 
 importance was ever successfully solved 
 was by constant and persistent effort 
 toward a given end effort that did not 
 
 67
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 end with any one election or with any one 
 year, but that was continued steadily, tem- 
 perately, but resolutely, toward a given 
 end. 
 
 & Jk jfc 
 
 Strength of any kind, physical, mental, 
 is but a source of danger if it is not 
 guided aright. On the other hand, it is 
 just as important for every man or woman, 
 who is striving for decency, to keep ever in 
 mind the further fact that unless there 
 is power, efficiency, behind the effort for 
 decency, scant is the good that will come. 
 
 Good fortune does not come only to the 
 good, nor bad fortune only to the unjust. 
 When the weather is good for crops it is 
 also good for weeds ; moreover, not only 
 do the wicked flourish, when the times are 
 such that most men flourish, but what is 
 worse, the spirit of envy and jealousy and 
 
 68
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 hatred springs up in the breasts of those 
 who, though they may be doing fairly well 
 themselves, yet see others, who are no 
 more deserving, doing far better. 
 
 Normally, the nation that achieves 
 greatness, like the individual who achieves 
 greatness, can do so only at the cost of 
 anxiety and bewilderment and heart- 
 wearing effort. 
 
 It is a good thing for a nation to de- 
 mand in its representatives intellect, but 
 it is a better thing to demand in them that 
 sum of qualities which we talk of as char- 
 acter. 
 
 If you are dealing with a man in a 
 business way, whether as employer or 
 employee, or in commerce with a store- 
 keeper, or with any one, you want him to 
 
 69
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 be a smart man, but it is a mighty bad 
 thing if he is only smart. 
 
 I would not preach to any man the life 
 of ease, the life of safety only. Instead 
 of the life of ease I preach, to all worthy 
 to be called men, the life of work, the life 
 of endeavour, and instead of the life of 
 safety I preach the doctrine that teaches us 
 now, as it taught the men of the Civil War, 
 that there are times when safety is the last 
 thing to be considered. 
 
 A free library, where each man, each 
 woman, has the chance to get for himself 
 or herself the training that he has the 
 character to desire and to acquire. Now, 
 of course, our common school system lies 
 at the foundation of our educational sys- 
 tem,, but it is the foundation only. The 
 
 70
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 men that are to stand preeminent as the 
 representatives of the culture of the com- 
 munity must educate themselves. 
 
 I pity no man because he has to work. 
 If he is worth his salt, he will work. I 
 envy the man who has a work worth doing 
 and does it well. 
 
 You can pardon most anything in a 
 man who will tell the truth, because you 
 know where that man is; you know what 
 he means. If any one lies, if he has the 
 habit of untruthfulness, you cannot deal 
 with him, because there is nothing to de- 
 pend on. You cannot tell what can be 
 done with him or by his aid. Truth-tell- 
 ing is a virtue upon which we should not 
 only insist in the schools and at home, but 
 in business and in politics just as much. 
 
 71
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 The business man or politician who does 
 not tell the truth, cheats ; and for the cheat 
 we should have no use in any walk of life. 
 
 About the worst quality you can have 
 in a soldier is hysterics, or anything ap- 
 proaching it, and it is pretty nearly the 
 worst quality in civil life. We need in 
 civil life the plain, practical, every-day 
 virtues, which all of us admit in theory 
 to be necessary, and when we all practise 
 them we will come mighty near making 
 a state perfect. 
 
 The man who has not got great tasks 
 to do cannot achieve greatness. Greatness 
 only comes because the task to be done is 
 great. The men who lead lives of mere 
 ease, of mere pleasure, the men who go 
 through life seeking how to avoid trouble, 
 
 72
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 to avoid risk, to avoid effort, to them it 
 is not given to achieve greatness. Great- 
 ness comes only to those who seek not how 
 to avoid obstacles, but how to overcome 
 them. 
 
 I believe in work, and I believe in play. 
 I would be sorry not to see you enjoy 
 yourselves, but do not let play interfere 
 with work. Do things quietly and care- 
 fully. Boys, remember the manlier you 
 wish to be, the nicer you can afford to be 
 at home. I would be ashamed of a boy 
 who was a bully to the weak. When you 
 play, be fair, but play hard, and then 
 work hard at your studies. If you get 
 hurt, keep on playing. Work with your 
 whole heart in all things. 
 
 There never has been devised, and there 
 never will be devised, any law which will 
 73
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 enable a man to succeed save by the exer- 
 cise of those qualities which have always 
 been the prerequisites of success, the qual- 
 ities of hard work, of keen intelligence, of 
 unflinching will. 
 
 Laws are good things, but they are only 
 the implements with which the men who 
 make them, and live under them, work out 
 their own salvation and the salvation of 
 the nation. 
 
 Each man must work for himself. If 
 he cannot support himself, he will be but 
 a drag on all mankind, but each man must 
 work for the common good. There is not 
 a man here who does not, at times, need 
 to have a helping hand extended to him, 
 and shame on the brother who will not ex- 
 tend that helping hand. 
 
 74
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 The citizen that counts, the man that 
 counts in our life is the man who endeav- 
 ours not to shirk difficulties, but to meet 
 and overcome them; is the man who en- 
 deavours not to lead his life in the world's 
 soft places, not to walk easily and take 
 his comfort; but the man who goes out 
 to tread the rugged ways that lead to 
 honour and success, the ways, the treading 
 of which means good work worthily done. 
 
 It is a good lesson for nations and in- 
 dividuals to learn never to hit if it can be 
 helped, and never to hit soft. 
 
 I ask, then, that all of us approach our 
 duties of to-day in the spirit that our 
 fathers have shown in the different crises 
 of the past, that we approach them, real- 
 izing that nothing can take the place of 
 
 75
 
 STRENUOUS EPIGRAMS 
 
 the ordinary, every-day performance of 
 duty, that we need the virtues which do 
 not wait for heroic times, but which are 
 exercised day in and day out in the ordi- 
 nary work, the ordinary duty of the life 
 domestic, the life social, the life in 
 reference to the State; and if we show 
 those qualities, if we show the qualities 
 that make for good citizenship, for de- 
 cency and civic righteousness in ordinary 
 times, my faith is firm that when the need 
 for the heroic efforts arises, our people 
 will, in the future, as they have always 
 done in the past, show that they have the 
 capacity for heroic work. 
 
 76
 
 Remarque Edition 
 
 OF 
 
 Literary Masterpieces 
 
 This beautiful series is printed on hand- 
 made deckle-edge paper from entire new 
 plates, with an original etching frontispiece 
 by Marcel, appropriate ex libris and title- 
 page, bound in four styles. A specially 
 manufactured cloth embossed in an original 
 manner. Stamped on side and back with 
 gold from a unique design, gilt top, ribbon 
 markers, wrapped. Size, 3^ x 5^. 
 
 Price, $ .40 
 
 Full leather, limp covers, boxed, .75 
 
 Full limp chamois, silk lined, 1.25 
 
 Full brocade silk, various colors, 
 
 padded, boxed, 1.5
 
 SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE. By 
 Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 
 
 In the " Sonnets from the Portuguese," a most 
 exquisite series of love poems, we have Mrs. Brown- 
 ing at her best. She has broken away from that 
 stiffness and artificiality which characterizes her 
 earlier poems, and in sentiment and lofty rhyme 
 is at times truly Shakespearian. 
 
 VIRGINIBUS PUERISQUE. By Robert Louis 
 Stevenson. 
 
 Since, unfortunately, most of our juvenile liter- 
 ature nowadays is the work of " hack " writers, 
 it is refreshing to find a work for boys and girls 
 written by a man of genius. " Virginibus Puerisque " 
 stands high among Mr. Stevenson's writings, and is 
 enjoyed by both old and young. 
 
 FRIENDSHIP AND LOVE. By Ralph Waldo 
 
 Emerson. 
 
 Mr. Emerson is no bookish theorist. He does 
 not draw his conclusions from syllogisms, but from 
 his personal observations of men and things. The 
 essays on Friendship and Love, two of his most 
 human, being subjects akin to each other, are pub- 
 lished together as a single volume. 
 
 HEROISM AND CHARACTER. By Ralph Waldo 
 
 Emerson. 
 
 As Friendship and Love are linked, so Heroism 
 and Character are complementary. In fact, we per- 
 ceive a strong connection between the four subjects. 
 For friendship deepens in love, and from love for 
 one's neighbor, one's family, one's State, comes 
 heroism, and heroism is the essential element of 
 a noble character.
 
 POOR RICHARD'S ALMANAC. By Benjamin 
 
 Franklin. 
 
 A selection of the best sayings from the numerous 
 issues of " Poor Richard." Helpful and inspiring; 
 the work of a most practical mind, written for a 
 most practical nation. 
 
 THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL. By Sheridan. 
 
 Sheridan's comedies are second only to Shake- 
 speare's. " The School for Scandal," undoubtedly 
 his masterpiece, has had an undiminished popularity 
 from the moment it was published to the present 
 day. 
 
 DESTRUCTION OF POMPEII. By Pliny and 
 Bulwer. 
 
 Two interesting descriptions of the Destruction 
 of Pompeii, one by Pliny, the greatest scientist 
 of the ancient world, who wrote as an eye-witness; 
 the other the well-known and thrilling account from 
 Lord Lytton's " Last Days of Pompeii." 
 
 SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS. By 
 Addison. 
 
 The famous " Sir Roger de Coverley Papers " are 
 not only treasured by all students of English liter- 
 ature, but by historians as well. For nowhere do 
 we find a finer description of English life in the 
 eighteenth century than in these papers. Further- 
 more, in the character of Sir Roger we find the 
 finest delineation in English literature of an ideal 
 gentleman. 
 
 MILTON. By Lord Macaulay. 
 
 A profound and masterly essay on the leader of 
 English literature of the seventeenth century by the 
 leading literary critic of the nineteenth century. 
 
 3
 
 THOUGHTS OF MARCUS AURELIUS. Selec- 
 tions. 
 
 Marcus Aurelius was the purest and loftiest of 
 the pagan philosophers. " His great work, ' The 
 Thoughts,' " says Lecky, " not only forms one of 
 the most impressive, but also forms one of the 
 truest books in the whole range of religious liter- 
 ature." 
 
 LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS. Selec- 
 tions. 
 
 These letters of sound counsel and practical advice, 
 addressed to his son Philip, are what Lord Chester- 
 field's reputation rests upon, and it is through these 
 that the name of Chesterfield has become symbolic 
 of culture and refinement. 
 
 RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM. 
 
 The " Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam " is one of 
 the greatest contributions that the East has given 
 to literature. The subtle thought, the soft Oriental 
 imagery, and the delicacy of the poetry will appeal 
 to the poetic imagination of all ages. 
 
 ENOCH ARDEN. By Alfred, Lord Tennyson. 
 
 In " Enoch Arden " we have one of the most 
 beautiful and pathetic poems in the English lan- 
 guage. Had Tennyson never written another line, 
 he would have gone down in history as one of the 
 greatest poets of his time. 
 
 RIP VAN WINKLE, and THE LEGEND OF 
 SLEEPY HOLLOW. By Washington Irving. 
 
 These immortal stories of Dutch life in colonial 
 New York are the best pieces of writing that Mr. 
 Irving contributed to literature. The pathos, quaint- 
 ness, and wit are impressed upon the reader in a 
 striking way. 
 
 4
 
 ROCHEFOUCAULD'S MAXIMS. 
 
 These maxims, written by a cavalier of Richelieu's 
 times, one who knew the world as few have an 
 opportunity of knowing it, are witty, subtle, and 
 true. The author has grasped the whole of life, 
 and weakness of human nature, of fashion and con- 
 ventionalities are strongly depicted. 
 
 RAB AND HIS FRIENDS. By Dr. John Brown. 
 
 " Rab and His Friends," a story of a mastiff, full 
 of beauty and pathos, is, in its line, only rivalled by 
 " Black Beauty." In this volume the story of Mar- 
 jorie Fleming, an interesting case of remarkable 
 precociousness, is also published. 
 
 SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER. By Oliver Gold- 
 smith. 
 
 " She Stoops to Conquer " is a comedy abounding 
 in the keenest wit and satire. Human nature is 
 depicted by a masterly observer, and the characters 
 of the play are true to life. 
 
 OLD CHRISTMAS. By Washington Irving. 
 
 An ideal picture of an old-fashioned Christmas 
 in rural England. The good old customs, and the 
 quaint games handed down from generation to 
 generation, are pictured in a most interesting 
 manner. 
 
 LEAVES OF GRASS. Selections. By Walt 
 
 Whitman. 
 
 Walt Whitman is looked upon as the one dis- 
 tinctive American poet, the product of our New 
 World democracy. Though perhaps lacking in 
 grace, his poems are inspired by his enthusiasm and 
 humanitarianism, and in every line the reader sees 
 the personality of the poet, noble, generous, and 
 lofty, a great man in the highest sense of the 
 word.
 
 VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. By James Russell 
 Lowell. 
 
 This great poem is drawn from the famous ro- 
 mance of King Arthur and the Holy Grail, a theme 
 which has furnished inspiration to so many great 
 minds. The " Vision of Sir Launfal " is the best 
 of Lowell's shorter poems. 
 
 ELEGY AND OTHER POEMS. By Thomas Gray. 
 
 The " Elegy in a Country Churchyard " occupies 
 as secure a place among English classics as " Ham- 
 let " or " Paradise Lost," but some readers may not 
 realize that several other poems by Gray are equally 
 perfect and impressive. This collection contains all 
 of Gray's verse which is really worth knowing. 
 
 SWEETNESS AND LIGHT. By Matthew Arnold. 
 
 An epoch-making essay, by one of the most cul- 
 tured, practical, and inspiring minds of our century. 
 Arnold's simplicity and charm of style, no less than 
 his weighty message, have already given him an 
 assured place among classic writers. 
 
 GOLDEN THOUGHTS. By Archbishop Fenelon. 
 Judiciously made extracts from the letters of the 
 great archbishop. Fenelon united in his personality 
 the sweetness of the saint with the strength of the 
 reformer, and his personal correspondence contains 
 the very heart and soul of religious devotion. 
 
 WIT AND WISDOM. By Sidney Smith. 
 
 Extracts from Smith's writing and conversations, 
 which flash with repartee, good-tempered satire, and 
 brilliant strokes of wit, and are characterized 
 throughout by shrewd, irresistible common sense. 
 The comments on America and Americans are alone 
 worth the price of the little book. 
 6
 
 A CHRISTMAS CAROL. By Charles Dickens. 
 
 This familiar story possesses perennial interest 
 for young and old, and it never has been presented 
 in more attractive form. Whether regarded as a 
 ghost story, a character study, or a parable, the 
 " Christmas Carol " is one of the most brilliant and 
 absorbing tales in English literature. 
 
 WILL O' THE MILL AND BIOGRAPHICAL 
 
 SKETCH. By R. L. Stevenson. 
 
 This little parable of a life contains a wonderful 
 moral, and is also an irresistibly fascinating story 
 in itself, written in the most exquisite English. Many 
 critics think it Stevenson's masterpiece. It is pref- 
 aced by a careful and adequate biographical sketch. 
 
 NAPOLEON ADDRESSES AND ANECDOTES. 
 
 Napoleon was not only a consummate genius as 
 general and ruler, he was also a man of extraor- 
 dinary personality. So much of his magnetism and 
 personal charm is preserved in these anecdotes and 
 speeches, that we become completely en rapport with 
 the great emperor, and cannot fail to share the 
 enthusiasm of his contemporaries. The selections 
 were made with greatest care especially for this 
 edition. 
 
 SOME FRUITS OF SOLITUDE. REFLEC- 
 TIONS AND MAXIMS. By William Penn. 
 "To quote a book like this were impossible; at 
 least one can hand it on, with a wrench, one to 
 another. Some of the ' Fruits ' are sounder, jucier, 
 and grown against a sunnier wall of experience than 
 others, but all are delicate, and the little basket 
 which holds them will be found in all times and 
 places a peaceful and sweet companion." Robert 
 Louis Stevenson.
 
 MEN AND WOMEN. By Robert Browning. 
 
 Browning is known the world over for his deep- 
 veined humanity and rare faculty of dramatic repre- 
 sentation. These poems have as much red blood 
 in them as the dramas of Shakespeare. The present 
 volume contains all the principal favorites which 
 have sung themselves into the memory of every 
 reader who loves vigorous, manly poetry. 
 
 PASSION IN THE DESERT, AND AN EPISODE 
 IN THE REIGN OF TERROR. Selected Prose 
 Works of Honore de Balzac. 
 
 Balzac is thought by many competent authorities 
 to be the greatest novelist of the world. His short 
 stories are quite as remarkable in their way as his 
 longer stories, and the very best of them are to be 
 found in the present collection. 
 
 POEMS OF SENTIMENT. By Byron. 
 
 Probably no poet in the English-speaking world 
 has ever held as high and well recognized a position 
 as a " sentimentalist " as George Gordon, Lord 
 Byron. His master lyrics dealing with the subject 
 of love, consisting principally of his shorter poems, 
 have been selected and edited with the greatest care 
 for this edition. 
 
 LETTERS TO A YOUNG MAN ABOUT TOWN. 
 By William Makepeace Thackeray. 
 
 These charming but comparatively little known 
 essays originally appeared in Punch, and have been 
 reissued in a volume by themselves but once, and 
 then in a privately printed book now extremely rare, 
 until the present edition. In his humorous and satiri- 
 cal manner, Thackeray shows up the follies and 
 life of a young man about town in the middle of the 
 nineteenth century.
 
 GOLDEN WINGS. A Prose Romance and a Poem. 
 
 By William Morris. 
 
 Two early productions of Morris's with the same 
 title. The Prose Romance, written in 1856 while still 
 a student at Oxford, and the Poem two years later, 
 both of which show the irresistible and quaint charm 
 apparent in all the later writings of this architect, 
 painter, designer, craftsman, socialist and author, 
 who, on the death of Tennyson, was thought by many 
 would be the next Poet Laureate. 
 
 SELECTED POEMS. By John Boyle O'Reilly. 
 
 Through several causes, but not lack of merit, Boyle 
 O'Reilly is fast becoming merely a name to the genera- 
 tion of to-day. Therefore, pains have here been taken 
 to perpetuate the choicest productions of his pen, 
 poems worthy of rank with the masterpieces of Eng- 
 lish literature. The volume is prefaced with an inter- 
 esting personal sketch of O'Reilly, by Mr. William A. 
 Hovey. 
 
 THE DISCOURSES OF EPICTETUS. Selections. 
 
 In Sir John Lubbock's " List of the One Hundred 
 Best Books," the Bible is first, the " Thoughts of Marcus 
 Aurelius " second, and " Epictetus " third. The dis- 
 courses here given have been carefully selected, and in 
 each case the English revised with utmost care. 
 
 EVANGELINE. By Henry Wadsworth Long- 
 fellow. 
 
 The purity, sweetness and refinement with which 
 Longfellow delineates the affections of the heart make 
 his poetry the most welcome of visitants at the domestic 
 fireside, and of all his poems, " Evangeline " is probably 
 the most popular. 
 
 THE HOLY GRAIL. By Alfred, Lord Tennyson. 
 
 This idyl, which must rank as one of the greatest 
 
 9
 
 of Tennyson's poetical achievements, came to him 
 suddenly, " as if by a breath of inspiration." Of it the 
 poet said, "I feared for years to touch the subject of 
 the Holy Grail, and when I began, finished it in a fort- 
 night." 
 
 Further titles in preparation. 
 
 10
 
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